The first thing you will need to do is locate the basics, food, water, shelter, and weapons. You will have a couple of days before the overseers actively block the usage of firearms, find a heavy caliber weapon, or a shotgun and slug rounds. After the overseers determine human weaponry is too powerful to allow their toys to create sufficiently 'tension' you will need backups. I recommend spears at least 8 feet long, ensure they are meant for stabbing, with a crosspiece to keep creatures from simply sliding down them and killing you before they die. Water is more important than food, you can survive for weeks without food in a pinch, but water is a must. If you have a well near you ensure it is secured, make certain you have sufficient water filters for any river or lake water you drink. Shelter should be next on your list, easy access to water, a defensible position, and a way to keep warm and dry should be your priorities. Finally, you can range out for food, never go in groups of less than three, or more than ten, ambush predators won't go after that many, and major monsters that want a decent meal won't go after that few. Prioritize seeds and then non-perishables like rice in sealed bags, and beans in sealed cans. Hopefully, this will begin to make more sense to you as my chronicle continues.

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Most people were probably inside their homes, avoiding others, and sticking to their families. It was a logical choice, but for me, it wasn't an option. My family lived well over 200 miles away. There was no way I could get to them without functional technology. Much as I despised the idea, I was going to need to loot stores for supplies. My apartment was 12 miles away through the center of downtown, dangerous enough in the day before this mess, I shuddered to think how dangerous it would be now.

My first objective would be to figure out my other objectives. Wow, I should be put in charge of the Department for Redundancy Department, I'd make a great manager. Anyway, I needed a few things, 1, clean potable water, 2 non-perishable food, 3 a way to defend said supplies, 4 a secure place to store them, 5 more info about the current situation. Simple, nice and simple, I thought I had it in the bag.

The first Sporting goods store I visited was smashed to pieces, the only things left useless toys. The same for the second, third, and fourth. Until finally I came upon a Walmart. This one was on the outskirts of Downtown, thankfully just over a mile from any school, meaning they would have firearms and ammunition. Desori national law forbade the possession of certain firearms, including semi-autos with the capacity for more than 10 round clips. I didn't think that would be a problem. The Lady of Light made it clear most technology would break down, but I was banking on sufficiently basic tech working as normal. Metallurgy would be difficult to 'Turn Off' and if chemistry was altered to disallow gunpowder explosions then we had much bigger problems, like Yellowstone exploding and killing us all due to over-pressure.

There was no one inside, the fridges were empty, the guns were all gone, but under the counter were a half-dozen pristine boxes of .30-06 Winchester. Useless for home defense, overkill for hunting anything on the Main Island, severely underpowered for the other islands, it was a rare caliber to use in Desori, but I happened to have an antique Bolt-Action that had seen service in both World Wars and the Desori Revolution. I grabbed all of them, stuffed them into a backpack I grabbed off a nearby shelf, and headed out, making sure to grab a functional watch from the jewelry stand on my way.

Now, a few of you may be asking yourselves, why would I grab a watch? Well my dear readers, it's simple really, a watch is one of the most useful navigational tools ever designed, and the one I grabbed was a semi-expensive motion-wound watch, the fully mechanical ones that wind themselves up as you walk. This would come in handy later.

I had always prided myself on being a vast repository of useless information with no real practical purpose. I was a bookworm as a youth and gobbled up any and all information I could. Logically, I never had any need to know how to calculate latitude and longitude manually with the help of only a watch and a compass, I also had no need to know how to make a lightbulb, some liquid draino, and a single drop of gasoline into a concussion grenade. Now, however, these formerly useless facts would be my saving grace.

I was deep in thought about this subject while skirting around downtown on my way home. I didn't even see the hit coming. So when I woke up with a splitting headache to a group of skinheads dragging me across the street, I was noticeably upset.

Now, I consider myself a reasonable human being, it's very rare that I get the urge to beat the shit out of someone (unless I'm on the internet, where that happens with startling regularity). But this situation was certainly one that called for it. Never have I been so glad my uncle forced me to learn Krav Maga from him. I am by no means an expert, and while I considered myself fit at the time I was no athlete, that being said, most people don't expect the unconscious person they are dragging into a dark alley to grab them by the literal balls and twist. As skinhead #1 screamed in understandable agony, skinheads #2 & #3 jumped into action, swinging a bat and crowbar towards my relatively unprotected face. Rolling to the side, I grabbed the bat dropped by Skinhead #1 and swung it towards skinhead #2 as I rolled to my feet.

"Back off." I was trying really hard for the 'scary mofo' voice, but it came out more like a squeaky teenager, not exactly optimal.

"Give us your wallet and we will." Skinhead #2 didn't seem particularly upset about the fact that Skinhead #1 was curled up in the fetal position and crying loudly.

"Let me keep my ID and you can have the rest." Getting into a fight over currency and credit cards that would be (probably) useless now was not worth it. My ID would be good enough, and the wallet was barely worth the $15 I paid for it. I pulled out my ID and tossed the rest to them, watching carefully as they rifled through it, walking away after barely a minute.

Now, I'm sure many of you are thinking, 'WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! YOU JUST GONNA TAKE THAT?!' To which I will reply, yes, I just accepted it. I lost nothing of real value, I avoided a potentially deadly encounter, and now had nothing of value to anyone besides my clothing. I felt a little more secure. I probably could have won a fight against any one of those 3, but against 2 or more, the odds were stacked against me.

It took most of the night to get somewhere safe, I ended up in a park in the middle of a subdivision about 5 miles north of downtown. If I pushed it, I could get home in a few more hours of walking, but I was just too damn tired.

As I fell asleep, colors exploded over my vision once again.

The Lady of Light was back.