I’m sorry this took so long, I was hoping to release this chapter sooner but my graphics card died and I couldn’t work on the chapter.

Thanks for the comments and the reviews, they help.

I hope you like this chapter.

“Wait, if this is a game do we have HP?” asked Sam after a few hours driving the Zombinator. “Because I’m not sure that would make much sense.”

I blinked and opened the status screen.

NameAdamClassDruidRaceHumanLevel1Physical AttributesMental AttributesSTR:21INT:69DEX:34WIS:111VIT:57CHA:69Luck25Magic AffinityLIFELOW

Shit. How the hell I didn’t noticed that before? There is no HP bar, or MP bar, or stamina. Nothing.

“Huh. There isn’t,” I said. “Wait.”

I hit Sam in the arm.

“Ouch,” he said. “What..?”

“There is no message, nor a flashing bar of health,” I nodded. “I guess that’s a bit more realistic than to see how many hits we can take.”

Sam stared at me for a second and went back to driving the RV.

I opened the inventory looking to see how much space I still had left. I didn’t want to leave the medicines out of it if I could because… you know, right now they could be the sort of thing people would kill for. And also I had a ton of them thanks to the objects stacking up. All in all I had five spaces remaining.

But was the use of a magical space storage if you didn’t fill it, right? I went to the cabinet where I stored the crossbows and took one of them into the inventory with ammo into another space. I moved to another cabinet and did the same with one of the steel bats. I didn’t want to be taken by surprise again.

For now I would be always armed.

I took a seat in the bed and lied down. After taking that decision I didn’t feel weird or strange. I felt completely normal, not like somebody that a day ago went to work like every other day. It’s curious how someone can adapt to a new reality so quickly. Everyone else was quiet and doing their things, probably still trying to process everything that was happening.

Then I remembered that I still had something to do.

Breath of the world Lv. 0

Obtained abilityYour body is attuned to the natural energies of the world.

With concentration you can use that connection to draw energy from your environment and recuperate your stamina and health.Sustained ability.

+20% stamina regeneration.

+10% regenerating bounds.

+5%Blend with the environment.

Mana absorption. Lv. 0

Obtained abilityYour deep understanding of reality takes you closer to the source of mana on the world.

You can absorve mana quicker from the environment.Passive ability.

+10% mana absorption rate.

Inspect. Lv. 0

Obtained abilityYour knowledge and experience of reality lets you recognize patterns more easily.

You can inspect objects in the world to obtain new informationActive ability.

Philosophiæ naturalis Lv. 0

Obtained abilityYour deep knowledge and experience of nature gives you the tools to apply your magic better.Passive ability.

-10% in the mana cost of your abilities.

+5% in the strength of your magic.

Empathy Lv. 0

Obtained abilityYour connection to people lets you understand them better. You can grasp the emotions of people close by.Passive ability.

Seed of regrowth Lv. 0

Learned abilityThe gods of light and the spirits of nature have recognized you as a Druid and bestowed you with the knowledge to heal the wounds of your allies.

You can create a seed completely made of mana that remains in the body until the host dies or runs out of power.Active ability.

Duration: 2 hours or until magic runs out.

Barkskin Lv. 0

Learned abilityThe gods of light and the spirits of nature have recognized you as a Druid and bestowed you with the knowledge to enhance the defense of your allies.

You can temporarily transmute the skin to be as resistant as the bark of a tree.Active ability.

Duration: 2 hours or until magic runs out.

…

Holy shit. Where do I begin?

Okay, I guess I already used Inspect before with the ghoul and both Mana absorption and philosophi… whatever seemed fairly straightforward. They were just like the basic abilities of a game that give you a bit more oomph. The rest of abilities were another story.

Empathy must have been what was making me think about how my companions were feeling, which explained a few things. It also seemed an incredibly useful ability to treat with other people. The ability to read emotions was potentially as useful as telepathy.

I wasn’t entirely sure about Breath of the world, it seemed useful but… Well, I tried to breathe deep and nothing happened. Not entirely sure how to use it.

The big problem were the other two abilities. They were obviously the abilities I got after accepting the druid class but there was something more, something… I have learned them. Not obtained them like the others, but learned. I remembered how to use them, how to draw the mana from nature and create the spells even when I had never done it before.

And there was more, like four years of classes, entire books of information about mana, about affinities and magic that I had never obviously read. It felt weird and the worst part is that I didn’t understand almost anything. It was like if somehow I had the books in my head, I could remember them word by word but I didn’t understand what they were saying, not entirely. I did understand some parts of it, but it was fuzzy and...

I moved my hand without thinking and started to create the spell. That’s all it took, it was almost like if I had done it dozens of time before. I started drawing mana from around me and felt the power flowing from nature to my hand to form the spell. It was like making a painting, letting the mana take the shape of a seed and there something more, building what it had to do, what I wanted it to achieve.

It was beautiful.

“Adam!” said Knight very close me.

I stopped the spell and looked at him. “What?”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve been staring weirdly for a few minutes.”

I looked at him and then at my hand. It seemed that it took some time to cast the spell. Or maybe I didn’t have too much practice. I would have to find some time to try it in the future because both abilities seemed very useful if they did what it said.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I lied.

“Okay,” nodded Knight after a second. “Can you answer my question now?”

I got up from the bed a bit dazed. “What question?”

He sighed. “Do we have a bathroom here?”

“Yes,” I smiled and showed him the tiny bathroom close to the door. “We have everything here. Well, not a shower but… I guess we can survive without it and we are using the space for food so.”

The Zombinator didn’t have everything but it was close. Knight grunted and entered the bathroom quickly. John looked around the Zombinator and opened one of the spaces that hided the kitchen.

John whistled. “This vehicle is truly impressive, where did you find it?”

“A guy whit a lot of free time and an obsession with zombies,” I said which gained a chuckle from Sam. “He’s probably dead now. And now I feel bad.”

John sighed and moved to do other things. I sat in the front seat of the RV close to Sam.

“The only thing I would change would be putting spikes in the front or something along those lines,” I said and then when my brother came out of the bath. “There is food and water in one of those cabinets if any of you want.”

“We are getting close the lake,” announced Sam. “What are we going to do when we get there?”

“What do you mean?” asked Knight.

“Well, we have all of this. I know that is better to be with more people, strength in numbers and all that, but I’m a bit scared that if we enter that camp with the Zombinator other survivors will start to think of stealing it or something,” said Sam.

I nodded. “True, but since the alternative is leaving it in the middle of nowhere where anyone could steal it and all of you want to go the camp, well…”

“Not a very good choice anyway,” said Knight.

That made us stop for a while to consider what to do.

“I think it’s better if we take it with us into the camp,” said John after a minute. “The military will not let things get out of control so much.”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, because they have so much control right now.”

John smiled but didn’t say anything else. I went back to look the way we were going through the windshield. Sam had taken some time to drive around the less populated areas using roads that nobody normally used, but we were almost there. Trees were growing along the roads and we couldn’t see the camp yet but it was close.

Taking the Zombinator directly to the camp wasn’t the best of ideas but it was the only idea that could work right now. We just had to have somebody inside at all time to make sure nobody get bright ideas.

“Adam?” asked Sam from the driver seat. “I know that I was a bit of an asshole when we met the other day, it’s just… We were friends for so much time and then you stopped talking to me when you started college.”

I looked at him and nodded waiting for him to continue.

“Knight, told me what happened and I understand so… I want to apologize for how…” he was stuttering.

“Oh, great,” I sighed. “Of course he told you, because he always has to try to protect me.”

“Adam…” started to say Sam.

“No,” I snapped. “We are not going to talk about it, because it doesn’t matter. I’m over it. And I’m sorry for ignoring you, I shouldn’t have done that. What happened it’s not an excuse for…”

There was loud shot and Sam jammed on the breaks startling me for a second. I looked outside the window and I could see the beginning of a long perimeter fence and a few soldiers armed at the door aiming their weapons at us. Or I tough it was us until I saw four ghouls running against the fence.

“Shit,” I cursed looking at them.

They were a lot and there were only two guards at the door. That was bad. Regardless of how good those two were they were still too fast to kill four of them. In a second I made a decision, if we had to enter the camp we will do it with style.

“We have to help them” I said walking out of the Zombinator.

John followed me outside carrying the rifle. I spend a second looking around to make sure there weren’t more ghouls. There were a few bodies around, probably of early attacks but nothing moving besides the other four. I equipped the crossbow making it appear on my hand and aimed at the closest ghoul.

The soldiers shot and one of the ghouls fell while the other failed and it began to run faster towards the soldiers. I fired the crossbow aiming as best as I could and… failed. The arrow went through the shoulder and it made him turn around. The ghoul looked at me and growled, it ran at me grunting.

I moved back trying to cover myself from it. John wasn’t there anymore, I didn’t see him move and then I heard a shot. I didn’t have the time to worry about him now, I was behind the Zombinator while the ghoul ran at me. The crossbow was discharged and didn’t have the time to charge it back. Nobody could help me.

The crossbow disappeared and the steel bat appeared in its place. It was a long shot but it was the only thing I had. Knight and I took classes in combat when be were kids so I tried to remember everything about them that could be useful now. I waited for the ghoul to get close to me and aimed the bat at his head. I didn’t strike until he was about to take me and I almost shit myself but it was worth it. The head of the zombie cracked with a loud sound and fell to the ground.

You have received 15 points of exp for killing a ghoul.

You have leveled up. You have 5 points to spend.

“Adam!” said john appearing around the Zombinator.

He stopped, staring at the dead ghoul.

“I’m fine.” I said trying to sound more calm than I was and proceeded to take the arrow that was still striking from its shoulder. “It seems their heads are not that tough.”

I made bat disappear in the inventory and walked towards the fence of the camp. All the ghouls were dead already but one of them had gotten dangerously close to the guards at the door and had a knife in the head.

“That was close,” I grimaced looking at the corpse.

“Tell me about it,” said one of the soldiers breathing loudly. “Thanks for the help, we didn’t see them coming until they were too close.”

John moved to me hanging the rifle on his shoulder.

“We didn’t see them either,” nodded John. “They are very fast.”

“We were lucky the light was hurting them,” I said. “At night they are worst.”

The soldiers looked at me like if I said something strange.

“The light hurts them?” asked one of them and moving in front of me with a look of desperation. “Are you sure? Have you seen that?”

His face was basically on top on me and I didn’t know what to say. My empathy told me he was ecstatic? Like if he just received the best news of his life but… it couldn’t be they didn’t know about the light hurting them, right? Their faces told me everything I needed to know.

Suddenly any hope I had for the military solving the apocalypse disappeared. I sighed.

“Yes we’ve seen it,” John answered for me. “Daylight hurts them but not much.”

The soldiers looked at each other. “Go inform the commander, he should know.”

The soldier nodded and walked hurriedly into the camp.

“If you know anything else about these things you should probably speak to the commander too.” he said after the other soldier had disappeared.

I looked at John briefly who nodded. “Sure… we know a few things, but we… Well, John heard something about other survivors and we would like to move or vehicle to somewhere safe first.”

Then he saw the Zombinator and stared dumbfounded. I loved that.

“Uh… sure. The rest of the survivors are at the east of the camp, just over those tents.” he said pointing at them. “Someone will find you when you are settled.”

I nodded and we moved back with John into the Zombinator to enter the camp.

Bloodmoon camp wasn’t a really big thing nor was it as sinister as it sounded. It wasn’t as close to the lake as I imagined it would be probably for some defensive reason and it was divided into two parts. The first part was from where we entered, the closest to the roads and civilization, it’s were the zombies would come from and it was clearly completely filled with military. Hundreds of green tents littered the floor surrounded by a perimeter fence. Guards patrolled the fence at close intervals, big armored vehicles served as improvised turrets and watch towers.

It took the Zombinator a few minutes to drive through that part of the camp until we saw the zone reserved for survivors.

“Holy shit,” I muttered with a sudden intake of breath.

There were thousands of refugees there. Thousands of people that have managed somehow to survive the last night. I don’t know, I guess I was expecting something else, something like in the movies where everybody is dead and running around like crazy. This was different, how the military seemed to have survived so unscathed was beyond me, but this…

This was hope, a new beginning in the works. Sam drove the RV through the camp, trying to pass between the people moving from one place to another that stopped to stare openmouthed to the Zombinator. It was a mess, but there was hope, there were even some kids playing around like if nothing had happened, probably too young to understand yet how the world had changed.

Sam parked the Zombinator as away from everyone else as he could, a difficult thing considering how much people there were and I got out. There was already a group of people around us.

“Hi,” I greeted with my hand to the people that were surrounding us, which didn’t get a response.

Knight and John got out too and looked at the people surrounding us, empathy told me they were curious and a bit confused. I guess that was a reasonable reaction to the Zombinator. At least they didn’t seem to want to steal it. Yet.

Still after a minute they didn’t talk and it was getting creepy. They stared at me, I stared at them.

“Why don’t you go back inside and make sure everything is fine?” I whispered to my brother and neighbor.

They nodded and walked back inside leaving me alone with the other mute survivors.

“So… do you come here often?” I asked.

“What are you doing?!” yelled a voice.

I turned back to face the voice. It was a woman in his thirties wearing a doctor’s lab coat. For a second I thought she was someone I knew what I didn’t recognize her. She walked towards me when I was still trying to figure out if I knew her.

Then she passed me and walked to one of the survivors.

“I told you not to move!” she yelled at him. “You are going to remove your stiches if you keep doing that and we don’t have that many antibiotics. If you get an infection because you couldn’t keep yourself in place I’m not going to help you again!”

The man who she was yelling dropped his gaze and nodded. It was then when I noticed the how the rest of the people were. Most of them were bandaged somewhere or had an ugly still untreated. Those people were clearly survivors in the most literal sense of the word, they had fought those things and survived to come here.

New quest created:Path of the druid: Help the survivors.The gods of light are aware of the consequences of the world merge and want to help alleviate them as much as possible.

They have tasked you, the druid, to save as many survivors as possible.Rewards:

+Luck and Exp for any live saved depending on the number and help given.

+??? Reward Depending on the contributions.

No time limit.

Wow. Now the gods are offering my quests. I’m awesome or something. Of course, it also told me things I didn’t know yet, like what the hell is the world merge? Also there are gods that do stuff, that’s was a first. As usual the window popped in the middle of something and I couldn’t read it attentively.

Meanwhile the woman finished her rant and started to move back carrying another wounded person with her.

“Uh… wait.” I said. “Sorry, can you…?”

She glanced at me for a second before answering. “Sorry, whatever problem you have will have to wait. I have thousands of people that are waiting medical attention and apparently I’m the only doctor on the whole camp.”

She started walking to a big tent.

“No, no, I’m not hurt. I’m a doctor,” I said, which made her stop. “Maybe I can help.”

She looked back and then saw the Zombinator. I smiled.

“Yes, that's the Zombinator,” I said quickly making her close her mouth.

“Yes, maybe you can help,” she said but wasn’t entirely convinced. “I’m Amelia Walters from the CDC. Treat this man correctly and I will believe you.”

She walked back to the tent and left my with the man she was carrying.

“What?” I asked confused.

“Listen, I don’t have the time to watch for you in case you don’t have medical knowledge and are trying to steal medicaments,” she said sharply. “Prove me that you are a doctor and I will let you play with the big toys, until then… You should probably know that the guards will shot you if you try to do something funny, we have enough problems as it is.”

I watched her go and sighed. I valued my options carefully. I could walk away and forgot about the quest, I mean, she was hard but her position was understandable. Whatever, people needed help and I had a quest. I wouldn’t stop at this.

I walked into the tent carrying the man with me and Amelia was already working with another patient. She looked at me briefly but didn’t say anyting. I helped the man sit in an improvised stretcher and started to look for any signs of wounds.

“What’s the range of your health insurance?” I asked without thinking which made Amelia snort and look at me. “Sorry, it’s the habit.”

I went back to the man. I saw a wound in his back, it was big wound and it was bleeding but not as much as I was expecting. That could be a good sign or bad one.

“This wound is not from a ghoul, right?” I asked.

“The zombies or whatever they are those things,” answered Amelia quickly from behind, “didn’t bite him because he would had transformed already. There is no period of incubation between the infection and the transformation, is almost instantaneous. Because apparently we didn’t have enough with zombies that have the strength of superman, they also have to be extremely contagious.”

I nodded and got back to work. I asked a few more questions to the man to make sure he didn’t have any more wounds. There weren’t many things to work with, gloves, clean water, disinfectant, and something to stich wounds which was probably the most common problem they had treat now. I wanted to ask for something else because the man had to be in pain but the funny look the guard gave me stopped me before I did it.

“Okay, breathe and try to be as still as possible. I don’t want to stitch your arm to your back.” I said.

He did and it took me a few minutes to clean and sewn the wound close. It wasn’t perfect because he was obviously in pain and moving slightly but it would work. I moved back and the doctor was behind me staring at my work.

She inspected it more closely and after a while nodded to herself.

“Fine, you stay.” She said and walked back to treat another patient.

You have gained 5 luck and 10 exp for helping.

I stared at it. Holy shit, that was the same exp that for killing a ghoul, if I could treat hundreds of people I could… Okay, no. I’m doing this for the people and not the experience, remember that.

“What are you doing?” asked Amelia. “Keep working.”

Oh, yes, for a reward like that I was going to work. Another man walked into the tent limping and I helped him to an empty place. It was time to grind exp.

“Adam?” asked Knight entering the tent.

Or no.

“What are you doing here?” he asked coming closer to me.

I smiled. “A quest poppet out and they are low on doctors so I decided to help.”

He looked around, Amelia wasn’t even bothering but some of the guards were wary of my brother.

“Are you sure this is the time for doing this?” he whispered to me.

“Yes, it is.” I said.

“It’s not safe, John is asking around to see if someone knows something new and Sam is alone in the RV.” he said. “I don’t want you to be here alone too, is dangerous.”

I sighed and smiled at him. “I’ll be fine Knight, I have done this before, remember?”

He grimaced and didn’t say anything.

“Go back with Sam, I’ll be fine.” I said.

Knight looked at me sharply and then at the man that I was trying to help. He nodded and walked out of tent, but didn’t manage to walk out before it started.

There was no indication or warning, not even the dogs started to whine. Suddenly the earth started to move, the tent tilted and some of the beds and tables where knocked over sprawling every material to the ground. The alarm of some car went nuts and people started to yell.

Merge of the earth element in progress.

The earth shuddered. Advertisement Previous

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