Before we could pull up in front of the mill, I could see mobs in every direction, and I honked at Will, leaning out the car window to shout, “Stop here and get back!” The vehicles came to an abrupt stop and Jessica and I rushed out. There were several mobs, but not an overwhelming amount.

They weren’t difficult encounters: mostly sicklemen and floating eyes, but we needed to take care for the sake our of low-level members. On the plus side, I reckoned that after we’d cleared the mobs, our novices would be level 3, maybe even level 4. I pulled my army of minions from Vast Shadow and sent them forth to trap a sickleman.

We couldn’t let Jessica pull anymore, as she one-shot these enemies with every arrow. Instead, my summoned squad were ordered to pin a target and press its arms to its side so it couldn’t fight. I had assured the new comers there would be no risk as they levelled and I intended to keep that promise.

Unlike the captured zombies though, all these mobs were free roaming, and the enthusiasm the new recruits had shown from the day previous wasn’t as strong now as when they had gained their first EXP. It was obvious to me that a few of them were even questioning their decision to participate in the game. “If you can’t deal with enemies that are helpless, give up,” I said to a man and woman who had not yet gotten out of the car. “If you can’t fight, leave the party so there’s more experience for those who can.”

My words were intended to be a harsh wakeup call. I wasn’t going to allow half the group to be carried by the other half, not this time. Both of the people in the car immediately hardened their resolve and got out to join the action. Soon they were all stabbing away at my pull.

If anyone could see past my mask, they would see a smile on my face. It was the first kill that was the hardest, that foreign feeling when stabbing into flesh was like nothing you’d ever felt before. But once you felt the effects of levelling up, you never wanted to stop.

“Good job, let’s keep going.” We methodically cleared the entire steel mill. In the end, all the new volunteers reached level four, which was good news and the confidence they had gained was evident in their smiles and banter.

Everyone on the raid had already been given a mini-lesson from Jessica on how to increase their stats based on what they wanted to accomplish. We had a few items drop as well as five skill books. I checked them all to see if there was anything useful for the high-level people, but they were more of the same skills we’d seen before.

It had become clear to me that support skills and abilities like Summon Skeleton were few and far between. The drops at the mill were all simple skills with no depth, like Energy Bolt or Fireball or simple augments to weapon-type attacks.

The new players weren’t exactly fighting over the skills presented to them, but more than half wanted either Energy Bolt or Fireball, which was to be expected at least. Ranged abilities kept you away from the danger, but it didn’t necessarily make them safer.

Once it was clear there were no more mobs, Will brought his squad in and located the generators and the materials we needed to get our power supply up and running. Fortunately for us, no one had ransacked them before we got here.

The workers were there for heavy lifting only. Sheets were fed and then forcefully grooved for stability, after that a large machine cut them to the perfect size. The workers he brought were meant to carry these off.

“How long will this take?” I asked.

“It will take about four hours to get enough sheets for the walls. The main difficulty I can see is the matter of finding the means to transport them,” Will said.

“What about the truck in the back?” I asked. There was a particularly large vehicle on site, and although I didn’t know what it was called or what they used it for, it did have a bed in the back.

“It’s meant for solid metal, not sheets, but it could work.”

There was nothing for the seven players to do for the moment so I proposed they helped the workers. “Load what you can, it doesn’t have to be neat. Those who ended up putting points in STR can lift them into the truck,” I said.

Every time a sheet came off the press we grabbed it with a collective strength that was extraordinary compared to previous times and then we carried it to the truck. Being of a uniform size and shape, the sheets stacked tightly like puzzle pieces, so they actually didn’t take much space when loaded standing upright.

When we’d maximized the space in the truck with sheets for the walls of the compound, there was still a little more room. “Will it be possible to get some support beams?” I asked.

Will shook his head. “Not before dark. There’s plenty of rebar on site but we can’t melt it down. It’s unfortunate but rebar is all we’ll be getting.”

“It’ll have to make do then.” All-in-all we ended up spending five hours at the mill. Bringing some spare gas we’d found, Will drove the truck back. I wasn’t sure if we had enough metal sheeting to build a good barrier, but it was all the sheeting in the factory, and there wasn’t going to be another shipment.

Besides that, there were no beams on site and we ended up taking as much rebar as we could. It wasn’t ideal, but we could supplement the construction with wooden spikes. This wasn’t a short-term project by any means, so there was no rush to finish it immediately.

The metal was unloaded from the truck by everyone, despite the complaints of those who had only come along to level up. It was back-breaking work, but we had solved our transportation issue. This truck would be able to bring lumber back as well. It was just a matter of working with it.

As I added up the amount of metal pieces that we’d fashioned and tried to calculate the quantity needed for a wall around the farm buildings, I couldn’t help but get a headache. My hands rubbed my head vigorously in frustration. I felt a hand rub against my back, “Are you okay?” It was Jessica.

“I’m fine. I just didn’t really understand how much work this will actually be,” I confessed. Somehow or another I had this fantasy idea that once we had the metal sheets, we could put them together like Legos.

Creating a sturdy defensive barrier required so much more work than that, frustratingly so. Holes needed to be dug; we needed concrete; and we needed to weld or find some way to attach the walls to each other. Everything needed to be moved and placed meticulously to fit into one cohesive unit.

This was going to take hundreds upon hundreds of man hours as well many more expeditions to gather materials. We didn’t even have all the tools needed. We knew where we could find them though—either Sangeal or Withersburg.

A nagging feeling on the back of my neck told me this task was urgent: it made me impatient and it continued to cause my head to pound. “Let’s go inside,” Jessica said. I gave a nod and we made for the farmhouse. It was then that something was transmitted to my brain directly.

It was a map, a blank map with a location clearly marked with a red dot. I looked at Jessica who locked eyes with me. It was clear we were both experiencing the same phenomena.

A Special Shop containing valuable skills and items has spawned 231 miles away from you. Defeat the guardians of the Special Shop to gain access to the Special Vendor and make purchases with Medallions. Monsters within 500 miles of the Special Shop will continue to grow stronger until the Special Vendor is accessed.

“A special shop?” I looked at Jessica.

“What does the Survivor’s Medallion say now?” she asked. I checked my inventory and pulled up the coin that had previous said nothing at all.

Survivor’s Medallion: Allows the User to purchase skills, items, and other consumables from the Special Vendor.

“It’s the currency for the special vendor!” I said excitedly.

“How many do we have now?” she asked.

“Twenty-six of them,” I said, “It doesn’t seem like much.”

Jessica remained enthusiastic, “Maybe, but they didn’t drop that often. Twenty-six could actually be a lot.” We had killed a shit ton of monsters to reach our current level no doubt, plus there were the ones we’d taken from Ghost Hand and he had been funneling from several people.

“Monsters will get stronger overtime. I wish they specified exactly what that meant,” I said. At least there was some form of warning this time. They could have just put a dot on the map and waited for you to go find out why everything started kicking your ass.

“Do you think one spawned every set number of miles? A thousand say?” Jessica asked. “We can’t be the only area that got one.”

“Probably… I wish we knew more about what was happening the rest of the country. All we can do is our best here and maybe in time we’ll be able to travel, or hear from travelers. For now, let’s focus on getting to see what the Special Vendor has to offer.” Two-hundred and thirty-one Miles away was a few hours by car, and we did have the vehicles and gas required to make that move.

“I don’t think this will be simple. The message referred to guardians, and if they are guarding valuable skills and items they will be correspondingly tough.”

“Difficult enemies then,” I agreed. “Also, we don’t know where exactly that place is. It could be in the middle of a city for all we know, which would make it extremely hard to reach.” If the shop was in the middle of a city with a lot of spawns, then it would take a lot of man power to reach it.

As I thought about how everyone in the vicinity of the store would be coming together, I felt no excitement or enthusiasm at all. Rather, the prospect of meeting other groups terrified me. Anyone who could make the journey would have at least some combat capability. Not all of the survivors of the apocalypse were good people, and nothing said the Special Vendor was accessible by everyone.

The possibility existed that it was first come first serve, and even if it wasn’t, the Special Vendor probably wouldn’t sell an endless amount of valuable skills and items. The other problem was what ‘grow stronger’ meant.

Were enemies growing stronger by the second? The minute? The day? The week? The message was so vaguely worded that it induced anxiety all on its own. How much time did we realistically have before we were hiding from every goblin and zombie we saw?

It wasn’t just those that had leveled at least once who heard the message either. Everyone seemed to go into an uproar over it. This was only the second time the ‘system’ had retroactively spoken to anyone. It was different than getting a message for leveling up or obtaining an item.

This was a change happening in the world that affected everyone, and given the state of the world now, it was reasonable to assume that if it wasn’t dealt with in a timely manner, the change was going to wipe everyone out.

What other goal could be seen from this new development besides someone, somewhere gaining pleasure from watching us lesser beings struggle? Whomever or whatever caused this was taking enjoyment at our expense, and what better way to watch us squirm than to turn up the heat?

When I thought about it that way, I realized this was a pressing issue. Monsters were going to be getting continuously stronger, maybe even by the second. Anything longer than a day per incremental strength increase was unlikely to keep up. Here, violence happened on a whim with no forewarning—the post-apocalypse world wasn’t forgiving.

The problem was: what to do about the farmland while the best fighters went to look for the shop? It wasn’t possible or feasible to bring everyone out that far from safety, nor would the low-level people even want to accompany us. On the other hand, it was likely that Alan, Thomas, Maria and Lucas would want to be part of the raid, and they probably should be.

Doubtless other groups of survivors would show up at the shop too and they might pose more danger than the local mobs. Anyone who was capable of getting in a car and defending themselves would make an appearance. I felt that the shop would be a place to make allies and possibly enemies, but more than anything, it would be a place to grow stronger.

A decision had to be made: who would take control of the decisions on the farm while we were away? Jessica tasked Maria with finding someone suitable and who had the support of all the farm workers. Maria kept it simple, calling everyone to the main yard and making it a public vote.

To my surprise, there was no great fuss, no battle for the responsibility of running the farm. In fact by unanimous agreement of the crowd, they wanted an elderly gentleman in his seventies to take charge.

The name of the newly elected leader for the farming community was Charles, and he struck me as the type of person who was kind to absolutely everyone. Nor was there any sign that he would change with the responsibility of the role. A frailty in the way he was standing fitted with the fact he wasn’t interested in levelling and I just couldn’t see him bullying anyone.

Probably, he had only one ambition: to live out the remainder of his life comfortably, which suited me fine as it meant his goal was to build the farm into a safe place to live. It wasn’t as if he was made a king either, there would be others on hand to help make decisions and any difficult decisions could be decided by vote.

Once that was resolved, Charles went around shaking hands then gestured to me to address the crowd.

“We’ll leave in three days, before then I’ll do my best to gather as much food and other supplies as I can,” I said. “That’s all I have to say.”

Although I hadn’t said much, my promise to help the farm stock up before we left was met with a smattering of applause.

We had all the metal we could possibly get from the Steel Mill, and after taking a tally, the engineers told me there were enough plates that we could reinforce about sixty-percent of the wall. This news was slightly disappointing, but it was going to be a lot better than the flimsy defenses we had now.

Lucas was going to be coming with us to the shop, and he devoted his three days to taking five workers into the nearby forest to build up the timber supply. His entire day was spent cutting trees down and sectioning them with Wind Slash.

Sean, the carpenter, gave Jessica and I a list of things he needed and several addresses. They were shops we could visit to gather the supplies he needed in Withersburg. He even marked them on a city map for us.

For Jessica and I most of the three days were spent in Withersburg grinding and gathering the necessary supplies. We didn’t hold anything back in terms of leveling and each used one of the two EXP UP potions we had.

When the three days were up, Jessica and I had reached Level 20.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: Necromancer Level: 20 EXP: 0%

HP: 905/905 MP: 385/385

STR: 5 Fear Resistance: 5

AGI: 2

DEX: 5

VIT: 20 +12

WIS: 24 +18

Available: 9

Skills: [A]Summon Skeleton LV. 8 |[A] Decay LV. 2| [A] Reanimate Dead LV. 2 | [A] Bone Armor LV. 2 | [A] Vast Shadows | [P]Sixth Sense | [P] Bravery LV. 2 | [P] Mutated LV. 2| [P] Pain Resistance LV. 2 | [P] Skeletal Mastery LV. 4| [P]Intimidate Living |[P] Inner Calm |[P] Necrotic Vision

Summon Skeletons hit Level Eight granting an extra minion, Skeletal Mastery reached Level Four. Besides that, my infection had calmed and Mutated was still Level Two only. It didn’t seem there would be any time in the near future to continue investigating it.

I had nine available points to spend, but wasn’t feeling any pressure to do so. Once we arrived at the Special Shop, I would decide then. The same with a new Skill slot that had opened at Level 20. Jessica and I decided that rather than equip any of the Skills we’d found, we’d wait to see what was available at the vendor.

As a result of levelling up, I had 10 skeleton minions and two reanimated dead for a total of 12 undead in my squad. Eight of my skeletons were granted from the skill itself, while two came from my Necromancer passive. It seemed that one was added for every seven base levels, in which case I’d be due a new skeleton next level.

Reanimate dead didn’t grant base levels but instead monster efficiency per level. At level fourteen I had been granted the ability through my Necromancer passive to summon a second reanimated dead.

Three of my eight skeleton warriors were currently equipped with special weapons: A morning star, a meat cleaver, and a crude short bow. Of my two skeleton Generals, one was default kitted, which was just a shield and sword, while the other wielded a Two-handed sword called a Zweihander.

Both of my Reanimated minions were Exceptional Abominations. Their attacks weren’t varied, but they dealt an incredible amount of single target damage with the six cleavers they wielded. Their AoE wasn’t bad when Noxious Bile was released and I hadn’t seen them get low enough yet to find out if Enrage was also an ability they could use.

Jessica had leveled up Anomalous Trap to Level Three, which granted a 35% increased effectiveness of skills used in this way. Quagmire had reached Level Four as well, which increased the duration slightly. Besides that, there was still no change to her inspection ability. We found four more Survivor’s Medallions, which put us at an even thirty, but no new skills or items worthy of equipping or using.

A massive pile of lumber had been transported onto the farm and Jessica and I had gathered more than enough materials for construction to begin on the new wall.

Hammers, nails, handsaws, and three chainsaws—there was also table saw and generator that had both been absolute hell to transport back to the vehicle. These would have to make do for Sean’s new tools, and our carpenter couldn’t have been more grateful for the table saw and generator. He said that he could use the chainsaw to cut out boards, but it would be nowhere near as fast, efficient, and accurate as the table saw.

Besides that, I gave those remaining behind at the farm the keys to the gas container at my old workplace and marked it clearly on a map. They wouldn’t be low on gas if they regularly took trips there: and with the generator and chainsaws there would be a constant expenditure for the foreseeable future.

Before we set off for the vendor, I left behind fifty-percent of the Rations Jessica and I had accumulated in case of an emergency, as well as a few Bandages and Minor HP Potions. There was no indication of how long this would take.

Lucas, Alan and Thomas had all reached level 16 and Maria was close behind them at 15.

Over the three days, it had become clear to me that Jessica and I needed to guide the farm indirectly and allow others to make decisions in our stead. It was too time consuming to micromanage the place when we could better spend our time leveling. As long as we secured supplies, those that weren’t interested in leveling could carry out the tasks involved in growing our own food supply and keeping the place safe.

On the dawn of the fourth day after the announcement, the expedition team gathered in the main yard, with a surprising number of farm workers gathered to cheer us and bid us good luck. We were finally on our way to find out about the special shop and what it contained.