Carnival - A LitRPG Apocalypse

Ryn scratched at the back of her right wrist. It shouldn’t itch but it did. She sent the mental command and the blade slid out, a foot and a half of milky metal that was beyond razor sharp. A drop of blood formed at the point it emerged from her skin but that was all. As it retracted the wound healed almost instantly and she brushed the ruby drop away. The left one was fine but the right felt off for some reason.

She examined her status and sighed. Nowhere near strong enough. Her mum and dad had been stuck fighting the Thing for three days now but here she was at school like normal.

Name: Kathryn Borrows

Level: 9

Ability: Suntouched Teleporter

Constitution: 100%

Reserves: 3000

Suntouched Teleporter: You were destined to inherit your mothers powers but due to feeling the power of the sun while in the womb your body has been changed, incorporating some of your fathers power. You can both teleport yourself and summon jets of solar fire. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.

Guidelines:

Teleportation distance: 45 km

Maximum Temperature: 5000 degrees

Line of sight required.

Modifications:

Level 2: Wreathed in Flame. Whenever you are covered in flames your reserves costs are halved.

Level 3: Increase Reserves x5

Level 4: Maximum Teleportation Distance x3

Level 5: Increase Reserves x3

Level 6: Melee Adept. Despite your physical frailty you are more competent and do more damage with close combat weapons than ought to be possible.

Level 7: Maximum Teleportation Distance x5

Level 8: Increase Reserves x2

Level 9: Maximum Teleportation Distance x3

All her team had gotten stronger as well. They were now pretty formidable for their levels and that had caused yet another problem. They needed a full team to unlock all the team buffs. They only had generic ones so far. Boosts to damage reduction from Bad and Sally. Enhanced senses from Bolf and improved constitution regeneration from Claire. Ryn and Kev gave improved reserve regeneration rates. Nothing particularly interesting unfortunately. It was all helpful but nothing like the buffs some of her dad’s team had unlocked.

She knocked on the door then opened it without waiting for a response. This was the “audition” room they had been assigned. Inside she found Kev and Bad lounging in chairs and arguing good naturedly with each other.

“...Sure Kev but despite the increase in range you’re still not much use in a fight!” Bad was saying as she pushed the door closed behind her and moved to sit down in a chair between the two boys. Bad was tossing a ghostly kukri into the air and catching it by the blade in one hand.

“Oh just because you got stronger you think you should take the strategist position? Muscles aren’t the same as brains, mate!” Kev snapped back.

“Boys, boys. If anyone else should be in charge it ought be Armand. He’s got the control skills.” Ryn had been in a foul mood for the last few days. Her dad was constantly fighting in Africa and her mum was… not well. She didn’t mind stoking the fire occasionally and watching how it burned down as a distraction. She knew her friends wouldn’t truly fall out over the team hierarchy so she was happy to have some fun with it and take her mind off her problems.

A fierce round of bickering ensued that Ryn weathered with a peaceful expression before pointing out Sally now had a serious mental enhancement as well and would make a prime candidate for strategist. This resulted in a suddenly united front from the boys as they went into extended details about how that would be a bad move.

Ryn had grown up around people with enhanced reflexes and thought speeds. Her mum and sister both had peak cybernetics from Bob but her dad was a step above even them. Her old man was a match to low level speedsters when he wanted to be. Sally was on course to make them all look like snails if she got a few more boosts to her enhanced mentality stat.

“My ears are burning for some reason!” called Sally as the door swung open again. “Are you guys discussing how awesome I am now and how I should be in charge again?” Bolf snorted from behind her and butted her forward with his head so he could enter as well. Armand walked in behind them, eyes downcast as usual.

“So we’re just waiting for Claire?” asked Bad after they had exchanged greetings.

“She went back to Ascension last night for some ritual. She’s happy enough to let us make the decision. Her job is to heal and she doesn’t care who she works on,” said Armand quietly.

“Ok, so when do the candidates show up?” asked Ryn excitedly. They had offered the last three slots on their team to Academy members who had essed-up.

“When I send for them,” Zeeg said from behind the teens. They all jumped except for Bolf who had known his mum was lurking in stealth at the back of the room.

“You’ve all grown stronger but compared to what you’ll face you are still pathetically weak. Do not let your new ‘strength’ go to your heads, puppies,” Zeeg said gently but the truth of her words still stung. Ryn had already come to the same conclusion, with the chaos brewing in the wider world she was painfully aware of her frailty, but the realisation seemed to dawn on the boys that they were still all too fragile.

“We have three candidates today. Simon is a tinker who specialises in trinkets and what amounts to rituals. Potentially very strong if given time to prepare for an engagement. Jane is a caster focussed on fire who will synergise well with Ryn. Andrea is the wildcard. She can adopt weaker variations of other humans’ powers. Not as outright powerful as either of the others but potentially a very valuable asset to the team.”

“We only need three more to get all the buffs. Why not accept them all?” asked Armand.

“You know why. Personality counts for a lot. My incredibly high tolerance for the foolishness of your species is the only reason the Carnival has stayed together as long as it has, or that my Packs continue to protect you. Simon is quiet, Jane is extremely confident and Andrea is painfully shy. We will bring them all in and watch where the fur falls. They are all level eight and there is a short presentation covering each of their experiences on the first step of the grind. Pay attention,” Zeeg said. She nodded her head to the screen on the wall and it lit up.

The boy on the screen was maybe a year older than Ryn. His face was bland, neither handsome nor ugly but there was an intensity in his eyes as he ran through the woods. He was clearly unaware of the drone floating around him monitoring his every action. Ryn briefly wondered how she would have looked if she had been under the same surveillance.

We were, Kev sent telepathically. Ryn involuntarily glanced over before she focussed back on Simon's adventure. Kev’s new abilities would take some getting used to.

The human-looking boy had dug himself a small cave in a hillside, turning the dirt he excavated into a low wall around the entrance. None of them could make out what he actually did but as the boy slept any animal or monster that approached his camp was either repelled or incinerated as some charge went off and reduced the body to ash without any sound or light.

During the day they got to see how adaptable he was, running from fight to fight and leading monsters into hastily laid traps cobbled together from random items he found along the way.

“He has a storage space. Some of the materials he used were not available on his journey,” said Bolf quietly as they all watched on.

“Have the candidates seen our footage?” asked Sally.

“They have,” Zeeg said. “We originally had fifty four candidates. When we showed them your recording half of them withdrew. Of those who decided to continue, these are the best three.”

“Best by what metric?” asked Armand.

“Best by the judgement of your seniors, pup.”

“I was only asking!” Armand replied but he shrank back at the look Zeeg gave him.

They continued to watch as Simon ran riot, on his own, across a low level monster farm. Anything he couldn’t beat was tricked into losing his trail or fed into a meat grinder of traps that reduced them to pulp.

“He’s good. Be really handy to hold a Line or to operate on the run. I’m impressed. Where’s he from?” asked Bad.

“He’s from Ascension. One of the rare ones who doesn’t reroll into the traditional Orion bruiser/caster matrix,” Zeeg replied.

“Is he going to try and sell us on the Good News like Claire?” asked Sally. “I’m not sure I could cope with two of them!”

Ryn laughed before Zeeg could reply. She felt extremely uncomfortable about how the members of Ascension’s church viewed her family.

“He is not. He is something of a heretic among the Cult.” Zeeg’s voice was serious and Ryn quieted quickly.

“Will that be a problem with Claire?” asked Kev.

“No. Claire and Simon have known each other since they were children and are on good terms, if not close.”

“Ok, so Batman-Simon is a good choice from what I can see. Who’s next?” asked Bad as he crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“Jane. A much less complicated powerset in her case. She can ignite enemies and control the flames produced,” said Zeeg.

“Will that combine with me being able to teleport them?” asked Ryn eagerly.

“Perhaps. Now watch.”

The screen cleared to a vision of a young… human? She was clearly female from the shape of her hips and bust but her body looked like fire frozen in ice.

“Is she permanently shifted?” asked Sally.

“Yes. It has caused her a lot of difficulties since she essed-up,” Zeeg replied briefly before resuming the video.

Ryn quickly decided Jane was a hot head, pun intended. The girl could make her flame-form take on an ambient temperature but she clearly enjoyed melting things for the fun of it. She had been let loose somewhere in North America, judging from the monster species she was hunting. The furry blobs with big teeth were endemic in Colorado if Ryn remembered correctly.

Jane began melting the stone beneath her feet as soon as she came through the portal and the health and safety speech, remarkably similar and as uncaring as the one they’d received at Menteith, had been delivered from ten feet away as her flames had gradually become brighter and hotter at the promise of finally beginning the grind.

With a berserker yell Jane had shot into the air as soon as the site supervisor finished speaking and flashed to the north flying low to the ground. She flew like Ryn’s mum, a column of fire propelling her through the air. Ryn was immediately interested in how she moved, the way she twisted and turned her body to control her altitude and direction.

Due to the rapidly changing political situation of the last week or so, her mum had never gotten round to teaching her how to fly with her flame ability. Her own experimentation had been partially successful but maybe Ryn could pick up some pointers from Jane.

What followed reminded Ryn of the footage of Carnival clearing of the ants from South America, only on a much smaller scale. Jane flew low and fast but doubled back everytime a monster revealed itself, usually by trying to take a bite out of her. They saw one giant beaver-like thing land a solid bite on her left leg but all that happened was its teeth burst into flame and scorched all the fur off its face. A second later Jane had reversed direction and she left long trails of flame across the ground in a criss-cross as she passed back and forth reducing it to ash.

“Physical damage immunity?” asked Bad, a hint of envy in his voice.

“Not complete but partial. That bite wasn’t enough to trouble her. The monster was level four and she was level five at this point,” Zeeg replied.

“She swears a lot, reckon you can cope with it Ryn?” asked Sally with a smile.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I think bad language is the least of our worries since half the Sigs got tied up by the Thing,” Ryn said sadly. She had barely seen her dad for days and her mum was in a box in the Bunker to contain the nanites no one could seem to remove from her arm. Ryn had spent all her free time separated from her mum by an inch of whatever Bob used instead of ultrahard glass for the last few days.

“Let’s move on to Andrea,” Zeeg cut in.

Andrea was always surrounded by other team members. She had been sent out somewhere in northern Spain from the look of the environment and they had been forced to grind in the baking heat and chilly nights. Andrea rarely spoke, even when her team were bantering back and forth but when she did open her mouth it was apparent it was a good idea to pay attention. As night had fallen on her second day of the grind her team had set up camp under an old tree, gnarled and twisted.

The others had argued over who would keep watch, eventually forcing the argument to the point where the team split. The kids were all lesser nobles from the Court and their privileged upbringings were on full display. Only Andrea was willing to keep a watch, the others all setting up camp, scattered around under the branches of the old tree.

“These cadet branch connards wouldn’t survive a day in the real Court,” muttered Armand as he watched the insanity of spoiled children on the screen. “Sacre Bleu! Setting a watch is the most basic thing!” He carefully avoided looking in Bad’s direction.

Andrea ended up borrowing the power of a bruiser to stay awake and she spent the whole night perched in the branches of the tree like a guardian angel watching over her foolish companions.

“I like her,” said Bad.

“Yeah, focussed on the goal,” added Sally.

As the reel continued they saw Andrea switching efficiently between bruiser and caster powers, always stepping in at the right time to prevent a serious injury or at least turn a bad hit into a glancing blow. She wielded ice, fire, lightning and light as efficiently as she moved when fighting as a bruiser.

“How many server Bob’s went over the candidates?” asked Kev.

The screen blurred out and the words “JUST THE ONE” appeared for a moment before it went blank. It was often hard to remember just how ubiquitous Bob was in the post system world. It was like remembering to notice individual leaves in a forest.

“Would you like some time to discuss or would you like to meet them?” asked Zeeg.

The kids and Bolf exchanged a look and Kev replied: “let’s not keep them waiting?”

As soon as he finished speaking the door swung open to the sound of an argument.

“Just turn down the flames for the Saint’s sake!” came a gruff male voice.

“I burn bright little boy! Deal with it!” snapped a surprisingly deep yet feminine voice in response. “Ladies first! And by ladies I mean women who can melt your face off!”

Jane stepped through the door, causing the top of the frame to char slightly as she passed beneath it, quickly followed by Simon who kept up as closely as he could despite the heat pouring off the human torch. The boy was wearing long robes similar to those popular in Ascension but he was adorned with gadgets, trinkets and jewellery. Andrea stepped carefully in behind them wearing simple trousers and a shirt in a dusty grey colour, her eyes scanning around the room and at the damage Jane had caused.

“Jane, enough.” Ryn had never heard Zeeg bark but that exclamation was the closest the dog had ever gotten to it in her experience.

The flames immediately died down and the temperature in the room fell back towards normal.

“Thanks, Signatory. I’m not sure why someone like Jane is here to be honest,” the boy said softly. He had a slight lisp whenever the letter S came up at the end of a sentence.

“I’m here because I’m the best of this generation! You’re talking to a genius! Show some damn respect!” snapped Jane, the molten flame of her hair rising into the air as she spun on the boy.

“Perhaps we should not embarrass ourselves in this way?” Andrea almost whispered. She had a Spanish accent and her quiet words caused Jane to turn her ire away from Simon who nodded at Andrea in gratitude.

“Maybe we should all sit down and have a nice, friendly chat?” said Kev.