NOVEL WEB Chapter 12: The Others
Time left until monsters respawn: 7 hours, 21 minutes.
“Who the hell are you?” I call out.
“Mortimer Lewis, Certified Public Accountant. Uh, who are you? And did you kill those things?” He's a middle aged man in a button down shirt that has specks of blood on it.
“Jun Kyung Han, this is Jose Amarillo, and yeah. We killed them.”
“Oh my god, are you guys here to rescue us?” the man blubbers, tears rapidly forming in his eyes.
Jose shrugs. “Sure, why not?”
I ask, “us? How many is us?”
Mortimer swings open the door and beckons us through. I look at Jose, he nods, and we follow.
“Ah, just through here,” Mortimer guides us out of the boss room and into a hall filled with empty cardboard boxes. We come to another door, this one lined with the light blue glow that means safe room.
He opens the door and to our surprise there are almost two dozen people crammed into the old store's employee training room. A room that was intended for up to eight new recruits to sit at tables and watch new hire videos is now overstuffed with people who look scared, haggard, tired, hungry and wounded.
Murmurs ripple through the crowd.
“Are they the police?”
“They're dressed like slackers.”
“Is that guy okay? He's covered in goo.”
“Are we safe?”
“This can't be worse, right?”
I decide to not repeat myself over and over again and instead just shout to all of them at once. “HEY! So we're not the cops. We are, however, former Army Rangers and we've fought down from the fifth floor.”
Someone worriedly says, “there's a fifth floor? Oh god!”
“SHUT IT!” Jose says, not in a military voice but a Dad voice. It gets the room quiet.
“Okay, so we're moving through and going to clear a path to the exit,” I say, trying to get the room to understand the situation. “We cleared the upstairs so I want you guys to go meet up with our friends there. They can get you new clothes, food and water at least. Also you can probably take a nap safely in the upstairs safe room. There's plenty of space for all of you.”
People are sobbing. People thank us. They start to leave in small groups. We show them the way, show them it's safe. Their faces do something to me. Their happiness, their relief. It does something inside me that I don't understand.
Some of them are employees, most are just former customers. Our coworker Bilbo (yeah, his real name) was shirking work in the back training room when the disaster hit and he figured out the safe room first. He then valiantly ran around as far as he could and got as many people in there as possible. That short, fat, balding man saved 22 people because he wasn't doing his job. We tell him Nat is safe and he sets off to tell the gorgeous woman about his heroism. Good luck, little guy.
-----
After we've escorted civies and apropo of nothing, I ask Jose, “hey, do you know why Brian said I was married? Theo acted weird about it.”
“Oh,” Jose says, “because of Mercy.”
He means the payroll/IT clerk for the store, Mercy Mahar. The Pakistani girl. “Uh, what?”
“Because you flirt all the time,” he says, like it's obvious.
“No, I don't,” I say, defensively.
“You do.”
“No, I just think she's interesting. She's really good at coding and makes anime costumes. She'd probably join our tabletop group if our lunch breaks aligned. But looking at her makes my stomach hurt. I don't think of her like that.”
“Uh huh.”
I'm getting annoyed now. “What, a guy can't talk to a female coworker without it being a thing? I talk to Nat and that's not a thing.”
“Uh huh.”
We're back in the boss room, kicking monster corpses until they fade away and turn into loot. “And why would that make her my wife anyway?”
Jose casually says, “it's called a work wife.”
“Wait, is that a meme? You know I don't know memes.”
Jose picks up Sacagaweas by the handful and then says “Woah,” as he holds up a bright orange vest.
“What?” I ask. It's just one of the high visibility vests you have to wear when you work outside so cars don't hit you. He throws it to me and I also say, “Woah.”
The thing feels like it's radiating power. It feels like my enchanted knife. It feels like a car ready to rocket off the start line. Like it's vibrating, thrumming with power. I slide it on. The thin fabric of the vest extends until it's covering my waist, legs and arms. I'm a bright orange safety mascot. And I have no idea what this means. I pull at the vest and the extra material slides back into the vest, disappearing from existence. I throw it back to Jose.
He slips it on and the high visibility body armor reforms around him. “Wanna see what it protects against?” he asks.
“Like hit you?”
“You've got a stock of weird shit. Try some.”
I shrug and we do testing (play around) for a few minutes. We discover the suit resists slashing damage almost entirely but does nothing against bashing or stabbing attacks. It makes you totally immune to my dark element attacks, which with the bright orange color I guess makes sense. Neither of us actually wants to wear the dumb looking thing though, so I convince Jose to put it in his inventory for now.
We get back to looting. The wasps, including the ones in the nest, each drop 5 bucks in coinage. Some of them drop stinger daggers which aren't better than what we have already. The forklift monsters each drop a whopping 100 in coins, and one had dropped the vest. Another dropped a tusk spear, which Jose takes and straps to his back.
We also find out that the nest itself counted as a monster when I cut into it and it fades away. It drops 300 coins and a scroll made of wasp nest paper. I carefully unfurl it and read.
Reading the last line of this scroll triggers its effect!
Scroll of Permanent Piercing Poison. Whomever should so readeth this scroll thine piercing attacks should forevermore be-
I tell Jose to read it. He's got the spikes and bullets. He reads it to himself and the scroll turns to ash, falling apart in his hands.
“Now my attacks have a chance to inflict severe allergic reactions.”
“Really?” I ask, incredulous.
“Severe swelling over 60 seconds. Like a bug bite.”
That makes sense, as much as anything in here makes sense. We move on. I peer into the third shutter door. The first was the one we came from. The second had the pallet hive. What's in the third? There's a single small brown cardboard box in a small alcove. I open it up and find the greatest treasure of all.
“Holy ambrosia!” I exclaim.
Jose rushes over and sees what I have in my hands. Three cans of MAXX XP Leveling Lemonade flavor energy drink. Lemonade is my favorite energy drink flavor, and with the mighty power of caffeine and B vitamins I'm truly unstoppable.
I instantly quaff one and feel a tingling in my body. That feeling usually takes 15 minutes to kick in. I check my status. I've gained another Level. I'd already gained 1 Level from the fight, now I have two to play with. I hand Jose a can and tell him the good news. He drinks the can even though he hates energy drinks, making a face of disgust the whole time. Philistine.
I take a look at my level up options and see that with two level ups I can grab a subclass for Scout. What's waiting for me there?
Scout Subclasses
World Mapping - You gain a world map option in your menu.
System - You can get basic information about system created items and creatures.
Relationship - You can see the lines of affection, respect and dislike between people.
System Scout! Holy beejus, System Scout! System Scout!
My new abilities are Compass (sarcastic enthusiasm), Basic Radar (reserved enthusiasm) and System Scan (genuine enthusiasm).
Compass
You gain a compass in the upper left corner of your vision. This can be configured. This stacks with similar vision mapping techniques.
Passive
Proficiency: 1%
Basic Radar
You gain a basic radar function that appears in the upper left corner of your vision. It only detects moving creatures. This can be configured. This stacks with similar vision mapping techniques.
Passive
Range: 30 feet
Proficiency: 1%
System Scan
A small white dot will appear next to System generated items and creatures. Looking at the dot reveals the name of the item or creature. This feature reveals more the higher your proficiency is.
Passive
Range: 30 feet
Proficiency: 0%
I immediately try to scan the empty MAXX XP and get nothing. No dot. I look at the unopened can and words appear right above the can, floating in the air. The words are white with black outlines, making them easy to read in any situation. Nice.
MAXX XP Energy Drink, Leveling Lemonade flavor.
I look at my knife and other objects nearby.
M3 Combat Knife With Mongoose enchantment.
Full Body Hi-Vis Slash Resistant Armor.
Colt Python revolver.
Bifork Tusk Spear.
The forklift critters were called Biforks, I guess? I scan a lot of mundane objects in rapid succession. Only objects that are “usable” can be scanned. Clothes, trash, doors, shelves, etc can't be scanned. I'm interested in the extra features so I just start scanning on reflex from now on to build my proficiency with the technique.
“Hey,” Jose looks at me with an uncertainty that I've never seen in him before. “Can I... Have the last level up drink? If it's not too much trouble.”
“Uh, sure?” I say. “I just got some good shit so why not?” I toss him the can. He catches it with supernaturally fast reflexes and precision. When the hell did he get so fast? Oh, right, level ups.
He drinks the can and tells me what happened. “I got to level 10 in Sharpshooter. That let me know what the requirements for the next Class evolution was. I already met them. Now I'm a level 10 Trick Shot Sharpshooter and a level 1 Crack Shot.”
“Whaaaaaaaaa!” I exclaim. Jose wants help with the immediate subclass choice so he reads me the entire entry. It is literally the longest I've ever heard him talk at once.
Crack Shot
Use thunder or lightning in your ranged weapons to hit foes with a flash of deadly speed.
A fourth step class. Two subclasses. Unknown class evolutions.
Gain 5 Dexterity, 5 Reflexes and 5 Ki upon choosing this class.
You must choose a Subclass upon choosing this class.
Two subclass specific techniques will be granted to you upon choosing this class. You gain master training with ranged weapons.
Uses Ki, Dexterity and Reflexes.
Upon level up an additional basic, advanced, expert or master shooting technique will be granted until all expert and lower shooting techniques are granted. A subclass specific technique will be granted every even numbered level. Each level you gain 2 Dexterity, 2 Reflexes, 3 Ki and 8 free points.
Subclasses
Lightning Crack Shot - Your ranged weapons crackle with electricity and fire voltage.
Thunder Crack Shot - Your ranged weapons use the speed of sound as a starting line. Utilize sonic and air attacks with your ranged weapons.
“So basically thunder or lightning?” I sum up. He just nods. He must be tired of talking. “I don't know how the sonic and thunder stuff would work. Maybe you could do silent shots? Or tornado bullets? But lightning seems straightforward. Electrocute people and things. Fewer possibilities but guaranteed results.”
Jose nods, thinks for a minute, closes his eyes and says “I got a thing to shoot lightning, doesn't take ammo. And a lightning dodge. Hrm. I have to be aiming to do it?” He whips his revolver from his waistband and takes aim at a nearby bottle of bleach. He then, without moving a muscle, instantly slides backwards 3 feet while golden coils of electricity circle his feet. Then he slides again, to his right. He slides two more times until he's back where he started. Then gold lightning crackles through his gun, the barrel glows and a damn blue bolt of lightning fires out his gun, toasting the plastic jug of bleach, causing it to explode in a shower of caustic chemical spray.
I take a deep breath. It was beyond impressive. It was rad as fuck. I'm trying to control my nerd-age and be a serious soldier right now but “Fuuuuck that was cool!” comes out of my mouth.
Jose nods. “Volt Shot takes 3 seconds to charge though.”
“Still, that looks like a grade-A killer move. How's your Ki expenditure look on it?”
“Pretty high. Electric Slide is 3 Ki, Volt Shot is 15. I have 35 total.”
“Oh, and you're not flush with ammo right now so that's not great.”
He tells me to wait. I do and after ten minutes his Ki has regenerated enough to show me the ability he got at Sharpshooter level 10, Ammo Shift. He holds a handful of spikes and they start to glow. 30 seconds later they all melt and reform into bullets for the Python. He loads 6 in the chambers and pockets the remaining 4.
“Great. But we gotta start moving. Clearing the boss room and the civilians took like 2 hours. We've got... A little over 5 hours left before the monsters respawn. And honestly I'd be all for grinding this place until I'm ridiculously powerful, but the civilians gotta go.”
Jose nods. “Which way?”