Slatepocalypse: Unlocked Arcanum

“Let me touch that thing,” said Elena as she made her way over to the pillar.

“It’s a pretty bland message. I think it’s more like job board. Like something posted in a roadside in for people to solve problems in the area. Only this isn’t’ the Middle Ages. God, I’m hungry. You hungry?” asked CJ before pulling out his Mobius Twinkie.

“I could eat,” replied Elena after fully reviewing the available quests.

“Mmm… this is good. We’re going to need some real food though. Here, just don’t eat the last bite. Give it back to me before that. Got it?” queried CJ getting a nod in response from Elena.

“You got some weird last bite fetish or something? I’m kidding, don’t take offense. The last bite is yours… wait a minute it grows back!” shrieked Elena as she read the item notification.

“It’s cool right. Alright we have a bunch of buildings to scavenge. At least three cross streets are covered. Let’s really define the boundaries. As I understand it, as long as we stay within area of influence, there shouldn’t be any monsters,” stated CJ as he slowly spun in place.

The sun was high in the sky letting CJ know it was high noon. No wonder he was hungry. It was effectively lunch time. He decided to start his scavenging at what looked like a corner store. During all the monster fighting he didn’t really have a chance to look around. There was a corner store more in line with a farm store than a bodega. A hardware store across the street attached to an AC Moore paint store. He doubted there would be much use for paint right now. The hardware store on the other hand. There was bound to be some goodies in there. Abandoned vehicles littered the roads. He’d have to pop their trunks to see what they were hiding.

CJ began to get really excited at the prospect of hidden treasures scattered all around him. It wasn’t until he pulled out his fifth set of tire iron, jack, and spare tire that he decided he was better off checking the buildings. He’d suggested to Elena that she should raid the hardware store looking for spare chains for her saw. That got her moving quickly. In the half hour they were rummaging around in other people’s belongings, Rubio stayed up in the clock tower. He periodically yelled down that there was nothing yet. The intervals between updates got longer and longer.

“Hey, you need some water? I could run a bottle up to you,” yelled CJ from the street.

“No thanks. There was some in the church’s kitchen. I grabbed a couple on my way up. You know I always wondered when this country got so thirsty. Now I’m glad. There’s a ton of bottle potable water everywhere,” commented Rubio before he went back to his watch.

“CJ. Come over here and see this,” shouted Elena.

CJ made his way over to the entrance of the hardware store. It was just north of the park on the opposite side of the street from the now ashen buildings. Once inside, CJ noticed most of the shelves were stripped bare and there was a pile in the middle of the floor of various goods. Elena was in the back furiously kicking at a door.

“Can you pick this lock? Damn thing won’t budge,” said Elena.

“Sure. Gimme a second,” replied CJ before kneeling down and pulling the tools he needed from his sleeve.

This knob lock was already set in the open position. There must be something latched on the other side of the door keeping it from opening. He looked up to see the hinges were on this side of the wall. He quickly pulled a flat head screwdriver and hammer from his sleeve. A few taps later and the door all but fell inwards.

“You sure you weren’t a thief?” scoffed Elena who proceeded to yank the door open all the way.

The back room had a desk set up against the wall to CJ’s left. Deeper in was a rack comprised of no less than twenty propane tanks. A few BBQ grills were stacked up along the wall to his right and beyond that was a rolling door that must have led to a loading dock. The florescent lights above were dark and nothing inside moved. CJ turned back around to see the door was being held on with a latch and pad lock combination.

“Tough to pick that from opposite side. Now I’ve been questioning how my storage ability works. This might be a good time to test it. Wanna explain while all the stuff was in was piled in the center of the room?” asked CJ as he looked around the office area.

CJ found a mostly unused notebook and folded it to it slide past his wrist before it disappeared. He grinned wide at that. Before Elena answered his question, he started opening drawers and gasped at the discovery of a revolver in the bottom left one.

“I figured those things would come in useful and we could test that storage ability of yours. See, same page,” Elena said as she perused the rows of propane tanks.

“Any of them full?” asked CJ as he spun the revolver chamber finding there were only three bullets in it.

“I’ve only seen five full tanks so far. Looks like the owner cycled the ones on the top as empties and the ones on the bottom to go into the store. Come here for a second, this one has a cap attached to a tongue that marries up to a rubber ring around the nozzle. See if you can store that,” suggested Elena while gesturing to one of the tanks.

CJ didn’t have a problem with that, but the abilities wording said limited to items that can fit up your sleeve. He refused to believe that as long as part of something fit up his sleeve it could be stored. That seemed like one hell of an abuse of power. No sooner did he think that, he placed the loose cap under his right wrist and the whole tank disappeared.

“Holy Shit!” screeched a shocked CJ.

“Oh my god it worked. How about that chair? Can you get the arm rest in your sleeve?” asked an excited Elena.

“Wait a second. Was the vague nature of the description something that could be exploited with every ability? Also, I don’t want a rolling office chair with forty years of some dudes built up farts in it. Why don’t we find something else? Like that BBQ over there,” responded CJ before flipping the BBQ over and putting one of the wheels in his sleeve.

This time there was some resistance before space around the BBQ compressed and the thing visibly shrank. CJ felt a draw of fifty mana from his limited pool leaving him with only five. Then he received a new notification.

New Spell Learned: Spatial Compression- Rare Spell/ Planar Magic: Cost 50 mana. Target must be a non-living object. Object is compressed in space down to fist size. The caster can release the spatial lock at will but will need to recast it once returned to normal size.

“Alright, its clear the system doesn’t want me abusing my ability. It just forced me to pay for the compression that happens when I try to store objects larger than the opening of my cuff. Good news is I now have a spell that compresses objects. It is extremely expensive for a utility spell. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but you’ll have to hit me a few times. I don’t have enough mana to help out if something goes wrong with the invaders. Shit. Monty was right. This is my life now,” said a dejected CJ.

“Are you sure? You got pretty butt hurt last time,” said a concerned Elena.

“I know. That was a different circumstance. Monty was trying to make a point, and he went about it in the shittiest way possible. But now I’m ready. Let me get my hands up and you can start,” said CJ bracing himself.

Elena proceeded to throw punches and kicks at CJ like he was a heavy bag. He thought she must have studied some form of martial arts before as the kicks seemed purposeful. The shining light that appeared just off of CJ’s skin, became brighter as the hits kept coming. Once he got to thirty mana, he called a stop to it. None of the hits actually made it full force to his body but some skimmed him leaving small bruises no larger than his thumb. His health had ticked all the way up to seventy five from the damage he took in the bolster dungeon. That told him even with all the strikes she hit him with, he took little to no damage.

“Good. I have to stop. My stamina points almost bottomed out. It’s slowly filling up now. That is an amazing power. We should try it with the saw next time,” smirked Elena giving CJ a wink after his eyes bugged out of his head.