Bonus chapter for reag 100 favorites on RR.

  Walking out of the grocery store, TJ fought to keep his eyes from watering in the bright light of te m. There was movement all around the town, though it was localized to the area immediately surrounding the firehouse and the grocery store. More than a hundred yards or so from there, nobody could be seen to go anywhere, except for one group of five or so, who stepped purposefully with their eyes peeled in every ceivable dire. His breath clouded in front of his fad TJ idly rubbed his hands together in a habitual rea to the cold, though his fingers were hardly chilled.

  “You’re ok in this weather?” Zig asked. “You don’t have gloves or real shoes, so aren’t you miserable?”

  “Not really.” TJ shrugged. “Here.” He proffered a hand and Zig seemed to think about taking a glove off to test him, but instead decided to lean her face against the extended fingers. TJ almost recoiled but decided against it. Zig’s cheeks were flushed from the cold, and TJ realized it robably 50 degrees iore and closer to freezing outside. His fingers were warm against the chilled cheeks, and again, he shrugged.

  “Probably because of my Vitality. I noticed even when I’d just barely gotten my Diviransformation that I wasn’t that affected by the weather. Now that I’ve gotten some levels, I’m really doing ok. If I was outside ht without anything, I’d probably get a little sick, but I’m not. It’s a cold day, but I’ll be fine, especially as I keep moving.”

  “Huh. I guess Charlie’s never really pined about the cold, but he’s not much of a piner anyways so I hought about it. I guess we’ll have to ask him ter. This’ll be your stop, Stanton.” Zig gestured to a house on the er where there was some movement inside. Uhe shadow of a massive tree, the home seemed gloomy and unweling, but Stanton merely nodded and walked forward.

  “Hey, Nat!” Zig shouted, “got an old guy ing in, the one from st night! Name’s Stanton, and he’ll be with you for the water run and all the other crap you get up to today!”

  A wordless shout of aowledgement echoed out of the building, and TJ watched Stantole his Stetson more securely over his head.

  “Keep an eye on your six, kid.” Stanton called back. “Not everyone’s as good a shot as me.”

  Zig muttered darkly to herself about old men and sexism and TJ cocked his head at the younger woman.

  “--always saying some shit about how a woman ’t shoot–”

  “It’s nothing like that.” TJ interrupted. “He doesn’t trust easily, and we’ve both saved each others’ lives. He’s just worried.”

  “Sure about that? You’ve known each other for two days.”

  “We’ve saved each others’ lives.” TJ replied simply. Zig seemed initially resistant to the statement, but didn’t take long to make her decision.

  “Makes sense. I trust my team as much as anyone from my old life. Sorry.”

  TJ shrugged, following her as she walked back up the highway towards the hunting lodge and where he and Stanton had stayed the night. It wasn’t long before Zig broke the silence, and TJ briefly saw Stanton’s own frustration with TJ’s stant interruptions of their quiet traveling.

  “I’ll give you a quick rundown on what we’re looking to do today. Laura talked about it, but more specifically, we’re gonna go up the hill a little to where that turn is, by the church. There, we’ll hit as many of the rich s we safely get to today aurn with whatever we get. Capische?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Great. So, you said you have a kid? How old is he? What happened?”

  TJ tamped down any outward signs of his frustration with a force of will. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty of questions for me before long. How about I ahem all when everybody’s together? I don’t want to ahe same questions over and over.”

  “K.” For a blessed mihey walked in silence. As, it wasn’t meant to be. As soon as they were easily seen from the hunters’ lodge, a voice called out to Zig.

  “We ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

  “Hells yes!” She shouted back, and nearly immediately, a dozen people swarmed out of the lodge. Eae wore a mostly empty backpack, just a water bottle or two poking out of the side pockets. TJ quickly Appraised them, seeing one Disciple, level 3, and one Neophyte, Charlie, who was still level 3 as well. All the rest were Zealots and Acolytes, somewhere from levels 1-3. Zig was the only level 4, and TJ felt his fidence slip a notch or three.

  The kids, for that was all TJ could think of them as, looked anywhere from a pimply-faced 17 to a deliberately severe-looking 23 or so.

  “You’re the snake guy!” one boy shouted, pointing at TJ’s fabsp;

  “Snake guy!” A couple others took up the call.

  “Just call me TJ.” He replied.

  “Listen up!” Zig cut in, her voice surprisingly authoritative. TJ’s estimation of her climbed as she tio speak. “We’re moving together today. TJ here ran into a huge group of the pukwudgies yesterday, and he said some of them were riding coyotes.”

  Quiet mutters of “Cavalry” and “I want a mount” briefly burst into being, but Charlie reached out and flicked two ears and the peanut gallery quickly went silent.

  “They’re an unknown, and we don’t know if they’ll be waiting for us. They were in this dire, but much further up the highway than we’re pnning to go today, so we should be fine. Key word is should. I say it every day, but this isn’t a fug game. I don’t want to hurt anybody, but remember that Hannah died yesterday, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it.”

  The man Farid had introduced as Seth turned away at Zig’s words, though the rest also looked deeply unfortable with the reminder of their mortality.

  “So, we’re all together, minus Nat with the water team. Keeping a and making sure everyoays ok. We won’t cross as much ground like this, but once we get closer to the s we haven’t visited yet, we might spread out a little.”

  “It’s a good pn, guys.” Charlie jumped in. “We o be as safe as possible as we gh this. Angelo, you’re our number one priority so stay in the middle of the group the eime. If you’re safe, we have a much better ce to be sure we all make it home alive.”

  The sole Disciple nodded his head in aowledgement. He was a shorter man, about the same height as TJ, with long straight bck hair in a french braid down his babsp;

  “Good.” Zig jumped ba. “We’re moving in two minutes, so if you have any questions for TJ, get them out now. After, we’ll be trying to be as quiet as possible, sinain goal is going to be staying out of sight and mind of the goblin bastards out there.”

  Before any of the rest of the hunters could jump in on the sudden opportunity, Zig herself asked the question she apparently still had for him, “You said you have a son. How old is he?”

  “Almost three, just a month away.” TJ answered, keeping from g his jaw. Where was he? Was Junior really ok? The ay spiked, and TJ felt his stomach twist and turn and pin as the thoughts of his child came back. His fear struck him so suddenly that he didn’t hear the question. Charlie’s hand and voice pulled him from tinuing to spiral into deeper and deeper paranoia.

  “Look, we know that nobody under 15 came to the Tutorial. Now, we know his kid isn’t in a different one. Leave it alone. You don’t want to worry about your siblings, family, and so on, so don’t make him do it. Got it?”

  Mumbled apologies echoed out, and Zig specifically spoke louder than the rest as she too asked for fiveness.

  “What was your old job?” Charlie prompted.

  “Administrative manager in a real estate firm. Basically herding a bunch of tractors to work better together and stop poag ts from each other.”

  The curious sounds of teenagers and early twenty-somethings died off in a disied grumble. Before long, they turo a much more iing topic.

  “So how do you transform into a snake? you show us?”

  Without another word, TJ activated Diviransformation ahem ooh and ahh. Oerprising and annoyingly bold young dy reached out and grabbed one of the rge feathers that stuck out of the base of his skull and tried to pull it out. He hissed his displeasure and stopped using his Skill. The girl had a fistful of his hair, twisting his head to the side.

  “Why would you do that?”

  The girl stammered wordlessly as she released his head and TJ stood tall.

  “I think that’s enough. Zig, Charlie, we go?”

  Then, without waiting for their respoJ led the the hill towards the chur the er. A couple whispered versations began as he tinued walking, his unnatural pride demanding some sort of repense.

  “That’s impressive.” Charlie said as he jogged to walk alongside TJ. “My own Skill is way worse.”

  “You said we could talk about it yesterday. Show me.”

  Charlie sighed and shrugged his jacket off. Then, his Skill activated, and his arms and legs bulged to twice their inal size while the rest of his body remaihe same. TJ stepped back, unsure of how to reabsp;

  “Yeah, that’s about what I thought when I did it the first time.” Charlie ughed ruefully. “But the 50% bonus to every attribute is really nice, so I don’t mind the way the Skill makes me look.”

  TJ nodded in agreement at first, but then turned with a fused look. “What do you mean 50% each attribute?”

  “Is… that not what your Skill gives you?”

  “No, it doubles my Strength, Endurance, Vitality and Toughness and gives a 50% to Agility and Perception. Nothing else.”

  They both looked at the other, surprised to see the btant differeween their supposedly identical Skill. TJ was the first to break the silence as he asked the System, “Why do our Skills give different bonuses?”

  Due to the variability offered by any Partit’s Divine Bloodlihe Diviransformation Skill they acquire will vary from one Neophyte to the , as well as from a Neophyte’s Skill pared to that an Acolyte, Disciple, or Zealot may acquire. At the Copper (I) tier, the Diviransformation Skill offers a total of a 500% increase to attributes. The Divine Bloodline of eadividual will determine what the additional attribute bonuses provided will be.

  TJ nodded slowly as he tried to uand what he’d just been told. The voice of the System slowly faded from his mind as he sidered what this would mean loerm for him and other Neophytes. Thehrust it from his mind–it didn’t matter how other people’s Skills beed them. Just how it helped him, and while his Diviransformation didn’t mesh as well with his Wind Manipution as Charlie’s would have, he didn’t regret it. There was nothing he could do.

  “Ok. Well, iing.” TJ said.

  “Your Skill is way better!” Charlie responded, his face obviously envious. “I don’t use like any of these attributes, and yours are the best.”

  “I disagree.” TJ scoffed. “I need better Intelligend Fixation than Vitality. My level 5 Skill is great, so much better than the mere attributes Diviransformation gives.”

  “Well, I’ll worry about that when I get there, I guess.” Charlie sighed. “Might be another couple of days. We’re trying not to fight anything right now.”

  “Wait… not just on this trip? You’re trying not to kill anything?”

  “Yeah?”

  The ignorance of his statement immediately set TJ’s blood to boiling and he fought to hold it down. Unfortunately, the only thing he could bring himself to say was, “Are you all stupid?”

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