I looked at my watch. We had just under 2 hours until portals opened up throughout the central time zone. 10AM probably hit just after the bullet hit me. I am not sure if that is coincidental, symbolic, poetic, ironic, or something else. Every minute that we got waylaid, made it more and more unlikely that we arrive to grandpa before portals open. Oh well, time to gather information prior to attacking the Stack Shack.

  I got up and approached Billy, who had stayed surprisingly quiet through the entire altercation. “Billy, your face looks how my chest feels.”

  Billy responded with a brief withering glare before responding. “I’d normally say fuck you, but are you okay? You just got shot.”

  I was stunned by his statement. The adrenaline must have started flowing in that moment, on top of the dopamine from the rising mana levels. I felt the bullet, and it hurt like a real son-of-a-bitch, but the pain wasn’t near as bad as it could have or quite frankly should have been. Then again, I’ve never been shot with anything while wearing a vest like this. “I think I’m mostly okay. Chest is going to be sore for a bit. Hopefully this is one of those things that I get to walk off quickly.”

  Nora stepped over to interrupt us. “Jeez, Neal, portals haven’t even opened, and you got yourself shot, and by a civilian no less.” She smiled a big goofy smile. Yes, she was acclimating to the apocalypse just fine.

  “Thanks for that reminder. We shall have to mark it down that on August 8th, 2008, that I, Neal Cassland, was shot by a pissed off pedophile rapist, and lived to tell the tale.” We all laughed for a few seconds before I pulled out the ability token from my pocket. “Nora, this ability token is for you. It falls into the hunter category, though we aren’t entirely sure what it is.”

  She took it into her hands and looked its surface over in detail. She took out the notebook, and wrote the tiny script from one side of the token onto the last page of the notebook. “We are going to need an entire new notebook or five.”

  “Aren’t you going to learn the ability? You have it in your hands.” I was flabbergasted. Why is she being so calm about this?

  “I will in just a moment, but we absolutely have to document this stuff when we get the chance. How else are we going to learn a foreign alien language?”

  “You’ve got a point. I shouldn’t lose focus. It’s just, Chris…”

  She pursed her lips to avoid something worse while a single tear escaped hey eyes. “We saw it from here. I’m mentally blocking it out for now. I refuse to cry until I all those creatures across the street are dead. Then we can cry for a minute.” She then clutched the token tighter and closed her eyes.

  I didn’t want to interrupt the process, so I turned to Billy instead. Billy, Chris, and I were best friends in middle and high school. The silly shenanigans we did were the bonds that brought us close; the gaming brought us in the rest of the way. “Billy, while I want to talk about Chris, instead I need an update on What you two have uncovered here.”

  “Instead of Chris? Fine.” He paused to switch gears. He looked at me like not talking about chris was almost insulting the man’s memory. “We have taken down details from twenty people. It takes a while to get all the information from them copied into the notebook. We finally asked for extra notebooks, paper, and pencils. So now we have spare resources. We located a few useful classes here, but the most interesting thing is we found a fourteen year old girl that got the standard girl scout class. The working theory is that only the kids that had their thirteenth birthday within the last 24 hours got the blessed perk. We would love to increase that window, but it is very hard to without any additional data points.”

  “Anyone that can skin, butcher, and recover the useful parts of the wolf out there? Also, we need someone to purify the creature’s body.”

  “Yeah, two of the cooks here has their class ability to purify food and drinks. Kind of ironic that fast food employees got that ability, but right now I am just happy that we can purify food. As to the first point, we haven’t gotten to everyone yet, but I am sure such a thing is possible.”

  “I’m happy on the cook benefits, but we need a group of adults to drag the body to a spot where someone with either an ability or the appropriate skills can skin and butcher that creature."

  “I’ll stay here and find someone as quickly as I can. We also ran into an actual preacher class. He apparently can give a blessing to people. He might be useful to you in the prep for the attack.”

  I looked at Billy. He must have been wanting to tell me that for a hot minute. “So how long have you known about the preacher?”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  “Less than five minutes. We found him just before Mr. rapist butt in and the argument started. You missed him punching me in the face by less than a minute.” He shot me a brief look of thanks. He might have gotten shot instead and that look told me we both knew it.

  “So, we have a preacher to bless people, cooks to purify food. There is the girl scout. Which ability did she gain?”

  “She got two abilities. She got the cookie enhancement. She hasn’t used it yet. She also got the ability to bake new cookies. Brittney has both of those. Both seem to be inherent to the class. granted one of them is a class ability, while the other took up an open slot. Her class is rated as uncommon, whereas Brittney is rated as rare.”

  “Just behind you are two people with the vintner class. They came from one of the wineries nearby. You also have two retired military guys. One got a special operations class, ex-special forces, and the other got an explosives specialist class, bomb disposal expert.”

  “Saving those last two just to make me wait?” That sounds like Billy. He was building up to those two, his game master desire for a big finale to things.

  “Maybe.” His face held no shame in making me wait. “Oh, you should check your gains. Nora and I have been gaining xp from doing what we have. I am over 50% to level 2. I might get there just by gathering all this information, organizing it, and trying to make sense of any patterns.”

  I blinked, and then I immediately closed my eyes and checked my status.

  Level: 1 77% to next level

  Damn! I went up more with social efforts, command efforts, and piecing together our knowledge of the system than I did from actual fighting. Maybe this is how noncombatants gain xp. If that is the case, then administrative people can still level up. However, at some point, I have to imagine that leveling will be better with exploration and combat. Until then I intend to maximize all of my avenues to advancement.

  After I my eyes only for Billy to continue, “I am going to stay in here while you clear out the stack shack. I genuinely think I am better at getting this info together than I will be out there. You can hand my rifle to someone. It is still back in the SUV. Nora should go with you to clear that place out alongside those two retired military guys.

  “Awesome. I will give one of them your rifle, but I hope the other has something as well.” I was about to say something else, but I saw Nora’s eyes open form the corner of my eyes. I turned to her, “What power did you get?”

  “a camouflage ability. It helps with stealth some when I am moving, but a lot more when I stay still. It is broken by taking offensive action. It feels like budget invisibility. I hope some day I can upgrade to full invisibility. Until then, I am happy to have it.”

  I was happy as well. Stealth sounded really important. If they could get Joe that as well, then their survivability would go up significantly. “Sweet. It sounds useful with scouting. Though, I personally don’t want the brains of the operation to be our scout. I need you near me in the middle so you can dissect what is going on. You are the brains, not a scout or explorer.”

  Billy couldn’t help himself, “Nora The Explorer is not nearly as cool as Nora The Orc Destroyer.”

  Nora rolled her eyes. “I am not a cartoon character Billy. No matter how hard you try to do your whole N, n, n, n, Nora bit, I will not become some overly rhyming and singing cartoon Hispanic girl. Also, Its kind of racist. You need to think about that.”

  “Its not my fault that Dora and Nora are different by all of one letter. They rhyme.” Every time he tried this whole Nora to replace Dora bit, she got pissed off. He absolutely has to have a 1 charisma. There is no other plausible explanation. He isn’t hideous, and he has no disfiguring scars. He looks like an average college guy.

  I had to end my speculation. “Billy, what’s your charisma?”

  He paused with his mouth open as he was about to say something else dumb. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because every time you open your mouth you piss off friends, neighbors, and strangers alike. You did get punched in the face, after all.” I suppressed the smirk. I definitely suppressed the smirk that was begging to show itself.

  “Fuck you Neal. I’m not telling you my charisma.” Billy was genuinely annoyed.

  He had zero chill.

  After reveling in the banter for a few seconds, I turned to the retired military guys. The first guy was big, both in height and in mass. His muscles didn’t bulge, but there were definitely present. The second guy was fit, but not nearly as large as the first. Both had tans from years being outside. I guess it was time to address them. “Gentlemen. I understand you two have military experience. Which one has to special forces background?”

  The smaller of the two guys stepped forward. “Sergeant First Class Jackson. Just so you know, I’ve been retired 2 years. I fulfilled my full 20 years of service, and if not for all of this, I would never have expected to be called back to active duty.” He didn’t really look over 40; he was younger in his face, except around the eyes. His eyes had the look of a man who had seen and dealt death to hundreds or more. The crows feet around his eyes only added depth to the horror manifesting from them. He wore army camo with a combat vest over it; I should have realized he wasn’t explosives guy. The vest held no less than 3 long clips and 2 knives adorned that vest, which looked to have hardened plates inserted in it. He had a rifle I hadn’t noticed earlier slung over one shoulder. Now that he was right in front of me, I could tell it used sizable bullets, though which size I didn’t exactly know.

  “Sir, I appreciate your service to your country. The president either has or will reactivate anyone with your capabilities and experience back to active duty. While I am merely a congressional aide to my grandfather, and have no authority to order you around, I would appreciate it if you could help us clear out the monsters across the street. You and the larger serviceman by you should help improve everyone’s survivability. After we survive this, then we can figure the rest of this out.”

  “Son, I saw how the police and highway patrol respond to you. Even the mayor likes you. You have a bit of a natural skill at both convincing folks, and commanding them. I’ll help, but leave the explosives guy behind. He can stay with his family while I help you with this small issue.”

  “Fair enough sir, fair enough.”