We arrived close to midnight and after getting everyone settled somewhere I found a room and cried for just a moment over the loss of my grandfather. I had previously told myself I wouldn’t she a tear until the demons were gone, but my grief wouldn’t be denied. He was a beloved member of both our family and the community. He had gotten many a valuable law passed in the state. For me, he was just grandpa. He was the person that taught me how to fish when my father was campaigning for political office. He taught me how to vote, and he showed me why the law matters.

  Once I got it at least a tiny bit out of my system, I decided I needed to Identify some of these other items before I went to sleep. I started by looking over what the second spellcaster had. I pulled out a bronzed bracer, another ritual dagger, a blade closer in length to a short sword or a gladius, another one of those polished stones, and a wand. Some of this felt fairly obvious; I still used two castings of Identify to determine that the ritual dagger was virtually identical to the other one in our collection, and that the polished stone was another communication device. Nothing groundbreaking, so I used identify on the bronzed bracer. The bracer drank up the Identify ability for a few minutes until the description became readable

  Bracer of Eldritch Empowerment

  Requires Warlock or Arcane Lightning

  This bracer empowers abilities with arcane lightning or a warlock’s Eldritch Bursts. The damage output of said abilities increases by the user’s caster level up to a maximum of 15. It will also lower the mana pull of said abilities by 1 each.

  Brett Just got himself a serious upgrade. We did seem to find some items that benefit us. Maybe there were supernatural forces out there rooting for us. I wasn’t out of mana, but that hopeful thought allowed my mind to finally settle. I hoped I had good dreams.

  ---------------------------------------

  Food brought me back to the land of the living; something smelled fantastic. I put on a shirt and followed the scent of food cooking: bacon and pancakes. I discovered Brittney in the kitchen cooking up several stacks of pancakes while bacon was sizzling on the pan one stove spot over. “mmmmm, bacon.” Not my best impression of an obese cartoon character, but not my worst either.

  “Really? You could have done better.” The kitchen was a little messy, but nothing egregious. She looked really happy. I decided I needed coffee so I started up the coffee machine. A big pot of coffee sounded good this early. The sun had crested the horizon a little bit ago based on looking out the window, but it wasn’t as important as me stacking these pancakes and slathering them with butter and syrup. I sat down at the island counter and dug into breakfast. Soon enough, the others started making their way to the kitchen. They would come in nearly in a zombie state and within a few minutes of pancakes, coffee, and bacon they were completely alive again. It was reassuring that a good meal could have that impact in the upside down world we found ourselves in.

  Billy broke the near silence of constant eating. “So, what do we need to accomplish today, dear leader.”

  “At least it’s a step up from government lackey.” We all laughed at that. At least I still had a sense of humor during the apocalypse.

  “Seriously though, I think early this morning is a relatively light load of work. I need to identify as much as possible. I am at full mana, so I can identify 5 things. The only things left to identify are a short sword, a wand, and the staff. Brittney, you need to empower two new types of cookies. I feel that there may be some more amazing options in there.” She smiled and nodded in between flipping pancakes. “Billy, Joe, and Frank, all need to empty out this ring of storage of its ridiculous amount of contents. There may very well be more magic items in there. Billy and Frank, Joe is there to help you given your injuries.” All three of them nodded in confirmation. “Nora and Brett are going to go check on the neighbors. I need to know who is still home. If it looks like anyone has abandoned the houses I will need you to mark it on some sort of map.”

  Like clockwork, Billy was going to say something, “Identifying stuff shouldn’t take very long. What else will you be up to?”

  “I have the oh so fun task of talking to every single mayor, council member, police chief, fire chief, and others to try and create a temporary unified government. I can’t have everyone doing their own thing. I can see the absolute chaos this is going to cause. I also have to work out with the Governor on what he wants and expects. I am not going to be in Jefferson City with the rest of the state government. Will I be casting my vote on things remotely. Will they want me to video conference in to stay on top of things? I have no real idea what is expected of me legislatively.”

  “You know what, keep your job. I’ll empty that ring of storage. We will set aside anything that looks magical.” Yeah, telling Billy about all the phone calls and crap I had to do would bore the crap out of him. It was still really early in the morning, so I was better off Identifying everything and handing stuff out. I finished my plate and washed it in the sink really quickly. I really didn’t like the idea of saddling Brittney with extra domestic work, just because she did an awesome thing like make a breakfast.

  I went back to my room and brought back the bracer for Brett, “Here, you should have this bracer. It improves your lightning damage and lowers cost for any arcane lightning abilities.” Nora snapped her fingers at me before pulling out her magic item notebook and handing it to me. We were going to fill this thing in really quickly. She had my description from Identify on each item, a detailed drawing, and notes on symbols. This was getting to be overkill. There were times in the last day that I kind of wished we didn’t go this far documenting, but if we didn’t then we probably wouldn’t make half the breakthroughs and insights we have. With that thought firmly in mind I resigned myself to copying the description into her book on a new page. This got a smile from Nora.

  I went back to my room and put the wand, short sword, and staff on the bed with me. I had enough Mana to do all three of them, so which one should be first. The short sword was an easy choice; in the hands of Frank for any kind of melee it would fantastic. I cast identify and 10 seconds later it spat back at me that it wasn’t magical. Son of a bitch! Waste of an ability. It was a really well made sword though, so perhaps I give it to Frank still. I switched over to the wand and used Identify a second time. I nearly prayed to something, though not sure to what, to have this be decent.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Apprentice’s Wand of Spider Climb

  Apprentice wands are the first type of wands made by young apprentice wizards of the various magic universities within the Seimar Republic. They hone their craft magic wands ability by producing hundreds of standard wands. As with all Apprentice Wands, the Caster level is set to 5 with an effect level of the same number. Current charges 34 out of 50.

  Spider Climb-Tier 2- Arcane, Transmutation, Animal, Spider, Hunter, Agility(Tier 3)

  Give one target the ability to climb like a spider; this allows the user to climb up vertical walls and ceilings as if they had a climbing movement rate equal to their normal land movement rate, up to a maximum of 15 meters/10 seconds. They may not move faster than their normal walking speed while using the ability. Spider Climb has a range of touch and can be resisted by the target if it desires. Duration is 50 minutes.

  This is great. This could be a spell, but it could also be an agility ability. When we can figure out how to gain these abilities, that opens up so many options. I have to imagine that a lot of people have stat based affinities in their class. This should help us with people that don’t have cool magic related affinities, but still, it is just a start. This wand is going to Joe. Give a sniper the ability to walk up walls and on ceilings and we change combat options rather nicely.

  Moving on to the last item, I put the staff in my lap and hoped it wasn’t just some damn walking stick. I started casting Identify and watched as mana tendrils slowly covered every inch of the staff. It was taking several minutes, but I was enjoying this particular casting. Something felt very right about this staff. That reason was quickly revealed.

  Apprentice’s Staff of Arcane Knowledge

  Requires Arcane or Knowledge

  The staves are offered to students apprenticing themselves to a master wizard of a chosen arcane affinity. Knowledge staves are one of the more common staves found due to the universal nature of the abilities. Such a staff normally has 20 charges, though if it reaches 0 charges it will have a 50% chance to lose one charge from its maximum. All abilities cost 1 charge to cast. Charges return at a rate of 1/hour. This staff currently is at 17/17. All abilities are cast at a caster level of 20 and an effect level of 25. The spells are as follows:

  Read Magic

  Detect Mana

  Identify

  Assess

  Understand languages

  Perusal

  I didn’t bother reading all the ability descriptions, but I got a great idea of what all of them did. Heck, I already had two of the six. I was a little curious as to the details of the four I didn’t already possess, but I will work on those later tonight. In the meantime, I had a few things to hand out.

  I brought out the 2 ritual daggers, 1 of the magic walkie talkies, the wand of spider climb, and the wand of sticky webs and placed all of them on the kitchen table. Everyone was doing their thing, so I just left it all there and started making phone calls. They will certainly have questions about who gets what, but I have bigger problems at the moment.

  First up was one of the Governor’s assistants: Cheryl. “Hey Cheryl, this is Neal Cassland. I took over for my grandfather James Cassland. I was sworn in last night. I’m calling to check in.”

  “Neal was it? If you’re Jimmy’s grandson then you should be here in Jeff City with all the other representatives. You’re one of the few representatives that ain’t here.”

  “Given the current situation, shouldn’t I be here with my constituents. I am sure I can vote on measures via video chat.”

  “Oh, sonny boy, you have to be present to vote. You can’t be using no video chat.”

  “What would we do if every representative got stuck in their district?”

  “Well, we wouldn’t have quorum, and the legislature just wouldn’t be in session. I know you be knowing the answers to these questions.”

  “Well thanks for the heads up. I’m going to be stuck here for a few more days. I am not sure I’m going to be able to easily navigate my way to Jeff City. Things are a bit crazy outside. In the meantime, keep sending everything to my grandfather’s email address. I have access to that.”

  “Well, I’ll do that. You have a real nice day Y’here.” Well, isn’t she just peachy. I Don’t think I will ever be a fan of Cheryl after that conversation.

  Next up was my grandfather’s assistant, Franklin Brand. Franklin was as trustworthy as Billy was charismatic. He employed charm like it was a weapon. Unfortunately, I most likely needed him until I could fire him; he was competent. “Franklin this is Neal, James’s grandson. How are you?”

  “Hello my boy. My condolences on your grandfather, may God rest his soul.”

  “Thanks Franklin. I’m calling to find out where you are.”

  “Why would you be needin’ to know that?” Well, that was awful direct for him. He already knew.

  “It just so happens that the Governor has named me to fill grandpa’s seat. Grandpa must have mentioned that he wanted me named to it. I got sworn in last night by a judge and surrounded by a whole bunch of national guardsmen. It was a bit of a thing.”

  There was a long pause. I knew I had to wait for him to respond. I learned that much from my grandfather. This is a game of chicken. He who speaks next loses. I waited. This went on for several seconds. “Mr. representative how may I help you?” Those words were filled with such false obsequiousness that it was apparent this man would backstab me at his earliest convenience.

  “Where are you at?”

  “Jeff City, of course. You should be here too.”

  “The Governor said he wanted me here in the district. He even said the State Senator was also here. I had thought most reps were on legislative break and back in their districts.”

  Franklin laughed, “The governor may not want you here. Later yesterday afternoon most state reps and senators returned to the capital. Those that aren’t here are mostly in downtown St. Louis and Kansas City.”

  “Thanks Brand. I’ll figure this out.” I hung up realizing that I had been had. They made a big show of getting me into office, but they didn’t really want me there. I was an unknown quantity. They didn’t know which way I would vote. Either that, or someone else was making a bigger move. I’m so far removed from the situation that there was absolutely no way I could really know. The Governor went to the trouble of having the Missouri National Guard draft me. If I were placed in the Missouri National Guard, why weren’t other legislators. Why were we not all expected to help defend the state. This brought me back to the feeling that I had been duped.

  After that frustration I decided to check for updates in the news. I turned on the television and tuned in to CNN. Scrolling at the bottom of the screen that yesterday the President had invoked the Insurrection Act. Every governor of each and every state had invoked their unorganized militia. This meant that the President was essentially the commander of every able bodied adult in the country and to disobey any lawful order would be harshly punished. Short of nuclear weapons this is the most extreme way of handling things.

  I shot a text over to Colonel Smoler’s assistant. “The Colonel said that once sworn in, I would need promotion to higher rank. Do you have an update?” I put the phone down as the landline rung. I forgot that grandpa kept an active landline. It was 2008, so little need for a landline.

  I decided to pick up before Billy answered and pissed someone else off. “Hello, this is Neal Cassland.”

  “I’m looking for State Representative Cassland.” The person on the other end sounded feminine and more than a little panicked.

  “That would be me. And you would be?” I was going to keep up the relaxed and self-assured attitude, and hoped they would calm down as well.

  “This is Maggie over at the Fenton Municipal Building. I have a ton of volunteers here. This is the second day in a row. The national guard guy, a colonel, said you were helping to deal with all the volunteers.” As she said that I could hear the rising anxiety.

  “I’ll be right over, I live about 5 to 10 minutes at most away from you. I’ll take care of things once I get there.” I guess I’m headed out way sooner than I thought I would be.