Event Horizon 2: A LitRPG Apocalypse, page 21
“Good. Remember to scan the area up ahead. The Phenomenon will likely be lurking nearby. If you can spot them before they see you, we may be able to skirt around them without the need for a direct confrontation.”
Gerald did as he ordered, squinting and holding a hand over his eyes to cut through the glare. So far he hadn’t come across any Phenomenon and he was beginning to make faster progress, arriving at what looked like the entrance to the ruined building.
He looked down at an oddly shaped jacket a few paces ahead of him and his attention was caught by something glinting in the sunlight. As Gerald drew closer, he puzzled over the object, wondering whether someone had discarded a jacket in their haste to escape the falling building.
His curiosity turned to dread as he bent down and examined the jacket. It hadn’t been discarded as he suspected but was still clinging to the guard he had seen standing by the doorway as he’d entered the evac shelter. The man’s badge reflected the sunlight, sending spears of light through the dust haze.
“Keep moving, Gerald,” Nyco said.
Gerald stood staring at the partially covered body, realizing in that moment that he didn’t know exactly which of the guards this actually was. There had been four of them, hadn’t there? Or was it five?
One of them had given him the nod when he’d entered the building. An older African American man with a salt and pepper beard and a bald head. The man had kind eyes, Gerald remembered.
“You cannot tarry, Gerald. You need to keep moving.”
He shook his head, reaching out to touch the jacket, spotting the dark blood stain that marred its lower right portion. His fingers hovered.
Kind eyes. A sense of confidence that everything was going to be alright.
“GERALD!”
He blinked, backing away from the dead guard and coming back to himself.
“Sorry, I just… I…”
“Press it down deep, Gerald. Store these memories and use them to prompt action, but do not let them tie you down. The enemy is all around and your only hope of survival is to move!”
He nodded, stepping out into the street and forcing himself not to look back at the ruined building, not to think of how many people lay dead within.
Gerald started walking. He angled towards his apartment even though it was clear across town, not knowing where else to head. Nyco continued to offer words of advice as he moved through the streets, his voice acting as a guide rope that Gerald could latch onto as he stumbled onward.
“Wait,” Nyco said as Gerald reached an intersection with several abandoned cars scattered about. “Hide yourself behind that vehicle!”
Gerald squatted down, hiding his bulk by the side of a white van whose windows had all been shattered. He inched forward, peeking around the front of the van and spotting a dark figure moving towards him from the opposite side of the street.
His breath caught in his throat at sight of the monstrous creature, its tar-covered body pushing past a crushed car as it looked left and right.
“Steady yourself,” Nyco continued. “Provided you do not move suddenly or make any noise, it should pass by without attacking.”
“Doesn’t it have some kind of infrared scanning technology or something?” Gerald asked, leaning on Hollywood logic as he stared wide-eyed at the alien monster.
“This area has recently been the scene of a great battle. I sense evidence of dead Phenomenon in addition to the bodies of many of your fellow humans. Such an environment is typically flooded with a variety of complex scents and signals. A low-level Drone like this won’t be able to differentiate between the background noise and your own scent, provided you do not actively make yourself a target.”
Gerald stayed right where he was, dozens of questions filling his mind as he watched the Phenomenon move past and make its way towards the ruined evac shelter. He waited until the monster was a good hundred or so feet behind him before turning back and scanning the street up ahead.
“Good. Patience is the key. Bide your time and wait for the right moment to strike. If you can learn to do that, then your efforts will be rewarded. Now, continue.”
Gerald stood up into a half crouch and moved out from behind the van, heading towards his apartment with a mixture of speed and patience as Nyco continued to instruct him. Now and then various skill notifications appeared, advising Gerald of various improvements to his abilities.
Sneak +4
Dodge +2
Pain Tolerance +3
Distraction +3
Discretion +1
Gerald spotted three more Phenomenon Drones as he moved through the streets. On each occasion he was able to move past the monsters undetected or hide and wait them out.
After an hour of careful travel, the frequency of Drone appearances decreased considerably, and he was able to move a little faster. Still moving cautiously but at something close to a fast walk, he approached his apartment and scanned the area to either side to make sure that he wouldn’t be ambushed.
“Shit,” he gasped as he fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door.
Lungs burning and hands shaking, he dove into his apartment, slamming the door behind him. It wasn’t until that moment that Gerald realized that his muscles were on fire. All that crouching and skulking around was murder on the legs, especially for someone of his size.
As he leaned with his back against the door, he realized that his jaw was also aching and he had a thudding headache.
“Well, that went far better than it could have, given what I’ve seen of your existing skills,” Nyco said drily. “It may have been a cursory glance through your memories, but it was nonetheless quite illuminating.”
“What the fuck,” Gerald gasped again, sliding down his door until he sat on the floor. He ran a hand through his dirty, messy hair, wincing as he felt some kind of injury there.
“You are correct,” Nyco said, still sounding far more put together than Gerald thought anyone should for having nearly died multiple times in the last… however long. “Now is an appropriate time to ‘freak out.’ However, you should endeavor to keep it brief. We must plan and gather supplies in case we have to make rapid exit. The Phenomenon are steadily taking over this city. If they continue to grow in numbers, moving undetected through this region will become increasingly difficult.”
Gerald threw his hands up, wincing at the soreness in his muscles. “What the fuck, dude! You can’t just tell someone to have a short freak out session! And are you insane? I’m not going back out there!”
“You may have no choice,” Nyco said. “I do not know if your people will be able to hold a line against the Phenomenon, no matter how disorganized the godforsaken demons are. And if they cannot, then we will have to run or we will certainly die.”
“Sheesh, that’s not what I need to hear right now,” Gerald said, dropping his head into his hands. “I never thought I’d be running for my life in the middle of a warzone.”
Nyco’s voice was grim as he said, “Welcome to a world filled with Phenomenon.”
CHAPTER 29
GERALD
Several days later, and somehow the military had held a line in Fort Collins against the Phenomenon. Well, “held” being a generous term for how they had kept losing ground.
Gerald had spent the time eating through the last of his food supplies, healing from his wounds, and learning all that he could about Nyco and their bond. He had also raided several neighboring apartments for more supplies and practice more stealthy movement under Nyco’s direction.
“The Phenomenon are disorganized, leaderless,” Nyco said. “Once they have established a firm foothold, they will tear through your people’s defenses. And once they do, if we are still here, we will surely die. I could have escaped if I still had my own body, but with your lack of skill and inability to gain stat points quickly, there is no way that we will be able to sneak through an outright warzone. Besides, we still must find Ohsheit.”
Gerald nodded. Over the past few days, Nyco had introduced him to the system, stat points, what the Moon Shroud class did, as well as any other relevant information.
He’d been giddy with excitement when he’d looked at all his stat points. Less giddy when Nyco had told him how abysmal the numbers were and that he was starting out at the lowest level, but still giddy. Living out a video game? At least if he had to be stuck in an apocalypse, he had something cool to go with it.
He looked at the numbers now, still excited for the whole bonded with an alien thing. He wished it hadn’t taken an alien invasion to get it, but hey, life didn’t always give you what you wanted.
Generalist Initiate Level
Strength: 6
Dexterity: 5
Constitution: 5
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 4
Charisma: 7
Skills:
Discretion: 8
Distraction 7
Dodge 8
Improvised Weapon 4
Pain Tolerance 11
Sneak 21
He still needed to choose a class, but he figured he’d do that as soon as Nyco had a plan. He wanted to have the best chance of surviving the next few days until they had some backup in the form of Ohsheit and Herman. Choosing his class wisely would help with that.
“Quit admiring your paltry stats and focus,” Nyco said.
Gerald shook his head. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
“That we need a real plan for finding Ohsheit,” Nyco replied. “Your expectation that your cell phone and wifi would come back online have not proven correct.”
Gerald nodded, amused at the way Nyco seemed to test the words out.
“I figured at least something would be working, but fair point.”
“This means that we cannot expect regular communications to be back online any time soon,” Nyco said.
“Yeah, I get that. As for contacting Ohsheit and Herman.” He shrugged. “I have a strong suspicion of where they are. But Herman’s uncle’s place is a fair distance from here. And that’s when weather and traffic and all are good.”
Nyco grunted. “Right. And you wouldn’t last even twenty minutes out there except that you have me to help you.”
“Not gonna deny that, dude,” Gerald said brightly. “I know my strengths. Fighting crazy genocidal aliens isn’t one.”
Nyco grunted again. “You’re perhaps not as stupid as your memories make you seem.”
Grinning, Gerald said, “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me yet, my little green friend.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve warranted me saying to you,” Nyco said. “And I am not green. Even if I had a body.”
“Sorry. Was that racist? Or…species-ist? I dunno,” Gerald said, tilting his head. “Probably super not PC considering not all aliens are from Mars and most of them probably aren’t green or little.”
“I have bonded with a blathering idiot,” Nyco muttered.
“Harsh,” Gerald said. “Though you wouldn’t be the first one to think I’m a blathering idiot.” He smiled sunnily. “My mom called it charm, but I guess she’s biased.”
“You and Ohsheit will get along so well. It’s almost enough to make me not want to find him.”
“Well, that’s fine and all, but I’d still like to find him,” Gerald said. “Mostly because Herman’s with him and he probably thinks I’m dead. Since the evac shelter collapsed and all.”
He frowned. He hoped Herman wasn’t too down about his supposed death. Though he would admit, it was nice to think about people missing him if he died. It really was too bad he couldn’t get any kind of cell reception. A simple call or email would be enough to figure out how to rendezvous with them for him to at least tell Herman he was alive.
Nyco sniffed disdainfully. “And as skilled as I am, I do not fancy our chances of survival if we were to venture out very long on our own. A couple hours of driving is equivalent to multiple days of walking. You do not have the skill to survive that long in the wild, even if we didn’t have to fight Phenomenon on the way. Which, now that I am thinking about it, how do you not have a better set of knives? You are woefully lacking in your self-defense department.”
Gerald shrugged. “Dunno, dude. The city’s pretty safe, especially for a big guy like me. And it’s not like us Americans ever really have had to worry about invasions before.”
Sighing heavily, Nyco said, “Your prosperity is likely to be your own downfall.” He paused, his silence heavy. Gerald got the impression that if Nyco had a body, he’d be blinking with some realization.
“Gerald,” Nyco said slowly, “your communication devices may not work, primitive and limited as they are, but my species’ abilities far surpass the limitations set on your communication network.”
Gerald sat staring at the wall, trying to parse through that. “First, dude, rude to throw shade on our communication network. We literally thought we were alone in the universe just a few days ago. We were not set up to endure an alien invasion. And second of all, I don’t feel so bad now about being species-ist, listening to you talk.”
He gasped, eyes widening with another realization. “Are you affecting my personality now? I never thought I’d be racist against aliens. But then you bonded with me and non-PC shit’s coming out of my mouth!”
“I hope you aren’t representative of your species,” Nyco said. “Because you are truly an idiot. Weren’t you just saying your people had thought yourselves alone in the expanses of space until a few days ago? Why would you have ever thought about whether you’d be racist toward aliens?”
“Because we have all sorts of stories about aliens that bring up things like that, duh,” Gerald said. “And wow, I hope Ohsheit’s nicer than you, because you’re a real dickbag.”
“I provide blunt reality checks, nothing more,” Nyco said.
“If you call your assholery ‘blunt reality checks’ so you can sleep at night, I suppose that’s your choice, dude. But I really doubt you were attracting any lady aliens with an attitude like that though.”
“Imari found it refreshing,” Nyco muttered.
“Imari?” Gerald said. “She one of your lady friends?”
“She was someone who was as disillusioned and bitter toward the world as I am,” Nyco replied.
Gerald wondered if therapy was a thing where Nyco was from, because that was one loaded comment. But he didn’t get a chance to ask about it before Nyco was talking again. “Now, back to the real topic at hand. Is there a place where your people broadcast things? Some central location where messages get delivered?”
Rubbing his head, Gerald said, “Well, yeah. We have all sorts of things like that. We have cell phone towers, but most of those are going to be out where we’d have to fight a bunch of Phenomenon. Then there are all kinds of things like radio stations, TV stations, and—” He grinned. “Oh, the best. Movie theaters. It’s one place all about broadcasting, all about being one of the happiest places on Earth. Where people go when they just want to get away from things.”
“Movie… thee-tur,” Nyco said, trying out the words. “Radio station, TV station… none of these mean anything to me.”
“Fair enough,” Gerald said, leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head. “Care to clue me into what you’re thinking?”
“Which of those places is most defensible?” Nyco asked.
“Well, are you asking from a security standpoint like you want to keep just one bad guy out, or from a mob standpoint and you don’t want to get overrun?”
“Considering we are fighting hordes of Phenomenon, which one do you think?” Nyco said drily.
“Fair enough,” Gerald said with a nod. He went silent.
“Well?” Nyco prompted.
“No clue,” Gerald replied, shrugging. “I have absolutely no training in combat whatsoever. However, in my extensive video gaming and D&D experience, I would say that the radio and TV stations are better since they will have lots of small rooms, lots of halls, several stories. They’ll be easier to funnel enemies through. A movie theater will also have those, but it’s whole structure is about having large rooms for a lot of people to be able to watch a film. Not so great for controlling large groups.”
“Deplorable,” Nyco said. “A tactical nightmare.”
“The theater? Yeah, that’s what I—”
“No, the stations,” Nyco said, absolute disgust dripping from his voice. “We are functionally a team of one individual who has limited physical and mental abilities, and one individual with excellent mental abilities who has lost access to any of his physical advantages. Unless you think you can clear an entire radio station of Phenomenon before we begin, I do not believe that is in our interest.”
“I… don’t see the problem,” Gerald said, ignoring the jab at his capability. If he ever had a mundane superpower, it was ignoring what other people thought about him. “We’d still have to clear the theater too. And what exactly are we beginning?”
“Of course,” Nyco said. “But when the person engaging in combat is unskilled, it is best to have as much room as possible to maneuver. Because something will go wrong, and you will mess it up, and space is the one thing in a fight that can be turned into time—you get space between you and your enemy and that means you have more time to react, more time to plan. And time is the one thing in a fight that matters more than anything else. As for what we are beginning,” his voice turned haughty, “we will be using one of my Moon Shroud abilities.”
“Huh.” Gerald thought it over a moment. “Huh,” he said again. “Fine. I guess I can agree with that. Won’t there be more monsters though? I guess it won’t matter so much if we use some of your class abilities. That Moon Shroud stuff is sick!”
“There will not necessarily be more monsters,” Nyco said. “And while many people did mistake my normal skin color and tone as sickly, I do not see why you would have decided now was an appropriate time to make that observation. I assure you, I am in perfect health.”
