Book 2 - Chapter 13: Zone Shift

When Sean reached the final boxer, it had almost caught up to the squid. That said, it was only the cephalopod’s excessive slowness that made this possible. Its psycho-kinetic strikes had absolutely shredded the boxer’s thighs and calves, restricting it to a snail’s pace relative to Sean’s stat enhanced running.

Even with various ribs still in the process of snapping back into place, he made it to the threat several strides before it caught up to the squid. Jumping the last several feet, he brought both the Spectral Sticker and the Mystereamer hard through its neck, then pulled them out and pummeled the monster in the back.

With injuries on its legs that ensured the boxer couldn’t turn around fast enough to do much about Sean’s attacks and the squid still blasting its chest and legs with invisibly-sourced lacerations, it fell quickly. After it dropped to the ground, the squid immediately sat down, looking fatigued if Sean’s guess about its body language was right. Apparently, enough rapid fire attacks wore it down pretty fast.

“Are you all right?” Sean asked. “Did it injure you?”

Negative Response. You reached him on time.

Request. Please stay nearby until this entity regains the ability to fight.

“No problem. I am going to check for loot, though.”

Confirmation. Gather your items.

Request. Do not stray far.

“Yup, no problem. I’m just checking the two boxers for now.”

The boxers Sean had killed so far hadn’t dropped anything useful, mostly coming equipped with mundane gloves that took up too much room in his pack and trunks he had no desire to strip. But one of the two they had killed in this fight broke that pattern.

Recovery Beverage

This yellow-green drink goes by many names, none of which the Apocalypse System feels like getting litigated for. This flat lemon soda is packed with electrolytes, sugar, and other stuff that makes you recover slightly faster. Provided you have something to recover from, that is. You’ve probably drunk more of this stuff to get over hangovers than you have jogging sessions, frankly.

Recovery Beverage aids with recovery, both by allowing you to recover depletable combat resources faster and by enhancing the benefits you get from all kinds of rest. And we mean all kinds. Drinking a bottle of this just before or just after sleeping reduces the amount of rest you need to function by half.

It also tastes… citrus-y, sort of? It has heard of citrus, and it’s doing its best impression. You get used to it.

Effects: Halves cooldown rates of various skills for five minutes and potentially enhances the effects of sleep.

Only one of the boxers had dropped a bottle of the drink, which Sean took to mean the drink probably had something like a 50% or 33% drop rate, pending more data. Since all the Tells dropped apples, that was a significantly lower rate than Sean was used to. But even without alchemy, the drink did a whole lot more.

“Hey, buddy? How do you want to split drinks like this?” Sean asked after explaining what they did.

Concession. The entity Sean Lawrence may retain the drinks, pending specific need. This entity’s species does not sleep in order to rest.

And that was that. Without a willingness to give more details about himself, Sean couldn’t very well ask the guy to expound on the many quirks that comprised his offworlder biology.

—

Hunting went well. When they found isolated enemies, they ganged up on the monsters and took them down easily. There were multiple groups of two and three throughout the day as well, but none with more melee enemies than ranged, which made taking them down a great deal easier.

By the end of the day, the counters for the various enemy kills were twenty-five archers and twenty of the boxers.

“Does this look like a good place to camp to you?” Sean and the squid were standing in a small clearing between several close-growing trees, in an area of the forest with such thick undergrowth that it had taken them a while to maneuver through without getting scratched up by whatever random poison the plants were loaded with. “I’m okay with stopping here if you are.”

Confirmation. Whether there is a better place or not, I will reach dormancy once the light fails.

“Dormancy? Like sleep? I thought you said you didn’t do that.”

Negative. I said this entity’s species does not sleep for rest. We cannot function without light except for short periods in great danger.

Frustration. This entity’s species is more vulnerable during dormancy than your sleep.

“Ah. Got it. Well, you should be a little safer tonight. I can’t watch you the whole time, but the sports drink should let me guard you for all but a few hours.”

Gratitude. Your guardianship will be beneficial.

Sean worked on setting up his camp as the tentacle monster awkwardly climbed to the relative safety of a low branch. Munching on one of the Tell’s nutrition apples, Sean worked on stretching a camoflague patterned canvas across a few large branches as well as he could to make sure he wouldn’t fall through. He didn’t need it to stay warm, but it should at least mitigate the worst of whatever fucked up stuff the Apocalypse system had done to the tree.

After setting up his hammock, Sean looked through his haul. He had two plastic trash bags packed with the day’s haul of apples, both sticky and conventional, and four of the stamina drinks. Along the way, he had begun to worry about having enough space in his pack for the long haul, and broke the arrowheads off the arrows rather than carry the whole thing, hoping the most valuable bit of the item would go further when the time came to convert them to cold, hard garbage.

Overall, it was a good day. But that did little to help him with his worries. They had dozens and dozens of enemies of each type to kill still, and he was traveling with someone he hardly knew and understood even less. He liked to be optimistic about people, but a day’s worth of cooperation was far from enough to make him feel safe. Especially when this was coming just a few days after the only other offworlders he knew had tried to gut him for next to no reason.

“Hey, squid? Can I ask you a question?”

Affirmative. While there is light, this entity will converse.

“I was just wondering how you found yourself here. Why you found yourself here.”

Power. This entity wishes to gain power. There was an opportunity to come here due to a coincidence. This entity took advantage of that.

The bluntness of the reply shocked Sean. Aliens being what they were, he didn’t expect it to answer in a way he’d immediately understand. But he doubted a human would admit to that motivation as easily, or with as little embellishment around it.

“And that’s all?”

Confusion. Does the entity Sean Lawrence not consider it to be enough?

“I mean, I do. But it’s not just for power, you know? I have something I want to do with that power. Something, I think, is worthwhile.”

Understanding. In this entity’s home, power is held by few tentacles. Those tentacles make living more difficult for those without power. If this entity gains power, it can effect change.

“Ah, I see. Yeah, I can get that.” Whether the story was true or not, it was still comforting to Sean. If it was true, the squid had at least some semblance of a good reason to be there. If it was a lie, at least it knew enough to lie about its true motivations. That was much better than a mind that couldn’t comprehend the bare pursuit of power as something that might make someone else apprehensive.

Query. Does Sean Lawrence have a reason to be here, outside of power?

“Oh, well, yeah.” Sean realized he had made a mistake. He couldn’t exactly say it was to make sure that no offworlder won the competition. He had no intention of killing outsiders wholesale, but the squid could make his own potential interpretation from Sean’s goal. “I guess it’s just to try to win for Earth, or at least to do well. To make sure we get something out of the end of this planet, or to stop it, if there’s any way to do that.”

Negative Response. There is not. Every Apocalypse is inevitable. Your planet is doomed.

Sean nodded, sadly. It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to try, but everything confirmed that his quest was unlikely to succeed. Beating the field to win the competition was already unlikely. Somehow preventing a doomsday that even the near-omnipotent system said it couldn’t was several steps less likely, and probably out-and-out impossible.

“Yeah, I get that,” Sean said. “I just feel like I have to try, you know? I have this chance that not many people from my planet seem to have earned, and… yeah. I just feel like I owe it to everyone I knew, out there.”

The squid appeared to consider this for a moment. Then another. And another. It was only after several seconds that Sean realized an answer wasn’t coming. It had been dark in the forest for a bit now, and the squid had finally run out of photosynthesized power. Up on his branch, he sat as still as a statue. If he hadn’t warned Sean that he would go dormant in this way, Sean would have assumed his companion had died up there.

Sean stayed up. It didn’t appear that the squid would be much good as a watchman, at least as far as keeping Sean safe went. In the dark, he spent some time processing apples in the same way that had produced apple drink before, then mixing them with an entire sports drink in one of the bottles he had brought.

As far as experiments he could do without a fire or the squid noticing went, that was about as much as he could do. Sean figured that six hours was about as little as he could sleep without losing a step the next day, and stayed up as long as he could. When enough time had passed without attack that he was going to fall asleep one way or another anyway, he downed a sports drink, climbed into his tent, and passed out.

—

Sean woke up alive, which was always a good start. Having no top to his hammock, the forest’s artificial dawn had been enough to shock him out of sleep. He poked his head out into the open air and took a look around, seeing no boxers or archers to worry about at that moment.

Now that he and the squid had worked together a bit, he suspected that today was going to end up being a big hunting day. Given what the system was telling him that fact via notification as he woke, it would be a problem if the day didn’t involve hunting.

Zone Shift!

Your zone has once again shrunk, this time to half its previous size. No new additions to the zone’s population have been made, though. This one is just about difficulty.

For exceptionally slow adventurers who haven’t caught the implications yet, this is going to keep happening. Better get to work if you want to stay on the right side of the numbers game, friends.

“Squid, you seeing this notification?”

Confirmation. We must hunt.

“Yup. Looks like we must.”