Apocalypse: Generic System Macronomicon (miss read books TXT) 📖

nose makes your eyes water whether you’re tough or not. Ask a boxer.

“Don’t do that again.” Jeb said, wiping the blood off of his nose and re-upping the ‘armor’ trigger on his head. If he didn’t have it, Eddie would have punched him into death or unconsciousness, and won the argument by lack of opposition.

I can see why Ron didn’t want to stick around for the politics.

“Here,” Amanda said, jostling her way through the crowd and touching the bridge of his nose.

It felt icy cold for an instant, like he’d snorted a crushed up altoid, then it faded, along with the pain.

“That was pretty fucking cool.” Brett said, “Eddie likes to play king of the castle whenever Freeman isn’t watching, and he tries his damndest to make life miserable for anyone who stands up to him. A few have disappeared, and we don’t know if they just left, or…” The Soldier shrugged. “Most people are too afraid to do anything.”

“Everyone saw him going through your stuff, but he said you died and nobody was brave enough to argue…Sorry.” The healer said, her eyes down.

“Died!? I was gone for an hour.” Jeb rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Jeb caught some six or seven guys giving him the stink eye as they sauntered away.

“Those Eddie’s constituents?”

“Yeah, they’re the ‘might makes right’ mentality fuckwads that crawl out of the goddamn woodwork whenever something terrible happens.” Brett said, shaking his head.

“And the only way to prove them wrong is by being stronger than them.” Jeb said with a sigh.

“Yeah, it’s a real fuckin’ catch-twenty-two.”

“You’re not really a Beggar, are you?” came a voice from Jeb’s left. David was approaching, hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

“Apologies, but the first people I met tried to rob me. Didn’t know if you meant to do the same.”

“No harm no foul,” David said, holding up a placating hand.

“As for my class…Telekinetic Combatant. I can move shit with my mind.” Jeb felt a little guilty for lying to the same guy twice, but he wanted to keep his cards close to the vest. If people knew he could design traps, they would figure out a way to circumvent them.

Besides, no one would be able to tell the difference between the two on casual examination. Not without bringing in another Telekinetic Combatant to compare with.

“Yeah, I saw that.” David said, shaking his head. “I guess I should’ve assumed anyone who was still alive was dangerous.”

“Probably a good call.”

“Hey, we’re putting some of the tastier monsters over a spit at our fireplace, we’d love to have you over,” David said, thumbing over his shoulder where his fifteen men and women were carving off hunks of meat and getting them ready to grill. “Your friend, ah, Jessica is welcome too, of course.”

“Gimme a minute to sort my stuff out and I’ll be right there.” Jeb said with a nod.

“Cool,” David patted him on the shoulder and left.

“What’s David’s group like?”

“They’re more moderate, and that appeals to more people, but their individual levels lag behind Eddie’s group. They’re only able to keep from getting absorbed because they have more numbers.” Amanda said.

“What about you two?” Jeb asked. “Which group do you put yourself in?”

“Independent contractors,” Bret said, crossing his arms. “Eddies goon’s tried to extort Amanda for sex, so she broke the guy’s arm.”

Jeb’s eyebrows rose.

“I’ve drank stat potions equivalent to someone who’s cleared sixteen areas.” The healer said with a shrug. “I don’t even have a class yet, but these boys know to think twice before they try anything.”

16x3 = 48 Stat points. Even split up and assigned randomly, that put her lowest stat likely in the twenties.

Jeb knew exactly how she’d gotten that many potions, but he couldn’t fault them for it: it was a damn good survival strategy.

Also, the information that she was a Myst user and her ability to heal wasn’t class-related was good to know.

“Damn,” Jeb said, shaking his head. “Well, if you two find yourselves looking for a group to join, I could use a hand.”

“No offence, but you just got here.” Amanda said apologetically.

That makes sense.

“None taken,” Jeb said. “Just wanted to put that out there.”

“Politics aside, hopefully by tomorrow this whole tutorial business will be behind us.” Brett said.

“Are you both taking part in the raid tomorrow?” Jeb asked.

The two of them nodded. “Almost everyone is.”

“Almost?”

“Casey is pregnant,” Amanda said, pointing to a woman with short black hair sitting by the fire with a bulging belly. “She says she chose the impossible difficulty tossing in her sleep, but who knows,” She shrugged.

Jeb could make out a faint scar on the young woman’s wrist.

Assisted suicide, perhaps? Some people might not have the guts to kill themselves outright, but enough to choose a course of action that would lead to their death. Jeb was familiar with self-destructive behavior.

“Anyone else?”

“A few. Mostly people with injuries I can’t heal.” Amanda looked at his foot apologetically. “I can’t grow back limbs.”

“Yet.” Jeb said. “You’ve only been able to use Myst for what, a week? And you don’t even have a class yet. I would not be surprised if you find a way to do just that.”

Amanda seemed to brighten a bit at that.

I gotta hold on to this person, Jeb thought to himself. Aside from the immediate benefit of having a healer, it would be nice to hold out hope for his foot.

Jeb said farewell to the two of them and headed for the fire where David’s group was, meeting many of the same people he’d seen standing behind the Quickblade the first time, rubbing elbows and chatting them up about their survival strategies, how they came to be here and so on.

He glanced up and spotted Eddie giving him a