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

if you have to,” Jeb said  with a placating tone. “That wand only shoots eighty feet away at the closest. There might come a time when you’re the only one around to protect little Casey. Do you want to be able to protect your daughter?”

She glanced at the wriggling infant with Amanda’s hands acting as ear-protection, then back to Jeb. Her eyes gained a certain amount of steel above and beyond teen angst.

“I do.”

Single moms grow up fast.

“Good. That’s what this is for. On to the next one.” Jeb snagged another flier out of the air.

They kept at it until Casey got to level ten.

The girl dropped seven points into Body and three into Myst, weathering the cramps and headache.

Casey Thompson

Unclassed, Level 10

Body 20

Myst 7

Nerve 8

Once that was done, they strapped the young mother into some medium armor and gave her a spear and shield.

Under Amanda’s watchful gaze, they power-leveled the teen girl, with Jeb tossing monsters onto the side of the mountain in front of her hard enough to stun them, but not do too much damage.

Casey’s first monster, she hesitated, almost losing a limb to the creature’s maw before Jeb was able to pry it off her. After Amanda reattached the arm, an understandable amount of stress crying, and a visit to cuddle baby Casey, she went back to work.

When the dark-haired teen met her second monster, she didn’t hesitate, driving a spike through its eye.

Jeb stood there and watched the teen grow in real-time, from a frightened girl into a killer of monsters.

Still a brat, though.

It was times like this he marveled at the flexibility of the human brain.

He traced his thumb across the scar on his palm.

I. am. alive.

“I got it,” Casey panted, leaning on her spear. “I got level god-damned twenty.”

Mike covered his mouth with an alarmed expression.

“How many classes did you get?” Jeb asked.

“Three.”

Probably because the variety of her encounters was low. It was interesting to note Amanda had the most variety out of all of them, but not unexpected.

“Whatcha got?” Jeb asked.

The girl silently reviewed her classes for a moment before something made her scowl.

Giver of life (S)

You gave birth in the impossible tutorial and kept the child alive. You’re either really lucky, or really tough. Maybe both.

+15 Body

+10 Myst

+10 Nerve

Ability: Mommy’s little helpers

Imbue objects with artificial sapient life. Objects are unerringly loyal to their creator.

 

Mystic Artillerist (B)

Used Myst-powered weapons to deliver long range, high impact devastation.

+10 Myst

+5 Nerve

Passive bonus to operating and maintaining Myst-based weaponry.

Ability: Phantom shot

With an effort of will, you can cause ranged attacks, wands or Myst Artillery to ignore non-magical, non-living obstacles. This includes armor and fortifications.

 

Damsel (A)

Somehow you kept getting rescued at the exact right time. Why not make a class of it?

+10 Nerve

+10 Myst

Passive boost to being rescued.

Ability: Favor

The User may Imbue one (1) object with their Favor. If the user personally gives this token to someone of their own free will, the token raises their Stats by 25%. Otherwise the token increases its bearer’s stats by 15%. This effect does not work on the damsel themselves, and it expires upon the damsel’s death.

 

“…which one should I pick?”

“Obviously not the damsel one,” Jess said, arms crossed and scowling.

Jeb cycled through the options in his head.

They were all good in their own way.

The greedy bastard in him kind of wanted her to pick Damsel so Jeb could get his Myst into the eighties in one fell swoop. Damsels must be traded like a potent currency.

On the other hand, the Myst artillerist looked real good at murdering people. Put a wand in her hand and she’d be able to fuck some shit up.

“…They’re all good,” Jeb finally said with a shrug. “I don’t think you should feel too bad about picking any of them.”

“I pick Giver of Life.” Casey’s eyes went wide, then she keeled over onto the ground, groaning in pain as the headache/cramps/overstimulus blind-sided her.

Sensible choice.

“The mommy class?” Ron asked incredulously.

“Well from the sound of it, she can make the baby’s diapers come to life and clean themselves. Do you want to change the baby’s diapers?” Amanda said.

“That is something I hadn’t considered.” Ron said.

“Plus the ridiculous stat boosts,” Jess said, nodding.

“Plus those,” Jeb said.

Off in the distance, Brett was meditating, trying to build his own Myst Core. It wasn’t coming along very fast, but the Soldier was driven. Being woefully behind everyone else was its own special motivation.

Casey Thompson

Giver of Life, Level 20

Body 35

Myst 25

Nerve 20

***

Jeb was sitting on the rock, all his various magical sundries laid out in front of him as he pondered what to make next.

I’ve still got a huge amount of Worm lens and Scarab Lens. And flames lenses.

Fiery scarab worm? Jeb thought. If it was possible to make flaming flies, it should be possible to make flaming worm-scarabs.

I need to figure out how these created monsters interact with the System. Do they have Stats? If so, how does one affect them? The only thing I can think of is increasing the thickness of the lens, or adding multiple layers. We’ll have to test it.

He was sitting there, pondering his options, when Smartass flitted up and landed on his shoulder.

“What’cha thinkin’ about?” Smartass asked.

“Trying to figure out this Myst stuff.” Jeb said. “We need every edge we can get.”

“You’ve got this grumpy look on your face,” Smartass said, making angry eyebrows with his fingers. “You weren’t all serious when we first met. Where’s the guy who scammed an entire clan of faeries?”

“He’s gotta be the adult now,” Jeb said, glancing up.