Enter system, p.33
Enter System, page 33
part #1 of Natural Laws Apocalypse Series
“They're all set,” she said.
“Thank you,” Marc said, holding out three copper instead of two. “Here you go. A bonus for a job well done, too.”
Then he turned back to the building pedestal and locked in his choices.
You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.
Resources required:
Wood: 2000/2000
Stone: 2000/2000
Metal: 1150/1150
Fertilizer: 0/5
Designated power source for Safe Zone:
Monster Core – common – poor
This power source will sustain three expansions from base.(2/3)
“Crap, one second,” Marc said.
He trotted over to the store kiosk, bought five units of fertilizer, then dropped them outside through the gym door. When he returned to the building pedestal, he was all set. He made sure the wire-frame outline was where he wanted it, stretching way down the road from where the walls were now, then chose the expand Safe Zone button and mentally clicked it.
The screen flickered for a moment.
Further expansion beyond this size will require additional power sources. Current power source at maximum. Power sources may be examined for compatibility at your build pedestal.
* * *
“Well, that'll be interesting,” Marc said. “I'll need additional power sources to continue expanding, but it mentions compatibility.”
“As in, it needs to be compatible with what we have?” Felicia asked.
Marc nodded.
“It does let me examine items for compatibility though, from what it just said. I wonder how you do that?”
“Well, you're standing at the build pedestal, so maybe experiment?” Rob said.
Marc nodded.
“I'm curious, let me check with a System token first. I have a sneaking suspicion that if you start with one type of power you need to keep providing the same type for expansion.”
Marc dropped into the building screen, noticing that a new check compatibility option was lit up near the bottom of the screen. When he pressed it, the items he had that could provide the Safe Zone with power showed up on a list. He chose a System token first and was unsurprised when the pedestal spat back the result.
Incompatible.
He selected the Lair core next and was surprised to get more than a single word.
Compatible, 50% efficiency. Will provide power for 4 expansions (+1 power slot for quality)
“That's interesting. The System token doesn't work, the Lair Core will provide power for four expansions, plus one extra power slot like the smithy takes,” Marc said. “Let me check the other one.”
He'd shown the Monster Core from the troll to both Rob and Felicia after they'd gotten back to the Safe Zone. Jeff had been trying to convince him to sell it instead, positive that it would be worth a lot of gold. Marc had wanted to hold onto it, knowing he'd need the ability to expand a lot to convert the majority of the town to a Safe Zone.
Now he selected that core from the list.
Compatible, 75% efficiency. Will provide power for 5 expansions (+4 power slots for quality). Bonus: additional area claimed per expansion due to commonality and quality of core.
“Now that's what I'm talking about,” Marc said, bouncing on the front of his feet.
If he'd known how to dance, he would've been doing it. Instead, bouncing on the front of his feet was his version of a victory dance.
“What is?” Rob asked.
“The core from the troll? It's commonality and quality are high enough that the System awards additional area per expansion it's used for. So if I use that one, we can expand faster. Never mind that it can do five expansions and has four extra power slots beyond that.”
“Do we have that many things that need power?” Felicia asked.
Marc shrugged.
“The only one we've built so far is the smithy. I haven't seen others, but I'm betting there's lots of stuff we don't have access to yet. The smithy had an option for burning materials to power it as opposed to using the Safe Zone power slots. I imagine that's why it showed up when I didn't have any extra power slots to run it, but it let me designate power for it in exchange for one expansion slot. I bet once we have additional power slots available, there'll be things that use it showing up in the build options.”
Felicia grinned at him.
“You know what means, right? With that one core, you'll be able to get the Safe Zone expanded into the downtown. Well, if the additional area is anything worthwhile.”
“Whether it is or not, I'll take it. The next normal expansion would get us to the first buildings along the route I planned. I never should've had the recyclers working along the main road at the start, or we would've gotten some on this expansion.”
“Yeah, but isn't that only half value?” Rob asked.
“Sure, but there's no way we're going to get to everything before it falls apart, so it would've probably ended up a net gain. No use crying over spilled milk though. I've got them working off on the side streets now at least, so the next expansion will get us beyond where they stopped and get us additional building materials beyond what we're collecting,” Marc said.
“Great, so when can we expand again?” Rob asked. “I'm kind of catching on here. I hadn't really realized that everything would just decay into dust that we couldn't use for anything at all.”
“Rob, did you put another point in Intelligence?” Felicia asked.
He blushed.
“Yeah, I did. Back when I got level five. I was tired of taking a couple of minutes to catch up on the things you two and Jeff talked about. Sometimes you were on the next topic by the time I caught up on the previous one.”
Marc was curious now.
“So, is it working?” he asked.
Rob nodded.
“I think it is,” he said. “I really do. I know I'm not up at your levels of Intelligence yet, but it's easier to follow along. I'm not sure I'll add more to it though, at least not soon.”
“Great Rob, I'm glad that you're happy with your choice. You can always ask us to spell things out and explain them better though, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, but I don't like interrupting you when you're brainstorming,” Rob said. “It just seems rude to interrupt your flow that way.”
“Well, feel free to do so if you need it to follow along. You provide some of our ideas too, normally things the others of us haven't even considered,” Felicia said.
Rob's face reddened slightly, but he was smiling at the time.
“Well, it's dark out now, so I think I'm going to go to bed,” Marc said. “We can look over the new alterations in the morning when we can actually see them.”
“I told Janey I'd come visit tonight after dinner,” Rob said, “so I'd better go do that now. Don't want to break my word.”
“Escort me back to my apartment?” Felicia asked, smiling at Marc.
“I'd be delighted,” Marc said.
* * *
Come morning Marc remembered that he'd wanted to put his MP3 player down in the gym the night before and had totally spaced it. So to make up for that he figured he'd go put it down there now and leave it there for most of the day.
He purchased a couple more of the locks like he'd used on the help pad and locked his player and external speaker onto the build pedestal, then he turned everything on and set the player to shuffle through every song on it. Turning the volume up to where it could be heard in probably half the gym had it at less than half volume. He estimated that the battery, with its new capacity or reduced demand for electric from everything else in the system, would last for more than a day. Once he had that set up, he left and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.
During breakfast, Marc chatted with the leaders of a couple of the other parties. Ron and Jayden were both planning to take their parties into the town and look for survivors today. There were enough classed people from the newest survivors to form several parties and the planned leaders for those stopped by as well, introducing themselves as Zoey, Mason, and Logan.
Marc was a bit more enthused by the next three people who stopped by. They were more of the most recent survivors, the ones that had held off on combat classing because they wanted the Mage class.
“Alright guys, let me get this set up. I have someone else who wants to learn the spell I'll be teaching you to get you the class, so give me an hour then meet in the auditorium?” Marc said.
He got a bunch of eager nods from that and then got to finish his breakfast in peace. He did manage to catch Ron before he left and ask if he could borrow Reggie for a little bit to teach him a new spell. Ron shrugged.
“Sure, I hate to bring the guy into fights, but his go-to spell is a real killer. I don't think we'll get into anything heavy today and even if we do, we can always retreat back to the Safe Zone and get some help with it, so I think it'll be good.”
“Well, I'll teach him another combat spell. It's damage won't match his Water Jet, but it'll grow over time as he uses it and it costs a lot less mana so he'll be able to get more spells off per fight using it,” Marc said.
“Now that's good,” Ron said. “The poor kid could only use that Water Jet once per fight when we started. Now he's up to like four a fight, but yeah, when we're facing hordes of smaller things it'd probably be handier for him to have a spell that didn't take a quarter of his mana.”
“You going to see him soon or know where he is?”
“He should be here with Ellie shortly. She was talking with that Combat Medic dude we just rescued. She thinks they can probably learn some of each other's skills or spells also since she's got a healing skill as well as her spells.”
“Good, more healing is always a good thing.”
“No need to tell me that,” Ron said.
“Alright then, I'll wait for Reggie. Going to try to get Mage classes for those three who were holding off on classes that we just rescued. I'll teach them the Mana Dart spell and Reggie can learn it at the same time.”
* * *
As Marc taught the four people the Mana Dart spell, he realized who the female in the group was.
Isn't that girl that Jeff was with yesterday? The one he said he'd hooked up with? Marc thought.
He didn't let it distract him, but he did make a plan based on it. He chatted with the different potential Mages and Reggie. When someone was slower to grasp a part, he talked with the others. The first thing he did was set up a time for Reggie to try to teach him the Water Jet spell and promised to give him the Fireball spell at the same time. Reggie was beaming and practically bouncing with excitement after that.
As he chatted with the others, he tried to determine their plans. They all wanted to join an adventuring group, but were uncertain how things were going to get split up. All the leaders from their batch of survivors had groups of six already and even that seemed to be a bit much in some cases. Marc just mentioned that some of the groups, including his own, could probably use another member or two so they could keep that in mind when determining where they'd end up.
That throw-away comment, something he never would've thought of using in the past, sparked a thoughtful look in Ella's eyes. She was the one that had been with Jeff and had gone to his apartment with him the night before, so Marc was hoping that her thought patterns were following the same path as his.
Because maybe if she's in our group with us, Jeff won't be quite as uptight. Plus as a Mage she'll work her way up to a decent DPS, which we need, if she's any good at it.
She certainly didn't seem to have any difficulty in grasping the basics of the spell. She was the second one in the group to get it, a few minutes after Reggie managed. The others, spurred on by a younger boy and a woman learning the spell before they did, both managed to get it down within ten minutes of the first two.
“So, these are the Mages?” Ella asked.
“This isn't all of us,” Marc said.
“And we all aren't just Mages,” Reggie added. “Marc here is an Arcane Bulwark, like a Mage tank, and I'm an Elemental Mage.”
Marc blinked. He'd never even thought to ask Reggie what his class was and had assumed he was just a Mage. He recovered though.
“Plus Doug is out with his group. He's also a Mage.”
“So, what do you think, should I take the plain Mage class the System just offered me?” Ella said.
“Did it offer anything else?” Marc replied.
“Not right now. I had offers for some melee class types before though.”
“Well Doug, at least, wanted the plain Mage class. He figured it would limit the spells he could learn less than any of the variant classes,” Marc said.
“Good point. I'll take it,” she said.
The others had instantly taken the Mage class when it was offered, so she was the last of them to do so.
“I think that's it for now,” Marc said. “I have another spell or two I can probably teach you, but I have other things I need to do today.”
He got a bunch of nods as people stood up to leave. Ella held back though.
“You said that your group needs more people?” she asked.
Marc grinned inwardly.
“Yes, we do. We're shy a straight DPS person. Jeff can do damage per second in bursts, but only from Stealth. I can do it also, but sometimes we need a second person on the front line and we'd rather not put our Healer there. So someone who is only dedicated to DPS would be optimal.”
“Like a Mage?”
“Or an Archer type, but yeah, Mages tend to do good DPS.”
“Hmm, any potential recruits for that position?” she asked.
Marc shook his head.
“I'm gonna talk to Jeff. Maybe I could take that slot? But I want to ask him about it first.”
If she can deal with him on a regular basis then I don't think he'll be able to drive her off if she wants something, Marc thought.
“Well, we'd be glad to have you if that's how things work out,” Marc said. “I have to go now though. We expanded the Safe Zone last night and I still haven't looked at the additions.”
* * *
Marc went searching and finally found the rest of his group already outside, looking around the new area that had been added. He hadn't been able to put all of the added area in front of the previous Safe Zone and leading towards the town, the build program had forced him to add some to the sides and rear as well, but the Safe Zone was now decidedly rectangular, one of the narrow ends of the rectangle getting close to the more heavily built-up areas of the town. The areas to the side and the rear were pretty much open except for the smithy and greenhouses he'd put there earlier on.
Down towards the new location for the front gates were the apartment building, the new field, and the pond. The new field almost abutted one of the existing ones. The apartment building and pond were across the street from it, the pond between the new lodging and the preexisting field on that side. Marc stifled a chuckle when he realized there was already someone fishing in the pond. One of the older men who'd come in with Ron's people was sitting on a rock at the edge of the pond, a makeshift fishing rod in hand.
Marc walked up to him.
“I don't know that you're going to catch anything in there yet,” he said.
The man turned to him, grinning.
“Not to worry. I saw the water stirring where the fish were eating the bugs. They're in here, see?”
He pulled up a length of cord that he'd turned into a makeshift stringer to hold the fish. On it were three fish, varying in size. Marc would guess that they ranged from one pound to three and couldn't identify the types to save his life. Fishing had never been his thing.
“I stand corrected. I thought with it just going in today it would take a while for there to be fish.”
“Well, there'll be a lot more in a while. I've been releasing all the smaller ones I catch so they can keep breeding, but there are a few of these bigger guys in here already. Besides, I got an even luckier catch this morning. After I released a few of the smaller guys I got offered a class. The Game Warden class. Since I do fishing and hunting both and know which prey to take and which not, I guess it makes sense. It's almost like this System thing knows me.”
“You did, did you? Do you happen to know what your class does?”
“Yeah, we manage wildlife to make sure they aren't run extinct. It says a Safe Zone can, at a reduced cost, set aside an area for native fish and game. If you do that, then I'll be able to make sure we can always harvest some game out of there.”
The System sounds like it got a little pushy here. Although if I can find the appropriate area in the build pedestal, I'll at least check the cost. Ongoing supplies of food and materials would probably be a good thing, Marc thought. First, I want to see the rest of the area I just expanded into.
As Marc walked down towards the gates he realized that there had been more than one reason it was a good idea to get the recyclers moving off the main road. There were several patches with deep holes where they'd removed houses that would've been in the current Safe Zone. He assumed said holes wouldn't appear if the materials were Harvested by a Safe Zone expansion. Even if they only gave half the amount of materials that way, it might be worth it just to avoid the massive holes.
Finally he found the rest of his group down near the gate.
“Marc, we were just talking about you,” Jeff said.
“That's okay, Ella and I were just talking about you, too,” Marc said, raising his eyebrows up and down a couple of times.
Jeff looked at him suspiciously, but Marc turned to Felicia.
“Were you, really?” he asked.
“Yes, we were. We were saying that we're going to need to have more than one gate into the Safe Zone, especially if we keep expanding quickly,” she said. “You're the one who could do that, so we were talking about you, but you were talking with Ella?”
“Yeah, she's one of the people I just helped get the Mage class. I remembered that we were looking for a DPS and if we can get her some levels then a Mage class could be a decent one,” he said softly.
