Murderous Savages. Chapter Two. The better part of valor.

It had taken Steven fourteen hours to get to his uncle's cabin.  Under normal circumstances, it should have taken four, five at the most, but he wasn't the only one who had decided that Atlanta wasn't going to be safe.

He'd been grateful for his father's advice: "Always keep your tank topped off," he'd told Steven when he handed him the keys to the beat-up old truck they'd finished repairing.  "You never know when you'll need to go somewhere, but you can almost always count on an emergency happening after dark, and the gas stations will be closed."  That was an issue rural Montana, not Atlanta, but he'd gotten used to keeping his tank full as a teenager, and he'd kept up the habit.  The gas stations off the interstate and the bypass had been jammed, cars lined up around the block, and even once he turned off onto the state highway, the lines were still there.

He'd ended up stopping for gas at a tiny little store at the intersection of two state roads.  The older woman running the counter had cheerfully handed him the bathroom key and rang up the overpriced bottles of water and candy bars he'd loaded on the counter.

Steven had been listening to the news on the way up, and little of it was good.  He didn't remember the exact numbers or where he'd read it, but there were something like four hundred and fifty people for every police officer in the country.  When shit truly hit the fan, there just weren't enough of them.  The Mayor of Atlanta had immediately issued orders for the police to locate and barricade the rifts, stopping people from entering until more was known.  Which was smart, reasonable, and would have been the absolute right thing to do.  Except there were rifts everywhere, and the news was reporting that they were still finding them.  So what actually happened was the police found and barricaded what rifts they could.

He accepted that he was part of the problem.  When that message had appeared in front of his eyes, he'd panicked.  Working IT, specifically the graveyard shift, at the hospital meant that he either had nothing to do, or he was scrambling because something critical had gone down and people might literally die.  Boredom with occasional bouts of frantic terror was how he liked to describe it.  The nature of his work meant that he couldn't stream Netflix or Hulu during the long, boring hours, and he preferred to read anyway, so he brought books to work.  A few years earlier, he'd discovered a rather niche genre called 'LitRPG', with many of those books revolving around the concept of some sort of alien system coming to Earth, bringing monsters and magical power with it.

In none of those books, not a single one, did this end well for the average Joe who was just trying to get by.  In almost all of them, monsters wound up eating the majority of the population, with major cities being the worst hit.  Steven was prone to flights of fancy and daydreams as much as the next card-carrying nerd, but his brief experience in the rift had driven home the fact that shit was going to go badly in Atlanta.  The System had flat out told everyone that if the rifts weren't cleared, the monsters would come out.  The little bastards that had tried to gnaw him off at the legs wouldn't be much of a threat to someone who was healthy and prepared.  But at an Elementary School or a Nursing Home?  They'd go through kids and the elderly like a shark at a surfer's convention.

So, he'd left.  After fighting bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours, he'd finally managed to reach the cabin.  After dragging ten cases of water into the cabin, which was all he'd been able to fit in the back and passenger seat of his aging Corrola, he sat down to take a breather, and pulled out his phone, relieved to see that while he only had a single bar, he still had service.  He checked his messages, finding one from his sister, letting him know that she and his parents were ok, but that there was a rift right next to the road a few miles away.  Six from his boss, which started off politely enough, asking him where he was, and became increasingly frantic, until the last message which changed in tone completely, and told him he was fired, and that they'd deactivated his security card and accounts.

Steven felt a little bit bad about that.  He hadn't been thinking about work when he'd left, which did sort of confirm that he wasn't invested in his job.    He opened his browser and headed back to AoE Annie's site.

"We're all fucked," Annie wiped a hand over her tired face.  Steven was used to seeing her in full e-girl mode, which he knew involved like, an hours worth of make-up application.  "So, it turns out that we transfer system credits from one person to another," she shook her head.  "Of course, the shit stains that make up the criminal element of our society figured that part out, and have started camping the Rifts.  I found this out the hard way when I walked out of a rift, and found four guys with guns pointed at me."  Annie reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.  "They demanded I transfer all the credits I'd earned to them, and then one of them suggested that if it wasn't enough, they could just take out what they were owed in trade.  I dropped a fireball at their feet and took off, but I'm betting a lot of people are getting shaken down.  So yeah, humans being awful to each other."  She sighed, and Steven could see she was trying to force a smile.  "Good news, I can now confirm that how you kill the monsters definitely impacts the skill shards you receive," she said, and her smile brightened just a touch.  "Am I ever glad that I made a few molotov cocktails.  Further, when you level up, you get one attribute point.  I don't know if that ever changes, but assuming it doesn't you'll definitely need to lean into what you're good at.  High strength and endurance?  You know how much I love my tanky boys," she blew a kiss toward the camera.  "Strength and coordination?  Physical DPS.  Intelligence and Wisdom?  Spellcasting.  Focus on whichever attributes are your highest.  I'm not sure when we get our classes, but isn't level four which is where I'm at right now."  She covered her mouth as she yawned.  "So, my advice to my AoE'rs is to get into a rift asap if you haven't already.  Kill a hundred monsters to get your ten skill shards, then combine them to get a skill crystal, and then use it.  Then accept your weapon reward for killing the one hundred monsters." she shook her head ruefully.  "Don't fuck up that order, I ended up getting a freaking bow for my weapon reward.  Once you have a skill, the weapon will be in line with it.  Be smart, be careful, and stay safe.  I don't know what's going to happen with the net, but I'll keep posting as long as I can."

The video ended, and Steven turned off his phone, sliding it back into his pocket before standing up.  Another four trips to the car for canned goods, and one last trip for clothing, and he was done.  The system message had arrived as he was walking home after a ten hour shift, and the following hours spent at the emergency room, then frantically packing, then driving, had all conspired together and resulted in a day that had looked at the customary twenty-four mark, chuckled, and kept right on going.  He'd been up for thirty-eight hours, and his last thought before collapsing on the surprisingly comfortable cot was that he'd forgotten to lock the door to his apartment.

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If he had to lay the blame on a single source, it was the sun.  Those bright, searing rays had streamed in through the window and forced him out of his slumber.  Well, they forced him to rollover, and at that point, the fact he was in a cot rather than his queen size bed came into play, as he rolled off and hit the ground.

After a yelp and brief flash of panic, he sat up and yesterdays experiences came roaring back to the forefront of his mind.  It hadn't been a bad dream, he was at his uncle's cabin and there was a flashing indicator in the corner of his vision.  Come to think of it, it had been there yesterday as well, he'd just ignored it.

"You have slain a Warhungry Woodchuck.  In keeping with your species insatiable bloodlust, these normally shy creatures have been altered to match your own ferocity and mindless rage.  You have received one system credit.  You may access the store by speaking, or mentally projecting, the word 'store.'"

Steven frowned.  He didn't have a baseline for the rest of the multiverse, but whoever was running this system seemed to think that Humanity was a lot more warlike and violent than they actually were.   Still, it was time to confirm a few things.

"Store," he said firmly.

"System Store.

Categories:

• Food/Beverages
• Medical Assistance
• Shelter
• Energy Production
• Armor
• Weapons
• Transportation
• Communications

Your balance is 1 system credit."

Steven pulled out a notebook and a pencil and started exploring the store.  Survivalists were always clear on the big trifecta.  Shelter, water, food.  In any given survival situation, you needed to find those three things, in that order.  Steven was not a survivalist, but he already had the food, water, and shelter bit covered.  Still, the first thing he looked at was the food.  There was a stream and a lake near the cabin, and he figured he could boil water if he had to, but he had maybe three or four weeks worth of food, assuming he ate sparingly.

Fortunately the food and beverage section contained just about anything he could have asked for.  It appeared that the price was based on calories, with one credit equaling two hundred and fifty calories.  Which made a twisted sort of sense, as he assumed the food was going to just appear, which meant it was probably being created, which in turn meant there was an associated energy cost, which correlated to credit per two hundred and fifty calories.

The long and short of it was that he would need about ten credits a day worth of food.  He discovered that purified water was one credit per liter, although there was a warning that he would need a container capable of holding the volume of liquid purchased, followed by a link to the Shelter section of the store, where a dizzying area of bottles, jars, pots, kettles, and even barrels were available.

He'd figured he'd need to spend five credits a day on water.  Energy production showed that he could purchase a small generator for the low, low price of only a thousand crystals.  It was capable of producing up to 30KW/day, and ran on powercells, each of which could power the generator, at maximum output, for twenty-four hours, at fifty crystals each.  Given that the cabin wasn't even wired for electricity, Steven put that in the "maybe later" category.  The generator did have regular outlets, which were configurable on purchase to match the requirements of the devices you intended to power.

One thing was crystal clear.  He wouldn't get far with only one credit.  That meant he'd need to find a rift and kill some monsters, but before he did, he wanted to make sure he had a plan.

Back when he'd led a regular life, which was to say before he started working the graveyard shift, Steven had played Dungeons and Dragons.  He enjoyed the time spent around the gaming table, but if he were being honest with himself, his true joy was building characters.  He was a min-maxer, a munchkin of the highest order.  That meant there was absolutely no way he was going to wade into a rift swinging a tire iron.  His attributes made it clear he was destined to rock out with his spells out, which meant it was imperative that he earn a magical attack skill.  Also, that woodchuck had fucking hurt, and he'd rather fight from range.

So, that left the question of what to use and how to attack.  Flamable liquids had generated a fireball skill for AoE Annie, so there was always that route, one he assumed he would be well traveled.  When it came to harnessing the forces of nature, Fire had been mankind's mainstay.  The first thing that came to mind when he thought of ice was liquid nitrogen, and while he thought it would probably work.  He wasn't sure where he'd get it though, or how much he'd need.  Lightning was easier, as he could probably find a taser or a cattleprod, although neither would be as simple as fire.  Acid wouldn't be that hard either, utilizing the same principle as spraying the monsters with liquid nitrogen, and would likely be easier to obtain.  That covered the four basics, Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, at least in his mind.

Ultimately it came down to accessibility.  He had a full tank of gas and a veritable mountain of empty beer bottles in a pair of huge plastic totes that were helpfully stenciled with "Recycle me!" on the side.  He did not have liquid nitrogen, a taser, or any acid.  Like any good nerd, Steven knew how to make napalm.  Pour gasoline in a big plastic container, preferablly someplace in the great out doors to ensure good ventilation.  Mix in sytrofoam.  Once the the styrofoam disolves, pour the excess gasoline off, and you're left with a thick, sticky fluid.  Handle with care.  Knowing how to make it didn't mean he'd ever actually done so.  Looking around the cabin, he sighed.  There wasn't much here, so the big plastic tote he'd used to carry his canned goods would have to be sacrificed for the greater good.  He did have some experience siphoning gas, as tractors broke down with depressing regularity, and often it was the fuel system, and you'd lose a bunch of gas fixing it.  So, while getting the gas out of his tank wasn't pleasant, it wasn't that hard.  He had brought, and there were still leftover, styrofoam plates, and he could sacrifice a few t-shirts on the altar of necessity for wicks.

With a sigh, Steven stood up.  If he'd had unlimited time, resources, and knowledge, he would have kept planning, but he had to make do with what he had.

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Three hours later, Steven eyed his molotov cocktails dubiously.  He'd filled each bottle half full of napalm, and then stuffed a shredded length of t-shirt down into the bottle.  He had a waterbottle with a squeeze cap filled with gasoline to douse his makeshift wicks, and his grandfather's trusty old zippo to light them with.

Steven was pretty sure they'd work, it was his method of transporting them that was a little sketchy.  He'd loaded them up in his old backpack, and padded the bottles with more torn up clothing to keep them from clinking together.  He shook his head.  It would just have to do.  He checked himself over.  Thick jacket, check.  Long johns, sweat pants, heavy jeans, check.  Work boots and mechanics gloves, check.  Tire iron, just in case, check.  He was ready to do battle.  He just needed to find a rift.

He'd seen the glowing pillars as he driven up from Atlanta, but as he left the city, and then towns, behind, they'd become less frequent.  He'd arrived at the cabin before sunset, so there could be some close by that he just hadn't seen.  Unfortunately, he'd slept the night away as his body took the opportunity to rejoin the human race as a daywalker, so he wouldn't be able to look for a glowing light in the dark forest.

Shouldering the backpack, wincing as he heard a tiny clink, he headed out of the cabin.  First stop would be the lake to check and see if the canoe was still where they'd left it.  Theft wasn't a huge problem in the area, as no one really left anything valuable or worth stealing, but borrowing was an issue.  You sometimes had to hunt around the lake for the canoe, or hike over to the nearest cabin, which was well over a mile away, to find the axe.

To Steven's surprise, not only was the canoe racked right where they'd left it, but a hundred yards down the shoreline a pillar of light stood at the edge of the lake.