BlaiseCorvin
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Sponsored Apocalypse, ch 3
🕑 Added 2022-12-01 04:51:26 +0000 UTCSome weird noises outside were a little concerning, but I ignored them. I was just a dude with a 4 in Agility in and empty house with no weapons at the moment. Freaking out was not going to help me, so instead, I poured all my focus into the hoving screens.
The “special” skill list was absolutely huge. In fact, didn’t I get a system message that gave it a name? I pulled up my old messages and found it. Sponsors’ Curated Skills and Traits Store.
The masked man hadn’t mentioned it by name, but it was obviously what he’d been talking about before.
I reasoned that the unique skills were probably the best, since they were exclusive to this weird menu and if I understood correctly, there was only one of each available for the entire world. But I didn’t know how many people could actually access the menu. Ten other people using the Sponsors’ Store meant I would have a lot longer to pick up other unique skills than, say, ten thousand other users.
Tai Chi and Scented Candles - Cost 14 - Unique - Heaving airways and confused energy
Meteors of Regret - Cost 12 - Unique - Many a story ends in fire
Truck Driver Bees - Cost 15 - Unique - Buzzing all over, awake, maybe
Heaving Bosoms in Vegas - Cost 17 - Unique - Too sexy for your shirt
Death by Snu Snu, Kidding - Cost 16 - Unique - Giggity giggity good night
Picture Perfect for a Picture - Cost 15 - Unique - Wait for the Flash…for a week
Snakey Cakes in the City - Cost 18 - Unique - Delicious! Hissss
Battle Chicken - Cost 20 - Unique - Peppa is a friend
The Good Pheasant Gets the Bong - Cost 12 - Unique -
I Reject Your Reality - Cost 20 - Worship at the hipster altar
Budget Lightning Greaves - Cost 20 - Saving time, no need to slow down
Snake Oil Tycoon - cost 12 - it's lonely at the top
Scented Candle Critic - cost 10 - did you smell that?
I poured over the entries as fast as I could read. A lot of what I was seeing was interesting. Making decisions had never been one of my strong suits, though.
The noise from the television suddenly changed dramatically and my head jerked up sharply. Both TV news stations had changed to reporters babbling about stats screens a while ago, but I’d ignored it. But there'd just been a scream. Now on one TV, the reporter was looking off-camera. I turned up the volume.
“One of them, something’s broken into the studio! It’s goi– ahh!” Something large and dark pounced from off camera, carrying the reporter to the floor behind the desk. Her cohost and others in the room screamed. The camera was bumped as another person was attacked off screen. The transmission was cut off a moment later.
Right around that time, the general tone of all the radio shows changed, too. For about ten minutes, I watched and listened with the same focus I’d just been using to look through my skill menu. I heard people started to read reports of monsters with a chuckle, quickly turn to a tone of horror as they either confirmed what they were hearing, or witnessed it themselves. Most channels were off air, and the obnoxious emergency broadcast tone started to kick in so I turned everything off.
That escalated quickly. I could feel nervous sweat on my back.
It just occurred to me that as I was listening to the squawking TVs and radios, I would have had a harder time hearing what was going on around me.
I sat quietly, straining my hearing.
At first, the noises outside the house were quiet, maybe even too quiet. Then I began to hear a distant thumping that stopped from time to time before starting again. Crashes were faint but audible. I heard the first scream outside. It broke the night like shattered glass and all hell started to break loose. The fact I couldn’t see any of it made it even more terrifying. Oh shit.
“Okay, time to get the lead out,” I muttered. I skimmed the menus faster than before, but eventually just gave up. There was just too much of it to take in one sitting, especially on a time crunch. But waiting too long to get some new power was dumb. Shit was happening right now, outside my house. All of my points wouldn’t do me any good if I died.
And now I had confirmation that this end of the world came with monsters. Magic was real. I hadn’t seen it yet, but I could see status screens and I knew it was not a hallucination. People on the radio were fear-chattering about it. A man had popped up in my house to give me cryptic information.
I help my head in my hands, just…letting everything settle for a couple seconds. My shoulders were starting to tense.
The noises outside were getting louder. I could swear I could feel a vibration now. In a few seconds, they glass of water on a table to my right started trembling, Jurassic Park-style.
“Shit,” I hissed. I scanned my Sponsors’ Store menu again and with a twist of my stomach, I made a decision.
Meteors of Regret - Cost 12 - Unique - Many a story ends in fire
It seemed like an attack ability and the name was cool. I hit, “Accept.”
My screen changed and I felt a weird rush through my body, like I’d just drunk three cups of coffee in two seconds.
The screen read:
***
Meteors of Regret
Unique mystic path. All other mystic paths are now unavailable.
Unlocked abilities:
Stat increases:
Will
Strength
Endurance
New skills:
Spirits of the Past: Communicate with and bond with physical, man-made objects if certain criteria are met.
Tsukumogami Embrace: Utilize bonded spirits. Passive abilities and timed activations.
***
I blinked. “Cool, I guess,” I muttered. Despite the fact it hadn’t been quite what I was expecting, I could tell it was a powerful set of abilities even with my limited knowledge.
There were little prompts for help menus and I wanted to go digging deeper, but the sounds outside kept getting louder. Something crashed against something else and there was more screaming. I could hear people shouting but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. My shoulder blades began to itch with anxiety. I really should have been running away. My mind suddenly felt strangely calm, though. I needed to invest my points first–now–because I had no idea what might happen after leaving the house. And I knew I needed to leave. I had no weapons, no provisions, and based on the creature I’d just seen killing the reporter, my shitty rental home wasn’t going to be strong enough to hide in.
“Crap crap crap,” I muttered. I really didn’t have time, so I was going to use up almost all the points I had left on one of the most expensive unique skills in the Sponsors’ Menu.
The attack skill that I just chose seemed powerful, but not immediately too useful. I skimmed the list again and settled on a line that stood out to me.
Budget Lightning Greaves - Cost 20 - Saving time, no need to slow down
It sounded like a speed ability so maybe it could help me run away.
I chose the line and hit Accept. The screen read:
***
Budget Lightning Greaves
Major physical reworking
Unique personal augment path.
Unlocked abilities:
Stat increases:
Will
Endurance
New ability:
Built Different: You are immune to negative status effects while in combat.
***
I frowned. “That’s it?” Twenty points was a lot. If I understood the crazy system that’d just been dumped in my lap, twenty points was twenty levels worth of upgraded points. It was also enough to raise a five in any stat to a nine, with points left over!
“One line, that’s it?”
Outside the house, there was sudden enormous boom and the ground shook. I could hear constant screaming now. Even the widows rattled. Gun shots rang out. “Shit,” I hissed. I got up and began moving towards the garage, away from the noise. It sounded like it’d come from a distant neighbor’s house.
As I half-jogged down my hallway I heard more gunfire outside. “Yeah, that’s definitely close,” I muttered.
Since my screens where still open, I glanced at my status. It’d changed.
Jack Lindstrom
Level 1
Class: none
Skills: none
Traits: none
Stats:
Str: 6
Dex: 4
End: 8
Int: 6
Will: 7
Luck: 6
Reflex: 7
Armor (nat): 0
Affiliations: Sponsored by *hidden*
Titles: *hidden*
I don’t have any skills I can actually use right now, but at least my stats went up, I thought sourly. Before I closed the menu, I did some quick math and realized that I should probably quit feeling sorry for myself. Raising my stats to where they were now would probably have cost me almost as many points as I’d spent on the news skills, and at least one of them sounded powerful. Hopefully.
When I was halfway through the house, I winced. Whatever was happening outside sounded like World War 3. The button on my menu to generate a new skill flashed at me. I was tempted to hit it, but I really didn’t have any more time, and I still thought it might be a good idea to wait.
I closed all my menu as I reached the door from the house to the garage, and as I did the entire building shook. The sound was so loud it actually made my stomach drop before an actual wave of pressure knocked me off my feet. I fell to the concrete in the garage and looked back in time to see a massive hand lift up a chunk of what had been my living room.
Up to this point, everything I’d been through so far had felt almost dreamy. I’d been thinking rationally, responding to things calmly, but my sense of urgency probably hadn’t been appropriate. However, the fact that now monsters were real, and people were dying, and I might die any second now hit me like a huge bucket of cold water. There was a hand bigger than my body fishing through my outdated kitchen.
Through my ruined house, I caught a glimpse of one huge eye scanning the wreckage of my empty rooms.
Fear could be a hell of a motivator. My mind spun a million miles a second. I needed to escape. My car was outside, but it wasn’t an option. It would take way too long to start and I’d be a sitting duck in it. Instead, I raced to the other end of the garage where I had a normal door set in the wall. I thanked the stars that I wouldn’t have to open my janky, noisy garage door.
When I unlocked and began to open the door, something caught my eye. It turned out that not everything in my house had disappeared. Now that I had a different vantage, it looked like whatever had made everything disappear had maybe extended in a radius around me, because there were a few things left untouched at the very edge of the garage. A table by the door I’d just opened had a few boxes I’d received as packages over the last week, and a few other odds and ends. I recognize the long box: it was actually a weapon I’d ordered from a small, custom sword maker called Zombie tools.
I grabbed it. A hammer on the table also caught my eye. It was giving off a glowing aura, and I felt a buzz from it, almost like electricity. With all the weird, supernatural shit currently happening, it didn’t even phase me. I grabbed the hammer and put it through my belt, then I was out the door in a flash.
It’d been twilight when the end of the world timer in my head had run out. Now it was dark out. I took off at a sprint, heading for the woodline that sat back a ways from my backyard. One quick glance behind me at the giant currently tearing apart my rental house gave me a fresh burst of speed.
“A fucking cyclops,” I breathed. The giant stood up slowly, watching me with one huge eye. A leg was hanging out one side of its mouth and it gently nibbled the limb with huge, blocky teeth.
Thankfully, I made it to the dubious safety of the woods before the creature seemed to decide whether it wanted to chase me or not. I didn’t stop running.
