Trent Boehm
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Chapter 70
🕑 Added 2023-05-15 04:16:13 +0000 UTCChapter 70
Riven took his runic mask off, pointed to a widening smile and extended his fangs for the two to see. The duo gasped in shock, before he retracted both fangs with a shrug. “I became stronger, fought against a dungeon miniboss and won a good amount of Elysium Coins. The dungeon was a sentient being and offered me a deal to get the coins back, I ended up teleporting out of the dungeon and ended up on the mountains to the west. Fought some goblins, saw some elves, and now I’m here. End of story.”
“Elves are real? I don’t buy it.” Jerald said stubbornly.
Linda, however, was overly eager to believe. She smacked her husband across the back of his head and scowled. “We’ve already been seein monsters and the god damn world ended! The roads outside the town disappeared and the entire god damned area was transported somewhere else! We’ve seen him use MAGIC Jerald! He even showed us his FANGS! Why aren’t we gona believe him you fuck’n idiot!”
She shook her head with an exasperated sigh and rubbed her temple. “All we know is the world ended and now everyone’s gone mad. The city has devolved into chaos, people looting and stealing and killing one another. When the apocalypse started it was bad, yeah, but since the administrator came down back just a few weeks ago when the world changed… we ended up here-“
Riven held up a hand. “Wait… you said you just got here a few days ago?”
That’s when he’d left the dungeon. He’d expected them to be here longer.
Linda nodded adamantly. “Yes. The apocalypse started a week ago, and the transition to this new world that the administrator person calls ‘Panu’ happened two days ago.”
Riven’s frown grew. That didn’t seem right… To him, the apocalypse had started well over a month ago. However he’d also gotten here just two days past where he’d ended up at the gas station with his minions… had time run differently in Negrada than it did here?
“Are you absolutely sure that the apocalypse started a few weeks ago? How many weeks?”
Again she nodded, and Jerald confirmed this with a nod of his own.
“Maybe 3 weeks?”
“And did you ever go to a tutorial of your own?”
“I don’t know what that is. A tutorial for what?”
Riven scratched his head and frowned in the dim light of the room. Huh. Well this was something he’d have to think about, but not now. Another time maybe. “Alrighty then. You still haven’t answered my question though. How’d you get mixed up with slavers?”
Jerald grimaced, looking out the near window through a crack in the boards they’d nailed across the opening. He stayed that way for some time, examining the house’s surroundings. “The city’s gangs and thugs were the first to start leveling. People are growing stronger by killing things. That includes other people, not just the monsters that’ve been appearing, and criminals took advantage of that.”
The man shook his head sadly while immersed in recent memories. “Some people were given quests, others were given abilities somehow, a lot like you. Ammo started running low, as did the food, and all within a week. There aren’t enough supplies in the city to go around anymore. I’m surprised at how fast it happened… but anyhow, the worst of it happened after the electricity stopped working. Even though the power plants were up, none of the lights would come on. I know because I used to work at the plant and the equipment is still in top shape – but nothin comes out of it.”
“Even the batteries in our flashlights and cars all died and all at once…” Linda chimed in with a sad frown. “Anyways, we were at the hospital when it all happened. Our little girl has leukemia. This was her room before she started living in the children’s quarters over at Mercy West.”
“Mercy West being the hospital you were talking about?”
Linda nodded, her lips beginning to quiver. “Yes… They were doing a good job taking care of her. Sara is our daughter’s name, she’s only 9 years old now. Anyhow, she’s still alive and the hospital was running out of supplies. They didn’t have enough of the medication she needed to continue treating her after it ran out yesterday, and we had some here… so we came looking for it even though we knew leaving the hospital was dangerous. Her life is worth more than ours, so we took a chance… and ended up here with you. As for the slavers – we heard about them before heading out, but then we saw them taking people a few streets over: tying them up and dragging them away to sell to other bigger groups. They’ve been killing and eating people like cannibals because food is so low, or they use the slaves for their liking. That’s what the word is anyways. Hospital security warned us not to go… but that wasn’t an option.”
Linda pulled two large bottles of pills out of her left-back pocket, rattling them for Riven to see. “We need to get back to the hospital so our little girl can continue living. The doctors there are taking care of her… but… we can’t stay here.”
Jerald and Linda stared at Riven hopefully, asking an unspoken question as it hung suspended in the stale air of their house.
[You have been offered a new quest: Admirable Escort. Escorting Jerald and Linda back to the Mercy West Hospital will result in a success for this quest. Completing this quest will result in an undisclosed system prize. If either Jerald or Linda die, this quest results in failure.]
Riven blinked once, then twice. Quickly walking to the window and peering through the window where Athela was curiously looking at him with folded arms and legs crossed while her arachnoid appendages held her off the side wall. The sun had certainly crossed the sky in the hours he’d been knocked out, but it was still definitely daytime. “How far is the hospital?”
“Just three miles… Not far.” Linda said hopefully, pocketing the medication and clasping her hands in front of her.
“And it isn’t just a kid’s hospital, is it?” Riven pressed curiously with a plan formulating in his mind.
Linda shook her head with a confused frown, brushing her brown hair off to one side and setting her weight on one hip. “There are pediatricians there, but most of the doctors there don’t specialize in kids… Why?”
Riven let out a sigh of relief. “Because I have some people who need help, and a hospital is a perfect place to get it for them.”
***
By the time they’d reached their destination, it was dark. Moonlight thankfully graced their passage with stars to aid it, and Riven had never known the cosmos could look so beautiful until now. Previous to this, city light pollution had made this kind of scenery an impossibility. But here… he had a real appreciation for what was out there in the universe.
The hospital was relatively small compared to most he’d seen before. It was a rectangular three-story building made of gray brick and he’d been told it included a fourth level, being the basement underground. It was a community hospital on the northwestern edge of the city, surprisingly close to where Riven had first entered along the main road, and was surrounded by a circular hedge of tall bushes on the outer edge of a parking lot. Lanterns had been lit at the entrance and within the building to give it a more illuminated appearance, with families in tents camped out along the parking lot between cars.
There was absolutely no sign of any electricity here or anywhere else under the night sky, with the only other lights he saw being fires burning away various buildings in the interior of the post-apocalyptic settlement.
Riven had insisted on going to get Azmoth and the others first before hitting the city, and introductions had been made before they helped carry the still unconscious elf women back towards Brightsburg. Both elves had faltered in and out of consciousness regularly according to Azmoth, with one of them being able to make out the word ‘Poison’ before sinking into another feverish bout of unconsciousness. It didn’t take long for Riven to realize that their wounds, wherever a goblin’s teeth had sunk in, were now sprouting veins of black and green.
He'd come back not a moment too soon. They were dying, and needed help fast.
The hospital’s outer-edge location along the city in turn was likely a contributing factor to the lack of harassment on the return trip, as they avoiding going into the deeper recess of the inner city where most of the fighting between gangs over resources was concentrated and skirted along the edge of Brightsburg until they saw the entrance with a sign saying ‘Mercy West Hospital’ in big blue letters. Underneath the overhead sign and between the tall bushes encircling the hospital’s parking lot were a pair of armed guards holding pistols that shouted out to them from behind a makeshift barricade of overturned metal tables – commanding Riven’s group to stop before getting any closer.
It was here that Riven’s group made their case.
“It’s me! Linda – and my daft husband Jerald!” Linda called out from down the road as she pulled out her medicine bottles and rattled them at the two uniformed security officers. “We’re here with the medicine for my daughter Sara!”
The two guards quickly recognized the woman as she approached alone in the dim light of the lit lanterns, but they were still on edge. The older one, a man with a short speckled beard, motioned for her to come forward. “I see you Linda, but who are those others with you? I won’t be letting them in if they don’t give up that shotgun, even if they got injured people with em. We can’t be having vigilantes running around the hospital causing trouble, and our security need all the weapons and ammo we can get.”
One of the other uniformed security guys nudged the first, nodding to Athela and Riven. “Man I don’t think those are humans… They both have red eyes, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl with that kind of skin color before.”
“They give me bad vibes. Especially the hooded guy, just looking at him makes my hair stand on end.” Another of them chimed in while warily palming the pistol at his side.
The first officer and the one in charge gave them both a stern glare. He turned around, putting his back to Riven’s party and shook his head. “Of course they’re not human. But honestly? We’ve seen a lot of ‘not human’ ever since the fucking world ended so as long as they don’t cause problems and hand over that shotgun - which we sorely need - they’re going to be let in. What are just two of them going to do anyways, eh? It’s obvious those two girls they’re carrying need help, and regardless of how that hooded man gives me the heebee jeebees I won’t be pushing them out just because of a bad gut feeling. Got it?”
Linda and Gerald shared a glance and both turned in unison to Riven, who was holding the shotgun he’d acquired over one shoulder and holding a scantily clad elf over the other. Meanwhile his black staff was strapped to his back.
The young vampire frowned, realizing he should have probably kept the gun underneath his cloak to look like less of a threat, but also knew that he didn’t necessarily need the gun either. It’d be nice to have, but it wasn’t necessary.
“I’d rather keep it!” Riven shouted back over the stretch of distance. “Given the state of things, can you blame me?!”
The older guard adamantly turned around and shook his head at a distance as more security personal began to walk their way. “No. If you want in, give us the gun and ammo. We’ll put in a good word with the docs so you can get your friends healed if you do, that’s the trade. A win-win for us all, and we promise we won’t be using that gun of yours on you if you choose to give it up. We have enough fuckers runnin around these parts already to worry about some pale pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy!?” Riven was about to retort when he caught Athela chuckling. From within the nether realms and through their conneciton - Riven could feel Azmoth laughing as well. He hadn’t summoned the enormous demon because of the reactions he’d doubtless get with him, and even Athela was pushing it. “Shut the hell up, the both of you.”
“That goes for you too, naked lady!” The other guard called out as he pointed at Athela. “What’s your story? Walkin around like that without any clothes! There’s no way you’re human! Linda, Jerald, can this one be trusted!?”
Jerald attempted to hold up both his hands as Athela took in a deep, exaggerated gasp of offense. However his leg was still badly hurt after the slavers had attacked earlier that day and he nearly fell over, but caught himself on his wife instead. “Ugh. Yes, they’re trustworthy. Come on, she’s basically the same as us! Just cuz she has additional legs coming out of her back don’t mean nothin!”
“Additional legs?” The guards all frowned at that, not seeing any spider legs on display because they’d been withdrawn into Athela’s back to make her more like ‘normal people’. They all exchanged glances with one another, and eventually the older guard and lead man of the troop shrugged. “Jerald’s been doing drugs again… But it can’t be too dangerous, she doesn’t have any weapons. And it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve seen over these past couple weeks. Just hand over the shotgun and you can all enter. Come on man, make this easy on me.”
Starlight twinkled overhead in a cosmos-filled sky, and in the distance an explosion across the city echoed out as a crash while a distant down-town condo erupted with fire. It was enough to draw all of their attention for a minute, but only a minute due to how far away it was. No doubt there were two other groups fighting it out over god knows what over there.
Riven pooched his lips, placed his mask back on and let out a grunt in response. Then he grudgingly held up the weapon. To say Athela wasn’t dangerous only meant that these people either didn’t know how to identify or were getting even less information when they tried to identify her than he’d been getting recently. Jerald and Linda hadn’t had tutorials either, so it was safe to say they really didn’t know how to use the identify feature. Yet people like Hakim and Riven had them? Either way he wouldn’t complain.
A minute later Linda had been sent over with the shotgun, informing the two security guards about how there’d only been two rounds left. Despite this, the guards were happy with the exchange and informed her that they had more ammo for it back in their cars. They did however give Riven curious or even outright hostile stares as he walked by, and they eagerly gawked at Athela’s lithe figure. The pointed ears of the two elves gave them pause last, and one of them actually held up a hand to stop them from continuing further when he saw it.
“Are those elves? Like the people from fantasy books with pointy ears?” A younger, uniformed, clean shaven man with bright blue eyes and a muscular frame asked. He cocked his head to the side while walking out of a small crowd of tents and refugees on a nearby patch of grass between parking lots and scratched his head curiously while examining the unconscious silver-haired woman that Trey had slung over his shoulder. Then he turned to the blonde girl that was being carried by Athela.
Riven nodded, relieved he could speak so openly without a hood covering his face after the sun had set. “I believe so, yes.”
“Huh. I’d heard there were sightings, guess it’s true. Well have Jerald and Linda lead you to Dr. Brass. He’s the head of medicine at our humble little hospital. We’re not a big trauma center but he’ll be able to set you up with one of the two orthopedic surgeons we have on staff, and should be able to get them some proper bandaging and antibiotics. Should be on the first floor, left wing. By the way, cool mask. Goes with the creepy vibe you give off.”
Riven awkwardly smiled underneath that same mask this man was talking about, not sure what to make of that statement, and gave him a nod of appreciation. But that smile turned into a grimace when he caught sight of Senna’s leg wounds. The bandaging he’d used earlier to wrap the silver-haired woman had fallen off after collecting green and black drainage. The elf girl was breathing heavily now, and the lines of poison streaking up her leg had made it all the way to her knee. “I’ll go get him now.”
Then he heard a jingling of coins as a sack was added to the backpack he wore.
[You have completed the quest: Admirable Escort. Escorting Jerald and Linda back to the Mercy West Hospital has resulted in success, and you have acquired 60 Elysium coins]
Not an amazing reward considering he still hadn’t found an altar to utilize the coins he possessed, but he’d take it without complaint for now.
The hospital had become somewhat of a refugee camp. There were definitely people out in the parking lot or along the grass surrounding it on the inner sides of the tall hedge bushes, numbering at a couple dozen with sleeping bags and camping equipment, but the inside was even more packed. They slept on the floors, chairs, couches, and were cramped beyond belief as the security forces – which numbered only at ten according to Linda – tried to maintain order. Small rations from what the hospital had left were being passed out, such as saltine crackers and orange juice, but Riven absolutely knew that the food would run out soon with this many people here.
Nurses in green and blue scrubs were also coming in and out of rooms, using any space they had left open for the injured and sick. They were exhausted, outnumbered, and almost in a frenzied state as they barked orders at one another. One room had a couple doing chest compressions and running I.V.’s, another had a man screaming and being held down as a doctor used a medical instrument to pull out a bullet from a man’s arm without any anesthesia, and yet another had an old woman who’d been stabbed and stitched up – left to recover with her family.
