Well that was a shit show. Trying to contact the remaining strongholds and getting them to cooperate led nowhere. Everyone was running under the assumption that the world will go back to the way it was.
It will not. Too many dead. The infrastructure is in shambles. The supply chain is completely screwed. Not to mention the new players on the board.
High density areas are practically overrun. With either zombies or former criminals. There is a global fuel and food shortage. Whatever was in the warehouse and packed is all gone. The list of things to do grows day by day.
The first thing to do is get rid of the infected. The second is to find a cure.
Things were so much easier in the dungeon. You could just not worry, about trivialities like food and clean water. Now they are the first priority.
I'll wait until we all regroup in Moscow. Launch nukes from there. The other nations will respond. And wipe out everything on the planet.
Maybe in a few millennia, there can be life without humans. That would be for the best.
*****
So we don't need to nuke the world back to the Stone Age.
Zeno, Bang, Master Roshi and Master Makarov managed, somehow, to find a cure/vaccine for the zombie epidemic. Some Swiss scientists helped, but that's besides the point. Now that there is a way to prevent the spread of the parasitic disease, the number of new infected will decrease.
Fully infected people are…too far gone.
Great, more time in this shit-hole.
*****
Whatever I get to refine my Runemaster skill. See the thing is, I didn't know I could write runes in the air. On paper, on a solid surface, sure, might blow up but manageable. In the air? Didn't even know it was possible.
So I've been practicing basic runes: fire, water, earth, wind, heal, light, etc. Its quite versatile. One of the primers I read early on in my studies explained open and closed runic clusters. It also stated that similar terms can be used in other aspects of magic and sorcery.
Open clusters/spells are malleable. They can be modified and scaled as per user needs and intentions. Let's take a simple flame/fire spell for example. At its base is creates a flame the similar to that of a candleflame. Useful starting cooking fires and to create light. Requires very little mana/mind. The user through practice and understanding, can manipulate the spell to burn hotter, larger, shaped in a controlled manner or a huge formless conflagration of fire. The downside is each manipulation requires different amounts of mana/mind and if the caster gets it wrong, the results aren't pretty. Runic clusters are more forgiving as the mage channels his mana/mind through an object, therefore having an interface between himself and the spell. Regardless, incompetence and ignorance will usually result in disaster.
Closed spells/clusters are as the name suggests, closed to all modifications. The fireball spell is a great example of this. One the spell has been cast, through whichever method, that's it. The mage gets a basketball sized ball of fire moving at 120 km/h. Well that's usually the case, different schools teach the spell differently, so there are some variances, but nothing too drastic. 10% deviation is the accepted range. Outside of that, it's a new spell. That is why grimoires/spell-books have so many spells. A large component of them are closed structured spells. Any combat oriented person, will have a large repertoire of these spells. If they're stupid. Closed spells and especially runic clusters are best used for warding, rituals, healing and crafting. Closed spells are very useful to learn as basics. It allows new students to practice more, without much risk. In combat however, whoever is faster and can get the first hit is the one who wins.
Let's take 2 mages and put them in a duel. One has some combat experience and knows 3 grimoires worth of spells. The other has vast experience in duelling, but none in combat, at least no experience in all out war. The mage with combat experience will have the upper hand at first. Fast powerful spells to quickly eliminate the enemy. If the duelist can survive the initial barrage, then it's their advantage, which will be exploited to no end.
Because there is a catch.
Notice how closed spells require a discreet amount of mana. Therefore to defend against it, the shield spells simply have to have more magic than the attacking spell to effectively defend against the attack. The best part, the simplest shielding spells are classified as Open.
The two basic spells are for physical attacks and magical attacks respectively. I really wanted to practice the magical shield cluster as much as possible. Master Makarov indulged me for an hour, helping me get a handle on how to use it and it's intricacies. The lesson was very insightful.
As someone who now is able to delve into the arcane arts it is imperative that I am able to gauge the level and lethality of the spells being thrown my way. I really like training with Odin and Madara. Odin casually fired off spells while sipping daquiris on a beach chair. Either pure magic, a magically conjured object, an existing object or a mix of all three. Madara would set up training sessions in different environments. And true to his ninja nature, ambush me. Both of them helped me develop my instincts and runemaster skill.
It was awesome! The same as training in MARSOC. Practicing a skill until it was second nature. It sucked while you were learning, but the feeling of having accomplished something most people won't even get the opportunity to see was an euphoria of its own.
We're all making our way to Switzerland. We'll have to figure out quite a few things once we get there.
*****
"The cure, as it stands needs to be injected. That's a start but not good enough, it needs to be an aerosol. Either we use our resources to effectively and efficiently neutralize the global threat, or we kill everything that needs killing and make our way home. It's been 6 months in this worlds time, we can't spend years finding and killing the zombies." I said after listening to the research team.
Before the rest of the group could interrupt, I added, "don't get me wrong, I will do my best to save as many lives as possible, but I must admit, my patience is running out. Let's get started on the injection vaccine, and work on the aerosol one as well. Their armies are unwilling to cooperate. The transfer of information is slow at best, mostly it's just unreliable due to the fact that we don't know if it will be acted upon. We can't save them if they don't want to save themselves."
"In this matter I must agree with Cassius." Genryusai speaks up. Madara and Odin really don't give a shit. Odin because there is no Yggdrasil in this realm. And Madara, has issues.
"We were sent here to learn more about each other and do our best to eliminate the threat of these infected...things. We must divert resources to the aerosol vaccine. The vaccine is for the uninfected, given to an infected person, it will slowly kill them. The larger the area we can recover the better off we will be, and the sooner we can get back to our own realms. I am not sure if the rest of you have noticed, but what we thought was normal before, is not possible anymore. My gathering of reiatsu has diminished. Not an alarming amount, but enough to notice after a long battle." Genryusai finished.
"So what's the plan?" Asked Master Roshi. The staunchest opposition to our 'kill everything' approach.
"We do what the Wehrmacht did in 1939."
It was well into the next days evening when we finished the plans for our conquest of Europe.