Claire struggled to wake up, a drowsiness she couldn't shake. Felt like it was pushing her back into sleep every time she was on the brink of rousing.
With difficulty she finally pushed past it, sitting up groggily in a familiar bed with light blue sheets and a room with pink and robin egg blue walls. The same wood vanity at the corner of her room, holding her books and notebooks.
At first, she was calm, but then the quietness of the house began to overwhelm her as she teared up.
"M-mom…? D-daddy…? Jared…?"
Claire whispered the names of her family to the quiet, hoping, begging for a response. But none came.
She sat there weeping as once again she came to the realization that everyone she loved before was gone.
After several minutes her tears did not dry but she knew she could not stay here in this state forever. She gripped the ring on her neck. The last thing that Drake had given her before they parted. Clasping her empty hand, his touch felt like a deep and distant dream.
Claire rose placing her things into her inventory, going through the house taking photos and the like from her home to remember her family. The stuffed toys her parents gave her. Her brother's sports equipment that were battered and worn. His shirts that still had his smell lingering on them.
She took the whittled toy horse her father made in her parent's room. The small vanity that looked like her own that she remembered her mother fondly in front of whenever she came to tell them goodnight. And finally, she took her father's bible, locking it away in a chest she found in their closet before placing it with the rest in her inventory.
Bracing herself she looked at the front door, her heart heavy but racing as her hand was placed on the knob. Then she heard it.
[Announcement!]
[The Second Honing Crystal has been placed by Drake Wallen - The Patriarch Asuran, TheTyrant, 167 hours until completion]
Claire smiled, her face turning to eager joy.
"I'm coming, Drake… Don't get into too much trouble while I'm gone ok…?"
—-------------------
Hudson woke with a start, grasping instinctively for the gun at the side of his bed frame like it had every night in the tutorial but this time his hand curled around the cold metal grip of the pistol instead of air.
Sweat beat down his face as he aimed it, surveying the room.
"Fuck! That damned tutorial did a number on me… Thank god that idjit… Shit I still have my accent," he cursed, getting off his bed, placing his head in his hands as he calmed his mind and breathing.
After a few moments, he got up finding his clothes and other weapons in his home.
"Don't know how much these guns are ganna help now with all these monsters…" he scoffed, snapping his fingers as a metal-colored magic circle formed next to him, a large sleek robot rising from the floor.
"So, wasn't all a dream after all. Good to know I at least have this for protection till… Well, whatever happens."
Hudson sighed, looking from the robot next to him standing by to the mirror in his room.
He no longer wore the scraps of armor that he used in the tutorial. Thanks to Drake and the TP that he accumulated, he purchased a very interesting set of equipment for his class.
Looking back in the mirror was a man in a black suit, with a long red tie, on his head mechanical like goggles with whirling gears and motors. Gloves that matched the idea of a working tinkerer stretched over his suit's long sleeves and were clamped down at the cuffs by metal gauntlets that extended and turned into tools so he choose. And of course sturdy work like boots that contrast but did not take away from the suit's overall professional feel.
Hudson also strapped his sidearm to his right leg out of habit from the years of training he had endured.
Then a knock at the door came.
He turned, motioning with his chin for the robot to open the door.
Once the robot moved down the steps and opened the door several other men in black suits and glasses looked in.
Hudson looked down the stairs as if it was natural that they would be there.
"Howdy boys. What's the word?" Hudson asked.
"Sir," they both said, saluting, "Secretary Smith would like for you to come to Headquarters immediately."
Hudson scoffed, "He won't even give me a few hours before he starts yanking on the leash huh? Well, no surprise he survived that sam hell tutorial. Asshole might be old but he's tough as nails…"
"Mr. Lawrence, we understand you have just returned like the rest of us but it is a priority matter."
[Announcement!]
[The Second Honing Crystal has been placed by Drake Wallen - The Patriarch Asuran, TheTyrant, 167 hours until completion]
Hudson grimaced, "You bet your skinny white ass it is."
He walked down the stairs and looked at his summoned robot giving it a wrap of his knuckle, "Let's get going Big 'un. There's going to be a mountain of paperwork waiting for us…"
—---------------
Theodore tightened his embrace, feeling the warmth of the person next to him. Breathing in her familiar perfume that he knew all too well. His eyes slowly opened to see the love of his life.
She looked just like she had in the tutorial giving weight to the trials they had been through there. Harley still slept soundly in Theodore's arms.
He looked around mumbling his spell to summon illusions to investigate the surroundings as he sat up slowly. His hand gently caressed Harley's head in his lap, his other commanding the illusions as they went out of the house surveying the land.
In time, Harley began grumbling as she stretched and got up as well, looking at Theodore with bleary eyes at first. Then realizing where they were she scrambled to sit up looking around.
"Worry not my love, we are safe for now. There art not a grain of hostile malic hitherward," Theodore consoled as he rose from the bed, "Shall this one brew us elixir of life?"
Harley smiled, "Coffee would be lovely Theo, thank you."
Theodore nodded, "It shall be done."
Going down the hall he reached their quaint kitchen, finding the electricity was out, he moved to the gas stove, finding it lit still he took some water from his inventory and a pot, boiling it. Searching the cupboards he quickly found the tin of grounds preparing them. Soon the water boiled and he poured the coffee, the sounds of Harley's boots clacking against the vinyl floors to the kitchen.
"Oh, how I've missed the smell of that…" she said, breathing deeply.
"As has this one, love."
Harley took the offered cup and sipped not caring for the bitterness without milk or sugar but blissfully sipping all the same.
She looked at Theodore through the steam of the cup, "What are we going to do now?"
Theodore took his cup his other hand still tapping as he controlled his illusionary puppets. The sound of a notification hitting them both at the same time.
[Announcement!]
[The Second Honing Crystal has been placed by Drake Wallen - The Patriarch Asuran, TheTyrant, 167 hours until completion]
"We are to go to my Lord as planned," Theodore smiled, putting down his cup and twirling his mustache.
—------------------------
The cold air was bracing. Bjorn shivered out of his stupor, his hand going for his sword on his back instinctively after all his time in the tutorial.
Once he saw nothing was close, he brushed off the snow that had piled up on him. He looked around more carefully, standing up from his sitting position next to the remnants of an extinguished fire.
He was outside, next to his cabin in the woods, the remains of his cookout before the tutorial took him at his feet.
Bjorn sighed, "I guess no one else made it out… Rest in peace fellas…"
His heart was heavy for the lost neighbors who were with him during the midnight campout he set up. The bottles of good liquor now empty on the ground.
Bjorn picked up one heaving a sigh once again, "Damn, it's gone. I just opened this one bro…"
Before he could truly become angry he turned, throwing the bottle away as he made his way back to his cabin, or well, log house.
The lights and heat didn't work, and it seemed that whatever was keeping his pipes working had frozen over as well. But Bjorn wasted no time, scouring his home, and picking up the essentials. The food he could salvage, and all of the good alcohol. Especially the alcohol.
"Man's got to have good drink for a long trip," he muttered to himself, slipping the last bottle from his cellar into his inventory.
Something ticked in Bjorn's vision from outside the house as he went back to the main floor forcing him outside once again.
Looking around he spotted something darting between the trees.
"Bro, monsters already? I haven't even left the house."
Bjorn sighed frustratedly as he turned and ran for the small town in the area that he lived close to, ignoring the monsters.
He remembered his talk with Drake and had to try his best to avoid fighting where he could to prevent himself from leveling up.
"Easier said than done though bro…" he scoffed, looking over his shoulder, a small horde of frostbitten-skinned monsters growling at him.
[Frost Walker Level 17]
"I swear I can hear Drake making Fire and Ice references right now…."
[Announcement!]
[The Second Honing Crystal has been placed by Drake Wallen - The Patriarch Asuran, TheTyrant, 167 hours until completion]
"Speak of the devil.. Bro moves fast," Bjorn smirked.