Drew had been peering out of the corner of a window, enraptured by the beautiful colors of the storm around the house. The rain seemed to catch different colors as it fell, looking like oil-slicked water, the different blasts of lightning changing the colors in a captivating, rippling mosaic of colors. He turned away from the window to look back at Daryl, who he realized had clenched his fists together. Obviously, he had missed some sort of reaction from the other man.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Drew said, realizing how heartless his questions had been.
Daryl seemed to be quickly regaining his composure, and with a shrug, he sat down on a nightstand. "It's okay; you didn't know."
Drew sat down on the only chair in the room; it was positioned near the window and he assumed Daryl used it to watch what was going on outside. Both men took a few moments to collect their thoughts. "Thanks for telling me about the storm, by the way," he said finally, not knowing how to breach the massive elephant in the room.
Daryl nodded his head, "It's the least I could do in return for you killing all those green skins." Both men had so much they wanted to ask, but no real idea how to start talking.
"I was in a bunker for the last couple...days? Since the advent anyway, it was hard to tell how much time had passed down there without light or watches. How long has it been?" Drew asked, figuring that was the easiest way to open the conversation.
"It'll be a full week tonight," Daryl answered, "That first day was crazy, everyone got woken up by the voice. Mae, my wife, and I both slotted our xatherite immediately and lost consciousness. By the time we woke up, it was morning. The general had organized everything fairly well by then. They had people going around finding out what xatherite everyone had and keeping order."
"The attacks started happening around noon, squirrels, rabbits, turtles, a few dogs, and cats, pretty much every creature around. They would only attack small groups though, so the general had everyone bring all their stuff to the commissary and implemented battle buddy rules," Daryl said, his eyes going distant.
"The green skins appeared midway through the third day. They must have taken out the sentries and then stormed inside. They took all our non-combatants, and then the General surrendered. I managed to escape as they were herding everyone into the DIA building. Went invisible and followed along as much as I could. But I couldn't get into the building."
"How many people do they have in there?" Drew asked.
"I'm not sure, three, maybe four hundred at this point. They sacrificed ten people both times before the mana storm."
"Any of them healers? We had to fight our way out of the bunker; only three of us made it out alive and one of them is badly hurt. We have no idea what's wrong with her." Drew glanced outside, frowning. He needed to get back to Katie before dark, but the storm was a complication he hadn't considered.
"If we can get them out? Yeah, probably. They had me mostly out patrolling around the base, but I think we had some healers. Does that mean you'll help me get them out?" Daryl asked, leaning forward on the nightstand.
"Yeah, of course. I'm not just going to let the trolls kill them. I just told my people I'd be back by dark. How long did the last storm last?"
"A couple hours. Hard to say really, but I doubt you'll be back before dark, I wouldn't recommend traveling at night either, the really scary shit comes out at night."
Drew turned from the window to look at Daryl, "What do you mean the really scary shit?"
Daryl shivers slightly, "The bugs, they're almost all nocturnal, but you can hear them even through the windows."
Drew looked outside again and then frowned, "Well, shit. We almost died when we had to fight the cockroaches." There were only a few hours until dark as it was, so there was no chance he would be able to get back today. If he could get a healer and be back in the morning though, that would be worth the delay, "Well, what about the trolls? How many of them are there?"
"Uh, hard to say. Another 50? Most of them don't seem to have ranged weapons though, so we could have taken them, but…" Daryl frowned, "They didn't really seem to be affected by bullets. I mean, they got hit, and it would stop them, but it didn't kill them like what you did. They just got back up. It was more a war of attrition than anything else; I don't think we really started to hurt them until they got in close and some of the guys that had red skills started attacking."
"And you haven't been in the building at all? No idea where they're being kept?" Drew asked.
"Nope, I imagine it's underground though," Daryl said with a shrug.
Drew ran a hand through his hair. "Well, shit." He made to stand up and pace the room, but his leg hurt too much, and he sat back down, thinking. In the close confines of the building, it would be suicide to go in there, especially without knowing where they were.
Daryl took a jar of applesauce off the table next to him and began eating it. He held one up to Drew, who took it without thinking.
"I don't think I can kill them in close quarters like the building; we need a way to draw them out," Drew finally said, leaning back in the chair and beginning to eat the applesauce. Then he looked down at the sauce in his hands, "What are the trolls doing for food? Are they raiding the commissary?"
"Yeah, they send a couple humans out every morning to bring back a bunch of food, with about twenty gre...trolls to guard them," Daryl said. "I wasn't ever able to get too close, not sure what sort of senses those things have. And I don't have any red xatherite."
"What do you have?" Drew asked, curious if there was a solution there.
"Well, you've seen the invisibility, that and a kind of weird one called necro alchemy are my two intermediates. And then I have the telepathy, another type of invisibility, and a self-cleaning spell." Daryl said with a shrug, "Nothing that's likely to help you much."
Drew had noticed that Daryl was clean, which only surprised him when he realized just how filthy he was, Daryl's cleanliness was like what the world used to be, back when laundry machines and showers were a thing. "What does necro alchemy do?" Drew asked, frowning as he dug his finger into the applesauce, trying to get the last of it out. His stomach was reminding him that he was hungry.
"It allows me to harvest a corpse of its goods, like fur or meat, without having to actually touch it." Daryl answered, grabbing a tin of pears and popping the top off before holding it out to Drew, "You guys didn't get much food up there?"
"Not real food, just gas station food, chips and jerky and stuff," Drew said. Looking at the contents of the food table Daryl had, he realized it was all fruit, crackers, and other vegetarian options.
"Vegetarian?" Drew asked after a moment.
Daryl laughed, "Yeah, trying to get rid of the animal cruelty aspect of food preparation. Seems a little silly now that people are getting eaten by rabbits, but…" He shrugged, "Habit, I guess."
Drew nodded with a shrug, pulling out some of the jerky from his pack, "Do you mind?" He wanted something a little more solid than fruit. Daryl just shook his head and began eating the pears.
A particularly loud crack of lightning struck near the house and both paused for a moment, glancing out the window before returning to their conversation.
"So, what's the difference between the two invisibilities?" Drew asked between chewing jerky.
"First one blocks the visual spectrum. I use that and the cleaning to remove my scent and try to stay quiet. The second one is supposed to block the magical spectrum, but I have no idea what that means. I use it occasionally, doesn't seem to make much of a difference," Daryl answered.
Drew pondered that. It was probably a lower level xatherite, which meant that mana sight, as a rare xatherite, was more powerful and made Daryl's spell ineffective?
"Cool, and the telepathy thing, what are its limits?" Drew asked, he had already opened the grid and found that Daryl was not listed as someone whose map he could investigate. He wondered why, but then figured it must have to do with how they viewed each other. Sarah and Katie thought of themselves as a group, but Daryl clearly still had reservations about him, just like he had concerns about Daryl. Juan had been a good kid, but Daryl's aura was still mostly indigo, which meant he was practiced in deception.
"I can only do one target at a time, and I have to be able to see them and be pretty close, within 15 meters," Daryl answered, looking at Drew expectantly.
"I've got the Storm spell, which you saw, and then it linked with a fireball and cone of cold spell, both of which are area effect, to make the other variants of it." Drew considered how much he should tell Daryl. "I've also got a few more single target spells and a spell called dancing sword, which allows me to conjure a sword that fights on its own."
Daryl whistled, "Damn, that's a lot of red. You must be an angry guy."
"Angry?" Drew asked, confused. He didn't consider himself an angry person.
"Yeah, we realized that what xatherite you got was pretty well based around your personality. Me, I was always just trying to keep out of trouble, and I got a bunch of stuff that would allow me to remain unseen. The hothead 18-year-old kids got reds that made them able to hit stuff. Angela, who was always trying to improve herself, got a bunch of orange spells. Stuff like that," Daryl explained.
"Well, I don't consider myself angry," Drew said with a frown. He'd had an anger issue when he was younger, but he'd learned to control that a long time ago.
"Anyway, I think I have a plan for how we can ambush the food group, and hopefully we'll get some more combatants out of that," Drew said, and then he explained what he wanted to do. Daryl nodded slowly as he followed along.
"Well, it's a long shot, but probably our best chance," Daryl said when he was done. He excused himself to use the restroom and Drew took a moment to fully view the messages he had ignored after killing the trolls.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Refresh xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Spark xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Mana Guard xatherite is ready to be upgraded.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Major Acid Dart has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Cone of Frost has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Fireball has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations, Midshipman. Your Storm has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
He clicked to upgrade major refresh and winced as a headache immediately came over him. Unlike his other upgrades, this one hurt; not as bad as slotting it would have, but still quite a bit. Giving it a moment to subside, he then upgraded the other two to similar results.
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Lightning Bolt
Xatherite Color: Red
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Creates a bolt of electricity from any body part to a target no more than 15m away. Deals Lightning damage and stuns the target for 2 seconds.
Mana recharge time: 4.2 seconds
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Energize
Xatherite Color: Orange
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Infuses mana into the target to reduce fatigue and lactic acid buildup. Improves the target's natural healing by 2x normal for 24 hours.
Mana recharge time: 20 minutes, 39 seconds
Xatherite Crystal Name: Minor Mana Shield
Xatherite Color: Yellow
Xatherite Grade: Common
Xatherite Rarity: Widespread
Type: Magic
Effect: Creates a shield of mana around the caster. This shield will absorb moderate amounts of energy and kinetic damage. It also creates a slowing effect around the caster.
Mana recharge time: 4 minutes, 33 seconds
After looking at the new descriptions, he realized that there was a qualitative change when you moved from basic to common that caused the pain. But boy was it worth it.
Spark had upgraded to lightning bolt and could reach 5 times further! Its damage had also been upgraded, and it had gained a stunning component. That moved it from one of his less used spells to a spell he could use on a regular basis to great effect. Refresh had also greatly improved, becoming able to help him heal faster. He immediately cast it on himself. Looking at his leg, twice as fast wasn't that much, but it meant he would be just a little bit better off than he would have been otherwise. Of course, the new mana shield also made it easier for him to dodge things, as they would move slower near him, giving him a bit more survivability.