The Systemic Lands

Chapter 3: Day 2 – A Party

A beeping startled me awake. Frank had set the timer on his watch to seven hours. I rubbed my eyes and licked my lips. The fruit sugar had left my mouth dry and there was no toothpaste or even water to rinse out my mouth before I went to sleep. I felt tired and dirty, the grunge was real.

I slowly stretched out my body, it felt stiff, tired, and sore. That wasn’t good. As a fat person I would wear down more quickly than my teammates. I needed to keep on top of my mental game in order to survive this place, whatever it was. The tiredness of my body would impact my ability to think quickly and clearly.

I got up and began to stretch more as my companions began to slowly wake up. I felt a familiar pressure and went off into a side room. I took a piss on the wall. There were no toilets. I held in the urge to take a shit. I couldn’t afford to have a chafed ass since there was nothing to wipe or wash with.

Focusing on my breathing I swung my hands in front of me with my middle and index fingers pointing outwards. I moved my hands in sync with my breathing to help myself regain control of my bodily functions and resist the urge to have a bowel movement. Eventually the feeling subsided. Mind over body, but now constipation was a real risk.

“Morning,” I greeted my teammates as I walked back to where they were just waking up.

“Morning,” Frank mumbled out as he slowly got up. Jim just nodded at me. After relieving themselves in the side room we left our trash there as well. We then made our way out of the building and towards the plaza.

There were three groups of people sleeping in various areas. I counted at least 100 people missing from the 250 people or so who initially showed up. They were either spread out in the city or dead. There was no one near the pillars. I noted several blood stains, but no bodies.

We made our way to the pillars. I noted a lookout in each group, but none of them called out or approached us. I put my backpack on one of the pillars while my teammates stood on either side of me keeping watch.

I then put my hands under my pack and touched the pillar. There was an option to absorb placed crystals for points. At least my plan to hide the crystals in my pack worked, and hopefully no one realized anything was going on. The slime crystals came back as 5 points each. I winced since I had been hoping for at least 10.

I traded in all 12 of my crystals, putting me at 115 points. There was an option for restoration for 87 points. If that was all the cost from muscle soreness, then a serious wound would be a lot more expensive and impossible to pay off. I would need a point reserve since healing was an option.

It was tempting to upgrade a stat, but they were too expensive for now. I needed to be fighting fit to earn points. It was tempting to save up or leave a buffer, but having points saved wouldn’t help me in a fight where I needed to be alert.

I spent the points for the restoration and immediately felt better, a lot better. All the soreness and stiffness vanished from my body. I also felt my gut loosen up a bit. It was worth the cost. I then spent another 20 points on fruit. Leaving me with only 8 points. After a moment of thought, I spent the last 8 points on four more pieces of fruit.

I put the floating fruit that appeared above the pillar away in my pack and quickly explained what happened to my teammates in a hushed voice. Frank needed 59 points for a restoration and Jim only needed 38 points. I frowned at that. Fit people would quickly gain an advantage. That was unfortunate.

Our clubs would last for a while. They were only slightly pitted and worn. I estimated it could handle about 50 to 100 slimes total, before being worn halfway through and have a serious risk of snapping. I checked the pillar for some things I had thought of, but nothing bore any fruit. I smiled at the mental pun. I needed to get amusement wherever I could since I no longer had funny cat videos to waste time on.

It was clear that the next step was to get the shop upgrade. That cost 200 slimes. I winced at the cost. The worst part was, that the upgrade cost would be placed onto a single person while everyone would benefit. Based on the limited mental information the store gave me, the upgrade was across all 8 pillars. While people might share crystals, I doubted there would be trust for that.

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With my search done we began to leave the plaza to head back for the gate. I was glad Frank and Jim were willing to go along with me. I think it was probably a combination of shock and me giving directions that gave meaningful progress. This gave more weight to my conclusions, and they were less likely to argue with me.

I just had to be sure they never united against me, or I made a serious mistake. That was why I called it a day yesterday. I had wanted to get more crystals, but I had to take into account my teammates. I was fine to pushing myself to near death to survive this place, but they currently lacked the mental fortitude for something like that, unfortunately.

As we left the plaza a younger Hispanic looking man came up to us. He had long sleeved clothing and I couldn’t see any obvious tattoos. He wasn’t dressed like an office worker, he had more casual clothing. At least his pants weren’t hanging down around his knees. Maybe a college student, I wasn’t sure. “Can I go with you?” He asked. That was my que to deal with this situation.

“Hello, I am Michael. This is Frank and Jim Park Soon,” I introduced our teammates.

“Jesus,” he said, with the pronunciation sounding like ‘hey-Zeus’.

“Why do you want to come with us?” I asked. I could guess the answer, but I wanted to get a better sense of who he was.

“There was trouble here. You also look like you know what you are doing,” he said. He looked reasonably fit, but four people would mean less crystals. But it would also mean more safety.

“What happened here?”

“A woman was being raped in a building, there was a fight. The man was beaten to death. Things escalated, many people ran off. There is a lot of tension and worry.”

“Did anyone get points for killing the man?”

“No, um, I didn’t hear anything.” I frowned a bit. That was both good and bad. If points didn’t come from murder, the reason to fight between people would be slightly less. But no one would come out and say such a thing if it was true. That was annoying as well as understandable.

“Alright, let’s get you a pack and some food. You can join us, unless either of you has an objection?” I asked my teammates.

“Nope,” Frank said.

“No problem,” Jim said with a slight smile. I looked up at the dark sky with the tiny specks of starlight. There was no moon, and I didn’t see any familiar constellations and no slight blur from the disk of the Milky Way. More signs that this wasn’t Earth.

We went back to the pillar and Jesus got a pack and supplies. With that completed we made our way back to the city exit, Jim taking the lead with his superior sense of direction.

I explained to Jesus what we had discovered so far and the tactics we used against the slimes. Once he was brought up to speed it was time to plan things out a bit more.

“With four people, means less crystals, but faster clearing. The slimes don’t respond to noise, so call out what you are doing. Like, fighting slime. Stepping back. We will rotate and work on getting at least twenty each.”

“That many?” Jim asked.

“Yes, we need points to live. Also, we all stocked up on food. So, we will spend today and tomorrow hunting, going back the morning of day four. We waste a lot of time and energy going through the city to get to the forest and then back to the plaza. Twenty each today, then same again tomorrow.”

“We won’t be able to get that restoration the pillars gave.”

“I know, but we need to push ourselves as much as possible without using that pillar.” The biggest risk was to me, but since I knew a restoration was coming, I could do it.

“I think after using it I don’t need to shit anymore,” Frank said. I paused to consider my own body. I didn’t feel the pressure down on my bowels either. That was a huge plus.

“Two days should be doable then. And if we need to shit in the woods, the restoration should remove anything, hopefully.” Chaffing was a big deal.

“How did you figure all this out?” Jesus asked.

“Reading too much. Reading way too much.” I patted my gut. “What about you Jesus, what was your job?” I asked.

“Ah, lawn care,” he muttered. Probably an illegal then. Not like that mattered here. His English was very good at least. “Don’t worry, I know English very well.” He said what I had been thinking. Communication was key.

“I was a business analyst, lots of e-mails and reports. Jim?”

“Medical school,” he said.

“What about you Frank?” I asked.

“Tax preparation,” he sounded tired, and I didn’t push for more.

“So medical school, what kind of doctor were you thinking of being?” I asked Jim.

“I am not sure. I still have to do my residency. But I was leaning towards general surgery. All that is pointless now, my parents will be worried,” he let out a sigh.

“Hey don’t give up. I have a suspicion that the pillars will grant skills or abilities related to either spirit or aura.”

“Like magic?” Jim asked.

“Probably. But the exact mechanics of how the skills would work and our DPS would be key. Oh sorry, DPS means damage per second. Like how many fireballs you can throw and how quickly. A balanced party has a mix of skills in order to handle a range of situations.”

“A front-line fighter to hold the line, healer of course, an archer for ranged physical damage, and a caster for damage per second.”

“You really think this place will follow…game logic?” Frank asked.

“There are slimes, a System, and points. Tougher monsters will give more points, but the risk will be much higher. That is why we need to get as many points as possible before other people head out. With 100 points each. I expect people to last 8 to 10 days before they get super desperate for points.”

“Yes, there are too many people. Very dangerous,” Jesus said.

“There is also a chance more people will show up as well. It is a hunch, but 250 people is too small for all of this.” I gestured at the surrounding abandoned city. “More people will be teleported in. They will have points and the old people won’t.”

“The slimes are important,” Jim said. I nodded at that. I looked behind us, but no one was following us thankfully. I didn’t expect that to last. Still, we were incredibly lucky to find an easy monster to start off with. I just had to exploit that advantage to the hilt.

“Any other hunches?” Frank asked me.

“More guesses really. This place is all artificial or gives that feeling. I have no doubt that death is real and final, thinking otherwise will lead to a lot of pain. There may be other gates around the city to different regions. Also, the gates may be a portal of some kind, since we can’t get up on the wall or look over it.”

“That is quite a bit,” Jesus said.

“A lot of that is probably wrong in some way or there are minor details that need to be considered more in depth to make a conclusion. The devil's in the details.” I was really glad I got that restoration, since my body was already getting tired from all this walking and talking. I didn’t want to think about I how would be feeling without it.

“Do you think there are smarter monsters? Like orcs, elves, hobbits or things like that?” Frank asked.

“Maybe? But that would probably be a mid-level enemy, depending on the size of the groups. As for intelligence, no idea. Depends on whomever set up this place. But as a guideline, stronger enemies are smarter. Anything with any kind of tool, weapon, or clothing should be treated with a lot more care than a mindless monster.”

“I…well if we find something other than slimes, I could perform autopsy.” Jim earned points for thinking of useful things.

“Wouldn’t it be a dissection, since they are animals and not humans?” I asked. Jim looked at me with a bit of surprise.

“Ah, yes actually. How did you know that?”

“As I said before, I read way too much. Autopsy for humans, dissection for animals. Maybe it would be a xenosection, since they could be considered aliens.”

“That slime was disturbing. A blob of acid and no visible structures,” Jim said.

“Time to set my watch.” Jim said as there was some light in the sky. There were only a couple wisps of clouds. After some discussion we worked out the day was about the length of a day on Earth. We would need more observations to narrow it down some more.