by Deck Davis
As he got to the first street in town he went by Farley’s liquor store. The light on the front, usually illuminated in large yellow letters, was dark. The town was silent, save for the tinkling of a beer can as the wind blew it across the pavement. There wasn’t much sign of life, which he found strange. He’d expected a crowd of people queued up by the police station to ask what was going on.
As he got nearer the liquor store, he saw that there was a big white van parked outside. Two guys stood in front of an open bonnet. It looked like their vehicle had suffered the same fate as Ash’s, yet these guys evidently hadn’t figured out that the electricity was gone.
“Check the oil,” said one. He had a dirty rag over his shoulder as though he was a waiter.
Another man, tall with beefy shoulders, shook his head in contempt. “The dashboard is fried, and oil doesn’t have anything to do with the dash.”
“Cars are funny things.”
“So’s your face.”
The man shook his head. “Really? That the best you could come up with?”
The streets of Pasture Downs were hardly Vegas at the best of times, but Ash had never seen them this dark before. He looked as far as he could along town, and he couldn’t see a single light glowing. As much as he hated the dump and everyone in it, he kinda wished it was back to normal.
Okay. Better try and be nice. Just be friendly and polite, if I can remember how to do that. Don’t say anything too antagonizing.
By the van, one of the men held a lighter over the bonnet. Ash approached them, and nodded at the lighter.
“Not a clever thing to do when you’re checking the oil,” he said. “What if it caught fire?”
Hmm. Maybe a little too antagonistic. Really need to brush up on my people skills.
The men turned to look at him. Ash felt his stomach tighten when he realized that not too long ago, he’d sat in the living room one of the men and told him how much a clever idea it was to transfer a few thousand into Ash’s investment account. Damn it! He really, really needed to start writing this down.
Recognition flitted in the man’s eyes and his face became stone. He stepped forward, and the dirty rag fell from his shoulder. “You’re the son-of a-bitch who took our money!”
“Your feats of memory are astonishing,” said Ash.
The beefy-shouldered man squinted.
“That the fella who screwed you over?”
The man nodded. “That’s him.”
Ash could sense that it was going to get ugly.
“Let’s mess him up.”
Yeah, this was going to get real ugly indeed.
He knew that in the face of hostility, you did one of two things; you stayed, or you ran. Ash wasn’t a runner.
“Do any of you hairy apes know what’s going on around here?”
“Unless you’re blind, you can see that we got a goddamn power cut.”
It was then that he heard banging sounds coming from the back of a van. Three louds thuds that gave a metallic ring. Something was in there.
“What the hell’s that?” he asked.
One of the men scratched his ear. “Just my dog,” he said, without an ounce of conviction.
As well as more thuds, Ash heard a muffled cry. No way was that a dog. It sounded like a woman was screaming through a rag, or something.
“Sounds like a strange dog to me.”
“You should mind your own damn business, piss-ant,” said the man.
He grabbed a hammer and started to approach Ash. At six-foot-four, he was a looming monster of a man. His friend picked up a crowbar, and soon both weapon-wielding thugs were advancing on him.
Normally Ash would have used his winning personality to back out of a confrontation, since he wasn’t much of a fighter. No need to run away now, though. Not when he could fire flames out of his ass. Maybe he’d fire a warning shot and scare them.
As one of the men reached him and swung with his crowbar, Ash fired Ignis at him. He must have misjudged a little, because the flames lashed his face and set fire to his hair.
The man ran in circles, screaming. He sprinted over to the bonnet and grabbed a water bottle propped up on top of it. He frantically unscrewed the cap and poured it over his burning hair.
For a second, Ash could only watch, astonished, unable to believe that he had this kind of power inside him. The other man capitalized on Ash’s lapse in concentration, and hit him on the jaw with his hammer. Ash felt his bones crack, and FF helpfully informed him that he’d lost 30HP.
“God damn that hurts!” he said, rubbing his jaw.
He needed to take care of the man, but with just 95 hp left, he was quite literally playing with fire. What else was there to do, though? The man was ready to swing again, and if Ash just stood there he’d be pulverized.
Instead, he stepped back just enough to avoid another hammer swing. He cast Ignis at the man. The flames caught on the oil covering his overalls, and soon the man became a screaming ball of fire.
The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and Ash felt sick. He’d never so much as hit someone before, but now he’d set two men alight. This just wasn’t his style, but what else could he have done?
Maybe a little more charisma will mean you don’t have to start a flame battle with everyone you see, said FF. You know, just something to think about. Anyway, here are your stats.
Ignis LVL 1 – 100%!
Ignis levelled up to 2 – You can now choose to donate double HP for a more powerful arcane blast.
25% toward Blood Mage tier 2!
“Sweet. Now all I need is something big enough to try it out on.”
That’s not all, said FF.
70% EXP gained!
Level up to level 2!
- HP increased to 404
- 5 attribute points gained
The tool-wielded lugs had earned him 35% exp each, which was a damn sight better than the goblins.
You can spend your attribute points now, you pyromaniac.
“One sec,” said Ash.
First, he needed to top up his HP in case goblins sprouted from the dead men’s asses or something. He used Life Drain, sucking 80 HP from them and leaving them looking like dried-up, flame-kissed prunes. He felt bad, but they’d started it. Okay, maybe Ash had kinda started it by defrauding one of them, but that was just business. He wasn’t the one who’d started swinging crowbars and hammers.
Life Drain 50%!
With that done, he spent his attribute points. Since his spells cost him HP, it’d make sense to top up his endurance to raise his total HP limit.
Don’t forget intelligence, too. You’re pretty short on that score.
“What does intelligence have to do with it?”
Increasing your brain size makes your spells a little more powerful. It also comes with the added bonus of upgrading you from shit-for-brains to sludge-for brains.
By increasing his endurance to 15 and his intelligence to 8, he found that his HP total increased yet again, making his total 444. He’d need to gain a lot more, but it was a start.
With the dim-witted mechanics dead, he opened the back door of the van. A woman was on her back on the metallic flooring.
She had lank brown hair, and her forehead was covered in sweat. Her wrists and ankles were tied up, and her clothes were smeared with blood. What the hell had those guys been doing? Why did people act this way as soon as the world turned to hell?
He untied her ropes and removed the gag from her mouth.
“You okay?” said Ash.
She backed away from him. Her eyes were so wide they seemed entirely white.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you. I took care of the thugs.”
She tried talking, but all that came out were moans. Whatever they’d done to her, she was in a bad way. He was going to have to do something.
Already regretting the HP sacrifice, he used Transfusion on her.
Transfusion level 1 increased to 50%
She looked a
little better. Her clothes were still stained with blood, but Transfusion was a healing spell, it wasn’t fucking laundry detergent. Still, she was able to sit up now.
“Do you have a phone?” she said, her voice still weak.
“All the phones are out. What the hell were those guys doing to you?”
“I need to get home.”
“Come on, I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
She looked quite young, maybe in her mid-twenties, which would place her a few years younger than Ash. She was tall and gangly. Her knuckles were red raw, which indicated she’d put up a bit of a fight. When Ash offered his hand she took it, and he helped her out of the van.
“Where do you live?” he asked her.
“Near Blake’s farm,” she said.
“I don’t know where that is, but if you lead the way I’ll get you there.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m the blood mage bastard.”
As they walked away from the van, Ash felt something whiz by his head, and then it clanged on the metal doors of the van. He turned to see a bullet hole in the metal. Then, turning back around, he saw a man fifty meters away from him. He had a rifle in his hands, and a crossbow slung on his back.
“Step back from the girl,” growled the man.
Ash recognized the guy. It was Tony Fucking Shore, the guy who’d helped him with the mob in the parking lot! With his grey beard and wrinkled face, he looked like some kind of post-apocalyptic wizard who’d given up on spells and picked up a gun.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing with her,” said Tony, “But you better leave her be.”
The girl held up her hand. “It’s okay, he helped me.”
“Don’t trust this son of a bitch, girl. Back away from him.”
Ash sighed. Was he going to have to buy a sign saying, ‘I’m a blood mage, keep the hell away,’ just so that people didn’t mess with him?
“This is way above your station, dystopian Gandalf,” he said. “Some jerks tied her up in the back of a van, and I let her loose.”
Tony levelled the rifle at Ash’s face and squinted through the sights.
“When I count to three, I open up your chest like a lasagna.”
“Really? You sure you can count that high?”
“One…”
“The next number is two,” added Ash.
“Three…”
With that, Ash fired an Ignis flame at Tony.
Chapter Six
Sweet Dreams, My Prince
Instead of burning Tony Shore to a crisp, Ash watched in dismay as his Ignis flame hit an oval wall of pure white light in front of him, before fizzing out. Tony lowered his gun and looked at Ash strangely.
Now, Ash had some questions of his own. Was that some kind of magic shield?
“Hold on a second,” he said. “You got one of those blue balls too?”
Tony, it turned out, had been at his ranch when light flashed over the sky and electronics had failed. At first, he thought that wolves or something had been screwing around with his generator. When he went out to explore, he found a glowing blue ball in the middle of his yard.
“I know this will sound goddamn crazy but when I went near it, the light washed over me like horse piss. Before I knew it, some guy inside my head was telling me that I’m a blue mage.”
“No further explanation necessary,” said Ash, holding up his hand. “I’m in the same boat.”
As the two newly-acquainted mages had discussed their powers, the girl slipped away from them. She ran away screaming, her mind no doubt struggling to comprehend the display of magic she’d just seen. Before Ash could say anything, she reached a corner of the street.
As he watched her run away, he shook his head. “What’s with the lack of gratitude around here?” he said.
“Folks might not be so disposed to spending time with a cock-faced conman,” said Tony.
“And I guess I’m the cock-face in this scenario?”
“Yup.”
Ash shrugged. “Can’t argue with that. Any idea what the hell’s going on?”
“EMP is my bet. Every damn thing that’s electronic is down. Seen it happen from time to time, and it’s down to a faulty cable or problem at the plant. Different this time, though.”
“Call me crazy, but I don’t think an EMP would crap blue balls from the sky, and I’ve never heard of one sending mobs of goblins into the world. I’m no genius, Tony, but I think something a little worse than a god damned EMP is afoot.”
“Whatever it is, I’m gonna give you some advice. You don’t deserve it, but you might have guessed by now that I’m a nicer guy than you are. My advice is this; you better get the hell out of Pasture.”
Ash shook his head. “Wish I could, but my car died. What are you doing out, you old bastard?”
“The lights and heating went,” said Tony. “Had a look at the breakers after the blue ball pissed all over me, but couldn’t see anything wrong. I came to find Alec. He’s the electrician. Looks like the grid is gone.”
“There’s a nuclear power plant twenty-five miles away,” said Ash. “Maybe we should go borrow some of their power. Me and my buddies used to siphon gas when I was a kid and use it to run an old dirt bike. I’m sure my talents translate to siphoning juice from a power plant.”
“You shouldn’t joke about that. I hope to hell their grid’s okay. This’ll get bad real fast if there’s a problem up there.”
“Listen. I really need to use a phone. Know anyone who might have a radio, or something?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to check on my parents. Make sure the old man doesn’t have fucking goblins in his garden or something.”
“Best I can do is take you to the station,” said Tony. “Ellie Ashurst might have something. After that, I don’t give a damn where you go.”
“What about you?” asked Ash.
“Me? Only thing I care about is my wife Marg. Not that she needs me to care for her; woman’s tougher than steel. But she’s my life. Don’t tell my dog Abraham that, though, little pupper thinks I live and breathe for him. Once I’m done in town, I’m getting’ back to Marg and my dog.”
Tony guided him through the darkened streets of Pasture Downs. Ash looked through every window that they passed, but none had power. If it wasn’t for the fact that he saw movement inside some of the shops, he would have sworn it was a ghost town.
It seemed like everyone had just upped and left in the middle of the night. It was ridiculous really, how much we took electricity for granted, and the panic it caused when it went. Even a few hours without power caused people to lose their minds. God help them if they saw any goblins.
The town centre was small, lined on each side with shops selling shit people didn’t need for prices that they couldn’t afford. One of the shops was a butchers, though there was something strange about the sign. The first four letters had changed, so that instead of ‘butchers,’ it read ‘ALCHhers.’ He didn’t know what to make of that.
When they got to the police station they found the door open.
Tony stopped. “Something I gotta tell you about Ellie,” he said.
“What?”
“She might seem like she has a stick up her ass sometimes, but there’s a good reason. She looks after her boy by herself. The dad is a scumbag; left her when the lad was only six. She’s struggled by on her own all these years, and it’s made her a little bitter. Get to know her, and she’s a gem, but she’s not too friendly to strangers. Especially not ones who stole all her money.”
Ash was about the explain that technically he didn’t steal her money, but he thought better of it. Instead, he felt a pang of guilt, which was quite a rare feeling for him. His folks had always struggled with money when he was younger, and he knew how hard it must have been to bring up a kid alone, while keeping a full-time job.
Maybe I should give it back to her, he thought. When all this is done, maybe…
“Come on,
” said Tony.
They walked inside and found the sheriff with the telephone at her ear. She was bent forward over the desk and pressing the numbers on the handset.
“Piece of shit’s broken!”
The sheriff slammed the phone down. Next to her was a kerosene lamp that cast a dim glow over the room.
