The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1)

by Craig Kobayashi

  Garath spread his wings and felt the light breeze pushing against his feathers, providing just enough lift to encourage the Necrologist to attempt a flap. When he did, his legs pushed off the ground instinctively and he flapped again, and again with increasing speed until he managed to gain a foot or two in altitude. The feeling of the wind carrying his slight form was exhilarating and he wanted more. Though he had achieved lift, without the forward momentum of a running start, he was just fighting a losing battle with gravity. He landed gently back on the asphalt and prepared himself to really fly.

  With his wings fanned wide, Garath ran and flapped hard until he was able to pull in his feet and take off into the air. He climbed in altitude as he flew west toward the salty tang of the Pacific. The Necrologist's initial attempts at aerial movements were awkward but he quickly got the hang of it, climbing and banking and diving in the open air above the red-brick school building while Athios, Sharon, and Warrion worked with Brock and Dave to unlock the new form as well.

  Unlike House Cat form, the Crow form had an almost uniform body - varying only in size and minor aesthetic differences, versus the House Cat form that seemed to vary largely from person to person in size, color, and even breed. When Garath landed down back on the asphalt, it was next to Brock, Dave, and three other crows that Garath wouldn't have been able to differentiate from Dave without the nameplates affixed to their heads.

  *Ready to fly?* he asked them, shifting his weight from one clawed foot to the other excitedly.

  With a bit of practice and a bit of wildly flailing through the air, all four of them managed to at least get the hang of what could be called aerial travel. Sharon struggled with even walking as a crow, claiming she was too top heavy. Warrion picked up the basics immediately and had started attempting ninety-degree dives before the seventy-eight-year-young Naturist had even achieved lift. Athios took to the form naturally as well, climbing in altitude until her muscles screamed then riding the wind slowly down in easy circles.

  High above the ruined city, Garath found his mind unusually clear. The natural white noise of rushing wind drowned out any other sounds, both the typical sounds and the noise of his thoughts. He was able to come to the decision that he would be the one to organize and develop The Band of the Hawk into something wonderful, despite his earlier reluctance.

  While it was true that deep down, he wished for some mega-competent chamberlain to show up out of nowhere with an undying devotion to serve him, he knew it wouldn't happen. He also knew that he had the ability to plan and develop the community and he was finally ready to accept the responsibility that would entail. Now over two-hundred men, women, and children living together at BOTH HQ would be given the option to become a member of the Guild and join him in his mission to create a home. Apart from MMOs, the only games that captured Garath's attention were real time strategy games like Age of Empires and Warcraft 2 - developing cities and raising armies while establishing a defensible base had always been a thrilling experience for him. He hoped he could translate his experiences from those kinds of games into creating a safe and thriving community for The Band.

  His mind jumped back to the present and he panicked while circling lazily high above HQ. Ever since he had removed the egg from his Items panel the evening before, he had patted his right-side pant-pocket to make sure the little silver egg was still safe inside. After discussing it on the beach, Garath tried to place the egg back into his Items panel with no luck. An error message appeared in his mind's eye each time he tried. Luckily, the thumbnail sized egg proved very sturdy and it went into the only place that Garath felt comfortable keeping it until he was able to plant it, his pocket. In his pants. The pants he was wearing when he was in human form.

  With the frightening possibilities of what could happen to a living organism when it was transported to wherever his clothes went while shape shifted in mind, Garath hurried back to the singular outdoor dining couch on the asphalt outside the red-brick headquarters building and shifted back to his human form. As soon as he felt that his arms could even bend that way again, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the egg.

  You have found a consecrated egg. Plant it in nutrient Rich soil and water it each morning at sunrise for three days.

  *Note: the purity of the water provided will effect the creature inside for its entire life, choose well.

  Time remaining to plant and provide water: 32 hours 16 minutes 19 seconds.

  The prompt provided both relief that the egg seemed in good order and the stress to complete his first quest as the seconds ticked away on the prompt hovering in his vision. He was anxious to get moving but had two action items to check off his mounting internal list before flying off to gather high quality water for his egg and exploring the Aquawood Depths.

  First, he asked Warrion, Athios, and Sharon to poke around and see if anyone was interested in filling the fifth party slot for the dungeon. Second, he needed to get the ball rolling on converting the Raid Group to a Guild. He sank back into the soft couch and navigated his panels to send a private message to every person in the Raid, as well as the two that were still awaiting their invite.

  Private message from Garath to /RAID; Beckywinkerstaff; Cindywinkerstaff - 00/00/06 @ 06:28:

  Hello everyone,

  I'll keep this brief for now, but I wanted to give you something to think about over the next few days.

  Our Raid Group has reached max capacity at 200 members and we have more people coming for food and shelter every day. I was given the option to convert our Raid Group into a Guild - I can only speculate on the ramifications of converting but it seems harmless in and of itself. I assume that being part of a Guild will also have additional benefits, apart from either expanding or erasing our current 200 person maximum.

  I have decided to dissolve the Raid Group as of right now. I will be creating a Guild under the same name, The Band of the Hawk, within the next few days.

  If you would like to be a part of the Guild, simply reply to this message requesting an invitation. Before you do, please consider the following carefully:

  The Band of the Hawk will be a place to develop our community and explore the new magics and technologies in order to ensure our continued survival. I would like to collaborate with those of you who share my desire to create a place where survivors of this terror can come together and thrive.

  There will be a code of ethics and a set of expectations established for each Guild member before I send out any invites. I'm not sure exactly what that's going to look like yet, but I have a pretty good idea. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or input via private message (or in person, since we all live at this building... Whatever).

  That’s all,

  G

  He kept the message as a draft, reading over it repeatedly on the semi-transparent messaging panel hovering over his lap. He fussed over his verbiage, hoping he conveyed everything he wanted to, until he was joined by Athios and Warrion.

  "Any luck?" he asked them, minimizing the draft and resting a foot up on his knee.

  "Nobody," Athios reported. "Turns out we're the only ones crazy enough to go looking for murderous creatures on purpose."

  "Huh," Garath huh'd thoughtfully. He couldn't blame them. Everyone there had lost nearly every person they had ever met to The Culling. Who in their right mind would go looking for more monsters only a few days after something like that? Warrion answered that question for him.

  "What do we do, G?" asked Warrion with disappointment written all over his features. "Man, we gotta do the dungeon."

  "We four-man it,” said Garath as if it were the obvious conclusion. “Where's Sharon?"

  "Last time I saw her she was talking to Daisy's Gran in the first room," said Athios.

  "Probably trying to talk her out of today's food rations," laughed Garath. "I'll go get her."

  "How about you get a clue instead," Sharon suggested, walking out of the red brick building with the wind in her hair and a food rati
on in her hand. Her eyes seemed distant for a moment before a black, spatial disk the size of a beer can appeared before her and she inserted the ration into her Items panel.

  Garath smiled, remembering all the times he had to 'fix her phone' by turning it on or making sure her charger was also plugged in to the wall. Yet here she was, accessing a holographic menu with her mind and navigating to the Items panel to put road snacks into a dimensional anomaly for safe keeping.

  "Are we going to get this show on the road?" Sharon wanted to know. "Or do you millennials want to stare at your smart phones for a while first?"

  "Almost ready," said Garath, pulling his messaging panel back in to view. "But first, I'm going to send out a message to the entire Raid. Read it when you get yours so I know we're all on the same page, then I'll make a Party invite you."

  He looked the message over a final time and decided it would have to do. There was so much more he wanted to say, but it gave the current Raid members enough to think about for now. He finally clicked ‘yes’ with his mind to the confirmation prompt, and the message was delivered.

  He watched the faces of his friends closely as they read, gauging their responses. Warrion just nodded to himself as he read. Athios looked concerned as she sped through Garath's message, then shrugged at the end and flashed him a thumbs up. Sharon read about three sentences then closed the message and looked at the Necrologist.

  "I don't know what all this means. I'll just have to trust you.” Sharon smiled sweetly at the Necrologist, then scowled. “Swindler.”

  "Thanks, Sharon."

  "Someone's got to keep an eye on you."

  "We ready to go?" Garath asked them.

  Garath felt his stress levels lighten just a bit with the message out of the way. After a bit of mentally navigating through his panels, the Raid Group coined The Band of the Hawk was officially disbanded and Garath, Athios, Sharon, and Warrion formed a four-person Party.

  Between the growing anxiety of combatting the unknown and the new sensation of flying, butterflies filled Garath's stomach as the four of them shifted into Crow form and took to the air, leaving the safety of headquarters behind. They flew due south toward the well, the dungeon, and a new adventure.

  Chapter 28

  Aquawood Depths

  The ten mile flight from the red-brick HQ building to the Party's first destination, the artesian well, passed blessedly uneventful and surprisingly fast. Garath marveled at the amount of ground they were able to cover traveling upwards of thirty miles per hour, sans traffic lights and turning in general. Unlocking Crow form had vastly expanded the area they could reasonably cover, opening a whole new world of possibilities and adventures.

  Just off what had been a very trafficked main road that connected Interstate 5 to a popular shopping area, yet still surrounded by a forest because it's the Pacific Northwest, dwelt the public artesian well. Having never seen an artesian well before, Garath was surprised to find that it was not a large hole in the ground enforced with brick and mortar and topped with a bucket on a pulley system. Instead, it was a modern, sleek gazebo sheltering what looked to be a large block of cement with a metal tube protruding upward from its center. The metal tube split at the top into a T and crystal clear water spouted freely from both ends.

  The Party of four landed down on eight scrawny black legs at the base of the gazebo. It looked different from the ground, Garath noticed, hidden amongst the conifers and underbrush, a modern wonder in a world of green. Garath shimmered into his human form and patted his pocket out of a growing habit to check on his egg.

  When each of the adventurers were back into their natural forms, Garath turned to Athios.

  “Hey, did you bring those empty bottles?" he asked the Dimensionalist, who nodded and assumed the vacant expression Garath recognized as the look a person had when navigating their MENU panels.

  A black disk appeared in front of her and she began to pull out empty bottles one after another, handing them to the Necrologist with one hand and reaching into the void for another with the other. In total, she summoned six empty bottles from her inventory and Garath filled each with the high quality water streaming freely from the artesian well. Garath was tightening the lid on the last bottle when something occurred to him.

  "Sharon," he said to the Naturist - who had found an empty five gallon jug that must have been abandoned near the well. "Have you used your Items panel to store food before this morning?"

  "Of course I have," she said, grabbing the blue-transparent jug by its neck and dragging it toward the flowing water. "I've been putting a lot of things in there. That panel is better than any purse I've ever heard of."

  Athios silently agreed, vehemently.

  "Have you taken any food out since storing it?"

  "No," she told him. "I'm holding onto them for a rainy day."

  "Hmmmm," Garath hmm'd thoughtfully. He had been curious about the limitations of the Items panel and figured it was a good time for a quick test. First, he triggered his Inspect Ability on the filled bottle in his hand.

  Bottle of Water

  Type: Liquid

  Quality: Superb

  Item Score: 3

  Volume:12oz

  Rarity: N/A

  ***This high quality water was filtered by the Earth itself. You get the feeling that drinking it will invigorate your body and mind.

  He then accessed his Items panel, wondering if he was wearing the same vacant expression he had just seen on Athios, and pushed the bottle through the black disk and into his inventory. It appeared as a little blue bottle icon on one of the grid spaces immediately but he closed his inventory and waited a few seconds before summoning and Inspecting the item again.

  Bottle of Water

  Type: Liquid

  Quality: Superb

  Item Score: 3

  Volume:12oz

  Rarity: N/A

  ***This high quality water was filtered by the Earth itself. You get the feeling that drinking it will invigorate your body and mind.

  Garath gave an internal woot as the Items panel jumped ahead of the Profile panel for his second favorite (both below BeastScape). He unscrewed the clear plastic cap and took a long, satisfying gulp of the ice cold water. The purity of the water was definitely apparent based only on the taste, that much he expected. What he didn't expect was the small buff icon in the shape of a water droplet that appeared in the bottom right corner of his vision. He looked closer and more information was provided.

  Hydrated: You have been invigorated by Artesian Well Water. Your maximum Mana is increased by 5% and your Mana regeneration has increased by (1) per second.

  Time Remaining: 59 minutes, 58 seconds.

  The Necrologist passed the information on to the Party, who each drank the well water to gain the buff in turn. Garath was pleased to see that the duration of the buff refreshed to a full hour each time he took a sip.

  Sharon had filled the five gallon jug and was looking down at it with one hand held thoughtfully under her chin.

  "There's got to be some way to get this into my panels," she speculated.

  Garath and Athios stood together, watching her think while Warrion - apparently bored of waiting - equipped his daggers and was practicing spinning them around his index fingers. Sharon made several fruitless attempts to fit the five gallon jug into the hand-sized black disk, standing and backing away to look at it again with her hand held beneath her chin after each failed attempt.

  "It's no good," Sharon finally decided. "Maybe if I could lift it, but I can't."

  Having recently increased his Strength Attribute, Garath jumped at a reason to utilize and feel out his improved muscles. "Here, I'll pick it up, you open your inventory and I'll try to put it in."

  He wrapped his fingers around the neck of the heavy jug and hoisted it easily into the air. He would have been able to lift it easily enough before he had dumped the three points into Strength, but there was no denying the obvious difference as he held it, one-handed, out
toward the vacant eyed Naturist. When her eyes refocused, a hand-sized black disk appeared in front of her and she took a step forward - forcing the disk to occupy the same space as the filled water jug. The small black disk moved unhindered through the blue plastic containment vessel and into its contents. Sharon frowned.

  "Try this, step back then put your hand on the jug and then try again," suggested Garath.

  She did as instructed, backing away until the dimensional disk was once again outside the jug, then reached out to put her hand just below Garath's against the smooth plastic container. Again, she stepped toward the jug with her black disk between her chest and her outstretched hand. This time the black disk expanded as it reached the blue plastic exterior, growing in circumference until the jug disappeared into the tear in space. Once safely stored inside, the disk shrank to its regular size and disappeared at Sharon's command.

  "How did you know that would work?" Athios asked.

  "Lucky guess," Garath explained. In truth, he had read speculations on the Items panel in some detail on the World forums. In particular, one post gave him the idea - a guy named Tallahassee had commented on a popular forum that he had managed to get an entire box of Twinkies into his Items panel. The comment didn't say how, but Garath had been considering exactly how that may work ever since.

  "Lucky indeed," said Athios.

  "Lucky for now at least," said Garath. He laughed without explanation.

  "And just what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Sharon wanted to know.

  "Well we got it in there, hopefully your luck holds when you try to pull it out."