My desire to avoid alien complications only left my other option—head south and work my way up to the top of Mount Washington, where Pittsburgh’s third Shop was located in Saint Mary of the Mount Church. With the bridge to the west out, that was my best option even though I wasn’t looking forward to the climb.
I hoped my accumulated loot would net me enough Credits that I could afford some spells. If either Zeke or I had been able to afford even a simple healing spell, the big man would still be alive.
On top of the spells, I needed more efficient transportation. I’d spent plenty of miles hoofing it back in my military days and wanted something that could get me around a bit more quickly.
I left the fountain and walked past the fort as I headed east to the nearest still-standing bridges.
“You’re leaving us?” Chrystal asked as she hurried after me.
I stopped and looked back at the ranger with a shrug. “Zeke gave me a quest.”
“Where are you going?”
I pointed vaguely to the west. “Gotta check where his kids went to school and find out what happened to them.”
“Oh. We really hoped you’d stay.”
“Sorry,” I said unapologetically. “There’s really nothing for me here, and I owe Zeke at least that much.”
“I understand,” Chrystal replied. “I guess this is goodbye then.”
I nodded. “Goodbye, Chrystal.”
I headed south and east from the fort until I left the park and found my way back to the city streets. Cars still littered the streets, but surprisingly few people were out and about. Likely the whole jabberwock incident had encouraged people to leave the area if they could. I walked along Fort Pitt Boulevard and continued east until I reached the Smithfield Street Bridge.
I turned south onto the wide pedestrian walkway that ran along either side of the bridge over the Monongahela River. I crossed the wide river without incident, thankful that the catfish monsters from the previous day remained out of sight.
They’d smelled terrible.
Once across the bridge, I turned left on West Carson Street and followed it until I found a side street that wound up the side of Mount Washington. In typical Pittsburgh fashion for excess, Mount Washington wasn’t an actual mountain but a very large hill. Of course, the hill was both steep enough and tall enough that multiple tunnels ran through it, so maybe it wasn’t a complete exaggeration.
I grumbled to myself again about the lack of vehicular transportation as I climbed the steep incline. Even with my increased Constitution, the hill was a hike.
I took a chance by going off road halfway up the hill. A narrow footpath traveled more straight uphill than the winding road, so I followed it instead. Other than the half dozen easily dispatched rabbits with razor-sharp teeth that swarmed at me from some bushes alongside the trail, the shortcut proved worth it.
After a few more twists and a turn up another side street, I reached the road regarded as the most scenic view of the city. The length of Grandview Avenue ran along the crest of Mount Washington and several cement platforms made up overlooks that jutted out from the hillside to provide commanding views of the city below. I stepped out onto the Upper Incline Scenic Overlook and gazed down at the city.
Far below, on the far side of the river, I saw the raised walls of Fort Duquesne and the tiny people who moved through the park. I wondered if anyone up here had watched the jabberwock’s rampage through the city and the fight that ensued.
In the daylight, I could clearly make out the damage left on the U.S. Steel Tower by the jabberwock. The top of the building had crumbled in where the creature had crawled across it, and the remaining letters of U, P, and C hung unevenly, as if about to follow the M in tumbling to the ground.
A haze of smoke drifted around the tall buildings of downtown, the result of several smoldering buildings throughout the city. Gunshots still echoed intermittently as people fought for their lives against the monster spawns and each other.
I pushed away from the railing and left the overlook. The longer it took to reach the Shop and get transportation, the higher the likelihood of failing my quest.
The hill rose slightly as I followed the wide sidewalk that ran alongside Grandview Avenue. It wasn’t long before I found the street blocked off by a line of cars tipped onto their sides at an intersection near the crest of the hill, just before I reached the location of the Shop. Placed bumper to bumper, the vehicles formed an effective makeshift barricade that ran from the edge of the sharp-off at the edge of the hill toward the community center building on the corner, then on out of sight as the wall continued around the block.
Over the top of the barricade, several nervous individuals watched my approach. As I got closer, I saw that they were all armed. I had a brief flashback to my arrival at the fort the previous evening as I kept my empty hands away from my holstered weapons.
“Hello, the wall,” I said loudly in greeting.
Several of the people looked at each other nervously, all of them glancing at a middle-aged man toward the center of the wall.
“What do you want?” The man’s voice was weary and filled with distrust.
“I just want to use the Shop and continue on my way,” I said. “I’m not here to cause any trouble.”
“How do you know about the Shop?” If anything, the suspicion in the voice had grown sharply.
“It’s marked on a map I got from another Shop.” I pointed toward the northeast, in the general direction of the Cathedral of Learning.
“There are other Shops?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Three throughout the city, and others spread around in larger towns.”
“Oh,” said the man, who regarded me intently for a moment then waved me forward. “Fine, come on up.”
I was directed to a section of the makeshift wall where the vehicles weren’t as close together as they initially appeared. Instead of being in a straight line, two of the cars had been angled to create a slight gap that wasn’t visible from a straight-on view. The gap was only large enough for me to squeeze through when I turned sideways.
Once inside the walls, I saw that several pickup trucks had been backed up against the inside of the vehicular walls. The truck beds gave a raised fighting platform, high enough for the guards inside the walls to peer out over them. The height advantage would allow them to have clear fields of fire for the futuristic rifles they carried.
More armed individuals were waiting for me inside, previously hidden from view by the walls. Several teens were detailed to escort me to the nearby church, and I caught sight of another one running ahead, presumably to let whoever was in charge know about my arrival. By the time I was escorted to the church itself, several people had gathered outside the corner of the gothic brick building. Their leader was clearly the black-robed priest in their center. The priest was an older man with graying hair and a deeply lined face.
“Greetings, Adventurer,” said the priest. “I am Father McCulley.”
“Hal Mason. What do you mean by Adventurer?” I asked with my brow furrowed. That was the second time I had been called by that term. The Shopkeeper had first addressed me with that moniker.
The priest nodded warmly. “That is the socially acceptable term under this new System for those who brave the dangers outside of the Safe Zones.”
“I didn't know that,” I replied.
The priest sighed. “There is much we are all learning about this new world.”
“I haven’t had a chance to read the guidebook as much as I would like,” I said.
“Thrasher’s Guide?” At my nod, Father McCulley continued. “It does have quite a bit of helpful information. I would recommend making the time to study it thoroughly.”
The priest asked about my experiences so far under the System, and I answered his questions honestly. Though I tried to gloss over actually killing the jabberwock, the perceptive priest still figured it out.
“So that was you?” Father McCulley eyed me wi
th speculation. “What was that thing?”
“A jabberwock,” I admitted. “Several who fought beside me did not survive, but their sacrifices led to the creature’s death.”
“We saw part of the battle from here.” Father McCulley gestured to the overlook across the street from where we stood. “It is fortunate that you killed the monster, otherwise it may have continued to grow even stronger.”
I hadn’t thought of that aspect, but the priest was right. The more people the creature killed, the stronger it would have become as it accumulated experience, just like us. And that was true for every monster in this System.
“Well,” I finally said, “I’ll do what I can to keep the monsters I find from getting any stronger.”
“What do you seek here?” Father McCulley asked.
“I need to use the Shop to purchase some working transportation. I have a quest that requires something more effective than my own two feet.”
“That’s fair.” The priest nodded and looked at the others who had gathered around us and had listened intently as we talked. “I’m satisfied with this young man. I have no issues with him being admitted to the church for use of the Shop.”
The others seemed to agree, and I was quickly directed through the double-wide arch-over front doors and into the church.
You Have Entered a Safe Zone (Saint Mary of the Mount Church)
Mana flows in this area are stabilized. No monster spawning will happen.
This Safe Space includes:
Village of Mount Washington, Pittsburgh City Center
A Hospice (+10% Negative Effect Recovery)
The Shop
The interior of the church was beautiful. The morning sunlight streamed into the sanctuary through massive stained-glass windows all around the long hall. At the front of the sanctuary, a deacon chanted in Latin as he guided a small crowd through Mass.
The glowing multifaceted silver crystal hovered in the aisle between the final row of pews at the rear of the sanctuary. The brilliant colors of the stained glass windows reflected from the crystal’s shimmering surface in a kaleidoscopic effect that lit up the back of the large room.
I stepped up to the crystal and placed my hand on its cool surface. Instantly, I found myself at the entrance of the same Shop I had visited previously.
Ryk waited beside the threshold and nodded respectfully to me. “Welcome back, Adventurer Mason.”
“Thank you, Ryk,” I said. “I have some stuff to unload if you want to get to haggling.”
“Of course, sir,” replied Ryk as he directed me toward the stasis table with a gesture.
I emptied my Inventory onto the table. I hesitated as Zeke’s gear drew a sharp glance from Ryk, but he was quickly distracted by the loot from the jabberwock. With the shopkeeper focused on the monster loot, I had second thoughts and put Zeke’s hammer back into my Inventory on impulse.
“You have had an interesting time, haven’t you?” Ryk asked rhetorically as he picked up one of the shimmering gemstone-like eyes of the jabberwock and peered at it through an eyepiece that looked similar to a jeweler’s loupe.
“I’ll offer you fifty-two thousand Credits,” said Ryk as he stored the eyepiece and returned the eye to the table.
“Sixty thousand,” I countered automatically.
“Fifty-five,” said Ryk.
“Fifty-seven,” I replied. “And you’ll tell me who might create a portal for a jabberwock raid boss to show up on the first day of System integration.”
Ryk’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at me intently. “Fine.”
The Credits appeared in my account notifications as the items spread over the table disappeared. I felt a slight twinge of guilt as Zeke’s remaining equipment vanished, but even I hadn’t met the strength requirements for the armor. No one at the fort could have used the gear either, and this way it would do me some good.
“The information wouldn’t have cost much in any case,” said Ryk. “It’s standard practice for the Galactic Council to move additional monsters to a new Dungeon World in order to increase the variety of creatures spawning there.” Despite the shopkeeper’s casual tone, his demeanor displayed an unusual tension.
“I see,” I said carefully.
The Shopkeeper nodded once, clearly relieved that I understood the gravity of the information.
I certainly understood. The beings responsible for the jabberwock were the same ones who controlled the System and the blue message boxes that had appeared each morning so far. The beings who had made my planet a Dungeon World. Those entities may as well be deities with how many orders of magnitude their power exceeded mine. I understood that.
But now I knew. Now, I had a target.
“Thanks,” I said as I forced myself into a cheerful expression. “How about we look at some transportation options next?”
“That sounds like an excellent suggestion,” replied Ryk.
The quadruped shopkeeper beckoned me to follow as he led the way down a hallway and into a spacious room with a complex array of machinery hanging from the ceiling far above. The air smelled faintly of ozone, oil, and metal. Ryk stopped just inside the door, beside a console that stuck out from the wall.
“This is what we call ‘The Garage,’” explained the shopkeeper proudly. “The hard-light projectors in the ceiling will allow you to simulate any vehicle in our inventory smaller than a frigate-class starship.”
“I doubt I can afford anything that large,” I said.
Ryk shrugged and smiled. “Maybe not today, but there’s always the future.”
I stepped up to the console and looked at the available options. There were many.
Monster trucks with tires taller than me. Hovering jetcycles. Land skimmers that could reach a respectable altitude. Personal jetpacks. Armored dune buggies. Motorcycles that could turn into armored mecha.
I spent far too much time cycling through the possibilities and test drove several vehicles until I found a few comfortable options within my price range. I eventually settled on a heavily armored off-road motorcycle that was popular with lower ranked Hakarta mercenary companies for their rugged performance in hostile terrain at a reasonable cost. The low-slung bike had wide, thickly ridged tires that were only slightly more narrow than the body of the bike itself. The rider sat just ahead and only slightly above the rear tire, behind a blocky engine housing covered in thick armor plates. The front tire extended out from the front armor plates enough to make turning and climbing steep inclines possible.
The sole upgrade I took to the rugged vehicle was the ability to fit it into my Inventory. The upgrade used up one of the bike’s hard points that would normally be used to link weapons or specialized equipment, but I couldn’t afford anything flashy now, and the ability to pull the bike in my System storage outweighed the cost of the Nano Garage Module. While the stored bike would take up two spaces in my Inventory, I thought that was better than having someone try to run off with the thing.
The bike also had an optional, but strongly recommended, connection for a Neural Link that would allow me to remotely control the bike from a short distance away. I added the bike and a relatively inexpensive Neural Link to my virtual shopping cart before I asked Ryk to guide me back to the main floor of the shop.
I restocked my munitions and added the full Human Genome Treatment to my purchases, both scrubbing defective genes from my DNA and optimizing my current genetic code. The ammunition included a full set of the specialty rounds for the hybrid rifle, each in their own color-coded magazine for easy identification. The ammo was significantly more expensive than the standard rounds, but I wanted to be prepared if I ran into any more creatures that would normally have been far out of my league.
Then I rectified my lack of healing options by adding the most basic healing spell I could find to my shopping list.
Minor Healing (I)
Effect: Heals 20 Health per casting.
Target must be in contact during healing. Cooldown 60 seconds.<
br />
Cost: 20 Mana.
Once I had some capacity for healing myself and others, I spent time browsing through offensive spells that I could afford. I needed a spell that dealt damage at a distance and played to my strengths. While I had Hinder for enemies who managed to reach close range, I wanted something that could help keep space between those enemies and me while I whittled them down with my accurate weapons attacks. Finally, I found something that met those needs.
Frostbolt (I)
Effect: Creates a Frost bolt from the user’s Mana, which can be directed to damage a target. The dart does 10 Ice damage and slows the target by 2%. Slow effect stacks up to three times (6%). Cooldown 10 seconds.
Cost: 25 Mana.
Finally, I added a pair of significantly cheaper utility spells to my repertoire. Cleanse and Create Water seemed inherently useful and were listed as “strongly recommended” for those new to the adventuring profession.
I reviewed my list, sighed at the total amount, then looked at Ryk before I confirmed my selections.
“I think the only reason you cut me such a good deal when we haggle is that you know I’m just going to turn around and spend it all here anyways,” I said wryly.
Ryk shrugged innocently, but the hint of a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
I sighed dramatically and locked in my purchases, then watched as the Credits drained from my account. The shopkeeper looked at me with a wordless question, and I nodded to show I was prepared for the changes to come. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I blacked out for a moment.
An instant later, or so it seemed, I opened my eyes to find myself seated near the entrance of Ryk’s Shop.
“Good, you’re awake,” said Ryk. “How does the Genome Treatment and Neural Link feel?”
My vision was slightly sharper, noticeable even on top of the improvements already granted by my Keen Senses Class Skill. The treatment had resolved any minor genetic flaws throughout my body, but it seemed most notable in my vision, even though my eyes had been close to perfect before. I stood and felt as if my point of view had shifted slightly upward. I looked at myself in the reflection of the display cases and found a more ruggedly handsome version of myself staring back at me.
Fist Full of Credits: A New Apocalyptic LitRPG Series (System Apocalypse - Relentless Book 1) Page 12
