System Return Read online

  System Return

  Natural Laws Apocalypse #2

  By: Tom Larcombe

  Text copyright © 2021, Thomas Larcombe

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, and events

  are the products of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  About the Author

  Bibliography

  Chapter One

  Marc sighed with relief as he led his father up towards the keep. He was very glad that he'd found the settings in the Safe Zone screens that allowed him to accept the group as a whole into the Safe Zone, but he'd have to make sure that it had been a good plan to do so by asking his father if there was anyone to keep an eye on.

  Because I don't need another incident like Tim trying to take the place over, or the Sternns having to be evicted, he thought. And I'll still need to process each of them individually as residents eventually too. At least this way I can make sure about each of them first if we wait a while.

  “So dad, legionaries?” Marc said.

  “For most of them, yes,” Sean Cavanaugh replied.

  His gaze kept moving from side to side, looking at the buildings and fields in the Safe Zone, then flickering back to his son. As of yesterday, he still hadn't been sure that his son was alive.

  Marc's eyes were also drawn towards his father, as he'd had the same uncertainty.

  “Most of them?” Marc asked.

  “Well, it's a class, you know? I did get your email detailing all of that, but I never managed to get a reply out. The hotel we were in had lousy wi-fi and it went out while I was still reading your email. Well, reading it and wondering if you'd gone over the edge. Despite the message that flooded everyone's vision, I still couldn't accept things. It took one of the other conference attendees to drive it into my skull. Amusingly enough they did it by showing me a book series they were reading where something very similar happened. When the main character started fighting with a makeshift spear, one made of rebar? That's when my brain started moving towards the Roman Legions.”

  Sean broke off to look around again, shaking his head in amazement.

  “Anyhow, the guy convinced me that you weren't crazy. He said it sounded like you had a clue as to what was coming and that I should listen. I raced through that book so I had some idea of what was coming, not that it was identical or anything, but a general idea at least. Rudi, that's his name, was also the one that I bought the display pieces in my office from.”

  “Um, yeah, sorry about that. We're making use of that whole set, split up a bit though,” Marc said, embarrassed.

  “That's fine. As you saw, we have more of it. Rudi's the one who makes that stuff and he lives in the same town the conference was in, so we went to his place to gear up. The cell phone towers went down while I was reading that book, some of those 5G conspirators took advantage of all the panic and took down all the cell towers around town, destroyed them utterly, so we were totally out of communication and I never did get a chance to reply to your email. So, anyhow, when it came time to claim things we were set with Rudi's gear.”

  Marc interrupted his father for a moment.

  “We have enough room for all the people with you. I don't know about their preferences, but there's a barracks that gives those who live in it some minor combat bonuses, there's also a lot of apartments still empty in the apartment building we just passed.”

  Sean had spent several long seconds staring at the brand new apartment building as they passed. So now he nodded.

  “I don't know what everyone intends to do, but I can pass that along to them. We've got more than just legionaries though, that's the class for most of them, but your mom got a different one: Armicustos.”

  Seeing his son's confusion he explained.

  “It's the equivalent of a quartermaster in the Roman Legions. We also have a Clinicus, that's a healer of sorts, even gets some healing spells. Finally we have a pair of NCOs: an Optio and a Tesserarius. Think of the Optio as my second in command, and the Tesserarius as the hands-on commander of the troops when in camp, a watch commander I suppose.”

  Marc was trying hard to remember all of that, but decided that he didn't have to.

  “At some point, I'll want to sit down with you and write those all down. We have a bunch of classes represented here and we've got the names and basic starting skill options for all of them written down. We're trying to find out how to train people in all the different classes, but we need to know what each one offers so people can decide what they want,” Marc said.

  Sean chuckled.

  “Well, all the ones I mentioned share a couple of skills: March and Encamp. Even my Centurion class has those, although it's got a few other things as well that I'm unsure of.”

  “I can guess what those do,” Marc said. “I assume that fortification you were in was the result of the Encamp skill?”

  Sean nodded.

  “The encampment goes up faster the more people with the skill working on it. With our group it takes less than an hour to create, if we have all the wood ready beforehand. Makes something a temporary Safe Zone and lasts for a half hour per person involved with the skill.”

  “And March, of course, is how you got back here so quickly on foot?”

  “I don't call that quickly, but yes. It ensures we can make twenty miles per day, even with wagons. We did have to have some of the auxiliaries ride the wagons to keep making that distance, but it worked. We also stopped at a couple of Safe Zones along the way, so we didn't always make that distance.”

  “You said something about that, about them not being the same as ours?” Marc asked.

  “Yeah, they were...”

  Sean looked around.

  “Nothing like this at all. Both of them consisted of a single structure, like a fort or something. The buildings were in good shape, but there wasn't a lot of surrounding area inside their walls. They had a well in each place, but nothing like your fields or ponds even, never mind the rest of these buildings. There was one a little bigger, but it was damaged and looked abandoned so we didn't stop there since it was the middle of the day when we saw it.”

  “Huh, it sounds like they haven't expanded their Safe Zones at all, but even with the basic Safe Zone, we weren't that bad off. We had power and running water right from the start. I guess that's the difference between using a core versus a System token to create it?”

  Sean just looked confused until Marc explained.

  “There are two ways that you c
an form a Safe Zone. One of them involves using a monster core, and the other a System token. Cores are supposed to be more rare, although we have found a couple, but everyone gets a System token when they get a class. They get them for some other things as well,” Marc said. “We used a monster core to create our Safe Zone, then a second one so we could expand it further. The main bottleneck is materials at this point. The cores we used each support multiple expansions.”

  “I think I understand what you're saying,” Sean said. “But I'll ask you to go into more detail on it later on, if you don't mind.”

  Marc nodded.

  “Sure, but we probably ought to have you go through orientation with Al first. Everyone we've brought in has done it. It will let you know what we know about the System and how to use it. I'm sure you've gotten some of that down yourself, and if you know something he doesn't mention, please let us know so we can spread the word.”

  “Okay then, we can do that. In the meanwhile, why don't you tell me what happened to you here. It looks like it wasn't uneventful,” Sean said.

  Marc took a deep breath and sighed.

  “That's an understatement, dad,” Marc said. “It all started with that screen...”

  Marc went through telling his father about their training, clearing the high school, making the temporary Safe Zone, followed by the permanent one the day after. Sean interrupted at that point.

  “Before you get too much further along, what did you say you trained up?”

  “I think you can train up anything, although the primary stats are harder for that. The secondaries like Endurance, Mana, and Stamina seem to train up more easily though.”

  “I'll vouch for a couple of those. Everyone's Stamina and Endurance went up while we marched. Well, all of us who spent the whole day marching at least. Mana though?”

  “Logic puzzles, difficult math problems, and that type of thing. I discovered that Magic, in the System, is pretty much just a separate division of math. High level math, but training your mind seems to do okay at boosting your mana.”

  “No, I meant, what does Mana do? There are only two of us with things that use it. The Clinicus has some healing spells that use it, and I've got a skill that I can use on others that uses it. For everyone else, it seems to be a useless stat.”

  “Ah, I misunderstood. Did anyone in the book you read cast spells?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because that's what Mana is for,” Marc said.

  “Really, you're saying that magic is real now?”

  Marc nodded.

  “Yes, that's what I'm saying. Here, allow me to demonstrate.”

  Marc quickly cast a Blessing of Strength spell on his father and watched the reaction. Sean seemed to flex a little unconsciously and release a grunt.

  “Check your stats now,” Marc said. “Oh, assuming you know how, that is.”

  “I did pick up that much from the book,” Sean replied, then his eyes went vacant.

  “Three points of Strength? Is that the result of magic?”

  “Yeah, it isn't as flashy, but I've used that one a few times. There are direct damage spells also though. Here, dismiss your stats and watch this.”

  They were close to the keep now and Marc targeted a fire-aspected Mana Dart at the stone of the wall. As the three darts of flame shot from his hand to strike the wall, Sean gasped.

  “If any of your auxiliaries are still unclassed and want a Mage class, that's one of the ones we've already figured out how to train. They do need to be relatively intelligent and capable of basic math to learn it though.”

  “Basic math? As in addition, subtraction and the like?”

  “More like comfortable with variables and symbols. Like I said, magic is math, and some of it is plug and play, so they'd need to be able to handle variables and symbols. If they can handle that, we can teach them the basic Mage class at least.”

  “So you're a Mage then?” Sean asked.

  “A variant Mage class, called Arcane Bulwark. It's part Warrior, part Mage. The spells the class gives are all defensive focused, but I've picked up a few other spells along the way, both offensive and buffs.”

  Sean shook his head.

  “Things are just so... so weird now,” he said. “Here I am talking to you about magic, and you prove that you can do it casually. I'm sorry for interrupting, where were we?”

  “Oh, um, I just told you about making the Safe Zone,” Marc said, “Next, we...”

  He continued telling his tale, as concisely as he could, mentioning gathering supplies, making signs for survivors, clearing the middle school, and obtaining the seeds for the fields. He slowed and got hesitant when he had to relay the story about ousting the Sternns from the Safe Zone. His father surprised him though.

  “I never did like that guy,” Sean said, “and his wife was a real piece of work. It doesn't surprise me in the least that they'd try to freeload. I think he sold insurance or something like that, didn't have any hobbies either, so I'd be surprised if he had any useful skills and he would've thought himself above manual labor.”

  “Well, no-one's seen anything of them after we evicted them,” Marc said. “I'm afraid they're dead, but...”

  He paused, unable to express both his regrets over it as well as his thoughts that it had been an appropriate action to take. Sean seemed to notice his problem.

  “I'm not as good at this as your mom is, but...”

  Sean wrapped his arms around his son and just hugged him for a few minutes until Marc was able to continue.

  “Then we set up that kobold Lair core I told you about to generate a new nest of kobolds—”

  “Why would you do that?” Sean burst out, interrupting.

  Marc grinned.

  “Experience farm. The kobolds aren't that tough, so the lower level people with combat classes will be able to run that lair and clear it every few days. They should gain both experience and skill levels from it. If it's too much, we'll just need to clear it one final time and I can remove the Lair core again,” Marc said.

  At least I hope I can. The whole layout of the building changed, so I might have trouble finding the Lair core to remove. Although Jeff found it with his skills the first time, so if we have to do that, I'm sure he can find it again, he thought.

  Sean had a pensive look on his face.

  “Lower levels? Define that, please?”

  “Well, anyone can get some experience from them, but the lower levels will get more. Probably level four or five and under will get the most experience for leveling from them, but everyone should be able to practice their skills there. Plus the kobolds do drop some loot: copper coins, silver on some of the tougher ones, plus a few items that came in handy like healing staffs and spell scrolls. Those last are much more rare on them though.”

  “I get it, it's like you said. A farm for experience and items, but it's a lot more dangerous than farming for crops,” Sean said.

  Marc nodded, glad that his dad had understood the idea that easily.

  “After we set that up, we did some more expansion on the Safe Zone, then saw your Encampment last night. Which pretty much catches us up,” Marc finished.

  “I'm sure you're leaving a lot of things out,” Sean said.

  “I think I hit most of the important things though. Oh, and a friend of yours is here. Conner?”

  “Conner?” Sean said, shaking his head.

  “You might know him as Officer Bailey? He knew you were a prepper, something which I was unaware of until just recently.”

  Sean blushed.

  “I told you where everything was. I thought you'd look at some point and come to your own conclusions,” he said.

  Marc shook his head.

  “Anyway, he's down on the wall standing guard. Wait, no, I think he's off duty now so he's around here somewhere.”

  “Well, before I find him I'd better bring you to your mother. She's had enough time to get everything arranged to her satisfaction after we arrived, and if I
don't bring you to her soon, I'm sure to pay for it later on,” Sean said.

  “Yes please, let's go find mom,” Marc said.

  * * *

  Sean headed for the wagons, Marc in tow.

  “I'm sure she'll be with them, that's where all of our stores are and she's in charge of them. I don't see many of the people I had with me there though,” Sean said.

  “I see Felicia with mom, she probably told them the same thing I did, although she might not have thought to mention the barracks.”

  “Well, we'll find out in just a minute.”

  As they approached the wagons, Marc's mom saw them and came rushing over. Sean's hug had been because Marc needed one, his mom's was because that's who she was. She wrapped her arms around him and babbled about how happy she was that he was okay.

  Marc squirmed, unwilling to push his mom away, but not entirely okay with her hugging him like this in the middle of the Safe Zone. Finally he pushed back away from her.

  “Mom, please?” he said.

  “Fine, Marcus,” she said. “I won't embarrass you that way any more.”

  Her eyes twinkled as she continued to speak.

  “So, Felicia tells me you finally got those feet of yours warmed up,” she said.

  “What?” Marc asked, confused.

  His eyes flickered over to Felicia, but she looked as confused as he felt.

  “She told me that you finally got over having cold feet. I've known the two of you were interested in each other for years. I'm glad you finally did something about it,” his mom said.

  “Michelle,” Sean said, “it's not polite to tease your son like that.”

  Felicia was chuckling now.

  “Felicia...” Marc said, drawing the name out until it was almost a whine.

  “Sorry Marc, I was just remembering what you said the other day.”

  “What's that?” Michelle asked curiously.

  “He said we finally had a 'thing' going, some sort of relationship. Then he said that all it took was the end of the world as we know it for us to get to that point,” Felicia said.

  Michelle broke out into a grin.

  “That's my boy, clueless and insightful all at the same time,” she said.