Anti-Mage

Anton came to with something in his mouth. With a little effort, he spit it out which caused the pain in his head to hurt even worse. Pain in his head? He normally didn’t feel pain and if he did it only lasted a couple of seconds. Anton took a deep breath and started counting back from 20. By the time he reached nine, the headache was gone but his head still felt like there was a pressure directly behind his eyes that wanted out.

“Are you okay,” A feminine voice said from his side as she reached up and removed something from his head. That’s right he was in the SYSTEM Shop and he had sat down in this chair to receive some skill implants. Something about blades…suddenly images of hours of training, practice, and use rushed through his mind as he tried to concentrate on Vie, yes Vie’s voice and his own breathing.

“I think I’m fine,” he rasped, “just a bit of a headache and I’m a little thirsty,”

“One sec,” Vie said as she walked to the side of the room and then back and handed him a glass of what looked like water, “Yes, it’s water,” she said as she waited for him to grab it.

Anton accepted the glass and took a deep swallow. The cool refreshment slid down his throat and seemed to calm his mind. A moment later he sat up and looked around.

Vie looked at him for a moment and then a tablet appeared in her hand as she looked over something before she said “Oh,” and looked up into Anton’s eyes smiled sheepishly, “I must apologize, I should have checked your attributes before we started.”

Anton just nodded gently and waited, he didn’t want to move his head too quickly just yet even though he knew he should be fully healed by now.

Vie squared her shoulders before she continued, “Your current Intelligence attribute is 64, and your Willpower is 264. While nothing we implanted should have been an issue for you,” she paused for a moment before she changed what she was going to say, “For future reference do not try to learn anything above Mythic Level 4.”

“Why is that?” Anton asked.

“As I was going to explain, your Intelligence Attribute determines how well your mind absorbs a skill. While you could learn any skill all the way through Legendary Level 10 with time and effort, absorbing the knowledge of a skill quickly, and without side effects or complications requires that the individual have the intellect to absorb and sort huge amounts of data. I had assumed that because your highest Attribute read as 264 all of your attributes had to be above 100. It seems I was mistaken. In fact, the only reason you didn’t die is probably because your Willpower attribute is so high.”

So, it’s not that I couldn’t absorb everything, it’s that I tried to absorb too much at one time?” Anton clarified.

“While the rarity and level of skills is not an absolute indicator the SYSTEM has devised a method to approximate the levels. Master Level 5 requires at least a 45 in intelligence to be deemed safe. Master Level 1 would require a 41 in the intelligence attribute. All of the Rare Level 1 skills would have required a 21 in the intelligence attribute. Now, while adding the information together and packaging it together is not linear the approximate weight of information for all of your skills added together equaled 263. Your brain could have handled each skill individually, but when they were added together and slammed into your mind, well, information overload.”

Anton was so glad he hadn’t added another couple of skills, if he had he might have tried to take on more than his mind could handle. He handed the glass of water back and then stood as Vie stepped back, “Thank you for the water.”

“Are you sure you should be standing, it should take a few minutes at least for your mind to settle back down,” Vie started to say.

“Nah, I’m fine. My mind feels a little full, but any physical damage was fixed at least 20 seconds ago. No matter what you do to me, 20 seconds later I’m fine, it’s part of that ability thing I have.”

“Oh, okay,” Vie said.

“So, if I could make a few more minor purchases and then get everything transferred into my Personal Storage I’ll be on my way.”

Vie led him out of the room and back to his seat at the counter before taking her place behind it, “What else do you need?”

“Are their dimensional vaults that can be added to City Nodes?” Anton asked.

“There are what’s called Dimensional Storage Nodes of varying sizes. How big were you thinking you’d need?”

“Well, I should have just over 24 million credits left after all purchases, what size could that get me?” Anton asked.

Vie searched through her tablet, tapped a few keys and an image appeared in front of him with prices.

Node-Specific Vault Sizes and Cost

10-foot cube – 1 million credits

100-foot cube – 10 million credits

200-foot cube – 100 million credits

Anton waved away the projection and asked, “Can I purchase more than one and attach them to the same node?”

“Absolutely. It also makes it easier to sort things and allows the owner of the Node to give access to one storage area while maintaining security on the other.”

“About security,” Anton said as he interrupted Vie, “How hard is it to break into and steal from a node.?”

“The System guarantees that only those with approved access can access storage locations attached to nodes. That is not to say that there are individuals that can bypass those security measures. To do so though, they must touch the node to gain access to the dimensional storage location, unless they’ve been to it before and can travel through dimensional barriers of course.”

“Sounds pretty straightforward. Can the storage areas be accessed from anywhere else?”

“Each storage area can have one Storage Node free of charge. That node can be placed anywhere within the domain of the node the storage area is attached to and will give full access to the contents of the storage area,” Vie said.

“That’s perfect,” Anton said excitedly. “I would like two 100-foot storage areas and two 10-foot storage areas for 22 million credits, please. Please attach them to the city node in Minneapolis St. Paul where I am the City Lord.

“Done and done,” Vie said tapping a few keys.”

“Good, now please supply one of the 10-foot storage areas with 1 million credits worth of health, Stamina, and Mana potions in equal amounts.

“What quality,” when Anton looked at her quizzically she continued, “There are Minor, Major, and Prime.”

“What’s the difference? Anton asked.”

“Minor potions return up to 100 points. Major up to 500 and Prime 1,000 or more”

“I think we’ll be fine with minor for now,” Anton said.

“Very well, 334 Minor Potions of Healing, 333 Minor Potions of Mana, and 333 Minor Potions of Stamina purchased and placed within your 10-foot City Storage area.”

“They’re 1,000 credits a pop?” Anton asked.

“Yes, The SYSTEM Shop doesn’t create them. There are crafters SYSTEM-wide that craft them. Long ago a majority unionized and refused to sell potions for less than 800 credits a piece. The SYSTEM realized that this could be good income resources and agreed and sells the potions for a 200-credit markup. As minor potions are bought constantly there is a high demand. I had to study economic dichotomy in one of my courses between the three types of potions. Major and Prime potions do not follow the same rules and have a much lower availability which increases their cost dramatically. Will you need any potions for yourself?”

Anton looked thoughtful for a moment, “Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know if they’d even work on me. Besides the only one that I could use would be a Stamina potion. My body is fully repaired every 20 seconds and I can’t use mana, so what’s the point? So, no I think I’m fine on potions. As for for my last purchase for today please use up to 1 million credits to fill one of the 100-foot storage areas with ration bars for humans.

“No water?”

“No, there’s a river close by, if anything I’ll probably need some way to purify water, but I’ll let someone else from the city handle that. I’m just making sure there’s enough food to go around until the people figure out how they’re going to create and distribute food and water for themselves.”

“Very well. It looks like you have 22,900 Credits left,” Vie said.

“Yep, I’m tapped out for now. Though I am quite satisfied with everything I purchased and would like to thank you again for taking the time to explain some things to me,” Anton said with a smile.

“My pleasure,” Vie said with a smile.

“Well, if that’s it, would you please transfer my personal purchases to my Personal Storage.”

Vie tapped her tablet a couple of times, “Done.”

Anton checked his Personal Storage and found the weapons and ammunition he’d purchased and smiled, “So how do I get back to my dimension and world?”

Vie pointed to an alcove at the back of the Shop, “That Alcove is directly linked to the portal that is next to your City Node. You can choose to move the portal by accessing its functions through your SYSTEM interface. While it must remain within the same City Node Domain as the SYSTEM Shop Node you can place it anywhere within the City. Close to the SYSTEM Shop is usually best though.

Anton nodded as he stood from the counter, “This is it. I may come back this way and visit someday but for now, I think I need to get back to where I started. Thanks again for all of your help.

“You are quite welcome,” Vie said as Anton turned and walked toward and then into the Alcove. A feeling of darkness washed over him for just a second and then he stepped onto the center of the field at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

“It’s Anton” a woman’s voice called out

“I told you he didn’t die!” another woman that Anton recognized from the cages in the VIP section called out.

Anton looked around and saw a queue, much like the one he’d seen before. This time people looked to be smiling and talking as they waited in line to use the SYSTEM Shop Node which was on the 40-yard line behind him. As he continued to look around he saw Annabelle walking out from one of the ground-level locker rooms. Anton had to admit she looked a lot more impressive now that she’d had a shower and cleaned up a bit. A light white blouse with blue jeans and comfortable shoes. No high heels during an apocalypse, practical.

“Hello, Anton, and welcome back,”

“Dead?” Anton asked.

Annabelle looked hesitant and then explained, “The night after you left there was a giant explosion to the northwest. We haven’t been able to venture out of the Safe Zone so we have no idea was happened, but it shook the ground.”

I’ll check it out in a minute. Right now, I need to pop over to the city node and bring back some Storage Nodes,” Anton said.

“Storage Nodes?” Annabelle asked.

“You’ll see,” Anton said just before he activated Specter and zipped over to the City Node. He deactivated Specter, touched the City Node, and pulled up the SYSTEM Interface to create all four Storage Nodes, which then took control of and placed in his Personal Storage. Anton activated Specter and moved back to the football field above. He reappeared exactly where he’d disappeared from.

Annabelle jumped slightly and then said, “I’m never going to get used to that.”

Anton laughed, “As a way of apology I have some gifts for the city,” he said and then pulled the four Storage Nodes out of his inventory and placed them on the field.

“What are they?”

“Touch them and find out,” Anton said with a smile.

Annabelle reached forward and touched each node for a moment in quick succession. When she was done, she smiled. “We can definitely use them and the supplies you’ve provided.”

“I thought so. I’d suggest keeping the two small ones for trusted people and then setting up the Node with rations somewhere that the rations can be distributed easily enough.

“On it,” Annabelle said as she turned to the woman beside her, “Caitlynn take the orb with the rations out to the food line and show Jess how to use it. They won’t last forever but everyone should be able to eat well for at least the next week. Take the other orb down to Fred. He can use it to store anything valuable, I’ll take care of the last two,” Annabelle said as the last two Storage Nodes disappeared.

“I’m going to go see what happened in St. Cloud. I should be back in a bit. Where do you want me to meet you?” Anton asked.

“Up in the VIP viewing booth is fine. That’s the safe space for anyone that was…”

“I get it,” Anton said, “How many did you find?”

“Total, there are 45 of us, which for a city this big is not a whole lot, but it’s still more than should have happened.”

“And those guilty of the atrocities?” Anton asked.

“We’ve incarcerated some of them in Jails. Some fought and were immediately teleported out of the Safe Zone.” Annabelle said.

“Okay, we’ll talk about the scumbags that are still alive in our Safe Zone in a little bit. I’m going to head to St. Cloud and check on the people up there and see if I can get them down here somehow.”

“Because of the way you travel you should be fine getting there and back but getting people from there to here is not going to happen for a while. The Monsters outside of the Safe Zone are just too numerous,” Annabelle explained.

“Alright, I’ll be back in a bit then,” Anton said and then activated Specter before he gained some altitude and headed off to the Northwest at almost 700 miles an hour. His Specter skill had increased to Scarce Level 9 during his flight to the ground.

As Anton came over to St Cloud he saw that there was a new circular lake that looked to be centered on the Fargo bank he’d been in when he’d killed that mage monk asshole. As he came over to the train yard he noticed that there were no train cars in the water and while he didn’t have a perfect memory he could swear there weren’t enough train cars to equal the number that had been there before, though they’d been pushed away from the edge of the water and lay on the ground. They’d probably been sucked into the void even though he was sure he hadn’t seen them falling in the sky around him. They must have ended up somewhere else. As he watched he could see people walking around the building Major Findal had been in on the West Side of the yard.

Anton moved to the building, up into the office, and saw the Major sitting behind his desk. Anton activated Manifest and appeared before Major as he signed, “Can you understand me” in ASL.

The Major looked up, squinted, and then said something Anton couldn’t hear. Next, he stood, came over to Anton’s manifestation, and passed his hand through it as he pointed at his ears and shook his head.

Anton stepped to the side and deactivated Specter.

“Had to try,” Anton said.

“Anton is that you? Had to try what?” The Major asked.

“I had to try to talk to you with sign language?”

“Well, there are some signals I would have recognized but actual sign language, I never learned it,” The major said.

“Well, when I switch dimensions I can now become visible to people on this side of the barrier. While I can see everything on this side from there just fine, you all can only see me if I Manifest or if I come back across. I picked up ASL from the SYSTEM Shop because I thought it would be a good way to communicate across the barrier since it costs a lot of energy to go back and forth,” Anton explained.

“Makes sense,” the Major agreed, “I have a free Skill Point, so I’ll go pick it up after we're done talking. It wasn’t expensive was it?”

“Nah, it was only 100 credits, and for you should be easily learnable,” Anton said.

“You’ve been gone for a couple of days, everything okay? You saw the hole off to the east of the train yard right?”

“Yeah I saw it, did anyone die?” Anton asked.

“Actually no. As the explosion started everyone in the safe zone that would have been affected was moved to another part of the Safe Zone. It seems that the SYSTEM takes its monitoring of Safe Zones pretty seriously,” The Major hesitated as he caught something in Anton’s eyes and then he asked, “What do you know?”

“Well, that explosion was probably caused because of me?” Anton said.

“Because of you, how did you create a 2-mile-wide crater?

“Well, I tried to reach through and touch something from the other dimension,” Anton hedged.

“What did you try to touch?” The Major asked with a fascinated look on his face.

Anton saw the look of fascination but ignored it, “I tried to touch the brain of the guy that was trying to kill me. The resulting explosion opened a Vortex that sent me to another Dimension…A different dimension than the one I travel through. I just returned about 30 minutes ago.”

“Welcome back I guess, Where did you end up?

“Not sure I know really, but there was a town and a SYSTEM Shop so I was able to come back. Just be aware that such travel is expensive,” Anton said.

“Dully noted, now what can we do for you?” The Major asked.

“Nothing really, Annabelle, the defacto leader in Minneapolis, let me know that the monsters are still between both of your Safe Zones so you two haven’t actually met yet.”

“Yeah, it’s an issue but we’re taking advantage of it to level. With the Monsters so close we’re able to hunt with impunity and gain levels and credits so it's not all bad,” The Major said.

“Is there anything you need from me or need me to do?” Anton asked.

“Just let Annabelle and the others down there know we’re looking forward to opening trade lines as soon as we can establish them. Shoot, we may even be able to turn this into a forward base and move most of our population down to the big city if they can support themselves and us,” The Major said.

“Something I’ve been worried about for sure, food production. Looks like you have a good water supply within the border of your Safe Zone now,” Anton said with a smile.

“You think? We also bought something that purifies the water. It seems to be magic based because none of us can figure out how it works. All we had to do was run a hose from it into the lake and it spits out fresh clean water, as much as we need.”

“How much did that cost,” Anton asked.

“50,000 credits. We still have to collect our waste and dispose of it but the fresh water has made a big difference.

Anton frowned for a moment before he offered, “You know you can visit the SYSTEM Shop and reactivate power and utilities including sewage disposal for specific buildings right?”

The Major zeroed in on Anton before he turned and said, “You can do what?”

Over the next hour, Anton watched as the Major visited their SYSTEM Shop Node. After a few minutes, the power came back on in the building, and running water could be heard throughout the building as people rushed to turn off taps that hadn’t been used since the SYSTEM Integration started. A moment later the Major reappeared and looked at Anton.

“I could only get three buildings up and running again but we have a goal now and we can rebuild. Thanks, Anton.”

“Don’t mention it. If you don’t need me, I’m going to get back to Minneapolis and see how they’re doing. I will try to stop in once a week, and don’t forget to pick up ASL?”

“Already did,” the major signed to Anton in ASL

“Nice,” Anton said as he activated Specter and headed south. This time he slowed down and checked to see how the monsters were arrayed between the city which caused his trip to take a little longer than he’d have liked. Now though, he had a good idea of how the monsters were distributed. Once he was satisfied with his reconnaissance he headed toward the stadium and flew to the hallway outside of the VIP Booths. He deactivated Specter and knocked on the door. He’d noticed over 30 people he didn’t recognize in the room, and he didn’t want to spook them so he would make introductions like a normal person by knocking on the door.

“