Arcane Apocalypse

23 – Nothing Lasts

Mia fell into a routine. Wake up, snipe goblins with Lina, do some protection chores for whatever group Jeff decided to work to the bone that day, then head back to the flat and train.

She found herself settling into the new ‘normal’, even though it was getting less and less productive.

Increasing her Base Attributes was becoming increasingly harder with each new point, and over the span of five days, she only got a single point in Manifestation. Levels were the same. She only got a single level up, which sort of proved that Erik’s goblin deterrent worked. Maybe it worked too well, even.

So her rewards for tirelessly working for days on end were four stat points. Well, that and a single new spell: Mana Familiar.

She got it when she was three runes away from finishing up the Lexicon, and unfortunately, that was all she was going to get from this one. Why? Because the other two spell-circles in the Lexicon used a single rune multiple times and the Lexicon only had one of each.

She was also four books, two mana potions and a magical apple richer. The last of which, she was currently nibbling on.

Unfortunately, that put her on the same quest Mark had been stuck on days ago: the one needing her to get a monster core.

She’d traded away a whole day’s worth of payment in food and water for the core of a single bird back then, but that would be hard to repeat with how strongly Jeff leaned on that Enchanter’s work.

The man was eating up cores faster than the hunters could get them, and nowadays someone was always on the lookout for a low-flying bird.

“I can’t go on like this,” Mia said, chewing on her lips as she stared out the barred up window. That sentence had been bouncing around in her head for the last couple of days like an incessant buzzing bug, growing louder and louder with every passing minute until it overwhelmed her natural aversion to jumping headfirst into something dangerous.

Her mom was out there, somewhere, possibly inside a goblin’s gullet, and she was just sitting inside her safe little room and doing fuckall.

Maybe it was her much improved Will acting up, but she felt her resolve hardening. She had to leave, go out and look for her mother … she was the last family she had.

Well, aside from Sophie, but her estranged sister was half a world over in America.

Maybe it was her improved Will stat speaking, but she was just about ready to dive right into the monster infested city. With a sigh, she thought back on the most important notifications she got.

[Base Manifestation: 4 -> 5]

[Level Up!]

[Free Attribute Points: 0 -> 3]

[Will: 7 -> 9]

[Mind: 8 -> 9]

[Control: 4 -> 5]

[Free Attribute Points: 3 -> 0]

Two of the three points went into Will and one into Control. Overall, she felt a bit regretful about never putting a point into Control before, since as it turned out, it was her gateway into swiftly multiplying her runes. If she could mould mana well enough, she could just start slowly duplicating the runes she already had, but that needed Control well above what she had at the moment.

Her runic-model was also ever so slowly crawling towards the next level. It was already at 10% completion, so Mia guessed she’d need to fully incorporate nine more Lexicons before it could upgrade to Junior Mage grade.

Which was a problem, because the only other Lexicon she got from the System was a Conjuration Lexicon. Every other time it awarded a book as a reward, the selection either didn’t have any Lexicons, or was straight up random and she just got unlucky. As for why she chose Conjuration? Well, she did skim through the introductory sections of all disciplines of Arcane magic in her new Arcanism book and decided upon it after some consideration.

Conjuration would give her some more versatility with her offensive spells. No, that wasn’t right. It would give her a lot of versatility. Like, it promised to let her shape some of her most basic spells more to her will by switching some runes out here and there. Unfortunately, that had to wait until she got her runic theorem knowledge to a level where she didn’t have to worry about blowing her hand off from a wrongly constructed spell circle.

The books she got aside from that one were: ‘Adventurer’s Handbook: Surviving a Rift Break’, ‘On Mana and Magic’ and ‘The History of the Halvyr’.

All interesting stuff, but she was already aching to devour the Conjuration Lexicon for another new spell or two. She didn’t even touch her ‘First Steps of Arcanism’ book so far, only focusing on her runes ever since she got her first Lexicon.

As she thought about her future, and how to accomplish her plan without dying horribly, she kept absentmindedly whacking her right thigh with a stick.

Each whack, somehow resulted in a bit of mana appearing in the energy channels flowing in the struck leg, which slowly wandered up into her pool.

That Kinetic Energy Assimilation skill was quickly becoming her go-to way to regenerate mana. It wasn’t quite as fast as Meditation, but it let her think about random stuff while she recovered from magic practice.

Learning the limits of the Skill took some time though, but by now she was managing to put just enough power behind her whacks for the Skill to cancel it out.

“Hisss,” Mia bit her cheeks as a sharp pain struck her thigh. That last whack was just a bit over the edge it seemed.

“You look like a lunatic, you know that, right?” Mark asked, staring at her with a pair of big dumb glasses angled on his bulbous nose. “Talking to yourself doesn’t help your case either.”

“Don’t care.” Mia rubbed her eyes with a frown. “But this can’t go on. It’s too calm, and we are getting comfortable.”

“It’s been five days since the thing, Mia.” Mark raised a bushy eyebrow. “At least wait a few months before you start acting like a paranoid loon. Plus, calm is good. If we had two apocalypses in the same week, I might just consider jumping out the window.”

“But that’s just it,” Mia said. “There is no way it ended just yet. Still, I want to make use of this … lull.”

“How?” Mark asked, putting down his notebook and turning to face Mia filly with a wary look.

“I promised mom I’d come to her.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” The dwarf ran a hand over his face. “Now? You want to go out now? Just when we are starting to get a steady supply of food and water? You want to head out to the monster infested city?”

“Yes,” Mia said testily. It was now or never, her gut was screaming at her that there wouldn’t be a better opportunity.

“Oh fuck me sideways,” Mark grumbled, throwing his notebook down and jumping to his feet. “Fine. Give me half a day.”

“What?” Mia stared at him in wide-eyed confusion.

“I’m coming with. Stay put for twelve hours. You can do that, right?”

“Y-yeah?” Mia said. “You don’t hav-“

“Shut up. I do.”

Mia gulped at the heavy glare she got, and tried to not show the relief on her face. Going alone would have been horrible.

“Thank you,” she said with a crack in her voice.

Then she remembered how averse Mark had been to fighting up until now and her relief evaporated, worry taking its place.

“Will you be fine? You never fought before?”

“The best way to learn to swim is to get thrown into the deep waters,” he said and Mia almost missed the slight tremble in his voice. “Anyone else you could convince to come with? The more the better.”

“Maybe one?” Mia frowned, thinking of her blonde goblin hunting partner. If Mia was getting itchy to do something, Lina was downright miserable staying cooped up in the building.

I think she’d run off in a few days even if I don’t ask her to come with me … convincing her should be easy.

“I’ll pack up compact food and water,” Mark said. “You need to get one or two of those goblin deterrents from that Alchemist you told me about. Worst case scenario, we coat ourselves in the thing.”

“I can do that.” Mia nodded.

“Alright, I’ll see whether I can rope Sam into coming along too, you go and do the same with that partner of yours?”

“Alright,” Mia said, taking a calming breath before raising to her feet. “See you later.”

“Good luck.”

*****

“I’m in, when do we leave?”

“Uhhhh,” Mia blinked dumbly, her carefully constructed plans coming apart at Lina’s quick agreement. “I don’t know? Tomorrow morning? Tonight?”

“Okay, good.” Lina grinned, bouncing on her feet. “Good. Anything we need?”

“Food, maybe a blanket to sleep on if we have to and some of those goblin deterring potions Erik’s making.”

“Should be easy enough,” Lina said, squinting in thought. “I’ll get the stuff from Erik. In return, you deal with Jeff? I think he likes you more than the rest of us for some reason.”

“What do you mean ‘deal with him’?” Mia frowned.

“Well, we sort of are in a lockdown, you know?” Lina said, suddenly looking worried. “I heard he booted that Thomas guy and his friends out onto the streets and shut the gates behind them a few days ago. I do want to go out to get stronger, but if that means we can’t come back in … well, that would be a pain. This place is a fucking fortress. Having it as a safe base would be for the best.”

“I can try?” Mia said, her heart already racing at the thought of having to confront Jeff and somehow convince him to let them back in once they came back. Preferably along with Mia’s mother. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“You do that,” Lina smiled cheerily, patting Mia on the shoulder. “Then we can go hunting. Damn, I hope we didn’t fall behind too bad.”

“Okay,” Mia said, the hint of a smile showing on her face. “Anyone else we might convince to come along?”

“I could probably rope Karl into it,” Lina said with a shrug. “But I don’t think he’d be much help. The poor thing’s trembling in fright even with inch thick bars between him and his targets.”

“Right,” Mia replied. “I’ll go then. See you later.”

*****

“Ah, door-girl, what brings you down here?” Brent, the usually armoured man whose nose Mia accidentally broke by the way of a door, called out to her the moment she stepped into the entry hall. “Did you come to have an audience with our glorious leader?”

“Yes?” Mia asked, looking at Brent’s still crooked nose warily. She wouldn’t forgive anyone so readily for doing that to her face as Brent had. The overly nice attitude he displayed since then stunk like a week-old corpse. “I’d like to talk with Jeff, if he’s available.”

“And if not?” The man asked, lounging on one of those old sofas with his ankles crossed above the armrest.

“Then I’ll wait.” Mia shrugged. “Or come back later.”

“Well, lucky, you won’t have to,” said Brent, lazily getting to her feet. “Follow me, I shall lead you into the den of the beast.”

“Okay?”

Brent just chuckled at her apprehensive tone, waving her to follow as he strode for the doors of the basement.

“So, what got you to come all the way down here?” Brent asked with a glance over his shoulder. “You usually bolt the moment you can. I didn’t think I’d ever see you asking to meet him of your own volition.”

Mia just scowled at him, she didn’t even need to speak the ‘none of your damned business’ that was sitting at the tip of her tongue before he raised his hands in mock surrender.

“I give,” he chortled. “I’ll keep my nose out of it. Don’t want my freshly healed nose to get broken again.”

Mia gave a nervous laugh that sounded forced even to herself.

“Mind the door,” Brent said with a smirk, keeping the thick metal door of the basement open for Mia as she slipped inside under his arm.

Sometimes, being tiny has its advantages. Case in point, she didn’t have to touch Brent as she stepped by him in the small doorway.

“Well, that works.” Brent said and kicked a brick out in front of the door to keep it open. There was some light coming from the bottom of the stairs, but the natural illumination not being cut off did wonders to Mia’s nerves. “After you, then.”

Mia put some speed into her steps, hurrying down the dark staircase and feeling somewhat like it was a horribly idiotic idea. The flickering light at the end of the dark tunnel leading underground was so ominous the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

And at the end of it awaits the demon lord, ready to devour my soul and feed my corpse to his hounds. Mia mused inwardly, trying to distract herself with the silliness of it all. Her grumpy landlord now doubled for a demon lord … well, or something similar. Goat beastkin chief didn’t quite have the same ring to it, even though it might have been leagues closer to the truth.

The room she stepped into when she finally hopped off of the last step of the staircase was a mess. Tools of all kinds lay sprawled around on top of cardboard boxes with shelves covering every wall above eye level and each stacked to the top with various stuff Mia couldn’t identify.

The light came from a slew of simple lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling. Mia followed the wire linking them together, and found it leading right into a wall, a wall which outwardly had no door to it.

A shrill ring sounded from just behind her and Mia whirled around with her heart jumping into her throat, but found only Brent flicking an old-school service bell. Calm down. You are going to get a heart attack before even meeting Jeff like this.

Her ears twitched, and dozens of sounds previously imperceptible became crystal clear. Some machine was working deeper down, she could hear its rumbling through the layers of earth separating them, then there were the clangs, metal on metal, wood being cut with saws, murmurs somewhere further in and footsteps.

Mia almost missed the footsteps with so many other things to focus on, but they were the only sound getting louder as the seconds went by. It was freaky, if she closed her eyes Mia would have thought she stood at the entrance of some vast underground complex, but with her eyes open all she could see was a simple basement set up like some man-cave.

Her gaze landed on a large wooden panel hanging off of the opposite wall, the footsteps, still getting louder and louder, were coming from behind it. The panel creaked, the dozens of tools from hand-saws and hammers to hatchets and shovels hanging on it clattered as the panel moved and opened like a large door swinging open on old hinges in need of some quick oiling.

Jeff stepped out from the now visible doorway, his cold-dead eyes landing on her for a moment before moving on to Brent as he fully stepped into the room.

Does he have an aversion to wearing clothes? Mia mused sourly, thinking she was probably the only girl not gleeful to get another look at his sculpted torso loaded with corded muscles. At least he still has pants on.

“The little miss wanted to speak with you, boss.” Brent spoke up from behind me, which earned her Jeff’s undivided attention.

“Speak then,” he said. “I’m busy.”

“I want to leave,” Mia blurted out, paling and taking a step back the moment her brain caught up with her tongue. “I mean- “

“Why?” Jeff asked, his lifeless gaze staring into Mia’s glimmering azure eyes with all the boredom in the world.

“My mother-” Mia started, gulping halfway through, as she didn’t quite think about how to explain it yet. When combined with the memory of Thomas getting his ass thrown out and not being let back into the building for wanting to do the same thing she was asking, her complexion took on a deathly look and only her increased Will kept her from wobbling unsteadily from a sudden onset of dizziness.

“This again,” Jeff said, a rare trace of annoyance entering his tone. “Why must everyone be so willing to throw their lives away? Am I the only being with a shred of logic and common sense in this building?”

He murmured the last part under his breath, but Mia’s ears picked up on it. She swallowed, not liking the way this conversation was going at all. “A- and we are stagnating anyway here. It’s unsustainable.”

“Elaborate,” Jeff said, squinting at her, then he walked over to a workbench in a corner and started fiddling with some contraption placed atop it.

“Erik’s deterrent chased away anything worth hunting,” Mia said, taking a breath mid-sentence to calm herself. Jeff always preferred facts and cold, hard logic. Whenever something broke in her flat, the landlord only did what was required of him. He didn’t care about the emotions and such of his tenants, which was why Mia assumed he somewhat liked her. She never had enough skin on her face to demand anything of him that wasn’t extremely important, only bothering him with stuff like ‌the pipes getting broken in the bathroom or the door’s lock getting stuck.

She needed to appeal to his logic if she wanted something from him. “The birds still give some levels, here and there, but without the goblins to hunt en masse, we are stagnating, and we are stagnating hard. I got five levels the first two days, then a single one since we spread Erik’s stuff around the building.”

“I see,” Jeff said evenly. “An argument can be made for not replacing Erik’s deterrent for a few days to allow our hunters to gain levels, but striking out into the monster-infested city is asking for death. An atrocious waste of both life and resources.”

Mia bit her lips in consternation. Worst-case scenario, she was getting booted out of this relatively safe community and losing her haven in this new chaotic world. It would have been a sacrifice she would have been willing to make for striking out to find her mother — doing so was just non-negotiable — but both Mark and Lina made their willingness to come along clear.

If she couldn’t convince Jeff to be less of an ass, she was dooming all three of them to living as vagrants out in a post-apocalyptic city. Worse yet, what if Jeff deemed her abilities as a semi-powerful ranged fighter too important to give up on and refused to let her leave?

A deep cold pit formed in her stomach. Mia couldn’t allow that, not when doing so meant leaving her mother to struggle alone outside. That old house she lived in out in the suburbs wouldn’t hold up against goblins and birds for too long, even if she managed to barricade herself up. Plus, she was probably running out of water right about now.

Mia had to go. It was not a question of ‘if’, but of ‘when’ anymore and the answer was ‘as soon as possible’.

“Don’t you think leaving ourselves blind is even worse?” Mia asked, a plan forming in her mind. “We are cooped up in this building, hoping that those deterrents keep us safe, but we don’t even know what the situation out there is. We only met monsters of three Rifts after all, and Erik’s potions only work against the Goblins so far. Don’t you think sending out squads of scouts to survey the area around is prudent?”

“Perhaps,” Jeff allowed, looking back at her for a moment before returning his focus on the thing he was fiddling with. “But what of it? Even if I see merit in your idea and go along with it, the scouts would circle around in a few building-block radius at most … where does your Mother live, Maria?”

“Out in the suburbs,” Mia said, her gaze lowered to the floor. “On the northern bank of the Mur.”

“You were trying to reason for striking two birds with one stone,” said Jeff. “Smart, but I still don’t think the risk is worth it. Not even close. If that was all, please leave. Your new power could be used for much more worthwhile tasks, don’t throw your life away for … hope.”

Mia scowled, her anger spiking. That was her mother’s life he was talking about. ‘Not worth the risk’, it was worth every risk there was in the world. That was the woman who worked two jobs even while grieving the loss of her marriage to raise her three children. Sofia might be an ungrateful bitch, but Mia was not. She will cut through hordes of goblins if she had to.

“Will you stop me?” Mia asked testily, face twisting into a vicious snarl. “What? Will you break my legs, lock me up? I am leaving, Jeff. I asked because you’ve been nice to me before, but me leaving is non-negotiable. Only the ‘how’ is still up for debate and whether I am ever coming back.”

Jeff fully turned to face her then, something dangerous twinkling in the depths of his emotionless eyes. He took a single step towards her, and while her hands were trembling, Mia stood her ground while clasping the treacherous limbs behind her back. She stared back at the tyrannical landlord defiantly as mana rushed down to her palm and the Arcane Blast’s spell-circle finished forming in her mana pool.

“A pity,” he said. “I thought you were different, that you had common sense, unlike the rest.”

Before he could take another step forward, a hand landed on Mia’s shoulder and threw her back, making her fall onto her bum and slide back against the wall behind her. When she glanced up again, Brent stood between her and Jeff, his broad back like a wall splitting the room in two.

Mia grimaced, a hand massaging her aching tailbone as she placed her other hand, the one filled with mana, on her lap as inconspicuously as possible. Whatever Brent’s plans were, she was not trusting them. Not with her life. Not against Jeff. If the horned-fuck moved another step, or looked like he’d attack, Mia’d Blast him.

Might not be enough to incapacitate him, but it should slow him enough for me to escape. I’d have to get to a second-floor window, tear down the boardings on them and jump out. My reduced weight should make not dying from the fall easier.

“Don’t know what you were planning, boss, but I’m not liking it one bit,” said Brent, standing with his legs bent and his back straight like some UFC fighter readying to pounce. “I agreed to join you to protect people, to hunt monsters and to make sure as many of us survived this hell as possible. The girl is leaving alive and unharmed. That, or in a body bag, but then you’ve got to get one for me too.”

That was such a cringe line … but oddly nice of him. Mia didn’t trust people. It wasn’t for any childhood trauma or such; it was just in her nature. Which was why the spell was still ready on her fingertips, as she ever so slowly rose to her feet and hid behind Brent. Sorry Brent, you offered yourself up to be my meat shield.

“I was not-” Jeff started, sounding annoyed, but then just let out a resigned sigh. “Leave then. Keeping you against your will would be even more trouble than losing you. Take as much food and water as you want. You deserve that much for your help this week. Now leave, I want you gone before tomorrow morning.”

“Uhm,” Mia frowned. “I- uh, Mark and Lina wanted to come with me too.”

“I don’t care. Take them, make sure they know they aren’t welcome back if they step out of the building,” Jeff said, sounding oddly resigned. “And Brent.”

Mia saw the man stiffen as Jeff’s undivided attention landed on him.

“You are going with them,” said Jeff. “I thought I could trust you, that you understood what I wanted to build here … but it seems I’d been wrong. Get out. Get out of my sight, and my building before I throw you out myself with your legs broken.”

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