Well, this is certainly new. I don’t know how to feel about a part of the system going offline suddenly for no apparent reason, and with no warning. I thought all of the waves were done. The last wave message said that the only things coming up would be quality of life and bug fixes. Is this one of those bugs that the messages warned about? If this part of the system could break, what did that mean for other parts?

Query: Do you want to condense monster types in the experience readout? Y/N

That didn’t sound too bad. “Yes?”

Combat CompERROR#44281!

Opponents Defeated:

Frenzy Wolf (rank 2) x 6 – 560xp

Total Experience Gained: 756xp

Level UP – lvl 1 (91/102) -> lvl 6 (141/198)

Fantastic. Another error. Something was happening up in the system, and it probably wasn’t anything good. At least the query thing from before seems to work correctly. It also seems like I got the experience and leveled just like normal and thank goodness for that. It was important to note that I didn’t get a status increase at level 5 like last time, either. It also seems like the rank-up reset the amount of experience I would need to increase in levels, as I seemed to blitz through the first few levels as quickly as I did while rank one.

I would need to figure out what the hell was happening with the system, and what it meant for me, but that would have to come later. First, I needed to check on the car crash, and see how Cindy was doing.

The wreck looked pretty bad up close. Cindy had managed to pull open the driver’s side door and had already taken the occupant out and laid him on the ground. In the vehicle were four people, two adults, and two children. Both parents sitting up front were groggy from the airbags deploying, and the children in the back were crying. As I opened the passenger door on the right side of the car to pull the kids out, I quickly identified them, this time focusing on trying to determine their health and skills.

Skill Alert! Level Up!

Identify – lvl 9 -> 10 – now gives more detailed information about target

Macaw Birdkin Juvenile – rank 0 – lvl 0 – unconscious – Athletics

As I pulled the child from the car and set him on the ground, I was able to get a better look at him. He had red feathers coming out of the sides of his head, and instead of arms had two wings with little three-fingered hands on the ends, like a pterodactyl. Instead of feet, there were two bird talons, complete with the leg joint going the wrong direction. He was closer to what I would consider a harpy than a bird, but I didn’t know the distinctions between the two species if there were any at all.

Working together with Cindy, we got the whole family out of the vehicle and away from the smoking wrecked car. It didn’t take long for them to start to come to. As we helped them to stand, I could get a better idea of what they looked like.

Each member of the family of four only came up to my middle chest, so they were probably around four and a half feet tall. The whole family expressed the same red feathers and had short red and blue tails sticking out from under their shirts. Now that I could get a better look at their faces, they all seemed much younger than they should. The parents looked only around 16 or 17, and the children between 7 and 9, but considering how much the waves affected them, there was no telling their actual ages. Looking young might just be a trait inherent of birdkin. The parents took their time going over their children making sure they were okay. Cindy and I gave them some space while they got their bearings.

Eventually, they all turned to greet us. In an interesting chirpy voice, the wife spoke up first in a panicky voice.

“What were those things! They just came out of nowhere from the alley back there and slammed into the car. They were just… so big! I didn’t even know some animals grew that size. Were those monsters? Can you tell us about them? Where did they all go? Can you te…”

Cutting her off, her husband interjected, “What she means to say is ‘thank you’. We would have been in a pretty rough situation without your intervention.”

His wife rapidly nodded in agreement, wrapping her wings around her kids who she held in front of her. The husband had a calm look in his eyes that I wouldn’t expect from someone in their situation. He seemed used to crises.

He continued, introducing himself and his family.

“My name is Sam Barker, and this is my wife, Shirley, and our two kids Jasper and Sage.”

Perhaps realizing that the danger was over, Shirley started to visibly calm down. Her eyes still occasionally darted about, looking for danger. Her kids, on the other hand, seemed very shell-shocked still, the youngest huddled in the mother's embrace, while the oldest looked at us cautiously.

Cindy spoke up first, saying, “This is Vic, and my name is Cindy. We were just flying over and saw the wolves. I’m just glad we could make it in time before anything too bad happened. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’d be more than glad to help, but we should really get out of this area. It’s not safe in this part of town.”

The two parents nodded, and we started down the road. I was surprised at how well they managed to keep up on their spindly bird legs. They sort of trotted as they moved, reminding me of how ostrich walk. I was glad that they could keep up. After a few minutes of walking, they seemed to realize that the danger was behind us, and I watched as both Shirley and the children visibly relaxed, their ruffled feathers falling into place. As they followed, the family gazed at the occasional broken window or burned building in shock and wonder. The two children would whisper amongst each other, pointing at the unfamiliar scenery in a once familiar town. It was obvious that they hadn't been outside yet, and were experiencing just how wrecked the city was for the first time.

We ended having to walk several miles, which was a bit unfortunate. It was a nice walk after the first few stressful minutes, and we were able to make it in decent time, rushing across the city. It felt a bit silly to spend so much time walking considering that we all had wings, but strangely enough the Barker family, while being birdkin, didn’t know how to fly. They could walk just fine, but flying was a big no-no. They didn’t even have a skill for it so that they could learn. They would have to do it the old-fashioned way, learning by jumping off something high and getting lucky. I was confident that I could carry two of them, but any more than that and I think I’d have a problem. Walking was inconvenient but wasn’t that big of a problem, considering that their destination was only a few miles out.

It took an hour or so, but eventually, we made it to an office building in a strip center. The whole family seemed to sigh in relief at the familiar sight. The windows had luckily not been broken, and the whole strip center looked fairly normal, all things considered. The sign on the front of the building said ‘Barker and Barker, attorneys at law’, and there was already a car parked outside of the building. I guess the couple worked as lawyers. Smiling, the family approached and huddled together by the front door.

Turning to look at Cindy, I could tell she was very interested. She was studying for law school, after all, and I didn’t think she was the type to just stop working on it because of a little tiny apocalypse. Especially since she was in her last semester of classes when the first wave struck. It probably felt like a bit of a waste for her, all those years blown away in an instant, and I'd imagine she was looking forward to trying to jump right back into it when or if the college reopened. Though, that being said, it was probably a long way off.

The door was already unlocked when we entered the building, Sam holding it for us and coming in last. The front desk was manned by a cute beastkin girl with short rounded ears that I couldn’t quite place just based on appearance. She seemed somewhere around my age and was probably working here fresh out of college. I quickly identified her.

Brown Bearkin – rank 0 – lvl 0 – healthy – mathematics

After seeing the readout, I was able to start understanding how the identify skill worked. The use and readout were based on what the user wanted. If I wanted to see the rank, I could, but I could also leave it out. The flavor text of the skill said that it would determine health and the highest-level skill from people I used it on, though it seems that this value was not a number, but a pure text readout. I quite liked it, as this was more convenient for general use and for determining a quick understanding of someone’s condition. I didn’t understand what only having only 50 health meant to someone, but I knew that ‘healthy’ was good. Perhaps when identify was maxed out I would be able to get actual statistics for people around me, but for now, I was satisfied.

On the left wall of the front office, I saw a picture of what I assumed was the Barker family. Unfortunately, I could only really make an educated guess, because the family in the portrait was very different. I could tell from the picture that Sam and Shirley were well into their forties, maybe fifties, as I could already see grey hairs on them when the picture was taken. Their children were in the portrait as well, the oldest girl, Sage, being 14 or 15, and the younger boy, Jasper, around 12. I could still see the likeness, but damn it must be awkward to get rewound in age a bunch of years.

I wasn’t the only one who was shocked by the change, though. The bearkin receptionist rose from her chair only a few seconds after the Barker troupe walked in, presumably after she recognized them.

“MR. BARKER?!?! Is that you? You look so… young! What happened?”

With a begrudging grin, Sam answered, “*sigh*, yes Jenny, it’s me. The change affected us pretty strongly. I know I look a bit different, but that doesn’t change anything. We have a mess of clients we need to take care of, especially now of all times. Thank you for coming into work, Jenny. I’m glad you are okay.”

She gasped, “Nonono, you don’t get to just brush this off, sir! You look as old as my brother! And he’s 16!”

Sam nodded, saying, “I know, Jenny. I’m not very excited about it either. There is no telling what it will do to our work, and our clients. We can only do our best. By the way, this is Vic and Cindy. They helped us out on the way here. We were ambushed by some monsters, and these good Samaritans decided to help out.”

Jenny gasped again, “Monsters?!? In the city? I thought we were safe! I hadn’t seen any yet!”

Sam and Shirley turned to look at us, this time looking for an explanation. We were moving pretty quickly down the street, and as we were remaining vigilant, we did not explain anything to them on the way. I figured that now was as good a time as any to give them a bit of a leg up.

Turning to the group, I said, “So, is there a place we could all sit down? I think this is going to take some time to explain.”

After vigorously nodding, Jenny led the way down the hall, further into the building. Behind us, Shirley locked up the door and followed. We found ourselves in a conference room with a large table and plenty of seats for everyone to be comfortable. This was probably where they would take clients in their office.

We all sat down and got comfortable, and I explained to them what I had been up to since the first wave started. I left out a lot of the gruesome stuff about killing bandits, but other than that, I was pretty open. I was still embarrassed about that whole lumberjack thing way back on the third day, so I made sure to leave that out as well. What I did tell them was that in the south part of town in the junkyard there was a ruin and a boss monster, and that was where the wolves came from. I was feeling guilty because, while it was an accident, it was us that created the boss in the first place. I would need to take it out as soon as I had the strength to.

When I covered the construction of the adventurer’s guild, everyone in the room quieted down, and they became quite excited by the prospect.

The first to speak up was Jasper, as he quickly chirped out, “So… You’re a monster hunter? Like, for real?”

It was the first time I had heard him speak so loudly, and he sounded… well, exactly like you’d think an extremely small birdkin would. I smiled, saying, “Yep! Believe it or not, the only job I managed to get since this whole thing began was Fighter. Apparently, I’ve got a bit of a knack for it.”

As I said that his eyes glistened a bit, and I could tell he was enamored with the idea of being a hero.

Starstruck, he asked, “Could I be an adventurer too?”

His parents both turned to look at me with wide eyes, and I could see the gentle shaking of the mother’s head. Clearly, they weren’t too happy about their son wanting to go out and fight monsters, and that made perfect sense.

I needed to rip off this band-aid fast, so I addressed the whole group once again.

“Alright everyone. Here’s the situation. It seems whoever designed this world based it roughly on video games. And what that means is pretty simple; personal power matters now. Individual strength always had some effect on success, but now that effect is obvious. All of you here are rank 0, and level 0. That makes you the lowest of the low. I don’t expect a strict social structure to develop any time soon, so you are probably going to be okay for a while. The issue is, you are extremely weak compared to many people in the world, and there won’t always be someone there to protect you when things go bad.

So, here’s what you need to do, and you need to do it fairly quickly. Does everyone have a job on their status?”

I looked around as they all nodded, and then continued.

“Okay, that’s good. By doing your job, you can get a little bit of experience, and you should be able to make it up to level 10. Once there, you can go to an obelisk and get a class. Obelisks are these big stone towers, and there’s one in Zilker Park that you can use. I think the first thing you should do is get a class that would allow you to run away from danger or fight back just a little bit. That should give you the best odds of survival and give you the ability to defend yourself. Once that’s done, you can go back and switch to a different class that would help you even more for whatever job you want to do. If you want to be a fighter after that, be my guest. I’m sure we could use all the help we could get. It is extremely dangerous though, and you are putting your life on the line.

The next thing you need to do is find a way to become rank 1. I don’t know how it works for beastkin, but now that the landlines are coming back up, you should be able to call the adventurer’s guild if you need to. Regardless, I’ll give you the address of the guild building, and they should have some information that would help you if you come and visit.

It’s fine to continue being a lawyer or a receptionist or whatever you want in this crisis, and we still need your work. But please, don’t make the mistake of neglecting your safety. You will always be the last line of defense for your own wellbeing, and that shouldn’t be neglected. Okay?”

The group looked pensive, but they all agreed without comment. Cindy turned to me and smiled. I guess I said the right thing. With that out of the way, I thought that we were done. Turning to Cindy and motioning that I was ready to leave, she stopped me, holding out a hand to tell me to wait.

Speaking up, she said,” I have a question. Why did you decide to leave and come back to work today? I didn’t think that the phone lines were back up yet. Sam, Shirley, how did you get the word out to Jenny to meet you here?”

At her question, they all looked rather confused, and glanced among each other, looking for a good answer.

The first to speak up was Shirley. “Did… didn’t you feel it, this morning? When it all changed?”

Well that was weird. I could tell that everyone in the room understood her perfectly, all except me and Cindy.

“What are you talking about? Can you explain what you mean? What changed?”

Shirley thought for a bit, but it seemed she couldn’t quite find the words. Jenny was the one to answer.

“Well… after the second wave happened and I was changed, it was like… almost like my mind was covered in fog. The best way I can explain it is that I was myself, but at the same time, I was missing the part of me that made me care or worry. Everything was muted like I was hearing the world through headphones or something… it wasn’t that I didn’t want to come to work or didn’t want to check on my neighbors. I just didn’t care. I was only concerned about myself. Occasionally, I would get these bouts of clarity, but they would quickly fade.

Then, all of a sudden, I woke up this morning and felt like normal. I… spent a few hours trying to figure out how to arrange my hair around my ears, which was weird because I didn’t care all that much the day before. Before, I didn’t care that I had animal ears… but now, I do? Like, they actually matter, and I care what I look like and everything.

Then, I decided to go to work to meet up with Sam, Shirley, and the kids. We had planned on meeting up here right before the second wave happened, but I didn’t feel like going until this morning, either…”

The Barkers nodded as well, and Shirley seemed ready to talk now.

“Our experience was similar. After the second wave, we spent our time inside, just trying to survive. We were going through our food, and, if it makes any sense, it was like my instincts were going crazy. All I wanted to do was care for the kids. But this morning, it was like all of the obligations and friends that I had forgotten about just… came back.”

Alright. There was some serious fuckery going on here. The same day that errors start to appear people start acting downright… normal? Looking back on my actions, I can tell that I acted similarly, though perhaps not nearly as powerfully. It made no sense that no one was trying to go anywhere, or go back to work, or check on their neighbors, or anything. Unfortunately, it probably explained the successful recruiting of so many bandits so quickly as well, and their willingness to enact slavery. That was… not a great thought. It’s not as if everyone just jumped on board though, so there was some kind of choice. It also seemed like the emotional block affected everyone differently. Nick and Trevor were both changed during the second wave, but they didn’t ever seem off to me.

It’s possible that there was more to it than that. Beta testers changed in groups, their friends not being affected by the mental changes, character archetypes, more mental changes keeping people in the background and out of the way.

It all made sense, in a fucked-up kind of way. The Garcia’s, Nick, Trevor, James, maybe even the other slaves, were all supporting characters in some kind of story. In OUR story. MY story. When the waves happened, either H.G. or Luna chose their main characters, and they chose the story they would act out. I bet they even chose that crystal golem to stand out as well. The beta testers all changed in little groups, right next to each other. How weird was it that my group was changed, and then the next closest group changed was the local area gangsters? Too coincidental to not be intentional. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. They were probably watching the whole time.

The reason there had been no one moving around the city was because according to whoever planned this, they were background characters. They didn’t matter; therefore, they might as well have not existed. They stayed out of the way, and out of the ‘plot’, as it were. This was not a happy thought. Luckily, it seemed that whatever had caused the errors to appear also messed up the emotional suppression that everyone was dealing with.

My emotional suppression disappeared last night, and Cindy’s did as well, which explains my little breakdown, and Cindy’s self-consciousness and guilt. I needed to go back to the apartment and check on everyone, particularly Donny and the Garcia’s who had changed the most, to make sure they were okay.

Looking at Cindy I could tell that she had a similar realization, and she looked at me with visible concern in her eyes.

“Vic, I think we need to go home. Now.”

I nodded, agreeing, “Definitely. I have some thoughts about what has been happening that I think we all need to go over once we get back.”

We bid farewell to the Barker family and Jenny, promising to send someone over to check up on them later. They also let us know that they would make sure to follow my advice, picking up a fighting skill to help their survivability when they got their first class. I was glad that I could help, and I hoped that they would all be okay. They were a nice family.

The flight back to the apartment was done in a rush, and pretty soon, we found ourselves back in the living room. We had only been gone for around three hours, and it wasn’t even noon yet, but I already felt exhausted due to the information learned today. I didn’t know how, or when, but if I ever found the person responsible for fucking with everyone’s brains… I would make sure to pay them back tenfold.