I find Abby, Kyle, Nathen, and Decker already in the garage. Nathen seems to be fussing over Abby while she appears to be annoyed.

“Joel come here for a second.” Decker calls out to me.

“Yeah?”

“Kyle here was telling me that you can pick locks with your mana?”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright then I think I’m going to leave the other master key with the group staying here in the building. In case anything happens. The radios on the other hand are going to be an issue. Hopefully I can find something at the hardware store but I doubt it. Maybe check CVS to see if they had any radios for the employees.”

“So should I leave the radio here?” I ask.

“No, take it with you. My group will be taking two cars. If something happens we will work as either a relay or back up. But it will take a while to get back here or to you. So please be extra careful.”

“Alright.”

“Thank you.”

With that Decker turns from me and heads lower into the garage.

“You ready?” Kyle asks me.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah, as ready as I could be. How did you sleep last night?”

“Oh. Ummm. I didn’t.”

Kyle looks at me with skepticism and slight annoyance.

“Why not?”

“I took a quest that I think will give me a skill that’s going to help me sleep less. But to complete the quest I have to be awake for 48 hours.”

“That’s brutal. Are you sure you’re good to come with us? Haven’t you been awake for like 24 hours already?”

Thinking back to it I guess I have been awake for quite a while. I wonder if those hours before I took the quest count. If not then I really should have taken a nap or something last night.

“Yeah I used to work night shifts. My sleep schedule was always iffy. I’ll be fine.” I reassure him.

“You better. When we’re out there we’re a team. We watch each other's backs. It doesn’t work well if one of us is falling asleep.”

His words carry a definitive tone of annoyance. And I understand where it’s coming from. He doesn’t want to deal with another person that isn’t willing to pull his weight. But he doesn’t have to worry about me.

“I’ll say something if I think I’m going to be more of a hindrance than a help.” I say.

“Alright.”

The conversation ends there. Nathen seems to have finished whatever lecture he was giving Abby. He walks over to me and taps my shoulder.

“Can I talk with you for a second?”

“Yes sir.”

I follow the large man away from the other two. Once we stop, Nathen looks back at me.

“Do you really promise to take care of her?” He asks.

I nod my head.

“Yes sir. I owe her my life. I want to make sure she keeps hers.”

His eyebrow raises at that.

“What happened?” He asks.

I give him a quick review of my fight with the Banshee and the horde after. While I’m telling him this the lights in the garage flare on and I hear distant rumbling coming from machines further in the garage.

“I see. Well I’m counting on you. If anything happens to her. Anything at all. I’m going to take it out on you.” He says.

His eyes scream of a fury. But it’s not the same kind that I would see in my own father’s eyes. It’s not an anger that’s really directed at me. But at something else. I don’t know what.

Seeing the anger makes me respect this man. He truly cares for his daughter.

“Alright before you guys go I want you each to take these.” Decker calls out.

I turn to see him holding three hand guns and some clips to go with them. I walk over and take the gun from him.

“I don’t think you should rely on them but in case of an emergency they might save you. But don’t let the others see you with them. I want to save most of the ammo for whatever happens when the countdown ends.” Decker says.

I take the pistol off of my utility belt and put this new one inside of the holster. It’s not a perfect fit but it’ll work for now. I hand the empty gun to Decker.

“Also.” Decker says while walking to a car.

He tries the handle of the car and frowns when he realizes that the car is locked.

“Hey Joel can you get this?” He asks.

I nod and walk over to the car. I shove my mana into the keyhole and fiddle with the mechanism inside. It’s different from the other locks I’ve worked on but in seconds I have it figured out and the door opens.

“Thanks. I didn’t want to break the glass to get this.” He says.

He reaches into the car and grabs a white disk from the dashboard.

“This puck is the key to remotely open the garage. Just drive up to the gate and the sensor should catch it. But to help the sensor place the puck on the passenger side.”

He hands the white disk to me.

By now other people are starting to file into the garage. Abby and Kyle stuff their pistols into their waist bands. We should probably look into getting them holsters too. Maybe we should go back to the police station.

I take the back seat of the police car and hand the puck to Abby. She gets into the passenger's seat and places the puck onto the dash. Kyle once again takes the driver’s seat.

“Alright you guys be safe.” Decker says through the open driver’s window.

“Please come back to me, little bird.” Nathen says while looking at Abby. “And you two, please take care of her.”

Kyle and I tell Nathen that we will. Then Kyle rolls up the window and starts driving to the exit of the garage. As we approach the gate rolls up, letting us out onto the street.

The street is strangely empty, making me wonder if someone came out to clear the block.

Kyle drives well under the speed limit but still faster than we could have ran. After a few moments of silence I ask him to lower the back seat windows.

When he does I push out my mana into the area around the car. I can feel the individual grooves of the tires as they propel us forwards, occasionally catching rocks or leaves.

I pull back my focus and instead just try to maintain an understanding of anything coming into the range of my Magical Sonar.

The CVS is close but it still takes us a few minutes to get there. While Kyle drives I take out one of those strange green coins that I got from the bodies.

Out of curiosity I push some pure Earth mana outside of me and into the coin, hoping that it would be made of some kind of metal. The energy passes into the coin and my hopes are confirmed. However, I don’t know what kind of metal or stone that it is.

I do take some time to play with the metal however. That is until we make a turn and find ourselves face to face with a horde of zombies, numbering well into the dozens.

“Shit!” Kyle says.

The car slams to a halt as Kyle tries to reverse the vehicle.

“No wait!” Abby says.

“What for?”

“Joel and I can take them from a distance. If we’re in this car we’re safe, right?”

Kyle looks back at me to get my input.

“I think we should try and clear them too. We need points for the Quest Board and the building. Along with us needing to level up.” I say.

Kyle sighs and stops reversing.

“I’ll back up when they get too close. If it seems like we are going to get swarmed I’m booking it.” He says.

“Thank you.” Abby says.

She looks back at me and gives me a quick smile before rolling down her window. She sticks her hand out the window and a blue ball of swirling energy emanates from it. Then the ball of energy flies out into the horde of zombies, exploding when it comes into contact with one of their heads.

A blue light flashes to black and the battle is on. I form Rifle Rounds outside of the car and aim through the front window. Each shot kills a target with a small pop. After the fifteenth kill I wonder if this is the most energy efficient way to kill them.

While making a Mana Scythe does take more mana than a Rifle Round I can have the Scythe last longer and even pull it back into me. Recovering what I used to make it, while only burning off what it takes to sustain the spell.

So maybe there’s a way I can create a long range spell that I can maintain and call back to me to not waste so much energy.

With that in mind I start going over all my uses of mana. I have control over it at a certain range but beyond that the energy just flies out. The only spells that I’ve managed to create that haven’t exploded after leaving my field of control and on contact with an object are my Mana Scythes, that disk spell, my Mana Saw, and my sensory spells. Also that mana wire I made to hold onto the Butcher.

My mind latches onto the thin cord of mana I conjured. It’s really just a really thin tendril of mana. So with that logic I should have complete control over it while it’s in my range.

I conjure a ball of mana and fashion a tendril of mana to connect to it. I float the ball outside of the car and then command it to fly as far as it can.

The ball soars over the crowd of Zombies. All the while a blue thread of mana follows it.

I feel my mana pool drain a little as I’m forced to create more and more thread. It’s a strange sensation, kind of like pulling hair out of your throat. Not really pleasant.

After satisfied with the distance I stop letting the mana thread be pulled from me. I feel the thread strain as the ball of energy tries to fly away, however the thread holds.

I then start to reel back in the thread. Pulling the mana directly back into me.

After a few moments the ball of energy zips back to my palm like some glowing yoyo. At it’s sight I feel like a light bulb goes off in my head.

“What are you doing back there?” Kyle asks. “If Abby is the only one trying to deal with this horde then I don’t think it’s safe to stay here.”

“Hold on. I'm making a new spell.” I tell him.

Abby says something but I ignore them. Instead I focus on the ball of mana at then end of the thread.

I flatten the mana, making it into a disk the size of a medium pizza. I move the string to the center of the disk and then focus on adding rotation to just the disk.

At first the thread of mana tries to spin with it. Causing the blue glowing string to coil in on itself. However, after focusing on the thread I find that I can make it stationary while the disk still spins.

I force the energy to spin so fast that it glow becomes a light blue instead of arctic. With that finished I think my spell is done. I’ll dub it my Destructo Disc, after another show I use to watch with my mom.

I pass the energy outside and then hurl it towards the crowd of Zombies. It races out cutting into top of the crowd. Heads are severed from bodies.

With each body that the disk passes through I feel it slow down. After the fifth body I tug back on the thread of mana.

The disk races back to me now glowing the familiar blue. I check on the pool inside of me and find that my disk indeed killed more zombies for less mana than my Rifle Rounds.

Part of me wants to celebrate but I know that can be done when we clear this horde. So I pour more mana into the disk causing it to speed up again. Then I throw it out.

In this fashion I kill and cripple dozens of zombies at the cost of killing a few with Rifle Rounds. After a few minutes of us fighting Abby levels up twice and we empty the block of the horde.

I call the disk back to me pulling all of the mana inside of myself. While I didn’t level up I still have over eighty percent of my mana remaining.

Despite that there’s still plenty of crippled zombies inside of the street. Kyle and I exit the vehicle to take care of these ones.

There’s no point in leaving the free experience just lying around. So the next few minutes are filled with me bashing brains in with a hammer and Kyle piking crippled zombies.

Halfway through clearing the crippled zombie a blue light flashes in my face.

Quest Complete:

Quest Name:

Difficulty:

Reward:

Basher of Brains

F

Bronze Warhammer

A black mist covers the hammer in my hand. It feels cold to the touch and I drop the tool out of shock.

The mist extends from the size of the hammer to two feet. Then it dissipates leaving a strange looking hammer.

It has a really long dark wooden handle, almost the whole size of the weapon. The actual hammer had part is bronze and has a familiar hammer side. But the other side extends out into a hooked point.

As I gaze at the item another window pops up.

Bronze Warhammer

Skill (active): Bash

Costs:5 mana

Effect: Causes a powerful shockwave upon impact

My jaw drops after reading the description.