My eyes race over the description once. Twice. And a third time before I snap out of disbelief.

A weapon with a skill. A magical skill that costs mana, just like a game.

Excitement fills me as ideas race through my mind. What else can have skills? Can I make my own items with skills? What does this skill do?

At that last question my mind hones in on the idea of activating the skill of the hammer. But how can I do that? How do I activate the skill?

I read through the description a fourth time, my eyes falling on the mana cost of the skill. So I need to use mana with this skill. So how do I supply the hammer with mana?

My mind races back to me pushing mana into the water crystal thing. With that in mind I push my mana out of my hand and into the hammer. Except nothing happens.

My mana rests on the palm of my hand as I try to force it out further. The mana spreads and covers the handle of the hammer as I try to force the energy into the weapon.

The blue energy wraps around the handle until it covers a strange coppery colored section. The moment the arctic blue energy touches this section I feel a connection to the weapon.

My mana races into the hammer and a connection is formed between me and the hammer. Much like I can sense the mana inside of me I can now feel the hammer as if it was part of me.

There’s a crystal inside of it much like the lake of mana inside of me. My mama fills that crystal and then pours out into a strange circle. The circle glows with symbols completely foriegn to me. Yet as I gaze upon them I feel some connection to them.

Almost as if I can understand them. It’s like staring at a blurry image that you can barely make out the subject of.

Force. That is what the symbols remind me of. The concept of force. As in the energy influencing something.

As soon as the correlation of force and the strange images is made in my mind the sense of understanding leaves me. And once again the symbols look as forign to me as Russian would look to a dog.

Unsure of what to do next I find a still living zombie. It’s buried under a headless corpse of another zombie.

I raise the Warhammer and bring it down lazily. The moment the head of the hammer touches the head of the zombie a few things happen simultaneously.

The moment the head of the hammer hits the skull of the zombie I feel the mana drain from the hammer. It races through the weapon, transforming as it does so. The mana builds as a new kind of energy inside of the head of the hammer and then releases with an explosion.

A concussive bang rings out as the zombie’s head explodes. No, that's not a proper description. It’s more apt to say that the head vaporized.

Out of shock I let the hammer continue to fall. It hits the ground beneath where the zombie’s head used to be and I feel the mana inside of it shift again.

The blue energy is converted to a silver or gray energy as it reaches the head of the hammer.

Then the asphalt explodes outwards in another concussive explosion. A crater the size of a basketball remains where a previously flat road used to be.

I’m left holding the hammer just above the crater and feeling a rising sense of giddiness. It takes a decent amount of mana but the skill of this weapon is far more deadly than anything I’ve produced with my own mana at that level. I could probably kill that Butcher in a single hit, or that Brute in a few.

“What the fuck was that!?” Kyle yells running over to me.

I smile as I look at him. I present my Warhammer.

“This.”

“Where did you get that?” Abby asks, leaving the car.

“There’s a quest called Basher of Brains. This is the reward. It has a skill inside of it.”

“A skill?” Kyle asks.

“Yeah, it’s called Bash. When I feed mana into the hammer and then hit something the mana explodes out.” I say.

“Can’t you do that yourself?” Kyle asks.

Abby shakes her head before answering.

“Mana doesn’t really explode. Not like that. It more or less just expands really fast. Kinda like air.” She says.

“Alright but why would you take a quest for a hammer when you already had one?” Kyle asks me.

I shrug.

“I got the quest before I got the hammer. Besides this is a war hammer. Not just some regular hammer.” I say.

Kyle shrugs and returns to executing the few remaining zombies.

“Just don’t do that again. You’re going to bring down another horde onto us.” He says.

Knowing that he’s right I grab hold of the last bit of mana inside of the hammer and pull it back into me. With the hammer empty of mana I hand it to Abby.

“I’m going to start scavenging the corpses. I doubt I’ll find anything useful but it seems the higher my proficiency with the skill the better loot. And you could use the experience more than me.” I say.

She accepts the hammer and runs out into the mass of bodies. I kneel down and start the process of scavenging the bodies.

Abby and Kyle finish before I do. We scan the area for any more floating lights. It’s really lucky that the zombies have those stuck above their heads. It makes sneaking up on us much harder.

Kyle sits in the car while Abby watches me work.

“So how does that work?” She asks.

“Honestly I have no clue. I channel mana into this symbol and touch a body. Then it turns to smoke and leaves something behind.”

I demonstrate my words by causing another body to vanish. In its place a plastic bag now sits. The bag lazily floats away as the slight wind pulls it.

“Do you think that you're rearranging the matter into new things?” She asks.

“I don’t know. If I am, I have no control over it.” I say.

“How do you know that?”

I fish out one of the strange coins from my pocket. I hand it to her as I cause another body to vanish.

“What’s this?” She asks.

“No clue. It’s one of the items the corpses drop.” I say.

“It looks like money.” She says.

“I don’t know. But I’ve never seen one before I used this skill. So I doubt I have any control over what loot I get. If I did, I doubt I could create something I’ve never seen.”

“I guess that makes sense. Then how is the loot decided?” She asks.

I shrug.

“Maybe a god decides. Or we're in the matrix and some computer program decides.” I say.

“I hope it’s some God.” She says.

“Why’s that?”

“If this was some computer simulation then wouldn’t that mean that we’re just lines of codes running through their routines. Wouldn’t that mean we don’t have free will? We’re just doing as we are programmed to do.” She says.

I guess she’s right. If this is all a simulation then we are just robots doing as our code commands. With no true free will. But I feel as if I have free will. I can do whatever I want, I’m not restricted to just doing the same things all the time. If I wanted to scream I’m real I have free will I can.

But that could also be my programming talking. Still I think she’s onto something. We have free will. At least I’m going to believe we do.

“Or we could be real people in the simulation. Kinda like we’re playing a video game.” Kyle chimes in.

“That could be fun. Like this is all a video game. I mean it has enough of the elements. That would mean if we die we only stop playing this run through right?” Abby says.

“We’ll if that was the case wouldn’t we have memories of the outside world?” I ask.

“No and no. Maybe in order to get into the game our memories are wiped and replaced with fake ones so we can be immersed. And maybe the process of dying in the game could fry our minds.” Kyle says.

“Awe that makes all of this scary again.” Abby says.

“A little bit of fear is healthy for you.” Kyle says.

“Gods, video games, or simulations it doesn’t really matter what’s going on. What matters is that we survive to live another day.” I say.

“Agreed. And hopefully we can find time to have fun in between the surviving.” Abby says.

Kyle nods his head as he looks down the other side of the street.

“Hey do you guys see that?” He asks.

I stand and turn in the direction he’s looking. Way down the street there seems to be something blocking the road. It’s far too far away for me to tell what it is but something is definitely there.

“Is that a wall or something?” Abby asks.

“I don’t know but isn’t this the street that leads to your apartment?” Kyle asks.

“Yeah. But that wasn’t there yesterday was it?” She asks.

“No it wasn’t.” I say.

“Does that mean there are other people out there?” Abby asks.

“Hopefully. I’d rather the living be building walls then some weird zombies.” Kyle says.

“Should we investigate?” Abby asks.

Kyle looks to me and after a second of thinking it over I shake my head.

“No but we should let Decker and the others know. Who knows, maybe we can send a group over to investigate later.” I say.

“Sounds fine with me.” Abby says.

“Yeah. How much longer Joel?” Kyle asks.

I look around noticing about thirty zombies left. Originally there were just over 70.

“Not much longer.” I say.

I race through the rest of the corpses. The only thing of note I get is a crappy looking pouch. It’s big enough to hold all of the green coins I got. I now have over thirty.

After I finish looting the bodies I check my skill progression.

Scavenging

8

Apprentice

Scavenging is now my highest skill. I hope that when it levels up some more I can start getting some decent loot. Granted I don’t know what kind of loot that could be. Maybe food or something.

Granted I don’t know if I’d be willing to eat food from a corpse. But hey if I’m hungry enough it could be life saving. That is if Scavenging can produce food.

We all get back into the car and continue driving to the store. We don’t encounter any other issues. Only the occasional zombie. Abby handles them while I restore my mana pool.

“You have to teach me how to do that.” Abby says.

“I can tonight if you want.”

“Perfect. You promised to teach me but you haven’t done much of that.” Abby says.

I can almost taste the salt in her voice.

“I’m sorry. A lot has been happening.” I offer.

“I forgive you. But it won’t continue any longer. Every night you will show me how you do everything you do.” She says.

“Alright.”

The block with the CVS store has three zombies loitering on it. Abby easily manages them and Kyle pulls the car right up to the door of the store.

Two large glass doors lead into the building. We get out of the car and peer into the building through the glass.

“Do you guys see anything?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Kyle says.

“Nope.” Abby says.

With nothing better to do I beat against the glass of the building. I hear my thuds echo throughout the building. Then I wait.

“What was that for?” Kyle asks.

“If anything is in there then it heard me. If it’s a zombie it’s going to come over here to investigate the sound.” I say.

“Smart.” Abby says.

With that we fall into silence. For several moments nothing happens so we beat on the doors some more. After a minute or so a zombie finally shambles into view. It's wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis.

It shambles to the door and I read that it’s level sits at one. I guess only a single person being in the building makes sense. The apocalypse happened around midnight.

I slide my mana between the gaps in the door and use it to form a Mana Scythe. I then sever the spine of the zombie causing it to fall to the ground.

Then I pour my mana into the locks of the door and open them. Kyle steps forwards and kills the still biting zombie.

“You guys ready?” He asks.

“Yeah but how should we go about doing this?” Abby asks.

“I’ve actually been thinking about that.” Kyle says.

He gets back into the vehicle and maneuvers it so that the truck is facing the doors. Then I hear a popping sound and watch the trunk rise slightly. The car powers down and Kyle steps out.

“I figured we would fill baskets with stuff and then throw them into the trunk.” He says.

“Sounds good to me. But I think we should keep someone on the lookout.” I say.

“I can do that.” Abby says.

I look at Kyle who shrugs and enters the store.

“Yell if you see anything.” I say.

I leave her and enter the store. I stoop down and Scavenge the body of the CVS worker.

After the mist dissipates a sock is left. I opt out of collecting it and instead get started on looting the store.