Hearing her name as if for the first time, Sharon turned to look at him. "Naturist," she said, beaming like a child.
‘Well there goes my shot at seeing a cobra-bear anytime soon,’ Garath thought with chagrin.
Mark adopted a speculative expression as his eyes darted back and forth behind rimless glasses across the options displayed on his MENU panels then his body, too, began to glow. Everyone's eyes squeezed shut instinctively as they had only just recovered from temporary blindness. The flash lit the inside of their eyelids orange, then faded away.
"What the hell?" Mark said when the light faded. The middle aged, former banker looked down at himself - but nothing had changed.
Garath looked thoughtfully at Mark with the same question on his mind, 'What the hell?'
He figured that when Sharon had undergone her transformation, the blessing had something to do with the Naturist class. Apparently not. Maybe the effects were different because of the difference in age, her Vitality stat may have been far lower as a level one, Class-less, seventy-whatever-year-old woman than it was as a level one Naturist. Conversely, Mark wasn't old, just out of shape. That was the best explanation Garath could come up with at least.
"Huh," he voiced his agreement. It could have been some weird perk that people over a certain age received, or maybe Sharon just got lucky. Maybe it was a female thing. There were too many unknown factors for anyone to know for sure. Either way, knowing how it happened wouldn't help them to defend themselves.
Garath opened his MENU panels and checked the Friends partition, he saw that his new 'friend', Athios, had just turned onto Hoyt Ave, where his little group was waiting. He got up and silently left the group to intercept and introduce himself.
The Necrologist was a little shocked as he caught his first glance of Athios. She was absolutely stunning. Her build was lean and athletic. Her long, dark hair was tied in a loose ponytail and hung just past her shoulders. Her high cheekbones, harshly angled, framed the feature that really caught his attention - her eyes. They were dark as night and looked sad, like she had never been happy in her life, even though - as she looked at him then - her thin lips were raised in a half smile of greeting.
"Athios?" he asked, with what he hoped was a charming smile on his face. It probably would have been too, if not for the marginally demonic appearance of his glowing eyes and dark wizard hat.
"And you must be Garath," said Athios. Her hand automatically reaching to pull nervously on a lock of hair that must have escaped her ponytail on her walk to the school.
"Call me G, everyone does. I'm glad you made it early, I was hoping you would. Warrion over there," he pointed at the little group still gathered in wonder around Sharon, "is the only other gamer in my little group."
Garath waved his arms, calling Warrion over. He and Athios simply looked at one another other silently until the short, but somehow still gangly, Warrion arrived.
"What's the plan, G?" Warrion asked, pulling the loose fitting jeans up around his slender waist with one hand.
"I dunno, figured we would wait and see if anyone else made it before setting anything in stone," said Garath. "Last time I checked we had a few responses on Athios' community post. You guys have any ideas?”
Athios scanned the surrounding area as best she could in the dim morning light. They had picked a good spot. Eight-foot-tall chain link fences surrounded the black-top basketball courts lined up three long and two wide - taking up roughly half of a city block.
"I don't think we need to plan anything all that complicated," said Athios. "I mean, unless I totally missed something, we don't even know what we are even going to be actually fighting... Or how our Skills will actually work in combat. Or where these things will, is spawn the right word? Or what their aggro table and pull rates will be like. Or... Hey, you guys mind if I smoke?"
A golden shimmer was cresting the mountains to the east as the three of them talked strategy over a cigarette. It didn't take long - considering the major lack of information to go on - and the three gamers finished their discussion before Athios finished her cigarette. With their simple plan locked in, the gamers made their way back to where Sharon, Mark, and Sarah were waiting. Garath started to relay the plan to them as the first rays of crimson light pierced the horizon, giving birth to the morning's first shadows. That was about the time that a world-wide message appeared, seemingly for the sole purpose of raising anxiety levels across the globe.
Countdown to The Culling: 10:00.
It ticked to 9:59, then 9:58, and continued its countdown in Garath’s vision - with or without his MENU panels open.
In the anxious minutes that followed, several groups arrived to meet them on the fenced asphalt. Garath greeted each of them as they arrived, relaying the plan and identifying those in each group who would fight and those who needed protection.
Most of the newcomers were families with children and Garath swallowed hard as he looked at them. He wondered how was he supposed to keep all of them safe and, beyond that, whether he'd even be able to hang on to his own life for the next twenty-four hours. Until that moment, everything had felt abstract - like he was experiencing his first full dive VR game - but the fantasy ended right then for Garath and his nerves went into overdrive as the reality of the situation came crashing down.
In all, the group that waited nervously for the apocalypse totalled 31. Based on the questions he asked each group as they arrived, Garath found that there were 11 children; 12 able bodied adults that had
