"I don’t think anyone is going to see this," Athios jested.
"Very funny,” said Garath without any real mirth. "Did you already make a new community thread?"
"Not yet," said Athios, her left hand moving up to tug nervously on a lock of black hair hanging near her neckline. "I didn't know what to say..."
"You want me to do it?" he asked.
"Yes!" she pleaded.
Garath just nodded and opened his MENU, then focused on the World icon. He found that the map still hovered over the city of Everett, now displaying a small green dot to notate the position of each member of his Raid group. To the right of the digital map, he located and opened the Community panel. He had opened this panel once before, when he had found Athios' original post - a few more posts had been added since then. He scrolled past them until he found the option to 'Post Thread' and keyed in his message.
Thread Title:
Safety near the high school
Thread Body:
There are about thirty of us holed up in the old, converted school building you may know as the church of Immaculate Conception - it's the red brick building next to the basketball courts by the high school. I just put a flag up on the roof with an arrow facing down at the building. We don't have any food or water, but there are eleven of us actively fighting to keep everyone in the building safe.
If you decide to join us, I can't guarantee your survival. When I saw that over 17000 people have died to this shit in right here in Everett while our little group comfortably took shifts to protect the single entrance made me sick.
Get here. Be safe.
Would you like to post this thread?
Yes or No
Garath chose ‘Yes’.
"Posted," he said, looking out over the city as his MENU panels vanished. With the limited view atop the two story school building, it almost looked like any other morning. Birds sang their songs to welcome the day and the weather was beautiful. Apart from a handful of broken windows, crashed cars, and the sporadic human remains, even the city itself seemed normal. "I guess the monsters aren't really that interested in destruction."
"Yeah,” said Athios, nodding her agreement. “Just killing people."
"Well..." he started, then thought better of it - Garath had always been superstitious about things like that and he didn’t see any nearby wood to knock on.
"Well?"
"...not these monsters," he finished, already wishing he hadn't. "They were skeletons, even the Inspect description called them mindless. There are another seven waves."
The black orbs distributed across the planet once again began to spark and pop with malevolent energy. Athios looked at Garath, shaking her head with one eyebrow cocked.
"You had to say it, didn’t you?"
“You asked!”
Chapter 11
Fight or Die, Win and Live!
Seven black orbs accompanied Garath and Athios on the roof of the school building. Garath opened his map and took note of the positions of his fighting force. Nine of the eleven brave souls were huddled around the door ready for another round. The healers were all in place at the building’s entrance with the children and various non-combatants just behind them in the safety of the Raid’s stronghold.
"Looks like the door’s covered. Wanna see if we can manage some kills from here?" Garath asked Athios.
Athios considered it for a moment, then nodded. Her dimensional skills would be just as potent from the roof, if not more so. The range of her transporting disks, the relocation spells both for enemies and the spell for allies, was thirty-meters - which would be more than adequate from their location.
Garath addressed the fighting force over the Raid sub-channel, "Athios and I are going to fight from the roof, it looks like you guys already have the door covered. Who wants to volunteer for standing guard at the rear?"
Nobody responded. Garath looked to Athios, who raised her hands to the side in the universal gesture of 'idk'.
"No volunteers? Warrion, you're up for the first shift then. We're gonna handle this wave just like the last one, call it on this channel if you need to switch out and Warrion will relieve you."
"Fine," a disappointed voice came back over the channel.
This time, Garath wasn't surprised when the orbs began to vibrate wildly. ‘Should still have about three more minutes,’ he thought to himself, opening his MENU panels to confirm. At 02:58, the Necrologist mentally readied himself for the fight, and it hit him that he had forgotten to attempt a summon. It was as good a time as any to test his theory about using his House Cat form when casting spells with the additional cost of Tainted Soul, he figured, and got to work.
To Athios, only a second passed while the Necrologist morphed into his smooth coated, tiny white cat form - to Garath, that same second felt like several minutes. His skin tingled as soft fur sprouted from it, his bones and muscles shook as they became smaller and lighter.
"Awe, kitty!!! Oh my God, you're adorable!" said Athios, bending to pick him up.
"Meeeow!" Garath meowed adorably. ‘Shit. Forgot about that,’ he thought to himself in self-recrimination.
*Can you hear me?* he projected the thought to her.
Taken aback by his voice in her head, Athios' face screwed up as she struggled to mentally communicate.
*Yeah. Can you hear me?* Athios asked, hoping her words made it to the little white cat at her feet.
*Yeah,* Garath confirmed. *Hey, question. Does my voice sound the
