“Good plan,” said Joe, before Mandy could say anything. “I can yell pretty loud. And I feel like I need to do more than just falling over.” He grinned. “That I’ve got down.”
“So, same group but tighter, Joe gets just close enough to yell at houses and then we beat it if people are hostile. Anything else?” I asked.
“What about food and water?” asked Mike. “We can’t carry much in the bags we have.”
Danielle gestured at the wall. Next to her duffel were three green-ish backpacks. They weren’t huge, but they looked like they could hold a lot.
“I found those yesterday. We can put all the water we can carry in them, and what food we have,” she said.
Standing up, I said, “Okay, that should get us started. Strip the place of anything useful and put what we can carry in the bags we have and the backpacks. I think that me, Mike, and Samantha should carry the packs. We aren’t melee fighters, so extra load is not as big a deal.”
“’Melee fighters?’” said Samantha. “I’ll carry a bag, but what’s that?” She was walking over to pick up a pack even as she asked.
“People who fight with handheld weapons,” said Anthony. “You use a gun and a snake, James uses magic, and Mike’s a healer. The rest of us fight with our hands, so it’s a bigger deal if we’re weighed down.”
“Gotcha,” said Samantha. “Thanks.”
Danielle had slipped down the hall, and returned with several rolls of toilet paper. “I’ll share, but this is going in my bag,” she said to me. “You can put your stuff in your backpack.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Won’t catch me arguing,” I said as I grabbed a pack. “I’ll put my stuff on the bottom and the water on top.”
The pack was pretty full, between my stuff, the most portable food, and several bottles of water. Heavy, too. But there was no telling how long the water in people’s houses would last.
As we were finishing up some more sausage and nearly-stale bread we found in the kitchen, I was thinking about the post-Apocalyptic stories I’d read and something occurred to me.
“Anybody notice if any of that liquor was especially good, or if any of it was really high proof?”
“There was a bottle of Gentleman Jack they hadn’t opened and some pretty strong vodka, why?” said Samantha, who’d done most of the food sorting.
“Strong liquor is a last-ditch painkiller and antiseptic,” I said. “Maybe that won’t be a big deal with System healing. But good liquor is good for trading when it hits the fan.”
“I’ll get what I can,” she said. “Good thinking.”
Before we left, Mike gave a short class in gun safety and showed us how the shotguns worked. He took one, and so did I, mostly in hopes the noise would scare animals away if necessary. We didn’t bother with a lot of ammunition. It made more sense for the others to concentrate on the weapons they had, since they’d probably do a lot more damage under System rules.
One last bathroom break for everybody, and we were ready to go. Between the pack and the shotgun, I was feeling the weight. I made a mental note to keep an eye on my Stamina.
I looked around as we walked away from the house. It was another sunny day. The sky seemed brighter than usual, the clouds whiter.
The System? I wondered. The fact that no planes are flying, no factories are running?
Maybe we’ll never know.
We set out toward town.
Chapter 14
The Party Gets Started
As we moved down the steep driveway, Anthony said, “Hey, James. I just had an idea.”
“What’s that?” I answered.
“The System keeps automatically putting us in a party when we fight. Can we form parties manually?”
“Good question. Let’s find out,” I said. I gestured for everyone to hold up for a minute and we stopped at the foot of the driveway. “‘Form Party.’”
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Party Formation active. Select beings within range whose names you know to invite.
Under that was a list with everyone’s names. It only showed the names I knew, and we still hadn’t all disclosed our last names, which was kind of funny as we’d all been fighting for our lives together.
I mentally ‘clicked’ all of the names, focusing on each in turn and indicating approval. As I clicked each one, I got a message.
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Party invitation sent to designated target.
Then more messages started to roll in.
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Danielle Braid has accepted your party invitation.
At the corner of my vision, a small grid appeared, showing a picture of Danielle’s face and three bars, one red, one blue, and one green.
“This is so cool,” I said to Anthony. “Great idea. It’s just like partying on an MMO.” He smiled and accepted my invitation. His face was immediately added to the grid. Everyone else accepted within seconds.
“Can you guys see the other members?” I asked him.
“No,” he said with a frown. “I just see an indicator that says “Member of James’ Party.”
“I can see your names, your first names anyway, and your HP and MP,” I said. “Once Mike gets a little more used to this maybe we should make him the party leader.”
“Why?” said Mike.
“Because you’d be able to see everybody’s health,” said Joe, “and know who needed healing without having to ask.”
Mike nodded. “That’s clever,” he said. “I never would have thought of that.”
“Gamers, Doc,” said Joe. “It’s what we do.”
“Hey, wait,” I said. “‘Set Mike as Assistant Leader.’”
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Party member Mike set to Assistant Party Leader.
“Wow,” said Mike in astonishment. “I see a little grid with all of you and status bars. That’s… weird.”
“Nice,” I said. “It works. I’m starting to wonder if we can get the System to do a lot of useful things if we only to think to ask. Mike, those bars are probably Health, Mana, and Stamina, in that order. If it is doing things the way we expect them to, that’s how it usually works in games.”
PARTY CHAT / ANTHONY: This is Anthony, chat test?
Several people jumped, thinking it was a System message. I smiled even wider.
“Anthony, you’re a genius. How’d you do that?” I was thrilled at the idea of a chat system. If we could communicate silently, with no-one overhearing us, we could coordinate attacks and do all kinds of things.
“I just thought, ‘Party Chat?’ and it said ‘Chat message?” so I sent a test, just like you would in a new game,” he said, grinning back at me.
“Guys, this is chat, just like chatting on Facebook or Twitter or a group text on your phone,” I said. “We can talk to each other without being overheard. It could be super useful. Don’t forget we’ve got it.”
“There’s a lot of stuff to keep track of,” said Mandy with a note of complaint in her voice.