The cook just looked utterly mystified.
“Anyway, we’ll do what we can, ma’am,” I said, shaking my head.
“Thank you,” she said with gratitude.
“Hey, I like to eat too,” I said with a smile. She smiled back. A little. “But we have to go. We’ll see you at dinner.”
We picked up the rest of the group and headed back to the main square. There was about half an hour to go and a crowd had gathered behind the ‘stay back’ rope.
“Okay,” I said. “First, I think we should all go over to the side and use these guidebooks. Might be important information about immigrants, or something.”
Walking around the corner, we found a bench in front of a tourist-y looking store which was closed. I sat.
“I’ll go first,” I said, and pulled out one of the guidebooks. “We’re supposed to sit and look at the pages until the information transfers. So everybody be cool for a minute.”
Danielle sat next to me, not touching, but close enough to feel. She looked a little worried.
“Here goes,” I said, and opened the cover.
The title page just said ‘The System and You,’ so I flipped to the next.
‘The System is a general term for a complex…’
I blinked. The book was gone.
No, it wasn’t gone.
It was in my head.
I looked around in a bit of a daze. Danielle put her hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?” She sounded more worried than she looked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “That… that was weird.” Then I looked up at the sky and said, with great feeling, “Son of a Bitch!”
“What? What?” said Dave in alarm.
“If we had known what is in this goddamn book at System Start, I bet a lot of people who are now dead would still be fucking alive!” I was nearly shouting and I made myself take a deep breath.
“Why?” said Danielle, squeezing my shoulder.
“Because it talks about Exclusion Zones. And how to pick a Class. And Class Skills. And the effects of stats on your health and Mana and regeneration. And how Mana makes nonsapient animals develop into monsters.” I was furious. Everything the System had done to us, and it couldn’t put this in our heads? To help us stay alive?
I took several more deep breaths. “Read it for yourselves,” I said. “It’ll be faster than me telling you.” I pulled out the Cleaning spellbook. “I’m going to try a spellbook.”
Danielle pulled out her copy of the guidebook. I read the spellbook. We finished at nearly the same time.
SYSTEM MESSAGE: You have learned the spell ‘Basic Cleanse.’ This spell will clean approximately thirty square feet of surface area. If cast on a living thing, it will clean that thing and all equipment it carries, if any. Cost: 10MP. Range: Five feet. Cooldown: 30 Seconds.
Then Emily sat on the sidewalk and leaned up against the wall to read hers. She was done several seconds later. I watched her: she just looked as if she were flipping through a very short book very quickly… and then it vanished.
She looked at me in disbelief. “It all makes sense, but it doesn’t. Now I know what, but I don’t know why. Or how.”
“I don’t know if anybody does,” I said. “This is… beyond bizarre. But let’s try this.” I put my hand on my chest and mentally cast ‘Basic Cleanse’ on myself. There was a very brief tingling sensation.
SPELL USED: Basic Cleanse. You and your gear are cleansed of ordinary dirt and grime. If you’re still dirty on the inside, it’s your own fault. 250/260MP.
I looked at my hands and my clothes. They looked cleaner than I’d been since my last hot shower on Friday night. It was surprising how much better I felt. I hadn’t had time to get that dirty, and we’d managed to get most of the blood off of us after the bear fight with a wash before bed. But it was still a huge improvement. Even my teeth felt like they’d just been brushed.
Danielle reached up and ran her fingers through my hair.
“It feels like it’s just been washed,” she said with excitement. “Do me!”
“Here on the street?” I said with mock disbelief. Then I said “Ow!” with not-at-all-mock pain.
“Fine, fine,” I grumbled, resisting the urge to rub my shoulder, and cast the spell on her. Her hair, which had been getting limp, immediately took on a healthy shine, and her clothes looked just-out-of-the-dryer fresh.
SPELL USED: Basic Cleanse. You cast the spell on a living thing, which cleans it and all equipment it is carrying below the area limit. 240/260MP.
“Oh, that’s soooooo much better,” said Danielle with a sigh of happiness. “You don’t realize what it’s like not to be clean until you can’t do it.”
“Any of you want a magic shower?” I asked, looking at the Noobs.
Dave looked a little uncomfortable, but Emily sprang to her feet and stood in front of me.
“Oh fuck yes,” she said. “I hate being dirty. I take two showers a day. I feel like there are bugs all over me already.”
“I don’t think it’s that bad just yet,” I said, “But it’s pretty simple, so here you go.” I held out my hand and cast. She started a bit, probably at the tingling, but smiled even wider than Danielle as she ran her fingers through her short blonde hair.
“Thank you,” she said, beaming at me. She looked at Danielle. “I know he’s yours, so don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re never getting rid of me now. At least not until we figure out how to make showers work again.” Danielle just laughed, though she did put her hand on my arm possessively. I used my new superintelligence to determine that the smart thing to do was not say anything.
Michelle was next, and then Emily bullied Dave into it. He looked a little uneasy with the idea, but I think it helped that I didn’t have to touch him. The cost was nothing to someone with my Mana regeneration, and I didn’t mind if it made people a little more comfortable. Not to mention more hygienic.
“’System, time.’” I said it out loud to get everyone’s attention.
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Local Time is 12:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, Monday, April 10, 2017.
“Okay,” I said, “Fifteen minutes to go. Let’s go watch.” We walked around the corner, where a crowd of a few hundred people was strung along the street facing the Trade Center. I saw Deputy Franklin and the Sheriff standing on the far side of the street, with more deputies in a thin line facing the crowd.
“Excuse us… pardon me…” I unashamedly used my Charisma to smile my way through the crowd, or at least to keep people from being too mad about my shoving to the front. Danielle and the Noobs followed close behind. When we got to the front, I waved to the Sheriff. He saw me and motioned to Deputy Franklin, who walked over to us.
“What’s up, James?” she said in a very tense voice. “Little busy right now.”
“I know,” I said. “Volunteering again. Danielle and I are both used to weird stuff and we’re the strongest people in town, probably. We’ll stand with you if we can be of any help.”