Changing World Draft 1, CH 5 (Patreon)

The timer hit zero, flashed, and vanished.

“Yes!” someone young yelled as the surroundings returned to their normal colors.

System Initiation Complete
Welcome

The words appeared in Chuck’s vision as he looked toward the teen who’d yelled.

The boy, he couldn’t be more than fourteen, was on the other side of the shade the overpass created and he had a flame floating over his palm. “You’re a wizard now, Terry!” he exclaimed.

Chuck chuckled as he stood and immediately felt something different. He felt more solid on his feet. As is his center of gravity had dropped closer to the ground. He looked down at himself as other exclamations came from under the overpass, not all of them joyous, some even sounding painful. He didn’t look different. He was the same height, same mass as far as he could tell. It had to be something about his class. Tanks had to be able to stand their ground.

A roar erupted, and a car skidded. A creature stood in the middle of the people, at least ten feet tall. Someone near yelled and it swung. The man went flying before Chuck could move. Then the troll set his eyes on the teen who stood frozen in place, face slack, flame this dancing over his palm. The troll’s arms moved up.

Fuck! Chuck took a step in their direction. The kid was going to be splattered. The command appeared in his mind and he activated it without thinking.

Switch

Strength 26, endurance 24.

He was next to the troll and raised his arm to take the blow. The timer dropped to nine seconds as the fist hit him and his health bar dropped a little. A second and a third. As the timer dropped to eight and he lost more of his health. More hits as he shifted. The troll was pounding on him screaming mindlessly. Down to four seconds, health below a fifth.

He grabbed the arm as it came down and dropped to a knee under the force, but this time he pushed the troll off balance.

“Stay down!” he yelled as the troll fell on his back. He yelled again, and this time it wasn’t meaning noise.

“Mary!” the tone was scared. The troll looked at Chuck as if he was the monster.

The timer hit zero and was replaced by a fifteen-minute one. He panted as the pain hit. He felt like he’d been put through a blender, but he didn’t move. If the troll regained his senses and attacked again. Chuck didn’t think anyone else would stand in the way.

“Bernard!” a woman yelled.

“Mary!” the troll called back, still sounding afraid.

“Oh my God!” she yelled, running by Chuck. “What happened?” She stopped just out of reach of the troll. “Bernard, is that you?”

The troll looked at his hands. “Mary. I’m scared.”

Chuck tried to wrap his head around this old woman taking the troll’s finger and soothing him.

Quest Completed: The Way of the Guardian, 1
The guardian protects, they protects their charges, but they also protects everyone. Sometimes even their enemy. You have completed your first fight without injuring your opponent. Congratulation. Reward, 1000 xp.

If that quest implied he was expected to never hurt people who attacked him, it wasn’t a quest line he’d progress far in. He checked his hit points and swallowed hard. He only had thirty out of one-twenty. It was a miracle he hadn’t broken anything. Or maybe a perk of his class, or this new system, but he did feel the pain.

Someone was looking at the unmoving man on the other side of the road, the one the troll had swapped. After checking him, he walked back toward them, reaching behind and pulling a gun.

With a curse, Chuck moved to interpose himself.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” the man snarled, brandishing the gun.

Chuck wasn’t risking it still working. “No.” He grabbed the man’s hand and held him.

“That thing killed that man!”

“He’s a man,” Chuck replied. “His name’s Bernard, he’s terrified of what’s going on, like the rest of you I expect.”

“And you’re not?” the demanded.

“I figure I’ll have the time to be scared once I’m sure no one’s trying to kill each other anymore.”

“It killed someone! It’s a monster, it’s got to be put down.”

“He’s my husband!” Mary walked around Chuck and ineffectually pushed at the man. “He didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Something impossible happened, and he was scared. Are you going to hurt me for protecting him?”

The little old woman berating the gun-holder had more of an effect than Chuck’s reasoning. He let go of the hand, and almost demanded the gun, but decided the man needed his safety blanket. He just had to hope he wouldn’t lose it and shot everyone. If they were lucky, guns didn’t work anymore, and they were down to fists and blades.

“That was so cool,” the teen exclaimed, approaching.

And magic. At least he no longer had the flame in his hand.

“How did you do that?” You don’t look like a wizard. “I was here, then I was there.”

“It’s my ability,” Chuck answered as a woman, a muscular woman, took the teen’s arm.

“Terry, leave the man alone.” Her clothing was so tight on her they ripped as she moved.

“Mom! You’re an amazon! I told you that was the perfect race for you!”

Chuck left them. Moving cautiously because everything hurt even if his arm had taken the worse of the blows it felt like it had been distributed to the rest of his body. Of the thirty people, he saw maybe a dozen looked human. The others were a mix of races he did and didn’t know.

A lizard person was rocking. A fox, or maybe a wolf woman, was looking in her shirt. A bear of a man, but his skin looking scaled instead of furred. Chuck stopped trying to identify them. They weren’t his problem.

“Chuck,” a deep voice called as an orc approached. He was a good head taller than Chuck’s five-ten, muscular, but a little pudgy. His skin was tan with patches of green, and Chuck froze. “It’s me, Jasmine, although I’m going by Jozer, now.”

“You’re right out of World of Warcraft.” That made no sense.

“No, I’m out of Cincinnati.”

“You, your body, that’s an orc, the green is the fel. Weren’t you a woman?”

“Yeah, but I figured if I was going to keep guys off me, this would be easier. And I’m a warrior too. What’s World of Warcraft?”

“It’s just like the biggest MMO in the world. How do you not know about it?”

“Is it a computer thing?”

Chuck nodded.

“That’s why. I’m purely analog unless it’s for work.”

“You have a phone, and a digital watch.”

“Okay, so I’m not entirely analog, but you know, you have to have a phone and who wants to deal with a watch that needs to be cranked all the time.”

Chuck raised a hand to stop her. “I didn’t see gender settings, how did you change it?”

“When I pick orc as my race, I had the choice to set myself as a guy or a girl. Like I said this way guys are going to stop pawing me.”

Chuck had seen enough WoW related art online to know she was in for a surprise if she found herself in the right places, but he didn’t mention it. It wasn’t his problem.

“So, do you think the cars are going to start working now that everything is back to normal? I have a meeting in.” She looked at her watch, tapped it. “Well, it’s at eleven.”

“If your phone and watch don’t work, I don’t think anything electronic works. That means no cars. You’re going to have to walk to your meeting.”

“I can’t to that, it’s in Winchester.”

“And I’m supposed to deliver in Cornwall tomorrow. We’re going to have to reschedule a whole lot of things. It’s probably going to take me months to make back to Canada.” He trailed off.

Months. He didn’t have many of them, not if he wanted to be on time.

With a curse, he ran to his truck. His mom’s birthday was in three months. He had to start moving right now if he wanted to be there on time. Climbing in the cab, he reached behind his seat to pull the road atlas. It was close to a thousand kilometer to Cornwall, so it had to be around the same thing to Toronto. He couldn’t be late.

Quest possibility: Home for mom’s birthday.
Even though the world has changed from under you, you still think about your mother and you want to there for her birthday.
Do you want to set this as a quest? Yes/No
Reward, experience, plus unknown.

He could create his own quest? He was going to make it, so this was a no-brainer. Yes.

Quest: Home for her birthday, set. Time remaining, eighty-eight days.

The window minimized into a box on the right side, under the one for his character sheet. He was happy the timer didn’t remain. He wasn’t sure how he’d deal with the stress of the constant reminder.

To do a thousand kilometer in that time frame needed to travel twelve kilometers a day at least. He opened the atlas to check the exact distance, and it shimmered in his hand before vanishing.

Before he could say anything, he noticed a new box under the one for his quests. He focused on it and a ‘please wait, collating’ message appeared. Before he could wonder about that, the message vanished and was replaced with a map of the United States and Canada with a flashing blue dot.

He focused on it and the map zoomed in. He happened so fast he felt like some vertigo and put a hand on it. It stopped. He was looking at Virginia, with some of West Virginia and Maryland. The largest of the cities were indicated.

He placed two fingers on the map and moved them apart, causing the map to zoom. He double-tapped the blue dot, and it zoomed some more, keeping it centered. This was just like using a map app on his tablet. That was weird.

After a few trials, he figured out he could trace a finger along a route, and the distance calculated itself. That way he found out he was in the range of seven hundred and fifty kilometers. That was much easier to handle.

“What are you doing?” the teen asked.

Chuck focused on him and the map became translucent. “Working out how to get home. What are you doing here without—” the amazonian woman approached.

“How are you doing it?”

“By looking at a map.”

The teen moved his eyes around. “I don’t see an icon for that.”

Chuck sighed. “When I opened my atlas, it transferred itself.”

“Oh!” The teen ran to a car.

“He’s overjoyed about this,” the woman said as she offered her hand. “I’m Elizabeth. Thank you for saving Terry.” She motioned to herself. “This was happening to me and I couldn’t move.”

Chuck shrugged. “I was able to help, so I did.”

“You seemed to be taking this pretty well.”

He dismissed the map. And forced himself not to look at her, because he could feel the suspicion mounting. But she wasn’t going to go away, and he no longer needed to rush, so he pushed it down and did his best to be cordial. There was nothing he’d say that could be used against him later. “I don’t see the point in panicking. My one concern when this started was that I was going crazy, but with everyone here going through the same thing. The best thing I could do was go along.” And it wasn’t like thirty or so strangers would set this up just to make him think it was real. No matter how his paranoia nagged at him.

She let out a nervous chuckle. “That’s not something I’m used to hearing people say they can decide to panic or not.”

Noticing how she covered her breast with her arms and the rips of her shirt that vanished behind them, he climbs into the cab. “Growing up,” he said from inside, looking through his folded shirts. “I had to learn to decide how I was going to react to stuff.” And learn never to care, because caring about anything was the easiest way for his father to manipulate him. He took a white one and handed it to her from the driver’s seat. “Looks like we have the same width of shoulders, so this should fit you.”

“Sorry, I’m not used to looking like this.” She took it and hurried to put it on. “I’m surprised you haven’t ogled me. The men back there have been eying me while trying to work out what they’re going to do.”

Chuck climbed down. “In a society that over-sexualized the woman’s body, being gay has its perks.” He leaned against the side of the truck.

“Oh. You don’t—”

“Fit the stereotype?” He shrugged. “Very few of us do. Any stereotype.”

“Mom! I have the map of Pennsylvania digitized in my head!” the teen went back to rummaging through the glove compartment.

“The big guy… Bernard, I think his name is. He seems to have calmed down, although he’d broken up about killing that man.”

“That’s good. Means he isn’t a monster,” Chuck added as an explanation.

“Where’s home?” she asked after an uncomfortable silence.

Chuck patted the truck. “Or it used to be, with it dead, I’m going to Toronto.”

“That’s where your family is?”

He nodded.

She indicated the teen. “Terry’s all I have. It’s been the two of us since he was four and his dad walked out on us.”

“Parents?”

She shook her head. “They died when I was young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

The silence stretched. Chuck reached through the open door and opened the side box. “I need to figure out how to pack what I’m going to bring.”

“Right, sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No worries. You might want to keep Terry from going through every glove box of every car.” He pulled the empty duffel bag and dropped it on the ground. He had another one in the truck he’d used for clothing and food. He pulled the barbell out. What he wanted to do now was figure out how he was going to store and carry—

The barbell had vanished out of his hand and a new window appeared with spaces within it. A seven by seven grid, with his barbell in the top left corner. He had an inventory space for forty-nine items; unless they stacked? He took one weight plate after the other and store them. The eight twenty-five kilo plates were in one spot, the eight ten-kilos were in theirs, the four five-kilos in theirs, and the four two-and-a-half kilos.

He moved around. He had over two hundred kilos in his inventory, closer to three, and he didn’t feel any of it. He could see overusing this. He climbed in the truck and put his clothing, toiletries, and food in there, then climbed down.

He couldn’t remember ever carrying everything he owned so easily.

He brought the map back. He needed to plan things properly. He needed to make sure each stop gave him a chance to sleep safely, try to gather more food.

What was close by?

He zoomed the map as close as he could and obtained an almost photo-realistic of the hundred meters around him, including the truck, although he wasn’t visible. Just the blue dot. Outside of that, it went back to the mat coloring of the atlas. So it would update as he walked. Hopefully, he didn’t need to keep it open.

What did he know about the area? There was a truck stop in Winchester, and he thought there were a few more between here and there, but he’d grown too dependent on his map app to tell him where they were. Winchester was too far to reach today.

Walmart, there was one at exit 283. Checking the map, he was about twenty kilometers away. It was summer. Could he make that before dark? He’d have to find out because that was the perfect place to spend the night and resupply, if no one else had had the same idea.

He headed north on the road, walking under the overpass.

“Where are you going?” someone called after him, and Chuck considered ignoring them. They could make their own plans. He stopped. He was a guardian now, and the way of the guardian was to protect. Hadn’t he picked that class specifically because of that?

“I’m heading north. There’s a Walmart about twenty clicks from here. I’m going to spend the night there and tomorrow I’m going to keep heading north. I don’t know what happened, but considering how some of us were changed, I don’t want to remain outside to find out what happened to the animals. I suggest you all find a place to spend the night.”

He turned and began walking. There, he’d given them—

“With you,” a deep voice growled. The troll, Bernard. “Go with you. Not safe here.”

Chuck stopped. Considering how the others had treated Bernard, it wasn’t surprising. He turned and Mary was accompanying her husband, holding his hand. Terry ran to pass them.

“Me and mom are going with you too. We need to stick together. First rule of adventuring.” Elizabeth joined him and behind her everyone was moving in his direction.

He had a flash of anger, which he buried. They were scared, he reminded himself. The world had changed and unlike him, they’d cared about it, so they’d been affected. Change usually scared people, and people who were scared latched on to anyone who seemed to know what they were doing. And this time it was him.

He so didn’t want this. He didn’t want a crowd of people around him. “Okay. If this is going to work.” He raised his voice enough for it to carry. “We can’t start stabbing each other in the back five minutes from here. We’re in this together or we’re not at all. You follow me, you help everyone around you. Don’t wait to be told. We’re all people, even if we’re not all humans anymore. You’re all going to respect that. Are we clear?” the yeses weren’t energetic, but he’d expected arguments already. “Winchester is two or three days from here. It’s a large city, so I figure there will be people. Once there, you can all figure out what you’re going to do.”

Quest: The Way of the Guardian, 2
The guardian does more than protect, they guide to safety. In this time of changes, guide the people you’ve rescued to safety.
Do you accept the quest? Yes/no?
Reward: 50 xp per person you bring to safety.

Why not? Chuck thought. It wasn’t like they were going to vanish if he didn’t. Yes. He set off, with Terry the wizard on one side, his amazonian mother on the other, and a troll and his wife behind him. Behind them, thirty or so people who seemed to think Chuck had even an inkling of what he was doing.