I awoke as the couch I was sleeping in lurched violently below me, throwing me across the room. I covered my head as I slammed into the wall, triggering my shield. When I came to my senses I heard Martin yelling."Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!""What's going on," I screamed, trying to get to my feet. Everything felt floaty. That shouldn't be possible unless we were falling rapidly... oh, oh shit.I grabbed the wall, heaving myself forward and down the hallway to the control room."Paul, thank god you're awake. I'm not sure what's going on. All of a sudden we started plummeting from the air but the crystal still has power and the power output hasn't changed."I pulled myself into the small room and over to the control console. "Hold on, this may hurt."I waited for Martin to grip the doorframe before jacking up the power output to max. I had noticed that the power of the crystal was dropping fast even though we were still falling. Wi

A few days passed as I checked the house for repairs that needed to be made. The time was also a good test to vet Ska's competence and willingness to follow orders. We also spent an inordinate amount of time refilling the mana heart that powered the house.It might have gone faster if I hadn't told Martin to keep half of his mana available... just in case. Fiona didn't have mana to speak of, being a spirit and all. As for Ska, he had very little mana. Turns out as a nascent intelligent species they only got a skill every three or four levels and all of Ska's relied on his endurance.It turned out Ska was very talkative, almost afraid to be left alone to his own thoughts. Finding out that his species only recently, in the last thousand years or so, developed sentience his curiosity wasn't all that surprising.Ska wasn't dumb, just perhaps ignorant of the greater world. He knew about the system from traders and travelers from his old world.The

The house settled with a groaning thump as I deactivated the plates to reserve power. It had taken seven hours to arrive at the clearing, a small hill surrounded by sparse trees and wilted vegetation. The area smelled of sulfur and we had spotted a few bubbling pools in the distance.Ska was the most affected by the smell, sneezing every few minutes and growling angrily.While annoying I couldn't blame him, the smell was getting to my nose as well."Let's make this quick, I don't want to stay here any longer than we have to.""Sounds like a plan to me," Martin said, holding his nose closed."The foul beasts hide behind the smell, so we are not able to destroy them," Ska growled.It made sense. If their main enemy was the Grimalkin, why not use their highly developed sense of smell against them.The entrance to the dungeon turned out to be hidden in a tangle of fallen logs and branches. How Fiona came across it was confusing until I spotted one of the jackals run through the treeline a

Kurt walked quickly down the street. He was in a hurry but didn't want to spook the locals. Unlike most of the town survivors, he knew what was going on. It had all happened the night after the System came into being. At the time nobody knew where they had come from but Kurt learned later that they had come ashore in a drug-smuggling submarine.Somehow the criminals had been able to paddle the subs to shore. There were twelve in total and two subs. They killed the mayor and the sheriff while giving the remaining officers an ultimatum. Fall in line or their families would be killed in front of them. Two of the town's ten officers took offense at this.They were subdued by the criminals. Hours later the men returned with both officers' families in tow. They were forced to watch as the men raped and tortured the women and killed the children. Then they killed the two officers.The message was clear and the rest of the officers fell in line. That was until last night when Officer Richmond

I woke up on the bottom floor of the house. Martin and Ska were on the floor next to me. The house was a mess, items of no value had been tossed around. Furniture had been ripped or broken and windows busted out. The front door was still intact as well as the front windows. Those I had made stronger with runic enchantments. That was a good sign, it meant that the control room was likely still intact.The control lines should still be in place as well because they were hidden from view by the Odin rune. I stumbled to my feet, whatever they had dosed us with still affecting me somewhat. After quickly checking on the other two and seeing that they were alive, only unconscious, I moved toward the control room.The door and frame around the room had dozens of marks from axes and other weapons. But it was still intact, it seems they had given up trying to get into the room. I placed my hand on the door, activating the tattoo on my hand.The door swung open and the control room remained unto