Mana recharge time: 5 minutes 41 seconds
Xatherite Crystal Name: Major Blink Step
Xatherite Color: Green
Xatherite Grade: Rare
Type: Magic
Effect: Move up to 12m without traversing the intervening area. Leaves behind a mental afterimage that lasts 2 seconds.
Mana recharge time: 31.5 seconds
Drew was stunned. There was nothing in here saying that the cooldowns were shared with their linked xatherite. Did that mean he could chain cast five storm spells? Unfortunately, this didn’t seem like the place to try it out, but if he could cast fireball and frostfire ball back to back, then his damage output had increased exponentially.
He glanced at the last message; acid dart was able to be upgraded. He pulled the spell up and clicked yes. Then looked at the new spell.
Xatherite Crystal Name: Acid Dart
Xatherite Color: Red
Xatherite Grade: Undeveloped
Type: Magic
Effect: Creates a small globule of acid from a finger that travels in a straight line until it impacts a target, dealing minor acid damage.
Mana recharge time: 16.1 seconds
“Well, that was anticlimactic.” The name and grade changed, but the damage upgrade, if any, wasn’t enough to even register. Cabellos and Windsor were getting up.
Chapter Seven — Party Formed
While Drew was sorting through the notifications, Windsor and Cabellos had been roused. He vaguely recalled hearing one of them grumbling about wanting a steak while he did so. The thought hit him hard. Without power, every steak in DC was spoiled by now. Meat, in general, was going to be hard to come by; there just weren’t a lot of animals around here. Not unless you want to eat manaborn spiders, cockroaches, or squirrels. Drew didn’t really look forward to that. Thoughts of food made his stomach rumble. It had been a couple of days, and he hadn’t had anything more filling than a bag of chips and some nuts. A couple of days, which meant Zoey hadn’t been cared for in days.
It used to take 15 minutes to walk from his car to the watch floor. It had taken him a couple of hours to walk the first hundred feet of that walk. In no traffic, he could be home in Arlington in fifteen minutes. Something told him that the cars wouldn’t work anymore though, which meant he would need to find a way to travel miles on foot through a monster-infested DC, cross the 14th street bridge, and then make his way through Arlington to his apartment. At his current rate of travel, it would take weeks.
Even if he made it back, there was no assurance that Zoey was safe. In fact, odds were she was already dead, and Rob was also most likely dead. He had family all over the country; his sisters were in New York and Seattle, and their parents in Nashville. His parents were probably a little better off than him, as they were on the edges of those metroplexes. His other two siblings were in Idaho and were likely in the best spot, more natural creatures around and probably no nexus nearby, so the mana warping wouldn’t be as bad… He hoped.
The sheer weight of these realizations hit Drew and he buried his face in his hands, his elbows making smudges on the cherry wood table. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he jerked up, not having heard anyone approach. “You alright there, bud?” Sabin asked.
“Yeah, sorry, it just hit me there for a minute. All this.” Drew gestured towards the glowrock in front of him. “It’s never going to go back to normal again. My family is thousands of miles away and I’m most likely never going to see them again. Zoey is probably dead, and I’m stuck in this gods damned bunker fighting spiders.” Drew kept his voice low, decades of societal reinforcement telling him that he should be acting manlier in front of this beautiful woman. He looked up and saw the other three eyeing him out of the corner of their eyes from the far corner of the room. They were clearly waiting for Sabin to calm him down from his mild freak out before they began.
Sabin laughed softly, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, it’s just…it’s nice to know I’m not the only one barely keeping it together.” She gestured to Drew’s uniform. It was covered in dried blood, blue ichor, and ripped in half a dozen places that he had no recollection of. “Shit, you walked in here like a goddamned spartan dripping blood and talking about killing dozens of spiders like it wasn’t a big deal. We haven’t even been able to leave this room and there are four of us. IT2, I know we don’t know each other, but with what you’ve done…you’ve got to be one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.” She settled into the chair next to him.
“Drew.”
“Pardon?”
“Drew, my name is Drew. If the world is over, then I’m not going to go by the designator the coast guard assigned me. The ‘slave name,’ as someone I knew once called it.”
“Kathryn, or Katie, take your pick.” Sabin said with a smile at Drew, “I think we all had our come to Jesus moment a little earlier, the benefit of not being a lazy ass and sleeping the last two days away.” They both laughed, each of them understanding that the other was forcing the laughter. They were in a terrible situation, but at least they were in it together.
“Thanks, Katie, I’m sorry for losing it like this.”
“Hey, no apologies. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my knight in filthy ODUs come to bring this damsel out of this, what did you call it? Gods damned dungeon.” Katie winked at Drew and stood up, “Need another minute? I think I can hold Mitch off for a bit, but we’re all a bit hungry, and we’re sort of counting on you for dinner.”
Drew laughed again, a little less forced this time, “No, I’m good now.” He reached out to grab her elbow, squeezing slightly. “Thanks.” Katie just gave him a smile and nodded.
“Alright let’s do this thing,” she said loudly enough that the other three could hear. They all made their way over to the table. Drew stood up as they came near, reaching out a hand to shake with the two men as he introduced himself.
“Hey, I’m Drew.”
“IS3 Juan Cabellos. It’s good to have you here, Drew.” The younger of the two men replied. He was short, a few inches over five foot on a good day, and had the dark hair and skin of a Latino. Drew guessed he was probably Puerto Rican. The Coast Guard attracted a lot of the islanders.
“OS2 Mitch Windsor. I hear you know where some food is?” Mitch was taller than Juan, and he possessed the thick forearms of a man who did a lot of weight lifting.
The Ensign elbowed Mitch, “We’ll get to that, sorry about not introducing myself earlier, I’m Sarah Rothschild.”
“No problem, Ma’am,” Drew said as he shook her hand as well.
“Well, shall we? We’re on a bit of a timeline before Mitch here hulks out from hunger.” Sarah took a chair and everyone else followed. “I guess I can start. First thing we need to do is recover the food and supplies IT2 gathered before he was attacked by the spider queen. They shouldn’t be far.” She glanced around, “Drew, I know you said you wanted to destroy the eggs? How long do you think that’s going to take?”
“Ahh, well, I have a couple of really large aoe spells that I think should be able to take out the eggs in a few seconds. Problem is I haven’t really had a chance to cast them yet, so…” Drew shrugged.
“Sorry, I’m not familiar with that term, what does aoe stand for?” Rothschild asked.
“Oh sorry, it’s a gaming term, it means area of effect. The ones I have are a ten-meter radius all based around a storm xatherite.”
“What do you mean based around a storm xatherite?” Mitch asked.