Forged By The Apocalypse - A LitRPG With Draconic Potential

There was a grisly scene not far from our campsite, most of the blood on the ground was mine. More crimson stained the floor of the nearby field than any other colour by the time we left. I considered moving our camp, but we were upwind of the smell so we didn’t bother. I was too tired and Naea had zero interest in moving away from the “scene of her victory.” I didn’t argue with her wording, focusing instead on guiding the still-present healing magic where it needed to go.

“Can’t keep doing this,” I complained as the final touches were applied. The sensation was vividly uncomfortably, similar to applying an antiseptic salve on the inside of my skin which burned a little. The mana fizzled, and when it had effervesced enough, an undamaged area was left behind.

“Nope, I agree, stop losing limbs.” She licked her thin lips, which combined with her devilish smile to make a ghoulish image. She really could be quite creepy when she wanted to be.

“Not that.” I started, before backtracking.” Well, no, that too. Definitely that. Mana Barrier should help with that particular habit. But more importantly, healing like this is great, but not efficient for either of us.” While Battle Bond was a perfect lifeline when we were in the dungeon, its effectiveness had dropped with each level up. I required more energy to heal the same wounds due to my more powerful body.

“Not much fun either, though you do make funny sounds every now and then.”

Right on cue, I gasped as a particularly itchy area above the knee connected properly. “Yeah, that’s entirely the problem. Brute forcing mana into myself and letting it just go from there is definitely going to lead to some issues. Is there such a thing as magical tumours?”

“Probably, but you’ll be fine.” Despite her flippance, this was a serious enough matter that I could feel her worry. We still relied on the skill Battle Bond to transfer mana between each other, but as our respective levels and mana pools grew, it became less necessary. Now wasn’t a great time to sit and mess with the skill, and not just because we had tired ourselves out.

“So,” Naea said, her hands on her hips. They were still dripping with my blood, which was a little distracting. And gross. “What are we going to do about our spectator? They saw all of that.”

It had been an unspoken thing, the pair of us ignoring the wolf which stalked us. I agreed with Naea, it was about time to deal with that. I gestured away from our camp. “Go wash yourself, I’ll deal with the curious pup.” Naea looked at herself and acquiesced, using Find The Path to locate a nearby water source. Her Dao tickled the air after she left, a burbling stream of energy I could follow to her if I needed to. She was a little gremlin, but she was my gremlin, and she could also be cute when she wanted, too.

I sighed once alone. The skill was amazing at finding things, provided they were nearby. Maybe if we were a few dozen levels higher, Find The Path could guide us more correctly to my family. I didn’t push Naea to use it after the first time it had worked because of the disappointment both of us felt. She still tried on occasion, but I didn’t dwell on the fact that the ability couldn’t lock onto them. There were dozens of potential reasons for such a truth.

They didn’t have to be de-

A twig snapped and I was immensely grateful the wolf had decided to step forward and break me from the dark thoughts. “Come on out,” I called loudly. “I don’t bite. I bet mine is a lot less dangerous than yours is, anyway.” I felt slightly silly afterwards. While I had sensed the wolf for a moment, the loud noise had spooked them and their stealthy veil appeared once more. Seriously, that’s impressive.

“Who are you?” A questioning voice carried over from a nearby thicket. This time it was my turn to be surprised, like I had done to Naea. “What are you? You can’t be human…” The voice jumped quite a distance, now seeming to come from within the tent behind me. I schooled my expression, remaining stone-faced and calm. With impressive control of my body, even my heart rate remained constant.

“Rude. Not incorrect, but not the full story either. Bit rich coming from a werewolf, though.” I kept my gaze locked on a specific area. The words had been cast about by mana, and while it was a good distraction ability, following the threads of energy had been simple. A few seconds later, a figure stepped from the bushes, her hands held high.

“I’m not a werewolf,” the wolf lady spat back with surprising venom, even with her arms raised above her head. “I’ve just got… It doesn’t matter. Answer my question. What are you?” There were faint lines on my skin still glowing dimly from the Battle Bond healing I was still performing. I could see now that “lady” might even be pushing it, most people would call this person a wolf girl instead.

Humouring the young woman, I shrugged. “My name is Grant, I was going to St Gerard’s University before all of this began. It’s been a weird time for everyone, and I got turned into something called a Stormborn. Mostly it just makes me look fancy when I do magic.”

“So you can do magic.” Her words sounded almost shocked, maybe closer to disbelief. I raised an eyebrow and gathered a ball of mana into my hand. Before the on-edge wolf lady could panic, I took a few steps back before throwing the ball from my right hand to my left, then up in the air. As it was landing, I did the same with another, then another, until I was juggling five brightly coloured balls of mana at once.

“Yep. Full magic man over here. Nice to meet you. So while I’m thinking about it, I’ve never actually asked,” I half-grunted. I wasn’t cheating on the juggling, and had made heavy balls of mana which I didn’t control with anything but my hands. “You can see these, right? What does my Mana Bolt actually look like?” I knew at least that the same skills could have different appearances. Tom’s Mana Bolts, to my eyes, looked more perfectly spherical and the energy within was more uniform than my own.

In the light of my mana, I could see her features more clearly. She was fairly cute, though not in a way I sought in partners, even if she wasn’t way too young. I thought back to Julianna for a moment, then shook my head. Her hair was a dark blonde, almost brown, and she had hazel eyes which matched nicely. Her frame was athletic, and the sporty clothes she wore showed off the silhouette of a runner.

The girl hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip before answering. “I can’t really see anything, but my instincts make me feel like you’re juggling a bomb in my face. There’s a glitter of purple on your hands when you catch them, and a little trail in the air.” I smiled at her answer, though along with her earlier surprise, it suggested something. Once again, I was reminded that my experience with the System was not the norm.

“Have you never seen magic before? Can you control your mana?” The words were out of my mouth before I thought about how they might sound. I hadn’t even asked the girl’s name. From the offended look on the woman’s face, I had definitely put my foot in it somehow. Just when I was about to ask, she cut me off.

“Of course I can use mana,” she hissed, her eyes tightening in annoyance, “I’m not an idiot.” I caught my mana orbs out of the air and used Drain to return them to my pool. For a second, I felt bloated like I was going to burp, having overfilled my mana a little due to my natural regeneration. Now it was my turn to put my hands up in surrender.

“It was an honest question,” I assured her. “Everyone had to start somewhere so I just wanted to check. It’s not like I figured all of this stuff out quickly, or on my own.” I shut my mouth, a sensible choice because I had begun to ramble and she had begun to glower. “I gave you my name, may I have yours so I can stop calling you wolf girl in my head?”

The glare remained, but she answered. “My name’s Lucy,” she replied cautiously, as though I could use the information against her. I suppressed a shudder as I remembered the nomadic fae creature Naea and I had bumped into a while ago.

“It’s genuinely nice to meet you, Lucy. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”

——————————————————

“What is it with you and picking up ladies in the woods?”

“What?” I asked, insulted at the wording. “Who have I been picking up, exactly?”

“Her and me?” Naea retorted, equally insulted that I didn’t immediately assume she was one of the so-called ladies I supposedly had a pattern with.

“Oh, you consider yourself a lady, do you?” Dodging her retaliatory attacks for my excellent humour was not easy, and it was only when our guest seemed to choke on her own breath that Naea stopped. Her blue eyes were almost popping out of her head at us. “What?” I asked innocently. I knew exactly how ridiculous we looked. I just liked forcing people to say it.

“And why are we having tea with a werewolf, Grant?” Naea continued to badger me, and I rolled my eyes but it seemed that Lucy was enjoying the game, too. I shot her a betrayed look but I wasn’t too surprised, my sisters always ganged up on me, too.

“I’m not a werewolf,” she growled. I didn’t comment on the irony as she continued. “It’s something called an Aspect, though obviously you know that.”

Naea turned to her, apparently ready to interrogate. “What’s your name?”

“Lucy Fair,” she answered in a mechanical way that tickled my ear. She sounded like a news presenter. With a name like that she’d be a fantastic weather reporter. “Do you have a name?”

“None that you’re allowed to take,” I said while giving Naea an exaggerated wink, “but this one is called Naea. You already know mine.” The fairy gave a curtsey in the air. She had a large collection of clothes that had either been made by people in town or stolen off of plastic dolls. None of it was very high quality, which didn’t matter to Naea. Today it was an ankle length orange dress which went well against her skin.

Lucy looked at me like she wasn’t sure whether I was making fun of her, or maybe just wondering if I was real, but I just sipped on my tea innocently. The wolf girl seemed like she wanted to say something about my wording, but decided not to. Instead, she gestured to the furniture inside the tent. It was all quite opulent, as far as camping supplies normally went. “I know what an inventory is but this…”

“Well, I’m pretty strong, so my inventory is a bit bigger than yours is at the moment. Of course, I didn’t find all of this randomly. We came from a town.” A predator’s growl appeared in the air, as the air filled with a feral and uncontrolled Dao. It seemed like she didn’t even know she was doing it. I raised an eyebrow and pressed back with my own. Like an animal with fangs on its neck, I felt her Dao recede. I pulled my own back quickly. “Something against towns?”

“Just the closest one. You’d understand if you had started this craziness there like w- like I did.”

I caught Lucy hiding something, but didn’t press. Everyone had lost so much in the Shift, whatever pain she had was her’s to keep or share. Still, I couldn’t ignore the obvious quest flag waving in my face. I wanted to squint directly at the System, but since that would come off as strange, I just asked the only question on my mind “Explain?” I prompted.

“It’s almost impossible to get in or out, and the leader has gone completely crazy and it’s only getting worse. A man called Seth runs things, acting like some kind of king.” I winced. It was easy to imagine someone getting a whiff of power and then holding onto it like a tyrant. Easy enough that I had to keep a constant check on myself not to do such things. This place didn’t sound great, but it wasn’t my place to decide the rules for another person, even if that person was then making bad decisions for a hundred others.

I also didn’t know whether I could trust Lucy, but I also knew she wasn’t much stronger than a single Fledgling, if at all. There was only so much damage she could possibly do. “We’re from a town to the East. My town.” I decided to give her the brief bullet points of my own story since the System arrived. “I got stuck in a dungeon, it made me strong and gave me a claim on the surrounding area. Since then, I’ve worked to set up the town to be self-sufficient without me. Now I’m trying to go to Ireland.”

Lucy considered my words seriously for a moment before blowing my mind completely with her next sentence. “You could always steal a plane.”

“That,” I replied immediately, deciding right there that I liked this Lucy person and would invite her to Ascentown when such a thing became possible, “is the coolest thing anyone has suggested to me since this all started.”