Apocalypse: Generic System by Macronomicon (shoe dog free ebook TXT) 📕

Jeb said, smacking his forehead. “Jess, let me put some shields on you too.”

***Later***

“So you now have a bundle of ten shots of Myst at the tip of your finger.” Jeb said.  “With the keyword ‘pip’ and then the number, you’ll shoot a mind-bullet. Like so.”

Jeb aimed at a nearby tree.

“pip one.”

SSSHHH! Air hissed as the solidified air was pushed through the nearest tree with a crack!

Jessica frowned, and pointed her finger at another tree.

“pip one.”

SSHHH – Crack!

Another hole opened up in another tree.

A sinister smile creeped on to Jessica’s face. It didn’t worry Jeb for himself so much as all the other schmucks out there.

“The ‘trap’,” Jeb made air quotes, “is set only to trigger if you say the keyword. So don’t worry about us setting each other’s off by accident. You can use the finger bullets at your discretion, but I’d save ‘em for a rainy day if I was you.”

“And how many shields did you give me?” Jessica asked.

“Twelve. I’ve got no way of keeping track of your number in combat so pay attention to how many you’ve got left.”

“Got it.” She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m giving you these with the tacit understanding that they will help you watch my back better,” Jeb said, holding out his hand. “Let me reload you.”

She put her hand in his, and Jeb tried to ignore the sensation of her skin against his rough hands as he focused on making another ‘pip one’ bullet on her finger. Even after all that Body, her skin felt soft and delicate, her bones small and frail, despite those impressions being demonstrably not true.

He drew in Myst, increased the size of his core by a miniscule amount, then siphoned off the energy, binding it into a tight little pin head of energy that would only go off if Jessica Stile were to say ‘pip one’.

After that was done, he reloaded his own finger gun, topped off his projectile reflector bubbles, and the two of them sorted through dead frog people.

They didn’t have much in the way of weapons or treasure on them other than the leather clothes they wore, and the blowpipes.

They carried about four darts apiece, coated in a powerful, oily paralytic, and that was what Jeb was most interested in.

Lethal poison darts: I’d rather have one and not need it, than need it and not have one.

He dumped them all into the biggest pouch, being careful not to touch them with his fingers before sealing the pouch up and hanging it from his belt.

Just like that, they made their way to the heart of the krokker territory, stopping every once in a while to lure out the scouts that kept tailing them. There was really no way to tell whether they were being followed by the color-shifting creatures other than to lure them out.

Once they got close to their village, the smell of cooking meat and smoke gave it away, along with the near-invisible thread of smoke above the treetops.

Let’s see, we’ve counter-ambushed some twenty-eight froggos, so hopefully their numbers are low.

He and Jessica dropped low, and crawled forward. Jeb was concerned his pegleg might fall off, but the straps held on surprisingly well as they approached, keeping as low as possible.

Krokkers of every size and coloration were running back and forth in the village, which seemed to house some two hundred of the creatures. Some of them were obviously children, and others were either teenagers, or female. It was hard to get a read on sex, since they didn’t have boobs.

They were peacefully chatting, cooking, kicking balls back and forth in the center of the clearing. They could have been a tribe of humans from the amazon, and it wouldn’t have looked any different.

Except…

Yep, that’s totally a human ribcage over the fire.

“How are we doing this?” Jessica whispered.

“Shock and awe.” Jeb said, reaching into his grenade bag and pulling out something small, heavy and brown. “I’m gonna nut all over these people.”

“Please, stop.”

Jeb hauled back and tossed the nut grenade out into the center of the peaceful village of obviously sapient civilians.

The nut arced high, tumbling in midair until it dropped about seventy feet in, just inside the first row of houses. Several frog-people glanced at it curiously, stepping closer to investigate.

Jeb flattened himself to the earth, and whispered into the ground.

“Nut go boom.”

There was a thunderous explosion, followed by a thrashing sound as telekinetic blades erupted out in every direction, chunking everything and everyone within fifty feet of the grenade. Straw houses collapsed in on themselves.

Frog-people screamed.

…And he was back in the hallway, staring down at his own bloodied corpse, crushed to the bed by the collapsed ceiling, blood leaking from his mouth as he desperately tried to breath.

My chest feels tight. Son of a bitch something’s on top of me, Jeb thought, straining to take off the armor so he could breathe. It took him at least thirty seconds fumbling with his armor until it was loose enough for him to inhale a good lungful of air.

Jesus, I’m still alive, I’m still alive, He chanted, trying to convince himself of it.

Small parts of him thought that maybe…just maybe he was lying there dying, all this craziness he was going through was the last neurons in his brain firing, trying to generate some kind of pattern from the lack of oxygen.

Fuck you, Jacob’s ladder. As if I didn’t have enough reasons to hate that movie anyway.

He envisioned the worming thought as a spike, slowly bursting its way through the ceiling, crushing his rational mind under its weight. Sometimes he didn’t feel the spike for months, but doing this?

This brought it all back.

“You coming?” Jessica asked, frowning down at where he