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

That fucking cripple almost killed me!

Apparently Jeb was too stupid to know you have to choke someone out for several minutes after they pass out if you want to kill them.

He’s not gonna get a chance to regret it, Eddie thought, gritting his teeth. That Telekinetic Combatant wasn’t going to catch him with his pants down again. Very much the opposite.

He’s gotta sleep sometime.

I’m going to find them, I’m going to figure out when he sleeps, then I’m going to crush his skull into paste.

Eddie’s mood turned marginally brighter. Then I’ll be able to relax again. Once Jeb was dead, he’d be back on top, and everything would be right with the world.

“The safe zones expired, boss,” Harry said.

“So that’s why you came crawling back to me, huh?” Eddie said, sneering.

“…Safety in numbers,” Tom said, nodding, flinching away from Eddie in a way that was deeply satisfying.

“Alright then, grab some weapons,” Eddie said, motioning to the corpses strewn around the safe zone. “’Cuz we’re going hunting.”

“I swear I’m gonna kill that bastard,” Eddie said, imagining that sweet moment he turned the bastard’s brain to paste and put that slu-.

***Tom Breshears, level 21 Pitcher ***

“I swear I’m gonna kill that bastard,” Eddie said, a malicious smile spreading across his face.

Then Eddie’s head exploded, covering the three onlookers in bits of gore.

The headless corpse fountained blood into the air for a surreal moment, still standing in front of them like nothing was wrong. A couple seconds later, it slumped to the ground.

Stunned silence reigned.

“I’m not with him,” Tom said, looking up at the sky and pleading to whatever wrathful deity just smote Eddie.

***Jebediah Trapper***

You have Gained a level!

You are now level 35!

 

...And boom goes the dynamite, Jeb thought as he got a level notification mid-flight, dropping his points into Myst.

Jebediah Trapper

Mystic Trapsmith, Level 35

Body 16

Myst 63 +2

Nerve 21 +3

Abilities: Mystic Trigger

Chapter 13: Happiness Tastes Like Hippie

There was a wrenching squeal from the side of the camp, drawing everyone’s attention.

Jessica was unclasping a piece of torn steel from her neck, scowling down at it.

“Whazzat?” Jeb asked.

“Some kind of magical control collar. Eddie was planning on using it on me, but he didn’t have the Myst for it.”

“What is he, some kinda incel?” Brett demanded, scowling.

Ron snorted.

“Can I see it?” Jeb asked.

All eyes turned to him. Some pitying, some cold.

Jeb held up a hand. “I swear, I will not use it as is. I just wanna take it apart and see how it ticks.”

Jessica watched him with calculating eyes for a moment longer.

“Knock yourself out.” She said, tossing him the warped collar.

“We’re gonna have to find you some new armor,” Amanda said, “You left your old stuff behind at the camp.”

“I didn’t leave it behind,” Jess answered. “They cut it off of me.”

Amanda pressed her lips together in consternation. “Sorry. Brett and I lost most of our stash when… We’ll get you something to wear, even if we’ve gotta make it ourselves.”

Jessica blinked a couple times, her eyebrows raising as if she’d had an epiphany. “That’s not a bad idea.” She leaned up against a tree and closed her eyes, adopting a meditative posture.

“You guys get some sleep,” Jeb said, getting their attention. “Ron and I got the night shift.”

Things could go very bad very quickly at night, which was why the people with the most area of control were tasked with night watch.

The others began settling down into a tight knot around the tiny campfire, composed of Jeb’s Fire-Flies spinning in a lazy cyclone, exuding a large amount of heat relative to their light.

The absolutely silent, ever watchful wall of zombies surrounding them was hecka unnerving, but the corpses prevented the light of the ‘fire’ from spilling out into the forest and attracting the new wave of monsters flooding into the woods.

Jeb studied the collar in the dim light.

It was pure steel on the sides, but the center had a little round decoration approximately the size of a silver dollar. Turning it this way and that, Jeb noticed a proprietary screw head on the back.

Out in the middle of the wilderness, it would have been a hopeless proposition to try and open it, but…

Jeb had long since graduated beyond needing a screwdriver. He grabbed the screw directly with a bit of Myst and spun it. A moment later, the back of the circular center popped off, revealing its guts.

Oooh, interesting.

Processed Control Lens (very Small)

The Control Lens is a mixed blessing that coalesces in exceptionally abusive households, and occasionally dungeons. It is a uniquely valuable ingredient in any wizard’s toolkit, as it allows a Myst user to control the effect of another lens beyond its initial manifestation.

Extremely valuable to Myst craftsmen, combat wizards and law enforcement. However, the Control Lens is most commonly found in slave collars. Due to their rarity, they constitute half of the value of the collars they reside in.

A single Slave Collar is worth more than a commoner earns in a decade.

This fact has led to some misguided parents being unreasonably strict with their children in the hopes that a lens will coalesce and relieve their financial woes, but results are often poor.

Jeb turned the rigid piece of leather in the shape of a lens back and forth in his hands. “Oh come on,” he muttered. “Owning the disintegrator is prohibited by law, but the obvious human rights violation isn’t?”

The lens was beading with a phantasmal liquid, dripping onto Jeb’s hands, where it vanished after a moment.

Jeb licked the lens.

Sweat and tears. He thought as the taste vanished from his tongue.

Jeb was starting to get a feel for the society they were being integrated with, and it