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

of the group and get them somewhere safe. Get Amanda to look after them, make sure they didn’t die over the next couple hours…

“Ah, fuck I left my cane!”

The cane was certainly destroyed, whether it be from Faerie overuse or simply being burned to a crisp by toad/dragon fire.

You better be worth it, Jeb thought, glaring vindictively at the nursing baby.

Chapter 15: Cheese the Healer

It took Jeb a little over ten minutes to track down his team, since they’d been weaving around conflicts the entire time, they were a little off-course from where he thought they’d be.

They seemed surprised to see him. Jeb took a wild guess that it was because of the copious amounts of blood and the naked teen and her baby.

“Is she hurt!?” Amanda demanded, jumping up on the zombie-hauled palanquin as he alighted beside her.

“Probably not, I just wanted you to watch her, make sure she doesn’t have some kind of bad turn.”

“I can do that,” Amanda said, jumping off the palanquin and running over to the luggage, grabbing a cloak and sprinting back, wrapping it around the sleepy looking Casey in a professional manner.

She was shifting the baby a bit to tuck the cloak around the two of them when Smartass squirmed out, heaving a huge gasp of air.

“I LIIIIVE!” he shouted, unfurling his wings in a power-pose.

“Eep!” Amanda squeaked before hauling back to smack the little guy.

Jeb caught it a moment before she made contact, stopping her hand with a gentle cloud of Myst.

“He’s a friend,” Jeb said, picking up Smartass and putting the faerie on his shoulder. Ron watched the exchange with a chuckle. The three Myst users in the party could all see the faerie perfectly well, but Brett and Jess were unaware of what was going on.

“What happened?” Brett asked.

“Got bogged down,” Jeb said, relaxing. “Casey was ready to pop, so we had to stop and deliver the baby…except the monsters caught wind of it.”

He glanced at Brett. “You can’t afford to stop for anything. They don’t stop coming. Not anymore.”

“First thing we gotta do is find somewhere they won’t go, or else they’re gonna wear us down to nothing.” Jeb said, pointing to the west.

“Let’s start with the fire-mountain. Worst case scenario we can seal ourselves in a cave to sleep.”

“Aren’t those caves filled with fire?” Ron asked.

Jeb shrugged. “Not all of ‘em.”

“Well, I wish you fellas luck with that,” Smartass said, standing on Jeb’s shoulder and flexing his wings, drawing the attention of the spellcasters to himself. “I’ve got to get back to my acorn commodities business. Hopefully that ruckus scared away the devil squirrels.”

Jeb winced. Smartass had been buried between baby and boob when his entire tribe had been toasted. He still didn’t know.

“Now,” Smartass put his hand under Jeb’s nose, wigging his fingers greedily. “Payment for helping deliver that baby. I take payment in rare metals, candy, acorns or lenses.”

“Unless you want the girl to settle her debt herself, with her…” Smartass adopted a spooky, melodramatic voice. “Firstbooorn!”

Jeb reached into his vest and pulled out a snickers and passed it to the faerie. It was his last one.

“Muahahaha! Seed money!” Smartass said, petting the candy bar with a malicious grin that split his face.

“It’s been nice knowing you chumps! Next time we see each other, I’ll be head of a multinational syndicate!”

Smartass made to fly away, but Jeb gently stopped him with a cloud of Myst.

“What?” Smartass demanded, turning to face him and clutching the candy bar possessively. “You already gave it to me. No take-backsies. Wait. Do corporations have take-backsies?”

“I just wanted to tell you something.” Jeb said. “No matter what happens with your corporate empire, you’ll always have a place with me. If things don’t work out, I’ll help you get back on your feet. I owe you that much.”

Smartass peered at him suspiciously for a moment, his face dark.

A moment later, he grinned. “’Kay!”

Smartass zoomed up into the sky, lugging the heavy snickers bar beneath him.

“What the hell was that?” Brett asked, mouth slack.

“Faeries.” Ron said, shaking his head. “I wish I’d thought of the candy angle. I just ate most of it.”

They kept on heading westward, avoiding combat as much as possible, streaming along at a human sprinting speed, carried by the zombies. There was something to be said about the fact that they didn’t get tired or slow down, no matter how long they went.

While they moved, they talked strategy.

Jeb opened the floor to discussion, when Ron spoke.

“Have any of you guys ever played Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics? Or any tactics game?”

Jeb shrugged.

“I played a bit on my brother’s Nintendo, but I didn’t get very far.” Brett said.

“Okay, there’s this tactic that always works,” Ron said, glancing at Amanda. “I call it Cheesing the Healer.”

“So we...use her as bait?” Jeb asked, unable to understand why they would cover her in cheese.

“What? No!” Ron stared at him agog. “Alright, so here’s how it goes. The healer is the anchor of any team. As soon as they go down, you’re basically fucked, so people tend to keep them in the back and only use them when necessary.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Jeb said.

“Except…” Ron said, raising a finger. “That behavior stagnates the healer’s growth. They wind up puny and underleveled. My favorite thing to do is give my healer all the extra growth items, spring for the extra powerful weapons and armor, and put them right in the thick of things, until they’re basically untouchable. And if the healer is untouchable, that pretty much guarantees a win.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“We should power-level Amanda until she can fight better than Brett,” He said. “She’s under level twenty with no class ability. Making her tougher