The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) by Craig Kobayashi (ereader android TXT) 📕

piece. True, his body had undergone some dramatic changes since The Culling shook the Earth. His arms and shoulders had become more muscular and his waist trimmed from a far more limited diet, constant physical activity, and increased Strength Attribute. In all, he felt the look was a little gay-bar for him - but he loved it. He was suspicious that the ‘bonus effect’ of the pendant tucked under the black leather of his new chest piece was making him feel more confident in his appearance, but it didn’t really make any difference. What he didn’t know was that, because of the wild wild black curls, glowing eyes, and slightly demonic facial features, he didn’t look very pretty at all.

The rest of the Party was enjoying the spoils of victory as well. They had each received the Crystillium pouch and two additional items - the additional items were definitely awarded based on the chosen Class of the adventurer who placed their hand on the chest. Warrion's two items were a set of identical daggers with a blue strip along the blade and ornate, pearl handles. Sharon equipped a long, forest green cloak and slid matching gloves over her hands. Athios was looking, puzzled and speculative, at what appeared to be a set of silver wrist bracers.

When Garath asked about her loot she showed him the bracers and he triggered Inspect by placing one hand on the wrist armor.

Vambraces of Quickcasting

Raiment Slot: Wrist

Defense Rating: 90

Armor: +6

Quality: Above Average

Item Score: 24

Type: Leather Armor

Magic Resistance: +15%

Rarity: Common

Durability: 45/45

+5 Regeneration

Reduces GCD (global cooldown) by .125 seconds

Item Requirements:

Level: 16

Wisdom: 39

"I didn't know we even had a GCD," said Garath. "But then, my instant cast spells all have a cooldown so I can't use them back-to-back. And my other spells have a cast time that must be longer than the GCD."

Athios nodded thoughtfully. "It makes sense that you wouldn't have noticed, then. My little disks are instant cast with no cooldown so it was obvious to me immediately. The GCD is pretty average, a quarter of a second between spells. These boots reduce GCD by .125 seconds too," she explained, sitting on her now closed treasure chest and equipping a pair of matching silver boots.

"Wait, so..." Garath started, putting .125 and .125 together.

"Yeah! I don't have a GCD anymore! That's why I was just staring at them... Like, no way. Right?"

"Right," he agreed. "That's fucking awesome."

Locked and loaded with new gear and a positive disposition, the Party finally left the dungeon. One by one they stepped through the circular portal and left the cerulean cove, emerging back where they had entered at the fountain.

The sun was setting in the west and the sky was a deep crimson as they once again stood in the ruins of what had once been the Alderwood Mall.

"You guys head back to HQ," Garath told the group after checking to see how much longer until he was able to shape shift again (still just under four hours). "I'm going to look around in some of these restaurants and see if I can't find anything a little more appetizing than rations until I can fly back."

"What, by yourself?" Sharon wanted to know.

"Yeah?" Garath responded dumbly.

"No," said Athios.

"Yeah, we don't know that it's safe for anyone to be alone right now," Warrion agreed. “And this is marked as an un-safe zone. I.D.K. what the shit that means, other than the obvious. Which means it's not fucking safe to be here. We’re not just going to leave you here and hope for the best, dude.”

"Especially since you can't just go crow and take off if you're in trouble," Athios agreed.

Garath considered arguing that he could handle himself, but could see that he wouldn't be able to convince them. So, together, the Party explored what was left of the mall.

There was very little left in terms of the indoor mall itself, the decimated building was burned to cinders during The Culling. Fortunately, the outdoor food court yielded better results. Many of the industrial freezers had survived the apocalypse, but because they had no access to power for several days, the various stored meats and cheeses had already started going rancid. They were able to salvage a massive stockpile (each) of canned goods of every kind though. The Items panel never ceased to impress the Necrologist and he placed hundreds of pounds of canned food into the bottomless grid space.

They continued searching the wreckage for anything useful for nearly three hours, then finally decided the food court had been picked clean. Garath made one more stop to the restrooms in the food court. Toilet paper was already running low at BOTH HQ and, apocalypse or not, Garath liked to keep his bum clean. Even the thought of squeezing one out without TP made him cringe. Luckily, the bathrooms were fully stocked and the Necrologist loaded up his Items panel with a typically taken-for-granted luxury.

Sitting near the fountain and entrance to Aquawood Depths, Garath checked his inbox for new messages. He wasn't surprised to see he had a handful of unread letters.

Private Message from Gary to Garath - 00/00/06 @ 15:46:

You guys still alive? You've been gone all day. Just checking in.

We still have the plague. Another two people dead. One elderly guy that wouldn’t pick a Class, and that blind fella that couldn't see the prompts. Everyone strongly considering leaving HQ. We'll let you know if we do.

Garath had told Gary before that it was another Necrologist causing the Plague and that the range of the spell was one-hundred-meters. Garath himself had wondered if the best course of action for the two-hundred-person group would be to leave, but it wouldn't be difficult for this Leviathan to just follow them and keep his distance, it just didn't seem that likely to help.

Another two dead. 'Elderly' Gary had said, Garath wondered who it was that had kicked the bucket - when they had left HQ that morning The Band had six people that would qualify as elderly,