3 - Everyone's an Asshole

The remainder of the service went by quickly. No one wanted to sit around while monsters apparently were roaming the graveyard. Go figure. The preacher kept her pistol out and in hand the entire service, which was a statement.

I left James and Lucy to usher the family back home. Darcy and I jumped into the hearse and headed back to the funeral home.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck?” Darcy sat beside me in shock from the events. She hadn’t said anything through the entire funeral. She was reliable like that. She waited to fall apart until after we were away from our clients and their family.

“I don’t know. I wish we had a map or some–” I was interrupted by the appearance of a large holographic map appearing in front of my face as I was driving. I may have swerved a little in panic before I blinked it away and refocused on the road. “Apparently just think about a map and one appears,” I muttered to Darcy.

She gasped in the seat beside me. “Oh, my god.” Her eyes darted all over the air in front of her. Then she started pinching and pulling the air in front of her. Manipulating the map I’d guess. “Grace, pull over. You need to see this.”

I did what she told me and pulled the hearse over on the side of the road. I put on the hazards and opened up my map again with a simple thought. It was a fairly detailed, three-dimensional topographical map of our area. It seemed to only expand a few miles in either direction, so I reached out and pinched it and pulled on it like I saw Darcy doing earlier.

When I’ve zoomed out to around the county level is when I start to see what is going on. My town, and the two smaller villages nearby have broken off from the surrounding land along with most of the county, fortunately including the part where the cemetery we were just at was as well. Roughly thirty miles ripped away from the rest of the world around us. Our little island appeared to be floating several miles above the nearest other islands as they shifted about under us. “Fuuuuuuuuuck…”

Zooming out even further I could finally begin to understand what was happening in the world around us. The Great Plains in the center of the United States and Canada seemed to have been broken into hundreds or thousands of small islands between the great big chunks that are the rest of North America. This map doesn’t show state or national boundaries, but it looks like the continent split around the Rocky Mountains to the west from the other side of the Great Plains on the east. The eastern half of the US and parts of Canada separated one direction. To the west it seemed to have separated further halfway through California and down through Mexico so there was a northwest and southwest portions of North America split apart.

Spinning the map around, the rest of the world was going through something similar. South America had been split into thirds as well. Africa had been split into fifths. Eurasia had been split into seven different sections. Australia seemed to be all one piece though. Good for them I guess. There were probably hundreds of thousands of tiny areas of land that were broken apart and looked to be slatted for reconstitution…whatever that meant. Including all of Great Britain, but not Ireland oddly enough.

What that meant for me though was that I needed to get out of here and to somewhere safe–er. I pulled the map back onto my county after scrabbling around for a few minutes looking for a recenter button or something. No luck, so I just had to scroll through until I kind of recognized some of the surrounding cities on other broken pieces of land.

I zoomed back in to my location, but I couldn’t find anything indicating the portals. If everyone was going to be getting out of here, people needed to begin portalling out sooner than later. Even in my pretty rural county there were tens of thousands of people. Hopefully there was more than one portal.

“We need to find that portals. And fast,” I looked over at Darcy who was looking more than a little green. She just nodded her head in agreement.

“So, uh…what essence did you get?” I asked her as I put away my map and edged the hearse back onto the road.

“Spirit,” she quietly answered.

“Oh, that’s cool. Did you absorb it? Or…?”

“Grace, I am fifty-three years old.” Her voice sounded tired. “I ain’t got time for chasing down monsters and fighting things. I told my son he could have it, but he didn’t want it either. You remember he’s an accountant?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, “He said he didn’t want anything to do with that nonsense.”

“O-oh. Umm. Sorry. I didn’t think your age would be a problem, you’re–”

“Old,” Darcy interrupted. “I just want to get on with my life, relax after work, and hopefully hold some grandbabies soon. Ended up giving it up to the neighbor’s kid, Jordan. Said he could sell it for me online.”

I nodded along with her, though I disagreed entirely. Darcy may have been in her fifties, but she wasn’t old by any real measure of the word. I decided not to argue with her though, it’s not like I had been planning on absorbing my essence either. Though after the run-in with the monsters in the cemetery I had begun to reevaluate that stance. And thinking about all the other people like Darcy and her son, maybe I owed it to those who couldn’t or wouldn’t take up arms themselves to stand between them and the monsters of our new world. Ugh, I was beginning to sound more and more like Mara.

We drove the rest of the way to the funeral home in silence. Darcy stared quietly out the window, and I concentrated on the road. There were a lot more people out driving recklessly, and a lot fewer police on the road. Not that I minded the second part. I hadn’t known a cop who wasn’t at least mildly corrupt or incompetent my entire life.

I parked the hearse behind the funeral home and followed Darcy inside. My phone started ringing almost as soon as we walked in. Mara. And about thirty missed calls, probably all from her as well. I must have thought about her too hard. I swiped the little green button on my phone and pulled it to my ear, “Hey.”

That was all I was able to get out before I was inundated with a flood of Mara. “Oh my god, did you see the–of course you did. Can you believe what the fuck is happening? I have been trying to call you since the message came over the System.

“We need to get in on this. I found someone willing to trade me my wood essence for fire essence.”

“Oh goddess no. That is such a horrible idea,” I interrupted.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“I know right!? I’m going to absorb it as soon as I get home. And I already quit!”

“How can you quit? It’s your garden center.”

“Ok. I fired everyone and closed up shop. Why would I want to sell shrubberies when I could be saving the world?”

I took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly, “I think I’m ready to absorb my essence too. I’ll talk to Lucy and then probably head over. I don’t see the point of sticking around here if we all need to be looking for portals. Have you looked at the map?”

Mara let out an ear splitting squeal and I pulled the phone away from my ear until it died down. “Girl! Let’s gooooooooo! I knew I could count on you to stand by my side. We are going to fuck these monsters up!”

“Alright, calm your tits. Let’s absorb our essences and go from there. You start digging to see if you can tell where our portals are so we can start ushering people there. Hopefully there is more than one. Otherwise we all might be a little fucked.” I sighed into the phone. “I’ll see you in a little bit. Love you.”

“Love you too, girlie. Hurry up.” Then Mara hung up.

Twenty minutes later I still hadn’t seen Lucy or James. It shouldn’t have taken them that long to get back to the funeral home. Finally I decided enough was enough and I called Lucy’s number. It rang several times before a very tipsy sounding Lucy answered the phone.

“Hi-lo,” she giggled. “I tried to say hi and hello at the same time.” She was still giggling.

“Are you…are you drunk?” I had to ask.

“Fuck yeah I am. I sent James home and decided the end of the world…” she sounded more sober now for just a moment, “needed a drink.”

“Well you didn’t send me and Darcy home. We’re still at the funeral home.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. Darcy’s sitting right next to me.” Her voice became more muffled, “Did you tell Grace to go home?” More muffled voices could be heard in the background, but I couldn’t make out the words. “Darcy! Oh my god, girl. I can’t say that.” Then her voice seemed to return as she turned back to the phone. “So, umm…Darcy forgot to pass on my message. Go home, be with family.” Then she hedged, obviously just being her normal polite self but not meaning it, “Or you could come join us at the bar.”

“I’m good. Thanks,” I ground out.

Voice muffled like she’d pressed the phone to her chest, “Whew, she said no.” Then her voice was back to normal, “Well…umm, bye.” And then she hung up.

That motherfucker. Both of them. All three of them. You know what, even if the world went back to being the way it was pre-system announcement, I wouldn’t come back to work with these pricks. Bunch of assholes. Gah! This is why I don’t like people, I told myself.

I stomped out of the funeral home, locking up the doors as I did. Some habits are hard to break. I hopped into my car and sped over to Mara’s apartment.

Mara answered the door with a huge grin spread across her face. Before I could even push my way inside she held up her hand and poof, a small flame sprung up in her hand. Because of course she didn’t have the patience to wait for me. I should have been upset with her, but it’s hard with how excited she was as she clenched her fist, extinguishing the fire, before lunging forward and dragging me inside wrapped up in a hug.

I gave her a brief rundown of what had gone down at work as we made our way to her livingroom. She commiserated with a few choice words herself. Then we sat on the couch and I let out a sigh as my body relaxed for the first since I got up this morning. Mara hopped up to pour us both some wine and I sank further into her cushions.

“So, are you going to absorb bone or did you want me to find a trade for you?” Mara asked as she sat down beside me. She handed me my glass and sank down beside me. “Oh!” She jumped back up, sloshing the wine in her glass. “I got the Uncommon Confluences book when I absorbed my essence if you want to take a look at it first. I have so many ideas on where to take my fire essence now.” Mara rushed into her kitchen and returned a moment later with a thin paperback book in hand. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred pages thick. She dropped it in my lap before sitting back down.

I already had an idea of what I wanted to aim for, but I was curious so I flicked through the book for a few minutes while sipping my wine. The book was organized by rarity, which didn’t really help me figure out rare combinations for specific essences. Luckily there was an index at the back that I could flip through to find what I want.

I started with bone essences, because obviously. There was one rare confluence, Grave. I wondered if it’s rare because no one wants it or if some of the essences needed for it are rare, or maybe a combination of the two.

Instead I looked up confluences involving Mara’s fire essence. Stellar stood out so I looked it up. Fire, mana, and cosmic essences. That definitely sounded like something near impossible to find. Especially if our world hadn’t had any access to mana before now. I mean, there could be some purely mana based monsters, but that didn’t sound like something I would want to tangle with, and I doubted Mara would have much better results.

I handed the book back to Mara. “So, what are you aiming for then?”

Mara bounced in her seat. “I haven’t decided yet. Everything looks so cool!”

“And hard to find,” I added.

“Well yeah, hence the rare confluences.” The ‘duh’ was heavily implied. “But imagine if I could get my hands on some of these rare essences. I bet I could find a cosmic or whatever from an astronomer. And how many of those nerds are going to want to fight monsters?”

“All the ones who played video games or D&D?” I hedged.

“Damn,” she breathed softly. She seemed to always forget that she was one of ‘those nerds’ too. She’d gotten a bachelor’s in botany before opening her garden center. Her grin returned, “I’m going to check online anyway.”

“How does the internet even still work? Aren’t all the cables and things cut with the world literally falling apart around us?”

Mara just shrugged, “Magic?”

I couldn’t argue with that logic, seeing as how all regular logic had up and left the building. Magic was as good of an explanation as anything else at this point. And did it really matter how it was working? It wasn’t like I really understood how it worked before now either.

I took a large, fortifying gulp of wine, “I’m going to absorb my essence.” Mara looked up from her phone excitedly. “How do I absorb my essence?”

“Easy peasy. Grab ahold of your essence and just focus on absorbing it. The System seems to take care of the heavy lifting.” Mara answered.

I took a final fortifying gulp of wine, draining the glass and put it on the coffee table. Then I reached into my bag and pulled my bone essence free. It seemed to almost glow with an inner light as it sat in my hand. I closed my eyes to better concentrate. I focused on the idea of absorbing my essence and after a few moments I got a popup in my vision.

[Would you like to absorb this [bone] essence? Warning, you may only absorb up to three essences. Once chosen, an essence cannot be replaced.]

I thought yes as hard as I could at the System. I felt a soft click as something slid into place in the System before I felt the bone essence in my hand simply dissolve. A sharp pain lanced through my brain that made me flinch and cry out.

Suddenly new concepts and information regarding bone essence and my new abilities flashed through my mind. I felt like I grew a deeper understanding of what bone meant both literally and symbolically. All of it was intertwined and shoved into place in my mind as the last of the bone essence in my hand dissolved into my skin.

[Congratulations user. You have taken your first steps on the path to power and become an essence user. [Bone] essence has unlocked the skill [bone spear].]

[Bone spear allows you to summon a spear of bone. It is supernaturally strong and sharp.]

I felt the knowledge of basic spear techniques, stances, footwork, and martial skills squeeze into my brain with another sharp lurch of pain.

[Newcomer Questline: Absorb One Essence…Complete]

[Newcomer Questline Rewards: System generated book of user’s choice:

* Basic Bestiary

* Dungeons 101

* Beginner Essence Intro

* Common Confluences

* Uncommon Confluences

* Body and Soul Advancement: The Rank System]

Fuck. What had I just gotten myself into? And what book should I choose?