Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 26: Eldritch

‘Meet me in the vet’s office, we have an interesting case there.’

Isaac looked up from his phone and checked if the room in front of him had the same number as the subsequent text from Bailey had had. Hm, it’s probably something interesting.

As he walked inside, he patted his back pocket to make sure the Aspect he’d brought with him was still there. It was a second Aspect of the Specter, which he was planning on giving to either Amy or Patrick, then give whomever didn’t get one the last one in a few days. They were the ones who could use it best, after all.

He wanted his colleagues, dare he say, friends, to get stronger and more capable, but making it appear as if he had the vast resources he did not yet have could have unintended consequences.

Better to make it look like he was occasionally stumbling across these and giving them out, instead of having a vast store of the damn things.

Well, by today’s standards, he did, but not enough for his tastes.

“Good morning.” Raul greeted him from the desk in the far corner of the room, then put away his phone.

“Morning.” Patrick said, still looking down at his phone from a different corner “Did you know that someone started selling Hydra skin handbags down in Milan? Some people claim it’s the mob doing it.”

“Nope.” Isaac replied popping the ‘p’ and sat down on a random stool. Then, he froze. Hydra, Milan, Mob. Shit! How had they known where …

… Isaac just sighed and mentally cursed at himself. There was actually a very obvious explanation. He’d told Calise about fighting the Hydras and there were only so many places near the man’s restaurant that were out of the way enough to fight a monster that big without people noticing and calling the cops.

Given the chance to find monster corpses just randomly lying around, of course any good businessman would try.

“You know, I’d love to have one of those, they sound impressive.” Bailey commented, pushing himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against “We’re here because there’s apparently someone who managed to tame a monster and they’re letting us take a look at it. Also, they’d like someone to tell them this whole thing isn’t about to blow up in their faces. While the four of us do that, Karl and Amy are getting started on the structural analysis project. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll lead our guests here.”

And just like that, the professor left the room.

“Tame monster? Seriously?” Raul hissed, incredulous.

“Probably a familiar or something from a pet-based [Class].” Isaac shrugged “Seriously though, does either one of you know how to work with leather? I got some Hydra skin back in my apartment and I really want to see his face when we gift him a handbag.”

“I do.” Patrick said, to Isaac’s surprise. He’d expected Raul, the experienced hunter, to be the one to have that particular skill. But Patrick wasn’t even done yet.

“Specifically, I know how to work with snake leather and how to turn it into a handbag.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.” Raul commented.

“There is, though I don’t think it’s that interesting. I did an internship in a national park in Sri Lanka one summer. There, I met this guy who also worked in the rice fields on occasion. They get a bunch of King Cobras in there every year and because those can easily kill someone, he catches them. And to make a little extra money, he turns them into handbags.” Patrick explained.

“Aren’t those endangered?” Raul asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t think he really cared about that at the time. This was about preventing them from endangering people. Unlike Germany, where you aren’t allowed to damage a beaver dam even when it is actively flooding a village.” Patrick shrugged.

“So, will you do it?” Isaac asked, an impish grin on his face.

“Obvious-“

The door opened back up again, to let in Bailey, followed by an average looking, middle aged man, a woman that looked to be around his age, and a young girl.

And in that girl’s arms lay … something. It looked like someone had compiled every horrific graphics glitch from a video game, spliced them together, added tentacles, and then run the whole thing through a snap chat filter for cuteness.

Shifting, undulating, being one thing, then another, yet having been both at the same time, but not changed ever, at all, in any way. No, Eldritch beings didn’t make sense in the slightest, nor could anyone adequately describe their appearance in words. Some things, you just had to see for yourself.

With the tiniest bit of mental effort, Isaac focused on the googly eyes at the front of its egg shaped, tentacle clad, reality breaking body, the only part that wasn’t outright mind breaking and unnatural. It sounded stupid, but Isaac had enough experience with Eldritch beings to know it would work.

“Mr. and Mrs. Heisterkamp, this is my team. Mr. Thoma, Mr. Mina and Mr. Lerch. Guys, these are Mr. and Mrs. Heisterkamp and their daughter Erica.”

“And Princess.” a small voice added.

Isaac froze. The surname Heisterkamp meant fuck all to him, but an Eldritch familiar named Princess certainly. Did that mean … no, she couldn’t possibly have been just sixteen, could she?

There had been a woman in his past life, a supremely powerful wielder of some kind of Eldritch [Class] known as the Scarlet Queen with an Eldritch familiar that went by the name of Princess.

Except she’d shown up during the fight against a particularly dangerous [Raid Boss] and the Princess he’d known had been a truck sized abomination that tore through a group of Fomorians like they were made of tissue paper.

But if this truly was … no it couldn’t be, right? Still, there was no reason to deviate from his Standard Operating Procedure of treating everyone nicely, and if she turned out to be a future powerhouse, that was even better, wasn’t it?

“Hi there.” Isaac said softly, crouching down in front of her and holding out his hand, the back of his palm facing outwards until it was only a few centimeters away from … Princess. It was a ridiculous name for an Eldritch beastie, but it had been named by a ten-year-old, so what else could he have expected?

Slowly, cautiously, a series of tentacles reached out, caressing the back of his hand.

“Are you seriously treating that thing like a dog?” Patrick exclaimed.

“According to the manual, familiars only get stronger when their companion humans do.” Isaac continued in the same soft voice “So unless the Heisterkamp family has been letting their little girl fight monsters, Princess is still a normal Eldritch familiar without any special abilities. So, I’m treating her as what she is, a small, scared animal in a room full of strangers.”

As he said that, the tentacles began to grip his hand and drag it closer until it was within the perimeter that its tentacles creates and eventually came into contact with the core body, bean shaped core the size of a cat’s torso.

“Does Princess like scritches?” Isaac asked, addressing the young girl.

“Obviously.” came back an imperious reply and Isaac grinned, brushing his fingers along the section of skin his hand was being pulled against.

The Eldritch familiar did … something, a motion that Isaac could best describe as vibrating, something that likely amounted to a cat purring.

“She likes it.” Erica turned her gaze onto him, staring at him with an intensity that made even Isaac flinch.

“Ah, yes. I’ll keep doing that, then?”

As he continued to pet the little monster being held up by a young, pre-teen, girl, he could see several tentacles elongate and reach around him.

After a mere moment of consideration, Isaac’s eyes widened in shock and he flung himself backwards, using [Spectral Shift] to go straight through the wall.

“Hey!” was the only response he got to that, having moved directly into an occupied office. One [Spectral Shift] later, he found himself in the outside corridor.

‘Looks like Princess was after something in my pocket, I’ll be right back once I’ve stashed it.’

Isaac snapped off a quick text to Bailey, then hurried over to their normal workplace and dropped the Aspect on Bailey’s desk- Given that he was both using his impressive stats and judiciously using his [Skills], that took only a fraction of the time it should have.

“Sorry ‘bout that, everyone, I just needed to get something out of Princess’ reach before she ate it.” Isaac announced as he stepped back though the door to the vet’s office, still mentally cursing himself.

There was a difference between intellectually knowing something and truly having internalized it, sadly. The things you knew automatically and the things you would recall if prompted to do so simply weren’t the same.

Isaac had learned about how Familiars ate Aspects to gain new powers in the other timeline, but he’d never really interacted with one, so any information related to them had been pushed to the back of his mind.

… until that had nearly cost him an Aspect.

“And what would that have been?” Mrs. Heisterkamp demanded.

“An Aspect. They’re very hard to get and very expensive.” Isaac said, hoping to shut down this discussion as quickly as possible.

“How expensive?” she asked.

“The price fluctuates, but it’s always in the six-digit range.” Isaac told her and she relented. Obviously, few people would have the resources to buy one right about now.

“And where is it now?” Bailey asked.

“On your desk.” Isaac said “Figured that’d be far enough away.”

“Seeing as Princess doesn’t seem to be moving in that direction, you’re probably right.” Bailey replied.

“If she wants it, can’t we just buy it for her?” Erica asked, turning a set of weapons grade puppy dog eyes on her parents.

Isaac just mentally tuned all of that out. This thing was, for the most part, a waste of time. He could understand why Bailey wanted to get a good look at a living monster while it wasn’t trying to tear his throat out, but Isaac had seen enough Eldritch beings to last him a lifetime and this one was nothing special.

Then again, all of this was a part of what he’d signed up for when he’d taken the job. And that was already starting to show results. People were already starting to take great strides towards proper organized levelling in ‘safe’ areas barely a week in, and plans were being made to check the power of Tier 4s and what might be needed to contain them. When the buildings for proper levelling were constructed with that knowledge, they’d be good for far longer than the flimsy constructions they’d first made in the other timeline.

This however, playing with an Eldritch Familiar, no matter how cute, was a waste of time. Or at least, he didn’t have to be here for this. Any hospital had the machines to do a complete physical on a human.

But as far as an Eldritch being was concerned, the only things that could asses its physical state were the person bound to it or the [Skills] of a [Healer], such as Bailey.

However, this would have been interesting to Isaac without his memories of the other timeline, so he pretended like he wasn’t itching to go running off to kill something.

Besides, this was a chance to make a good first impression on a future powerhouse. He’d eclipse even her peak power in the other timeline in a few years, but that hardly made her weak. Perhaps he’d even give her some of the less useful aspects he gathered?

The problem was that she was a kid, still in the middle of properly shaping her personality and morals. Who knew what would happen if he started handing her Aspects that cost hundreds of thousands of euros?

Whatever Erica Heisterkamp would be doing in the next six or so years, at least if he didn’t interfere, it would turn her into a force to be reckoned with, the kind the world sorely needed.

Isaac made the occasional kind comment, but he stayed out of things for the most part. Let Bailey examine the tame Eldritch monstrosity if he wanted, Isaac would just wait and painfully anticipate those summoning centers being fully built.

He’d be able to spend so much more time grinding, while the people who charged the circles gained mere dregs.

Of course, there would be a warning about the fact that using others to kill ones summons would limit future gains, but if someone was willing to lean on others for enhancement so thoroughly, they were unlikely to advance particularly far.

These centers would funnel XP, and therefore power, to the most ambitious of humanity, who were to become the strongest as well, while everyone else gained a mere handful of XP. But even those people would eventually be useful.

One hundred people who could cast fifteen [Mage Bolts] each could shred even a Tier 6 creature with ease, for example. The point was that, at the end of the day, a society where everyone had at least some measure of power would be considerably better protected from monsters than one where that wasn’t the case. Of course, by the same token, people having powers also tended to cause quite a bit more trouble than would normally happen. But given that it had been monsters who’d ended society, not people, Isaac felt that that was a chance worth taking.

Of course, those monsters had been summoned by people, but the ones responsible had been ambitious numbskulls who’d bitten off more than they could chew, not Joe Shmoe off the street who happened to have gotten a mere taste of power.

Eventually, the examination ended and Bailey thanked the Heisterkamps for coming in and they left.

“Well, that was interesting.” Bailey commented as they walked back to their normal work place “I never thought I’d be that close to a monster without it being dead or trying to eat my face.”

“Honestly? I thought it was mostly just cute, but nauseating to look at.” Patrick grumbled “I could feel my sanity dropping when I saw it.”

“Isn’t madness inducing basically the definition of the word ‘eldritch’?” Bailey suggested.

“So?” Patrick sighed “Look, I like the idea of being able to properly examine a living being. But not one that literally breaks your mind as you do so.”

“All we need is another person with a [Class] that includes pets.” Isaac reminded him “Just wait till someone shows up with a bound Microraptor or something.”

“Yeah, that’d be cool.” Patrick agreed.

“Actually, we might be getting some Microraptor fossils soon. Also Velociraptor, Iguanodon and Archeopteryx.” Bailey told them “Maybe we can find someone to tame one?”

“Speaking of summoning, here.” Isaac said, pulling a sheath of paper out of his back pocket “That’s a request to fight a Lindwyrm as soon as we have a good idea of how strong a Tier 6 Raid Boss is going to be.”

“Any particular reason?” Bailey asked.

“Generally, I want to check if a certain myth about the Lindwyrm holds true, specifically one about how eating a soup made from its flesh can grant additional powers such as the ability to speak to animals, heal and even see the future. There are a few creatures that share certain characteristics with the Lindwyrm or are occasionally conflated with it, such the Dragon, Tatzelwyrm or Basilisk, but all of those are listed separately in the summoning list.

Meanwhile, the myth related to the flesh of the Lindwyrm is pretty specific to it. I’d like to see if things like that are included in the [System] versions of mythological creatures. Also, I’d like to start exploring if there are additional ways of gaining [Skills] outside of the normal purchase via Stat points or practice.” Isaac explained.

It was a little premature to be asking about that, but he was trying to show he had some worth beyond fighting, prove that he hadn’t been talking out of his ass when he’d introduced himself to Bailey as an expert in Mythology.

Also, he knew that that fable held true, essentially giving out one free but random [Skill]. In fact, every [Raid Boss] gave out more than just XP and Aspects. Each of them had some kind of unique resource they dropped or could be turned into, it just wasn’t always immediately obvious.

For example, the Blood Enchantments he’d used to fight the Specters had come from a Spellbook dropped by a [Raid Boss] known as a Sanguine Monarch, a terrifyingly powerful vampiric monster.

“You want to fight a Tier 6 [Raid Boss]?” Bailey asked, frowning hard.

“Not yet, just sometime in the future, when we have a good idea of how strong Tier 6 monsters are and what it takes to beat them.” Isaac said “A Lindwyrm might also be a good choice for the first [Raid Boss] we summon. Mythologically speaking, it’s ground bound and lacks any kind of extreme mobility power, no legendary healing, no real standout dangers. And almost all of the myths agree on a powerset. It’s all in the proposal I gave you.”

“If we’re in a position to be fighting a [Raid Boss], I’ll keep it in mind.” Bailey told him “But we might have some more information by th-“

“What?” Isaac asked, alarmed.

“Nothing, I just got a title.” Bailey said and a moment later, a new nameplate appeared above his head.

‘Professor’ Adam Bailey

“I guess that choice was rather obvious.” Patrick commented.

“Of course.” Bailey replied.

“So, what’s next? We summon a few more creatures until we have the new summoning rooms?” Isaac asked.

“No, actually. We wait until one of us is at a Level where they can safely kill a Tier 4, then we use that to determine how dangerous and powerful they are and build appropriate places to fight them in.” Bailey said.

“Hold up, where are we going to fight them then, if we’re going to use that to determine how durable the rooms are going to have to be?” Raul asked, frowning hard.

“We’re going to be borrowing the cops' summoning area, once it’s ready. An old factory with a solid wall around every circle. The idea is apparently that, even if the summoned monster gets out, there will a bunch of heavily armed police officers around to deal with it.” Bailey explained.

“They do realize there will be a point where ordinary firearms will be about as useful as a bb gun, right?” Patrick said “How do they expect to know what they need when they summon something?”

“Apparently, they used the body of the Swamp Knight and fired at it a few times. It was tough, but not indestructible.” Bailey responded “It’s still going to be risky as hell, but eventually, the sheer volume of fire should bring down even one of those monsters. Besides, they’re going to have the SEK there, with all of its heavy weaponry. Something will kill it.”

“So, just levelling up until we’re in a position to be confident in beating Tier 4s?” Isaac asked.

“That … and some of the messages we got made some rather good points. People were able to lose their summoned monsters once they got several kilometers away, so we’re going to be experimenting with that a little.” Bailey said.

They’d only really tried with a distance of five kilometers or so. The actual drop off distance was at roughly twice that … if you moved quickly enough and were only dealing with a Tier 1 monster. Also, that distance increased for slower monsters, further muddying up the calculations.

But that kind of in depth research could be done after the fact. The fundamental experiments that had kicked off this entire thing had been done by them and earned them a spot at the table. From here on, subsequent experiments would be based on their work. They’d made their mark, now it was time to move on to even more exotic things.

“When we do that, we might want to start spreading out who does the deed, see what other interesting [Skills] everyone gets.” Isaac suggested.

“That is the plan. Also, we’re going to see how much XP everyone gets, based on things like summoning cost, who did the summoning and relative Level.” Bailey said and Isaac could feel a grin creep onto his face.

Things were going to slow down for him a bit, levelling wise, but then he’d have an excuse for going up against powerful, Tier 4, creatures during worktime and on someone else’s mana. Throw in the fact that his colleagues were well on their way to becoming quite powerful in their own right.

His personal power might not be as high as could be, but humanity’s strength was about to grow in leaps and bounds.