<Alex, Real - Return to Safety, Office Building>

Their group had drunk water—or sports drinks in Grant and Alex's case—eaten some quick snacks, and made use of the facilities as they needed. They'd also taken a few minutes to just sit and breathe.

In that way, less than half an hour after they'd rejoined with Pilar, the group was ready to depart. Their resources weren't replenished, but they were vastly better off than when they'd been when they'd arrived.

Ideally, they'd have stayed for a day or so to let everyone fully recover and allow Alex to try a few more things to heal the un-turned, but as Pilar had experienced first hand, this location was not as secure as they'd have preferred. Her fire defense would likely keep them safe if they had chosen to stay—assuming nothing found a way around it—but they would most likely be left with another horde that they'd have to fight their way down through.

No one wanted that.

They could have gone a couple of floors higher, but there was simply no way of knowing it that would be enough. Honestly, they assumed that the System would keep them from being truly safe regardless of what they did.

Alex pulsed Detect Unlife and Life in sequence. "Two undead flanking the doorway just past the fire barrier, likely hoping to get lucky when we exit. Not sure what kind, but I don't think they're a stronger variant than ravager."

Something about that tickled the back of his mind, but he dismissed it for the time being.

Natasha nodded slowly. "Any others?"

Alex shook his head. "Building's clean down to the ground floor. There are some in the streets again, and they seem to be congregating near the entrance, but the pull doesn't yet seem strong enough to bring a stream in once again."

The Russian grunted. "Very well. Pilar?"

The other woman nodded, and the fire field across the door vanished.

As it did, Natasha dove through, rolling as she came down, and twisting as she popped back up, facing the way she'd come.

Her spear appeared in her hands, magic flowing around it in familiar patterns, before she thrust out twice in quick succession, once to each side of the doorway.

There weren't even screams of pain, but Alex was able to see flopping arms that had tried to grab her as she came through, and then again tried to prevent her quick kills.

He moved forward and ashed the undead, not trusting that they'd stay down.

With that done, their group was ready to go.

Grant carried Makri—allowing him to still swing his war hammer one handed—and John took up Mike, the bigger burden still manageable for the marksman.

Pilar was in the middle of the group now, Alex led, and Natasha brought up the rear. They'd keep this configuration for the descent, given that any threat that they should face would come from the front.

Once they reached the ground level, Alex would move to the back as a more flexible fighter in close, and Natasha would move to the front, where her longer reach and Force Shields would allow her to deal with opponents as they came upon them more easily.

Everything went according to plan across the main lobby on the floor they'd rested on, but things went sideways as soon as they opened the doors into the stairwell.

The stench was almost visible as it washed out in a wave. The smell was a horrific mix of blood, death, and the not-quite-sewage smell of perforated intestines.

Alex stepped back and grimaced, turning to regard the others who were all giving him unhappy looks.

"Hey now. I ashed as many as I could. It's not my fault that so many met their end without any part of them coming within reach."

Grant—who was right behind Alex in the current lineup—reached up and patted his chest. "Did your best, eh?"

Alex looked down, seeing that the man had patted his lapel pin. Alex chuckled, shaking his head, smiling. "Yeah… I guess I did."

That brought smiles to the others' faces, then another shifting of the air brought the smell to them once more.

Pilar gagged. "Is there another stairwell?"

Grant grimaced. "There should be, if this place cared about fire codes."

The woman frowned. "What?"

John shook his head, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder and cutting her off before she could ask further. "Don't ask… please?"

She grunted. "Alright."

Grant glowered, first at John, then at the stairwell but didn't say anything further.

Alex grimaced. "We don't have time to look for another way down. Let's do this, people, and maybe we can be grateful that we don't have to deal with the stench of death very often?"

There was grumbling, but no one argued, not even Henry, who was just in front of Pilar in their lineup.

I... completely forgot about him… He grunted and moved on.

They made their way down the stairs carefully. Because of Alex's earlier efforts, the stairs were actually fairly clean, the only bodies and blood that which had been left by Grant as he'd slain the few coming up behind them.

Those bodies Alex did ash as they were beginning to twitch. They hadn't registered as either alive or undead, but he didn't trust that they wouldn't suddenly rise up again and attack them from behind. Too many characters had died because of such assumptions in zombie fics pre-System.

His mana was doing alright, but he still didn't like the expense. Thankfully, each ashing only took a point of mana, and the greater expense, 4 HP, returned to him faster than he spent it, allowing his 'full' HP to continue working on recovering his Life.

A hundred points down, that's a million HP of recovery while at full health. He grimaced. It had been a reasonable expense to ensure that Natasha had a working weapon… especially since he'd been the one to inadvertently break it… but it still rankled to be down so much Life.

They reached the ground level, grateful that there was a basement accessible by this stairwell, because the pile of flesh at the bottom was horrific, and even though it was beginning to twitch, Alex did not want to spend the mana to ash the lot of it. Who knew how much it would take?

Still, it would have been better than trying to wade through the ick… But neither was required.

Regardless, they exited into the grand lobby of the building, fluidly changing their order of travel. Natasha bull rushed the exit, killing a handful of undead before the others burst out after her.

There were… surprisingly few undead about, actually.

The numbers had been steadily increasing around the high school, and there had seemed to be more and more as they went north. Their experience had borne that out, but now? Now, there were only a few about.

Grant put voice to what many of them were thinking. "Did we thin the numbers this much?"

No one knew, obviously, and they were wise enough by now that no one wanted to stand around debating it.

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Instead, Natasha took off at a ground-eating trot, the rest of the group falling in behind her.

They couldn't go as fast on the way back as they had on the way out due to their burdens, but as they went, it became more and more clear that something had caused the undead nearby to be reduced. They even occasionally saw the backs of undead moving away from them in small groups as they looked down cross-streets.

Once, Alex thought he caught sight of a milling mass just off a side street far down one of the side ones, but he wasn't sure, and he wasn't going to stick around to draw such a gather's attention.

The group slowed slightly, debating going to investigate even so, but Henry brought up the quite reasonable objection that they were carrying two unconscious Initiates… and that he was there and definitely didn't want to go toward the gathering undead.

That cowardice—reasonable, but cowardice all the same—aside, he had a point.

They needed to get home.

Alex grumbled a bit, but he followed regardless, thinking about all he had to do without adding on the task of going to investigate something random.

Oh! That, of course, reminded him of something. "Henry?"

"Yeah?" The young man panted, glancing back.

"Have you encountered anything in the System called a natural treasure?"

"No."

Alex waited a moment for more of a response, but when it was clear that no other was coming, he grunted. "Well.. Okay. Thanks."

Henry grunted, clearly focused on getting to safety and not being the reason they had to slow down.

They passed another cross-street, and Alex glanced down it, seeing another group of undead staggering in the same direction as the others, away from them.

He undid one of the lower buttons on his greatcoat, allowing a bit easier time running. I really hope we aren't making a mistake…

<Pierce, Real - Get to Safety, Random Shop>

Pierce growled as he spent precious mana to speed up enough to pull yet another Initiate back, just out of reach of snapping jaws and snatching hands. "Be more careful!"

Behind him, Stephen was chanting some long bit of magic, something from a book that he'd found in the Magic Shop that seemed to have started the downturn in their fortune. The shop, not the book, just to be clear.

Things had been going well, the undead thinning, and their progress speeding up to multiple blocks per day, even as they were being what Pierce would call overly careful.

Then, Janson had seen the Magic Shop, and Pierce had been outvoted.

Things had seemed to go wonderfully. They'd gotten much needed gear and magics of all kinds. They'd raided the place down to the foundation, practically.

Then, someone had noticed that they couldn't collect their experience yet. The Magic Shop wasn't considered 'safe.'

That had spooked everyone, and they'd left in a rush, unsure of what the threat actually was.

The tides had started almost as soon as they'd all exited the building.

Waves of undead that had been ignoring them under the influence of Stephen's Death Magic spells suddenly couldn't be dissuaded.

And more kept coming.

The tide seemed without end.

They must be draining all the nearby undead from this quadrant of the city.

It got to the point that they didn't think it wise to continue, so their group was holed up in a jewelry store—the reinforced and barred windows and single entrance a boon as they fought for their lives.

Even so, it couldn't last. They were going to be overwhelmed, and sooner rather than later.

Still, all hope wasn't lost.

The tome that Stephen had gotten in the shop apparently contained a spell to temporarily dispel the animating magics of nearby undead.

It wasn't quick to cast, apparently, not being a 'Spell' that could be learned, but instead a bit of magic that could be performed based on a skill 'Ritual Magic'.

Pierce had no idea if Stephen was on the level, but he hoped so. If he wasn't? Well, then their group were all dead, and would shortly be joining the undead.

If he was, they'd be making a break for it soon, and then it would be anyone's guess if they survived. Still, that was better than certain death.

Happy thoughts, Pierce, happy thoughts.

<Joanna, Real - Proof of Worth, Earth?>

Joanna was not a fan of the end of days, even if she wished that this particular day would end. She had been out on a run when the whole of creation went mad, and the 'desert garden' trail she'd been on had suddenly been a part of a desert in truth, the temperature jumping nearly ten degrees instantly and climbing from there, with the wind whipping in from all sides.

The only blessing had been that she usually ran with baggy clothing over her sports bra and exercise leggings. That, combined with the massive hydration pack on her back and the fact that she'd just started her run, meant that she'd been able to endure the desert long enough for another shift, the small dell that she'd taken shelter in after all too far across flat, hard-packed, dry clay, having moved into a blessedly cool river valley.

Now, though?

Now she sat across from a clearly inhuman group who looked just as scared of and curious about her as she was of them.

Still, she shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry… I'm not certain how you speak English, but you are obviously not human, and you can't be from Earth."

The man who was seemingly in charge gave a nervous laugh. His features were fair, his bearing noble, but his scared expression was a clear departure from her view of how elves should be. Even still, he spoke calmly and carefully, obviously mastering himself to do so. "We are not speaking 'English.' I believe that this System is translating our languages for one another. As to being from Earth? Why would you expect we are not from the planet we are on? Did you not know we were here when you invaded?"

Joanna frowned. "What?" She waved off the translation question for the moment. "Invaded? We did not… I did not invade anywhere. This is Earth."

The elf-man nodded. "Exactly. This is Earth, our home, the home of elves for our entire history."

Joanna blinked a few times. "What? Earth is the home of humanity…"

Then, she had a sinking feeling. "Oh… Computer folders." She groaned. "That can't possibly be what's happening…"

The elf frowned. "I hear the word you spoke, but what is a 'computer?' We don't have the word for it, it seems."

"Computers… Technology for information processing and storage."

"Ahh, we have such things but of magic." He nodded, seemingly relaxing more and more as the conversation went on. "The variation of the word 'technology' which was translated for us is the one specifically referring to inventions that use no magic. We use" the next word was musical and beautiful to Joanna's ears unlike any she'd ever heard. "That might be the same thing.

That was their language, then? She shook herself, trying to stay on task. She pulled the straw of her hydration pack to her lips and took a long drink from her hydration pack. "Let's just call that a computer."

System Notice: This is the first instance of this translation being applied. Do you wish to put this translation forward, despite it being slightly off of true or direct translation?

Y/N

Joanna blinked a few times at the words, then frowned. "Yes?"

Accepted. This will be offered to any others who encounter this elvish word, in this dialect, and you will be rewarded for each who accepts your suggestion.

Thank you for expanding the System's understanding of both your cultures.

The elfs' eyes all unfocused for a moment before their leader refocused on her. "So, your name is Joanna Paln?"

"How do you know that?" She was suddenly wary.

"Because the System said you 'Joanna Paln' were offering a translation option between our languages."

"Oh… Yes, then."

He nodded. "So, a computer." The word translated fluidly this time. "What about it?"

"In our framework, we store information in files and organize those files in folders."

"We use something similar. Go on." He was altogether curious now, his earlier trepidation set aside.

"What if as our worlds are being initiated, our names for our worlds translate the same 'Earth'...?"

His eyes widened. "So, the System now has both 'Earth's and as they are coming in together…"

"They are being combined."

The elf grunted. "It is at once a humorous theory and a horrifying one."

"Indeed. That the System has a way to handle such things is good, rather than some more destructive solution."

He nodded. "And yet, that the worlds are being forced together instead of one simply being designated EarthA, or some such is concerning."

Joanna chuckled. "Indeed." She then sighed. "What do you think the chances are that only two worlds are called 'Earth' by their inhabitants?"

After a moment's thought, the man shrugged. "Small I think."

"I agree." She grimaced then before looking around and shuddering. She'd seen monsters in the distance, or things that looked like them, and she was on her own. At that thought, she turned back and regarded the elvin family once more, more critically this time. "You know… we're all out here in this crazy new… whatever this is… What if we stick together?"

The elf turned to his companions, by their composition—being a woman and three children—they were likely his family. They all nodded, and he turned back with a smile. "Yes, Joanna, we would like this."

"Good. Let's see if we can survive what remains of the day."

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