Dishes in the dishwasher and everything cleaned, he went back to the living room.
"Alright gang, phones away." They put their phones down and looked at him. "Let's start with what we know. First, this is real and we have to accept it. Second, the rules have changed. Societal, daily life, even simple biology. There are some safe assumptions we can make and we have to be ready for them:
One: Biology has changed. We'll figure out to what extent later, but we know that we can heal quickly, somehow, and can evidently improve our base physical characteristics. I have been trying out different things that should have kicked up some old aches and pains or, at the very least, should have been hard to do with how inflexible I am, but none of that happened. I really feel more flexible and like my balance is better. When I was grabbing your plates I intentionally didn't try to balance them perfectly and I was able to shift my hand around to keep them from falling. And then there's this…" he held up his hand and showed a paper towel wrapped around his finger, the red stain of blood seeping through it.
"Did you cut yourself again??" Tess jumped up and ran to the bathroom, back a second later with hydrogen peroxide, gauze, and tape. "I can't believe you did this again. How many times do I have to tell you to be careful?"
"Okay, don't be mad, but I did this on purpose."
Tess's eyes went wide just before she slapped him on his shoulder. Zavier winced. "I hope that hurt," she said. "I can't believe you." but she bandaged his finger with the expertise of someone who had done this many times before.
"The point is," he said, "I wanted to see if we could heal from any wound. Obviously I didn't heal from this, which made me think that it must have been part of the leveling up process. If they can enhance our physical attributes then it must be a rewriting of our body, possibly our DNA itself. The descriptions of the core skills imply that we're going to go beyond human limits and abilities, which means it has to rewrite us to make our bodies capable of whatever enhancements they give us. I'm guessing that red mist was a futuristic version of nanobots, especially since it infused everything living and nothing nonliving, as far as I could tell. I'm guessing when we level up the rewriting process restores us to our optimal state. I don't know if that applies to everything. If we take brain damage or lose our eyes does it fix those? What about a missing limb? Since depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance will those versions of it be cured on a level up? No way to know, but based on what we know so far, if we are injured it should be our highest priority to level as quickly as possible. This means that, whenever possible, we should avoid any highly dangerous situations until we're ready to level."
"Why would we even put ourselves in dangerous situations in the first place?" The tension in Tess's voice was palpable.
"That brings me to Two: Leveling. We all heard the same speech and got the same notifications about the leaderboard, so I won't go over it all again. But it's pretty clear that leveling is going to be required. More importantly, the subtext was that if we don't level fast enough or get powerful enough then we will be at a severe disadvantage to whatever comes next. Based on the number of deaths during the integration it's pretty clear what the consequences of being at a disadvantage are - which means that our highest priority is to level. From now on we are going to be focusing on this as much as possible. It'll try some experimentation on the safest ways to do it, but it's necessary."
He looked at Tess as he heard her take in a breath to object. "It's necessary Tess. If we're going to survive this, ALL of us survive this together, we will need to level up. I know I don't play video games, but we all get the concept. Cass, you play online RPGs - what happens to people that don't level up?"
"They die," Cass said in a quiet voice. "Or they find someone else strong enough and pay them for protection."
"Right," Zavier said. "And we are not going to let anyone else control our fates. We are strong as hell and we're going to find ways to advance as fast, far, efficiently, and with the greatest impact as possible."
"And lastly, the thing I'm most scared of is how society just changed."
Tess cocked her head. "What do you mean?"
"Here." Zavier said as he made a flipping motion. Part of the previous system announcement appeared in their visions.
Mason Cane:
Fifth kill. Immediate advancement of one level.
First human kill. Offensive reward to be issued at level five.
They all looked at it for a second before Tess had a sharp intake of breath. "Oh no," she said.
"What is it mom?" Luna asked.
"That last line. First human kill."
Cass leaned forward as if trying to get closer to the words. "But he killed someone, won't they arrest him for that now that they know his name?"
"Maybe," Zavier said, "but that's not the important thing. The important thing is that The System rewarded him for it - even gave him a level because of it. Killing people isn't common because we live in a society, and societies can't function properly if we can't trust each other. We're tribal creatures who are basically big, slow sacks of meat without claws or teeth. We rose to the top of the food chain because of a few advantages, but one of the biggest is that we're tribal creatures. There is safety in numbers against predators that are stronger, faster, and hungrier than we are. But with that one reward The System threw all of that out the window. The predators just found out that they're surrounded by prey and, instead of the risks outweighing the rewards, it just became extremely rewarding to start killing each other."
He looked at each of their intent faces, hoping his point was setting in. "There WILL be people that will try to kill us, take what we have, or just use us for fodder to get to higher levels. Some will do it just for fun. Hell, we don't even know if there are other rewards for being the first one to do something terrible to other people. There's a section on our character sheets for 'Class.' Ones like fighter or teacher or craftsman may be what we expect, but what if there's one for thief? Assassin? Serial killer? Torturer? Think about what it would take to level up in those classes."
"What about the cops? Or the military?"
Zavier nodded. Cass's question was a good one. "I'd be willing to bet that the military is pulling back to protect strategic resources. They're not going to send the Army or Marines to a small Wisconsin town when everyone across the globe - even our enemies - just got superpowers. They're especially not going to protect us when there are politicians and powerful civilians to protect."
"But there's cops here..." Luna's voice trailed off.
"There are, honey, but you have to remember that they're just people too - people with families. Some may show up to work, sure, but what do you think they're going to do when giant squirrels start attacking their families?"
"But what about that Mason guy? Why aren't they hunting him down??"
"They might be, but you have to remember that he was just the first. I have no doubt that there are plenty of other people out there murdering and killing fellow humans for experience points right now. Some cops may be trying to stop it, but I doubt they're doing organized investigations 1 day after the apocalypse hit. They're probably at home trying to protect their families from the murderers and creatures as well."
He took a deep breath. How to make them realize that they were on their own and no one was coming to rescue them? "Our reality has changed and so our response to it has to change as well. Tonight we're going to rest and get some sleep, but tomorrow morning we're going to need to come up with a plan to start leveling. If we don't treat this as our highest priority then we risk dying. If we don't all pull our weight, we risk getting each other killed. This is the most important thing in any of our lives from this point forward."
Shocked looks stared back, then Tess stood up. "Okay, that's enough of that. You're scaring the kids and it's not necessary."
"Tess! It IS nec-"
Tess slashed her hand through the air. "It's NOT necessary tonight. No one is fighting or dying tonight, and you don't even know if you're overreacting," Zavier opened his mouth but Tess interjected before he could start. "I said that's enough for tonight. We're done. We'll talk later but you need to stop and let the kids go to bed."
Zavier swallowed the anger he knew was based on fear, closing his mouth and nodding. She started shooing the kids to bed, tousling his hair in understanding as she walked past. He tended to go a little hard when trying to get his point across and she was always there to help him pump the brakes. He went to the liquor cabinet and poured three fingers of Balvenie before sitting at the kitchen table and opening his laptop.