Ch. 7 Making It To Flagstaff

He got home just as everyone was getting ready to eat dinner. As soon as he was in his driveway he dismissed his summons, then walked inside to everyone turning towards him. His kids came running up to him, which he hugged and carried into the dining room, kissing them and grinning.

His wife set him out a plate, then leaned over to kiss him as he sat down, letting the kids run back to their seats. Pops looked up at him and chuckled "You really had to give me all of the safe zones?" he asked and Richard nodded "I'm not going to be doing the whole base building part of it just yet. I've got people to save and zombies to kill."

Then Richard sighed "Only issue is communication with everyone sucks right now." Pops nodded and chuckled "Well it'd be easier if we had a Communications Tower, but that costs 10,000 Essence alone." Richard's eyes went wide and he put the entirety of the Essence he had gotten into the safe zone funds.

Pops' eyes lit up at the notification, then he laughed "Well it'll be ready by tomorrow morning at 4 AM. Once it's ready we should be able to communicate with our system HUD, like you would a phone. Either with voice or text, oh that's cool, you can even do video calls." Pops devolved into reading through some more of the functions.

"So how are you doing? You've got to be tired babe." Phyllis said and Richard nodded "I am, but if I want to save as many as I can, I need to get stronger. Heading into Flagstaff tomorrow I have no idea what I'll find. I know it will be crazy though. There were almost 25,000 zombies in Williams and it had only 3,000 people with maybe a thousand or so tourists. Flagstaff has almost 20 times that population, so I'm looking at a fight with well over 500,000 zombies if not more."

Matthews eyes lit up at that "Can I come with?" Phyllis groaned and Richard's mom laughed. "I know you want to come, but as I was working through town today I was reading a bit into what is going on, or at least the limited information they give. Apparently if spawns are left for a few days, they inherently grow stronger as they absorb more of the Essence around them. It's been 2 days since this started, tomorrow will be three and I don't know if you can handle them right now. However new spawns will be happening in town and all throughout the night, so tomorrow I want you to patrol Williams and the safe zones I've made, then make a few more at the schools and the hospital.

If we can get most of the town safe zoned, it will give everyone a little more room to breathe. That will be your job." Phyllis smiled at Richard with a mouthed 'thank you' before Matthew turned to his plate and sighed. "Just imagine, only 4 or 5 people will be patrolling tomorrow. We'll have to start getting some more people leveled up, but for now we only have a few people who can handle the zombies right now. You're vital here."

Matthew nodded, still slightly dejected. Once dinner was done they all went to bed, Phyllis giving Richard a very good and relaxing night, so he could sleep better.

Richard woke up the next morning to a video call being hosted by Pops. It was 8 in the morning, which was unusual for Richard because he normally didn't get up until at least 10. He joined the call and saw the familiar faces of young Harry, old man Harry, Jeff, Holly, Mom, Phyllis, Matthew and a few of the others from the safe zones in town. "Alright guys, this will be the safe zone line. I've got a few other host rooms set up for each safe zone and a patrol room set up so everyone can get a hold of anyone they need to without trying to find their names in the safe zone list.

I know everyone wants to keep their Essence to get stronger, but any spare Essence you have after you upgrade would be appreciated. I have a few things I'm working towards to start generating Essence that will work once we have more land made into safe zones, but until then any Essence you can spare for the safe zones will be appreciated. For the hotel and Safeway, I have some guardian statues that will stop anything that isn't designated an ally set up at the entrances.

They look like Bronze statues of men and women with swords and shields, they're strong, but not super strong." Everyone nodded, which was weird because nobody could see a camera anywhere, yet their faces were plastered on the screens in the call. "Alright, other than that, let's coordinate supplies. We have quite a bit here, but I can imagine that you guys at the hotel and Safeway might be needing some. I have a few ideas for both of you, but we'll discuss that in another chat."

Richard logged out of the call on that note and got up, stretching and feeling completely refreshed. He got the babies up, letting Phyllis sleep in just a bit as he made breakfast, then sat the babies down and began to eat. Everyone else came out and got some food, then started trying to figure out plans for the day. Pops would be spending a lot of time working on his new workbench and managing the safe zones today, while mom would be watching the perimeter on the other side of the compound, directly across from old man Harry.

Two of the other kids from the house close to theirs would be patrolling the other 2 walls while Phyllis would be out walking with the babies, and just spending some time with them. Since Matthew still looked a little despondent, Richard threw him a bone "If you really want to branch out, you can also hit up Valle and Ash Fork. They have a relatively low population, but you'll have it mostly to yourself, with maybe a few people here and there working towards keeping them safe."

His eyes lit up just a bit at that and he nodded. Breakfast was a quick affair, with everyone getting ready fairly quickly to head out. "Promise me you'll be safe and leave if you get overwhelmed." Phyllis said to Richard. He nodded and kissed her lips softly "I promise. No stupid antics."

He left riding one of his wolves, after packing a couple of sandwiches in his ring. He took a swig of water from his canteen, then bounded through the gates and down the freeway packed with cars towards Flagstaff. He let his wolves tear apart any zombies they came across and gave them instructions to find people alive.

They didn't find anyone until they got to Bellemont, where close to 4,000 zombies had taken up residence. These zombies were stronger, but not stronger than his wolves. They were also a little bit faster than they had been, but again not too much faster. The biggest thing that changed though was that he gained 2 Essence for every one of them that was killed. It gave him a little bit of an idea of what he would be walking into in Flagstaff.

He quickly cleared them out, then told Jeff and young Harry about the survivors he had found, before declaring the gas station a safe zone and heading back out. Again he found no survivors on the road, but cleared out a couple hundred zombies before making it to Flagstaff an hour later. Once he got close to the city he was flabbergasted.

He had said he thought there'd be close to half a million zombies, but the sight before him was way beyond what his imagination had pictured.

The freeway was completely blocked by a pile up of somewhere around 30 cars, most of them seeming like they had been driving at high speeds, unable to slow down in time and almost jumping the entire pile. Others were smashed into each other until they folded like accordions. It was a gruesome sight, including all of the dead bodies and the undead bodies still trapped in their cars.

He groaned as he began pulling cars off of each other one at a time with his telekinesis. He had the ability to move them, but it put a lot of strain on him. So he had his wolves, except the one he was riding on, all begin to start taking out the undead. After a few cars were moved, he had to stop to rest because he couldn't continue, his energy reserves feeling almost completely used up.

It took him about ten minutes and quite a few gulps of water to recover, but then he began doing it again. An hour later, with his entire body covered with sweat, he was finally able to make a clean path about 2 cars wide through the blockade.

As soon as he did he saw nothing but zombies all over the road trying to get through the opening. He set his wolves loose, watching them run through and tear the zombies apart a few at a time. He even got off his mount and let it loose, watching the red mist constantly flow through him. His Essence counter ticked up almost 20 at a time as he slowly moved forward, with a path being cleared and all the zombies close to him being dealt with.

A few times he had to resummon a few of his wolves, but he was making progress through this horde of undead, walking at a slower pace. He hit close to 15,000 Essence before an hour went by, so he walked over to one of the cars on the side of the road and designated one of his wolves as a guard to hit his IPS. He needed more to be able to be of any kind of help in the city, so he was going to buy stuff periodically.

He instantly bought 4 levels of his summon ability, bringing it to 10, costing 1,700 Essence. As he was shopping his Essence counter was still rising, so he knew his wolves were still working.

Then he decided to go for broke and spent another 6,850 to bring it up to 20. When he hit that mark though something unexpected occurred.

*Ability Summon Dire Companion has been upgraded. Summon Dire Companion has become Summon Ally.*

He was confused as to what Summon Ally did, so he focused on it.

Summon Ally allows the user to summon Allies capable of thought and speech. These allies will take the form of the species of the user. They can be upgraded further by purchasing weapons or spells by the user. Dire Companion summons can be interchanged with Ally summons. Ally Summons grow with all stats of the user.

His eyes went wide as he read the description and he grinned evilly. He was going to have a shit ton of humans he could summon now. He would keep 1 wolf as his companion for riding, but the rest would be the allies, once he got them gear.

It also opened up a sub tab underneath the new Summon Ally, which gave him weapon and armor options for his summons. The prices weren't too overly expensive, because they could be applied to all of them at once, but they were still the lowest with a sword at 2,000 Essence. He decided to buy a handgun for 6,000 Essence, a Sword for 2,000, a Shield that looked like a round metal shield 2 feet wide for 2,500, and a Basic Studded Leather for 2,500. His Essence kept ticking up little by little, even with his purchases, bringing him back up to 1,000 by the time 10 minutes was up.

He still had about 20 minutes to go and decided to wait it out and get out of here to summon his new Allies and go back to his IPS later to level himself up. Once the 20 minutes was up, he climbed out of the car and grinned.

First thing he did was unsummon all but his guard wolf, which got the zombies riled up and coming towards him. Then he grinned and summoned 19 Allies, giving them all the equipment he had purchased. They all looked like very generic looking humans. Almost like mannequins if he was being honest.

Their armor was a brown leather with metal poking through from the inside, which he assumed were plated, or at least hoped. They had swords in their right hands and the shields in their left. He had 12 of them stay up front and the other 7 stay behind, using their guns. They didn't jump into the mess of zombies, but their kill speed was so much higher than the wolves, even without the extra number of summons that he was sincerely glad he had hit that mark.

He wondered if other abilities would evolve at level 20 as well, which made him wonder what Telekinesis would do. His summons began taking down zombies so fast his Essence ticked up 100 at a time every 10 or so seconds. They were making much faster progress this time, so he began walking forward at a faster pace, trying to clear just the highway in front of him. It wasn't as clogged either, which helped their progression.

He was breathing much easier as he walked, he noticed, then remembered that his Regeneration ability had healed his smoker's lung debuff, which brought his Constitution up to 16. Now if he had a fast fitness ability he'd be in good shape, pun intended, he laughed to himself at his joke.

It was about 10 more minutes before he was able to see the offramp into town and the zombies were getting less packed as he continued on the freeway. So he had his guys turn to the offramp and began heading down, the shooters taking care of the zombies that were following them.

As they got to the bottom of the offramp and connected to the main road, he saw a welcome sight. The big truck stop that had a huge parking lot for trucks had a stone wall surrounding it, with people on top of it shooting and firing spells into the almost 40,000 zombies coming at them. He sent his summons in and with the help of those on top of the wall, took the zombies down within minutes.

The spells that rained down on the zombies were a mix of fire, lightning and ice spells, which he was happy to see because it meant he wasn't the only one saving people.