Chapter 10

I hurried to a tall building with no visible sign of zombies. After some consideration I decided to resummon my bear inside it.

"Man, this summoning thing is exhausting." I thought. And indeed, the bear was constantly draining my mana reserves and even some of my vital energy.

I looked at the darkened corridors of the buildings and decided to send my bear and familiar in front of me, just in case there were some hidden zombies in the way. I followed them with a loaded crossbow and we slowly and carefully started to claim the stairs.

Few minutes later, I was on the second floor and after some scouting, barricaded myself in a room, sent my imp to constantly scout around and released my bear. The seal of Solomon tattooed on the bear's neck began to shimmer slightly and then began to stretch and warp like a pentagram drawn in a circle, then several runes popped from the seal and burrowed like hornets into the newly formed formation. The bear took one last look at me, mist began to come out of its body and I lost sight of it. Then the mist swirled a few times, got smaller, and the bear disappeared. The formation with Solomon's seal disintegrated, and I hurried to wipe away its remains with my foot. I then began to draw a new summoning circle. It took me less than 20 minutes and after resting briefly I cautiously left the room.

After some hunting, with the help of my constant scouting, I realized that the zombies were slowly advancing. Numerous groups of them were visible all around. "Soon it won't be safe here either. I'll make my way to the very edge of town," I thought.

That's what I did. Without lingering or taking risks, I selected my path and headed for the very last buildings. It wasn't long before I saw a group of people!

"Hey, this way!" one of them called out to me.

I waved at them, put my hand on my bear's head to show it was with me, and with an imp on my shoulder, I approached.

"Hello, my name is Meridin. I saw that the zombies were increasing in numbers and slowly pushing their way from the center of town. It might not be safe here." I hurried to warn them.

There were just over ten people there. Most were young men between the ages of twenty and thirty. I noticed that they had a variety of weapons, which they held somewhat confidently. They had their backpacks bunched up against the wall of a building, at the top of which were two archers.

"The archers are just standing there, saving their arrows." mockingly laughed a young man, with two large knives in his hands. "It's very easy to shoot at zombies, but it's pretty hard to get the arrows out. We keep them for emergencies."

"That's right." one of the archers said with annoyance, spitting over the edge of the building. "I should have taken a sling for my remaining points. They were goddamn cheap."

"Welcome to my group, I'm the leader..." the guy with the knives started to say, until a big dude with a halberd punched him behind the neck.

"Shut up, shorty," sait the man, "The plan is to find more people, in this weird game, and figure out what to do together."

Just then, we saw more people coming.

"Hey, what a big bear." said a girl with blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. "Is it good against zombies?"

Although she was the first to ask, I had noticed how ever since I appeared, people had been eyeing my bear and imp curiously.

"And what's that on your shoulder? It's very ugly." she continued.

"It's called an imp, and it's my familiar,'' I answered.

"This is Mariela" joined the conversation, the knife-wielding boy. "She is a healer and by a strange coincidence my third cousin."

I explained about my bear and imp, and the fact that I was a summoner. After talking with the others, I found out that the group had a total of 19 people and their plan was to guard this large street and the buildings that could be seen from a distance and hopefully attract other people's attention. As well as to help those people in case zombies were chasing them. The group was busily making barricades to help in case a large group of zombies came. That way we would have extra protection, and in case we couldn't make it, they would be an obstacle that would give us time to escape. I also joined in the building of the barricade, and even tried to get my bear to help, but that proved to be quite difficult.

I actually found it interesting and made a note that I need to take the time to train my summons to do things that are atypical for them so I can learn how to control them better. As I had to not only better control them, but learn how to think in new ways and how to adjust my plans to the possibilities and limitations of the creatures I summoned.

We decided that the five people with the longer weapons would be at the front of the barricade, next to them were our men with shields. On the roof were our two archers and our three mages.

I also went up to the magicians and started asking them about their training. They were also interested and we quickly got into a deep conversation.

Maybe because these were some of the last buildings of the city, the big groups of zombies never got to us. However, smaller groups of five, six, and even sometimes ten zombies would often appear, which we fought easily. I watched with envy the fire spells of the two mages or the icicles of the other mage.

By the end of the day we were joined by quite a few more people, and to our surprise most were not coming from the town but had already come out and were attracted by our flag made from young Luke's shirt. I guess they were curious about us, and possibly our fortification. So our group grew to almost 50 people.

"I suggest we head to the woods over there and start searching for a place to camp," said Garat Breg, the first to speak.

We quickly gathered and started discussing what to do. After not so long a discussion, we all agreed.

Strangely, several people had seen a man with long hair braided into braids, armed with a spear, attacking another man and nearly killing him. Everyone heard his description and were wondering what had happened.

I noticed that most people's instincts were to gather together. We were all on the same team - that of Homo sapiens. No one wanted to be alone in a strange city with zombies or a mystical forest, in a game full of all sorts of threats.

When we got to the forest, various people started making suggestions. Let's do this or that. People naturally were listening to the better suggestions, and those who gave them started to gain some authority.

We tried to build something like a camp, but we didn't have the tools or training. Slowly it started to get dark and the stars lit up the sky. There were no clouds and the light from the stars was surprisingly bright.

"It's going to be pretty dark in the woods though!" said Carlos. "The trees there hide the sky and you never know what's hiding in the shadows. The wind moves the leaves and branches and you can often be fooled by the shadows."

After a brief argument, we decided not to light a fire the first night, as it was warm enough and we didn't want to announce our presence for now. We each had a set of food and water for ten days, so we had time. Here and there, some enthusiasts were pitching tents, but most of us were just sitting around talking.One of our archers used two ropes in a strange way and with their help started to climb up a rather tall tree. He announced that he was going to monitor the movements of the zombies in the town. It was difficult in the dark, but there was almost nothing between us and the city. Besides, who knew what strange skills people had gained in this strange world.

I talked to various people, finding more magicians. I was very interested in them since I had missed most of the training to be a mage, but I still had mana. But then again, maybe it would have been better to focus on my summons. In any case, there was nothing stopping me from having more information.

I and a few other mages talked all night, exchanging stories about our training and information about magic and mana manipulation.

The night passed uneventfully and the cold morning woke up the sleeping camp.

The sunrise showed that the zombies had not gone out of the city. But what was more important - because of the cold we saw smoke and the camps of other groups like ours. We also lit a fire and raised a white shirt as a flag. We gathered around the fire and started discussing what to do.

"We need to find the other groups and get together somehow."

"Yes, but who will go and where will we meet?"

"Doesn't matter," I chimed in. "Everyone will want to get together in one place. Let's split up and go to different groups. We'll try to get the smaller groups into bigger groups and by the end of the day we should aim to get together in one place. The important thing is to have communication between the groups. Most importantly we need to try to locate a place to camp with access to drinking water and possibly find food sources. I'm sure many people will also want to help the groups communicate, gather together and to search for a good spot to gather. We will be much more protected if we can organize and make a central camp near a convenient water source."

The talks continued, with a number of proposals being discussed. I tried to convince those of the people who seemed interested in my idea that we should be the mediators. Eventually I convinced a number of people and after an hour or so, a few small groups left our camp, each heading for a different visible human camp. They were going to convey the idea of coordinating between the groups as well as the idea of finding a central camp and grouping us humans together.

I also went with one of these groups as we headed for the camp closest to us. There, we told them about our idea and advised them to head to one of the nearby groups and join them. After a short rest, we continued to another group to deliver the message again.