Chef in the Apocalypse

"N-North America?" Lianna stammered. "How did we get teleported that far away?"

"The connection must have been disrupted with the teleportation array in Bastion." Jayce said, feeling a little lost at what he should do next. While he had resolved to travel the world and unite the supporters through the Human Alliance, he did not expect to do it like this.

Once a teleportation array loses connection, its destination becomes completely random. This means that those who choose to travel through it could appear basically anywhere. Inside a volcano, outer space, thousands of meters underwater, you name it.

Jayce felt a cold sweat drench his back, thanking his lucky stars that they had been teleported onto dry land and in a relatively safe position. Even then, they appeared almost 50 meters above the ground. Were it not for the multiple branches that reduced their speed, even with Jayce’s increased stats he would have been a lot more than winded.

Then again, with his monstrous luck stat he should be able to expect some decent results. But that was the thing about luck, you could never fully count on it to get the desired results. Even more so if you were staking your life on said luck.

Lianna saw Jayce deep in thought, and asked in a small voice, "Can we just make another teleportation array and go back to Bastion?"

Jayce shook his head, "I don’t have any mana stones and we both lack the mana manipulation skill, so I won’t even be able to draw the array."

"It looks like we’ll be stuck here until we can find others." Jayce concluded, looking around the vicinity. He wasn’t even particularly sure where he was right now, otherwise he would be able to send out some messages to the supporters and meet up with them.

’Ah crap, that reminds me.’ Jayce suddenly remembered something that was probably important.

He opened his supporter chat function, only to see almost 20 messages from a worried Paladin.

Stone Hammer #6: Jayce, are you guys okay?

Stone Hammer #6: What happened? Colin and the others are freaking out.

Stone Hammer #6: Please tell me you’re all okay!

Stone Hammer #6: Damn it Jayce! Are you still mad about me borrowing your Kitchen knives without asking?

Stone Hammer #6: F*ck I’m sorry okay! I’ll get the blacksmiths to create you a whole new set, just please answer.

Jayce flicked through the messages, his eyes turning dull. ’That baldy is such a clingy bastard.’ he remarked inwardly. To be fair, he probably should have messaged Dion as soon as he could, however there were more pressing matters at the time.

He quickly typed a message saying he and Lianna were fine and to tell his party not to worry. Unfortunately there were no ways of chatting through the system for anyone who was not a supporter, otherwise he would have just messaged Colin directly.

With that out of the way, he looked up and smiled at Lianna. "Alright, wait down here, I’m going to check our surroundings before we decide which way to go."

Jayce looked up and around, trying to find a high vantage point that he could climb in order to get a gauge of their surroundings. Soon enough he found a large tree that was at least 5 meters wide and began to scale it with ease. With his current stats he could even scale a sheer cliff quite easily, let alone a giant tree.

Looking as deft as a monkey, he quickly ran up the tree using the branches and the bark as footholds. Soon enough he arrived at the top, where the world stretched out before him. Around him lay a dense, untamed forest, breathing with life. The trees loomed tall and ancient, their branches were like a tent that shielded the forest floor from the sun’s harsh glare. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

In the distance, he saw a break in the dense thicket, a parting of the trees that revealed a shimmering river winding its way through the wilderness. Jayce’s keen vision allowed him to discern the river’s flow, and he calculated its direction.

With his destination in mind, he descended from the tree, his descent as graceful as his ascent. As he touched the forest floor once more, he gestured to Lianna that it was time to go.

"It was basically just jungle in all directions, apart from a river a bit further in." Jayce said, summoning his legendary dagger. "I couldn’t see any monsters in the vicinity, but it will be better if we stay vigilant." With that, the two moved out towards the river.

Jayce silently lamented that Zane had not been brought along with them, he had gotten used to the silent man’s amazing scouting abilities. He suddenly stopped in his tracks, feeling that something was amiss.

Now that he thought back to it, he didn’t remember Zane going through the teleportation array at all. Granted, Zane did not have the most commanding presence, despite his handsomeness. He quickly opened his messages once more and asked if Zane was in Bastion.

Stone Hammer #6: No? Isn’t he with you?

’Ah damn it.’ he cursed inwardly.

Jayce quickly brought up the faction window and scrolled through the now 150 members. ’What was his name again?’ It would be easy enough to identify him, as he would probably be one of the highest level in his faction as he was in the main party.

Silent Arrow - lvl 57

He let out a sigh of relief seeing that the name was still there. He had found during the Beast Tide that those who died would be removed from the faction member list automatically, which meant that seeing the name was equal to knowing they were alive.

The worst case scenario would be that Zane, like them, was also sent to another random location after entering the teleportation array. But there was also the possibility that their stoic archer had decided against using the faulty array and instead decided to walk back to Bastion. Knowing Zane’s tendency to avoid risks, he would put his bets on the latter.

As he thought about this, his gaze remained on Zane’s name. Zane had never played Cataclysm before, which meant that his name was one given to him by the system. Much like Colin’s title of Divine Shield, Zane’s name did not have any numbers attached which meant that his name was unique.

He had no idea why people that were around him were so... special, however he was not about to complain to anyone. Especially when it would benefit himself, and in turn all humans.

"Is everything okay?" Lianna asked, seeing Jayce suddenly stop in place.

"Yep, all good. Let’s head to the river, we can follow it downstream in hopes of finding a settlement." Jayce responded, moving forward once more. His 10 years in the Apocalypse had honed his survival skills intently, making a trip through a dense forest seem as easy as warm apple pie.

’Hmm, apple pie.’ As soon as Jayce thought about apple pie, he suddenly had an intense craving. If he remembered his history correctly, the Americans used apple pie’s in the second world war campaign, saying they were fighting for their mom and apple pie.

Jayce chuckled involuntarily, feeling that his situation was quite similar. "How about I make us some apple pie when we get back home?" he said with a smile.

Lianna merely looked at him with a confused look, "Uhh, okay sure."