Day three started out early for me, I had a hard time falling asleep, only to have nightmares, and found myself awake at 5am staring at my alarm. I kept having dreams of rank after rank demonic orcs pouring through the portal in Sunset Hills. I didn’t see the portal yet myself, but in my dream it was thirty feet high and almost as wide. The orcs were protected by giant invisible walls of force angled above them to intercept rockets, missiles, and bombs. The carnage of my nightmares is what ultimately snapped me awake. I hated that it may just be a dream, but it probably wasn’t far from reality.

  Since I couldn’t sleep I reviewed the notes from last night after we visited Sunset Hills. We activated two hundred and forty additional militia who would use today to help move folks away from the portal area in Sunset Hills. The plan was to have buses transport several families at a time plus their essential belongings to the High School here in Fenton. There was a good path with no portals and no demons that would get them here. Their entire job was to help with the escorting. I know not everyone will want to move, but I am telling them it will be temporary.

  We also were able to move a lot of the other folks into logistics groups. We found people that have their extradimensional storage as a class ability: soccer moms. We found a ton of people with crafting abilities. We would have them sorted out today. However, the biggest prizes were the ability stealers and ability copiers. The stealers would get mixed into a few groups with orders to keep them safe, meanwhile the ability copiers would stay at a central location: the Fenton Government Center. The problem would be that we really needed to level up those with the copying ability. The ability to make multiple copies at a time was very powerful. I feared risking the lives of both groups at the same time.

  The team found a ton of items worth identifying in the ring, as well as a whole bunch of food supplies. Some of the food was fit for human consumption, some definitely was not. We reorganized the space to put trays of just cooked food in racks; caterers style inside the space. We had a group of the moms cooking massive dishes over the next two days to hopefully fill that up. We didn’t want to just through five thousand or more MREs into the space as was far more beneficial to have well cooked meals.

  We set aside the pouch to store things that wouldn’t be food. The most notable was the tent from the ring. The tent expands when activated to be much larger than I would have expected. Brittney assured me that it was worth seeing pop up to its full size at least once. There were also scrolls, potions, a spellbook, and other things worth carrying in the pouch. I decided to lend the staff to Nora today so that she could work on identifying everything that we needed to. Nora then handed off the Sticky Webs wand to a park ranger in our most experienced squad. A fireman ended up with the wand of Fog Cloud. Those items were going to this first squad so that we had a team that would be powerful enough to help us respond to crazy situations. We then split up the communications stones between me, Nora, and Ted, the squad leader for the top squad. As we got more of these stones we would hand them out to more squad leaders.

  Things were honestly coming together very quickly. Talking to all those constituents last night and really learning what they needed to get through this was useful. Most of them need to feel safe in this crazy situation. It helped that I was one of the only politicians in the state who was actually amongst his constituency. I never thought of myself as a populist, but if it works I am not going to complain.

  I have two townships to talk to today. I was worried about both. Crestwood had portals just a tiny bit further into the city than it while Oakland had portals on three sides. It was this weird little box at the northeast corner of my congressional district. It was the one where the people were in most danger of getting caught. If it wasn’t for the curfews and shelter in place orders being active then it would be impossible to move the people back from Oakland all the way to Fenton. Many of my residents were in defiance of those orders by hanging out at various city halls, but the police and national guard have chosen not to enforce that part as thoroughly. I would need to swing by Fenton’s government building on my way to get to Oakland and Crestwood. I would drop Frank off there to organize anyone else who came there into new squads and have them hook up with existing squads. His left arm was still messed up and Brittney disobeyed my orders and made more of the healing cookies. I didn’t complain because it saved lives. We really need more powerful healing to fix his broken bones. With Frank going to Fenton, this meant Billy would go to Sunset Hills. Nora and Brittney would be focused on identifying items, cookies, and Nora’s ‘Special Project’; Brett would be going to hang out with Smitty. The kid wanted to learn to make bullets. I would get support from the 3 squads that survived the fight yesterday. We had a half a dozen or so at the hospital that I still needed to get an update on.

  I texted the three squad leaders to have their squads meet me at the Fenton government center at 7am. Today was going to be a long day, and I still felt like I was on the clock. I then finally got dressed and went downstairs to make some breakfast. As I went down the steps I heard a noise in the kitchen. I felt at my waist for my gun, thankful the holster was always attached to my belt. I slid the gun out as I turned the corner at the bottom of the steps. I was greeted by Brittney in the kitchen in pajamas mixing batter. “Oh, you’re up early.”

  “Yeah. I wanted to get a crack at this whole baking magical craft I have. I have to invest like twenty mana into what I am making over the course of mixing, cookie shaping, baking, and cooling. It went down from thirty to twenty when I hit level 4.”

  “You hit level 4!” my voice raised a little at the end. I didn’t realize she was still leveling that fast.

  “Yeah, besides getting extra abilities at level 1, blessed also gets me an experience bonus until I turn fourteen. I am not wasting that bonus. I hope that I can get to level 6 in the next week.”

  “What happens at level 6?”

  “Several things! I get a point in intelligence, I get another caster level taking me to caster level 4, and I can enchant up to 3 boxes of girl scout cookies in a day.” She sounded really perky about her class. I was dumbfounded. Brittney had passed us up. She was already out leveling me.

  “Is anyone else level 4?” I asked, but almost didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Nora, Joe, and Brett all hit level 4 at some point yesterday.” I was stunned. I had fallen way behind. I had already checked my progress this morning and it had only gone up to 44% towards level 4. I was still gaining points for all the social interaction because me class kinda depends on it, but those points were not near the pace of our top four people. Well Fuck! I guess I just have to work a bit harder to keep advancing. There is still the problem of what I do when I hit level 5, and I have no class to advance to. Hopefully the ability stealers give us a chance to solve that.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I don’t suppose I can sneak in here and cook myself some breakfast.” I wanted to ask, just because she is using her mana to make magical cookies. She is doing something pretty serious, that requires at least some concentration. Surprisingly, she can converse while doing so.

  “Its fine. After I mix these few ingredients and start shaping them into cookies I will have to take a break to let my mana rebuild. I only have 10 mana, after all. I’ll probably switch to making breakfast for everyone else.”

  I worked my way around her to make myself a bowl of oatmeal. I needed carbs this morning, and cold cereal wasn’t going to cut it. While eating my food, I tried to occasionally close my eyes to visualize my mana. I figured that it should be possible to sense your own mana. It was a suggestion from Joe last night. He apparently meditates while concentrating on his own internal mana to help it recover faster. Joe is way more zen than me though. I finished my bowl of oatmeal and then closed my eyes to concentrate hard. I tried to visualize my body and more importantly my mana. At first the whole thing felt a bit silly. Eventually I felt it. It was about the size of my fist, and roughly in the same area as my heart. This sense of my own mana was strange though, as I could feel it ebb and flow in and out of the vessel, sort of like blood flowing through the chambers of my heart. I tried to follow the tendrils of mana as they passed around my body and eventually came back to my heart. It was a strange feeling. I was looking at the flow and feeling it at the same time. It would be like watching a merry go round and being on it simultaneously. I checked to see if I picked up Joe’s meditation skill, and sadly I did not.

  Opening my eyes I saw that breakfast was ready, Brittney had cleaned up my dish, and Frank had already come downstairs. I looked down at my watch to discover I had been meditating for well over an hour. “Frank, as soon as you eat breakfast, we’ll need to go. Is Billy up?”

  “Yes, sir he is. He hated me waking him up.” Frank said that with a bit too much joy. He probably made a huge noise or something. Some hijinks is good for us.

  After dropping off Frank and collecting a bunch of magic items from the other squad I was off to Oakland. I had 3 squads of guys in their pickup trucks ahead of me as we made our way to my third city hall in two days. The roads were mostly empty, but I kept glancing at the woods to my right. In between the trees whipping by I swear I saw a single eye staring at me. The trip was longer than I wanted it to be, as we had to go the longest way to get there. We did see a few buses headed north into Sunset Hills to help exit people that are too close to the portal there.

  The trip eventually ended as we rounded the corner to arrive at the City Hall for Oakland, Missouri. There was a rather full parking lot as there had been at the other two locations, but these people were carrying signs. I wasn’t entirely sure what the signs had written on them from this distance, but the atmosphere was very negative. I muttered to myself, “I got a bad feeling about this.”

  Cars filled every available space, and multiple news stations were parked among them as well. I was already apprehensive about the situation, but the press seemed to ratchet up the anxiety an extra notch. We parked our vehicles as closely as possible, and the squads formed up around me. I made sure weapons were all pointed to the ground. I did not want to escalate this further. The shouts started becoming more distinct as we got closer to the crowd. Words like “hoax” and “false flag” started popping up. The throng of people grew thick around my protectors as we slowly pushed our way towards the doors. We eventually became stuck, short of our goal.

  I raised my voice to be heard above the crowd, “I assure you the threats from the portals are real. I have come far too close to death for them to be a hoax. If you will allow me, we can have an impromptu town hall. I will do my best to address your concerns.” I hoped that my persuasion and public speaking skills would help me at least a little bit in the next several minutes.

  The crowd calmed down, and I took the opportunity to stand at the top of the steps of this tiny civic center. “Let me start by stating what I have personally seen since all this started for us early Saturday morning.” I got as far as saying the words “system integration” before I was interrupted.

  “Hoax.” Several people shouted.

  Well, this is new, “Folks, there is no way a system menu you can access by closing your eyes and concentrating be a hoax. We don’t have time to entertain the absurd claim that it is a hoax. We can get you dead bodies of creatures slain. We can show you the portals. You can even review your own individual status by thinking about it. If you want to claim it is a hoax, then you need an awful lot of evidence. Billions of people have died across the planet.”

  The militia protecting me started tightening up their defense around me.

  “You have to prove that these demons are real.”

  “Actually, I don’t. There has been ample evidence proving them real. Just because I don’t have a body handy for you to look at, doesn’t make the evidence any less overwhelming. We can literally look at the giant portals the military has to fire rockets into periodically for evidence.”

  “Them’s portals just movie magic!” What the fuck! I walked into conspiracy theory central.

  “Why would it be movie magic? To what end would anyone go to these lengths? Your conspiracy theorizing is completely off base.” My guards were getting angry. They had been through yesterday’s fight with me. The few faces I could see were seething.

  “Its part of design of the globalists. They just want one world government. They want to take my rights. They are gonna take our guns.” And we just went straight past odd conspiracy theory into crazy town.

  “First of all, no one is here to take your guns. We are doing the opposite; we are activating people into the national guard. We need you to take up arms to protect your fellow citizens from actual demons. Those would be the enemy. I know you don’t believe me that they exist, but if you join up and then see no evidence within the next few days then you win.”

  “What do you mean we win?”

  “If I am wrong and these invasions are a hoax, you can then go back to your homes. I won’t run for the state rep posting I currently hold. I will make speeches about how I was wrong.”

  The self-designated spokesperson stood up taller, he was an angry looking white guy. He dressed like he had money, but spoke like he never spent it to help him get smarter. “And what if you win?”

  “That’s simple. You have to actually believe the evidence in front of you. You have to actually listen to me and do what I say as it pertains to the general welfare and safety of my district.”

  “I don’t know about all this doing what you say. I will stipulate that we will tell others what you ask us to tell them.” Stipulate? Really? Well, I’m not going to argue when I have a victory.

  “Well then, consider yourselves drafted to the cause. We need to move people out of this township and into Fenton temporarily.”

  “Wait a second. What do you mean by drafted?”

  “Just that. If you head inside with me, we will create sign-ups for everyone who wants to volunteer to help fight these creatures you don’t think are real. The biggest task today is to help move all of Oakland out of Oakland. You have demon portals on three sides of this place. If you are wrong, why would you stay here?”

  “Well, now hold on a second. Why are we going along with you for now?”

  “To see if what I am saying is true or not. It shouldn’t take more than a few days to convince every single one of you that what I am saying is true. All you have to do is work with me during this time. Either I will be correct, or I am lying.”

  He was at a loss for words. I got him turned around mentally. He had to agree at least to test whether what I am saying is real or not. At the rate of escalation, this shouldn’t be a big problem.

  We spent the next 2 hours organizing ten squads of people to help themselves and their fellow citizens get packed up for a trip towards the relative safety of Fenton. I learned from the clerk that Oakland didn’t have more than fifteen hundred people in total in the whole township. We should be able to move the vast majority of them today and tomorrow.