《A Survivor's Guide to Planetary Apotheosis [Postapocalyptic Survival, LitRPG, and Dungeon]》


 Chapter 1: The Day A Falcon Fell

    You ever wonder what magic actually feels like? We¡¯re talking about the good stuff, pure, no elemental contamination, no confinements to petty human concepts, just raw infinite potential. Alexander Gerifalte hadn¡¯t. It never occurred to him. Not until the Earth¡¯s core awakened and unleashed what became known as Gaia¡¯s Awakening.


    Scholars disagree, because they disagree about everything, it gives them purpose, about what triggered the event. What they did not disagree about, because it was real as a thumbtack in your shoe, was that the planet that sat third from the star named Sol, that little blue gem in the solar system, reached maturity in some unfathomable way, and, when it did, it announced its apotheosis by unleashing a pulse of pure mana across its surface.


    In point of fact, the core of the planet had just jump started its dragon pulse, the first heartbeat of a young god, and the mana surge that enveloped Alexander Gerifalte while he tried to throttle down for landing the trainer-plane he was flying solo for the first time felt mostly like having your blood filled with lava while your bones froze to ice. The nose of the plane dipped when his body spasmed, mind racked with the kind of agony that defies description. It was all the migraines that ever existed, compressed into a singular moment. He blacked out before he had time to make a sound.


    Every human who survived the awakening reported the same headache, insufficient word as that is for the experience of mana binding your soul to the dragon pulse of a newly wakened planet, it¡¯s flow of mana transforming all that was into what would be. Not all humans did survive it. Not even most of them.


    As near as anyone could tell between those first moments and the chaos that came after, about a third did. The rest died instantly. They turned into stone, statues memorialized, as do all sapients who bear the stigmata of Gaia¡¯s will when they perish. Gaia loves her children, and remembers them when they die, immortalizes the departed souls by making monuments of their flesh with her own. Her love could not stop her ascendance from killing two thirds of humanity, and about the same proportion of dolphins, whales, octopi, hive insects like ants and bees, and crows. Turns out, humans weren¡¯t so special after all. They were just the only ones with thumbs.


    Alexander came back to full consciousness with the tarmac rushing toward him, air speed about triple what it should be for a landing, gear down, flaps all fucked, and he immediately began corrective measures to try to avoid a certain death, which would happen when the plane disintegrated around him as it hit. The little trainer had no eject, you unlatched the canopy and jumped out, the airspeed never supposed to be much above six hundred kilometers per hour or so. He could not jump out. He would hit the ground before his parachute filled, ground rushing upwards a hideous velocity.


    Screaming an instinctive refusal against the concept of dying, Alexander Gerifalte hauled back on the stick to pitch the nose up and turned the flaps to pull the plane out of the dive it had started. The wonderful little plane responded. It pulled through an entire eighty degrees of angle, coming to nearly level when Alexander ran out of altitude, moving at about a hundred kilometers an hour.


    Harness snapped taught as the bottom of the plane made contact, the landing gear shearing off cleanly before becoming shrapnel that tore half the tail flaps off. On its belly now, scraping along paved runway. Young Gerifalte gripped the stick with all his might, face locked into a grimace of outrage while he was powerless to stop the crash.


    ¡°You¡¯ll Never Sink This Boat!¡± He howled, the most defiant statement rejecting fate that occurred to him in these final moments.


    The left wing dipped then, and the plane turned sideways and began to roll, the aluminum skin shedding like the scales of some reptilian beast around the cockpit. Alexander¡¯s world turned into rotating chaos, a maelstrom of force and violence. His seat came free, at some point, and he flew from the wreckage, spinning across the tarmac.


    Brutal impact knocked the sense from him, a white flare of pain, and then, oblivion.


    Pain. Pain. Pain. You¡¯re in pain. These were the first thoughts that broke free of the darkness that had stolen him.


    Alexander opened his eyes, eyes that stared upward at a sky so awfully and startlingly blue. Whisps of cirrus overhead promised rain in a day or so. He liked the rain. He probably wouldn¡¯t live to see it though, his body gave off that numb sensation that said it was badly wrong, all over. An effort to move his head produced nothing. A moan the same thing. The Youngest Gerifalte tried to move a hand to feel himself and managed a twinge of fingers, and no more. But any movement was treasure, it meant he had avoided total paralysis.


    Whatever damage had occurred to him, whatever protective numbing of biochemical nonsense had kept him limber enough to ragdoll without coming apart like his plane, it began to fade slowly over the next minute or two. The return of sensation was most¡­unwelcome.


    Pain was what he had before when his brain had been switched off. Agony was what he had now, now that the old noodle rebooted.


    Alexander struggled to move his arm and it did, much to his displeasure. The arm had broken. How badly he didn¡¯t know but the upper arm radiated fire, and his wrist felt full of shattered glass.


    For a little while he didn¡¯t manage to do anything but shriek from the combined assault of his injuries. When his throat wore out and his breath was ragged, he stopped. Very slowly, realization that he was on his back came to him. Furthermore, he still had two legs that were semi-functional. The arm he hadn¡¯t tried to move before and now did, didn¡¯t. It was behind him, the shoulder dislocated, but, otherwise, sort of fine. Truth be told, the arm was the worst part of his injuries, although he hadn¡¯t yet tested his neck or back, afraid to reveal that he had destroyed his spine in some way that wouldn¡¯t be known until it moved.


    ¡°Uhhg, fuughin,¡± Curses streamed from him as he tried to turn himself over, to take his weight off the trapped arm enough for it to be freed from beneath him.


    Endorphins, adrenaline, or something in that ballpark started to come to his aid. The heinous wracking kind of hurt went away, replaced by the dull throb that declared he had limited time to try to do something useful before he was completely immobile. A reprieve, a temporary blessing.


    Alexander rolled all the way over, supporting himself partially with his face and the dislocated arm. He pushed himself with his core and whatever of his upper body that wasn¡¯t the broken arm to a hunched over position on his knees, and, summoning desperate will to live, raised himself up to a sitting position.


    ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be alive.¡± Alexander whispered aloud, seeing the ruin of the trainer plane scattered across a half kilometer of runway.


    Shouldn¡¯t be. But was. By some miracle of chance, he was alive. The sheer odds of it were in defiance of common sense. This was the baby picked up and set down unharmed by the tornado kind of shit. He wasn¡¯t unharmed. Far from it. But he also wasn¡¯t dead, which was more than he could ask for. Nobody walked away from a plane crash like that.


    With that knowledge firmly in his heart, Alexander Gerifalte struggled to put his legs under him and walked away from the plane crash. It was a limping, gimping, walk full of pain that a newborn giraffe would find comically clumsy, but it was walking.


    Now the fun part. Alexander had seen this in a movie once and had thought it looked awfully stupid. But. He had less than half an arm and no idea how long the endorphins would keep the agony at bay long enough to try to get that up to about a solid whole number, if you round. So, it was now, or not. Alexander leaned heavily against the run-down looking building that was the control tower of this tiny little flea speck airport, mostly used as a flight school. The dirty brick was support that he desperately needed, a wave of dizziness almost brought him down again, down where he wouldn¡¯t be able to get back up.


    The young man swallowed back the vomit that threatened to escape and busied himself from the nausea by ramming the dislocated shoulder into the wall of the building to reinsert the joint. Blind agony rolled through him. Reflexively he was puking, vomit spraying convulsively mostly bile onto the pavement and brick.


    ¡°Aaaaahg!! You fucking prick!¡± Alexander shouted, white static in his brain, nearly insensate.


    He¡¯d failed and paid dearly for it. Desperate, before he lost his nerve, he pushed his arm up, trying to hold the thing in line with where the socket should be and, with all the strength he had left, slammed his body against the building again.


    A loud, horrible sounding pop accompanied the shoulder resetting, and it hurt terribly, but there was a sort of relief that came with it, a sense of rightness, now that things were where they were supposed to be.


    That didn¡¯t stop Alexander¡¯s stomach from heaving again, doubling him over. His bruised body rebelled against the punishment of the convulsions, and he started coughing, which made everything worse. Without the wall to hold him he would have pitched over. As it was, he managed a sort of slow fall by sliding down the rough brick surface.


    Sunset woke him, harsh direct light against his face, nearly blinding even through closed eyes.


    Fluttering open, said eyes caught the full brunt of the falling sun and he had to turn away. More dizziness. No puking. The dizziness passed, replaced by the intense throbbing hurt of a body thrown into a big dryer for a nice spin. His right arm was absolute murder. The rest of him wasn¡¯t so fantastic either but he could live with it.


    Alexander almost laughed at that thought. Live with it. He didn¡¯t have so much damned say in that matter, the options were live with it or die pretty much immediately.


    ¡°What the fuck happened to me?¡± He queried the reddening sky.


    He had landed that plane fifty times, mostly under worse conditions than today. It was peak flying today, no cross winds, not hot enough for thermals to create weird lift or pressure on the runway, just a nice smooth reduction of throttle, get the air speed down, the nose up, the landing gear ready, and bingo! Safe landings. Only that hadn¡¯t happened. Something terrible had almost killed him, had passed through his body. Only the vaguest memory of twisting inside out, his body reconstructed atom by atom, came to him when he tried to remember what happened.


    For the life of him he couldn¡¯t. Whether that was because of the trauma of the event or because he was still half out of his mind from the sum total worst moments of his entire life up to that point was debatable.


    What was not, was that he was now aware of a ravening thirst and at least the faintest of hunger pangs. He hadn¡¯t eaten before the flight, he never did. At least he wasn¡¯t bleeding. There was blood, not to be in doubt, but, as he examined his limbs, he knew it was dried, just the result of road rash from his whirlybird flight from the cockpit.


    Absolute insanity. He shouldn¡¯t be alive. But here he was, with just a heavy dose of full body bruising to the bones, some wicked road rash, and a mostly fucked arm.


    Alexander Gerifalte was the son of a naval nuclear engineer and a flight deck technician who was also a fervent participator in the decathlon and who, for a time, had serious Olympic aspirations before she¡¯d decided she¡¯d rather be a mother and a tutor for nerds who thought to tame the violin. He had drunk hard work from that mother¡¯s milk, had been raised under the maxim that good enough never was. If he continued sitting here, he put himself in jeopardy of dying to some internal injury he couldn¡¯t feel, or infection, or a bone splinter severing an artery, or any number of stupid things.


    ¡°Time to get off your ass and get home, dad¡¯s home, he¡¯ll know what to do.¡± Alexander told himself with certainty.


    His father always knew what to do. He even mostly managed to know how to do it, which boggled Alexander¡¯s mind routinely. A memory surfaced, replacing the resolve to move, because he wasn¡¯t even close to in his right mind.


    ¡°You just saw it; how do you know that¡¯s how it works!?¡± He¡¯d yelled at the bespectacled man, who was disassembling his game console to upgrade it, not twelve hours after Alexander had first turned it on.


    ¡°I thought you said you hated the input lag from the controller?¡± the quiet man asked calmly.


    He had hated it. He just didn¡¯t think there was anything you could do about it.


    ¡°Have you ever even done anything like this before?¡± the suspicious then ten-year-old had demanded.


    ¡°Nope.¡± Replied his old man, ¡°But all machines think alike, and this can¡¯t be any harder than getting an old nuke reactor to behave.¡±


    The geezer had fixed the input lag inside of a couple of hours. He got banned from the game he was playing because the game engine thought there was a cheat installed due to the lack of input delay.


    That¡¯s how it always seemed to work. His dad knew what to do and his mom made sure that everything got cleaned up when her husband got distracted with another project. If not for her steadying hand, the house would have looked like a scrap yard.


    After retiring from active duty, his father had stayed home to help his wife and make part time cash to supplement his pension repairing things. Any things. All things. Lawnmowers, hairdryers, microwave ovens, it didn¡¯t matter. It came, broken. It went, fixed. Alexander¡¯s mother called his father ¡°The Gremlin¡±.


    They met while both served on the same boat in the navy, one an engineer, the other working on the flight deck. He fixed her watch for her after she got it caught on a bulkhead and a tool bag full of sturdy steel tools whacked it good. She offered cash to compensate him and he told her he only worked for fun or for mating opportunities. Alexander thought that was a lie, but his mother said it was true. She refused to answer why that line had worked and only said ¡°You¡¯d better be glad it did, I had more of a thing for chicks before he came along.¡±


    His mother would freak when she saw him. Seeing her ¡°little falcon¡± hurt would send her into soldier mode and if anybody cut them off on the way to the hospital, she might beat them into a coma.


    Stray thoughts, Alexander, he told himself, becoming aware that his mind wasn¡¯t all together. He¡¯d been sitting there fading in and out, brain dredging up the past. Was he dying?


    ¡°I have to move.¡± He said aloud, thinking that maybe saying things would help him stay focused.


    ¡°I have to get up. Where the hell is everybody?¡± Alexander asked, suddenly realizing that something was badly wrong.


    A plane had gone down on the runway. There had been fire, there was wreckage blocking the runway, there should have been firetrucks and police and ambulances by now. Where were all the people?


    Cold adrenaline ran down Alexander¡¯s back when his injury clouded brain made the connection. This airport was tiny, but it was still active. Where the fuck were all the people!?


    Moaning from the aching body that hated him for making it move, he pried himself up to stand, leaning hard against the tower¡¯s wall and panted from the effort.


    ¡°Hellooo?¡± He called, unimpressed by his own voice.


    Try again, with your balls in it this time, he scolded.


    ¡°HELLLOOOO!¡± He yelled, muscles protesting the extra oomph.


    ¡°Where the hell is everybody!? Mayday! Man down! Get a fucking Corpsman over here!¡± Alexander¡¯s voice rang out against the building.


    He sagged against the brick, soothing cold against his face, warm sun against his back. No answer. Something was fucking wrong now, he knew it.


    This building was as familiar to him as his own home, he limped slowly around the corner and found the entrance to the tower. The elevator was out. Like, all the way out, he didn¡¯t see any light when he hit the button; That meant stairs, he shuddered. It had to be done, if nobody had come out to see what had happened, they had to still be upstairs at the air traffic control system. It was, like, federal law or some shit.


    Three of the worst flights of stairs ever climbed by an ape or apelike creature later, Alexander found the door to the control room. It opened easily, in spite of his weakness, and he pushed it open noiselessly.


    ¡°I need some help guys, what¡¯s goin-¡° the question died swiftly, his eyes taking in a sight that refused to mesh with his experience of reality.


    He was talking to three statues. Perfect replicas of the men who had run the airport. Each stood in their familiar places, each dressed as they had been when Alexander had taken off on his first solo run. They looked surprised.


    This wasn¡¯t possible. It wasn¡¯t unlikely it just wasn¡¯t fucking real, he decided.


    ¡°I never woke up.¡± The young Gerifalte told the room of petrified people from whom he¡¯d learned to fly.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if I died, but I never woke up. This isn¡¯t real.¡±


    That¡¯s the only thing that made sense. If you saw something impossible, then it wasn¡¯t real. That was step one of determining if you were insane, or something.


    Slowly, carefully, so he didn¡¯t wake up the sleeping statues, he went to the air traffic control displays, noticing that they were all blank. Off. Nobody turned off air traffic control displays, and the things ran on an emergency generator, in case the power went out. That generator wasn¡¯t running, he knew the sound of it, the loud bastard. Nothing was running. None of the ever so subtle hum of power that accompanied modern life.


    Turning, he approached the statue that was the training pilot. Victor might have been carved from a pale marble. Smooth texture, like a Greek statue. Clothing hung from the stone carved flesh, itself unchanged from its textile nature.


    ¡°How?¡± Alexander asked, reaching out gently to touch the time frozen pilot, ¡°How did you end up like this?¡±


    Smooth, cold stone beneath his fingers, solid. The flesh that had been so warm, the hand that had patted him on the back just a few hours ago, encouraging him to get out there and do it right, to earn his wings, was still. Inert.


    All three of them were in the same condition. It couldn¡¯t be real. But how could it be fake? What kind of malicious psychopath would drag three full size marble statues of the men who worked here all the way to the third floor, for giggles? Occam¡¯s razor, the simplest explanation. Even if it meant he was completely batshit.


    ¡°I am completely batshit.¡± Alexander confirmed.


    His aching body twinged; he could feel his heartbeat in several of the bruises. Left shoulder throbbing, right arm a mass of brittle fire, he was hurting badly now. No more chemical barrier to the injuries. Moaning softly to himself, in spite of the effort not to, he reached up to take the bottle of water off the counter.


    Statues didn¡¯t drink, but madmen did. And drink he did, deeply, until the bottle was empty.


    ¡°Gaah! Oh, my sweet gods above, below, and between, thank you for that!¡± He whispered, grateful to anything that might show him mercy.


    A morbid bit of curiosity wanted to tip over one of the statues, but he couldn¡¯t bring himself to do it. It felt like¡­sacrilege. Alexander¡¯s family wasn¡¯t religious. He wasn¡¯t religious. But there was a feeling of wrongness to trying to break one of these so lifelike representations of the men he had known. Some instinct tried to break through his wall of reason, to convince him that he was looking at the same men he had known. It defied all logic, but the whisper was insistent, ¡°They¡¯re gone, Alexander. This is all that¡¯s left of them.¡±


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    And they weren¡¯t the only ones who were gone. Gerifalte was not the only person flying these perfect skies this day. From the window of the tower, he saw several pillars of smoke from the nearby forest. Black, thick, roiling smoke, that told him he wasn¡¯t the only one to have lost control of his plane. He was probably the only one to survive, however. As unlikely as it was to avoid dying on the tarmac, it was exponentially worse to have come down in the trees. Each of those pillars of smoke was a grave, he knew it.


    But no sirens. No response.


    ¡°Ooohhh boy, this is not good. This is worse than not good. This is gold plated fucked.¡± Alexander decided out loud.


    His father would have told him to stop cursing. His mother would have given him some more interesting words to use. They complimented each other like that.


    Was he in shock?


    ¡°Yeah, probably. I need all this water, and something to eat.¡± He decided.


    A quick raid of the room revealed the lunches not eaten by the statues. The food hadn¡¯t turned to stone, so whatever it was that had occurred was selective. Was it just certain humans, or animals too? He chewed painfully on a sandwich, while he thought it over. There was a couch in the room, so the air traffic controllers could nap while they spelled each other. Alexander inhaled the three sandwiches, drank another bottle of water from the desk, and gingerly reclined on the couch.


    He lay there, mind circling. If there was no help coming, he would have to handle himself. If he had to handle himself, he needed to rest. His body was ragged out, he was physically done in. The right arm would just have to keep for now, there was little to nothing he could do for it, at the moment. Internal injuries and shock were the major threat now that exposure was off the table. He could be bleeding inside and not know it.


    A niggling paranoia tried to keep him awake: What if he died in his sleep?


    ¡°What if?¡± Alexander challenged himself, ¡°I already might be dead from the crash. This might be an ectoplasmic meat satchel, carrying around a vengeful ghost, that died unfulfilled because it didn¡¯t get to have that threesome yet. What ifs are like wishes, you starve to death trying to eat them. Go to sleep, idiot.¡±


    Thusly achieving the correct mentality, he let himself slip away.


    The intervening hours were awful. Every shift that disturbed the broken arm brought him awake with slivers of molten lead in his bones. Most of him hurt at least a little, in some way or another. Sheer exhaustion bought him three or so hours of real sleep, the rest he drifted in and out, suffering through the night until pale dawn lightened the horizon through the tower windows.


    Getting off the couch took a shameful amount of time, filled with not so short intervals of shuddering pain from the various hurts that had been allowed to stiffen. The broken arm was swollen to about half again its normal dimensions at wrist, humerus, and ulna, ugly bruising spread around the damage. Alexander needed a doctor; he needed one badly. But, first, he needed a sling. This limb flapping around was going to cause only more suffering. There was plenty to work with in the control tower, tools, tape, towels, etc. This place was meant to be occupied almost twenty-four seven and the men who had manned it hadn¡¯t cared for stairs so very much. It was hard to think of the statues as past tense humans, there they stood, so almost alive looking, so vivid.


    ¡°Ass. Gears. Get to it.¡± He spoke again, trying to spur himself to constructive behavior.


    It was like shoving a mule to get it to stop balking, mostly ineffective. Part of him just wasn¡¯t ready to accept this new reality. The throbbing ache of his body did what willpower couldn¡¯t, forcing him to break out of the useless stupor and get to work cutting a towel into the right shape for a sling. Slow going, with only one nonoptimal arm free to work on it. A good sharp box cutter was the only reason he ever managed.


    Finally, it was the moment of truth. Sucking a hissing breath in while he did, wading through the nausea inducing shocks of pain, he got his arm into the sling and tied securely to his chest.


    ¡°Ohhhh, fuuuuuck.¡± He moaned softly, once the task was done, which had left him in cold sweat, shivering like a rabbit.


    Five minutes he spent recovering from the task, the busted limb radiating pure awful into his spine. It faded, though, and left him strangely tired.


    Nobody ever told you how much debilitating pain took it out of you.


    Alexander scavenged the fridge, still cool despite its power loss, coming up with a tub of left over spaghetti that smelled incredible and a half dozen of those half-sized bottles of fruit juice. He inhaled everything, desperate for anything that would help him regain his strength.


    He needed to get home. The sudden, bone deep urge to go home assailed him, prompted him to leave the empty bottles where they were, despite a lifetime of training from his parents to clean up after himself. The phone on the wall was his target. It disappointed him, issuing nothing, no dial tone, no static, just silence.


    Welp, so much for getting help.


    ¡°Everything electrical is shot. It¡¯s totally dead.¡± Alexander realized.


    His plane had been almost completely mechanical, without reliance on electronic controls, since it was just a trainer. That was the only reason he¡¯d lived, it hadn¡¯t needed electronic assistance to manipulate the flaps and throttle, the controls being completely analogue. Whatever had knocked the piss out of him up there had cooked everything digital. That included the spark plugs in the engine.


    ¡°Electromagnetic pulse? Somebody set off a PINCH?¡± the young man wondered, looking again out at the surrounding forest.


    Smoke had stopped rising from their creator¡¯s pyres in the distance. There was only a low cloud cover, bringing in the rain promised by the cirrus clouds from yesterday. Heavy, gray, fat with water. It would blow in cold, just like it always did this time of year. October weather in Maine was nice, in his opinion. Not too many people shared that opinion, but they were allowed to be wrong.


    ¡°I can¡¯t walk out of here, not like this, not in that.¡± Alexander said, eventually accepting that the gray pall that approached the tower was a barrier he couldn¡¯t climb.


    He had a car, but, if the electronics were all fried, it wouldn¡¯t start. It wouldn¡¯t run. The onboard displays, transmission, power steering, computers, fuel injectors, all that shit was digital these days. None of them would work with the circuits subjected to whatever had shut down the control tower.


    Not much would, these days. Just the antiques that the car geeks had half assembled in their garages.


    ¡°Shit. I¡¯ll die in that if I try to walk it.¡± Alexander predicted.


    He would. Forty degrees was a pleasant temperature, almost shorts and t-shirt weather, really. But add a steady drizzle to it and exposure was waiting like a jaguar in the jungle. He could easily imagine being found dead of hypothermia just a few short miles down the road. His injuries on top of the weather made hiking back to town a pipe dream. Thirty miles, just right around, but it was effectively across water as far as he was concerned. If he were healthy, he could have done it in a single day, pushing himself to his limits. He was not healthy.


    ¡°Okay, plan B, sit tight, try not to burn too much energy, stay warm and dry. Whatever happened, it can¡¯t be everywhere, unless it was, like, a huge solar storm or something. I just gotta keep from making anything worse.¡± Gerifalte soothed himself.


    Logic was a boon in this kind of situation, a way to distract himself from raw injuries and the panic that wanted to well up every time he caught himself looking at the petrified people in the room with him. Solar storms didn¡¯t turn people to stone. He wasn¡¯t a nuclear engineer like his father, but the old man had made sure he knew that much. What turns a person into alabaster? Nothing, that¡¯s what. It didn¡¯t happen.


    The unavoidable thought that he was insane, or dead came again, unbidden. Insanity didn¡¯t run in his family. He didn¡¯t do drugs, not even weed. A record, of about any kind, got you barred from ever sitting behind the stick of an active-duty fighter. Alexander Gerifalte¡¯s life¡¯s purpose had been, since he could walk upright, to fly planes. Specifically, to fly the kind of planes that made other people not try to fly them with aggressive purpose. He had turned down many temptations that might have interfered with that goal, lest a moment¡¯s lapse in judgment cost him his dream. Discipline for a young man of seventeen was hard. Especially when the young ladies were involved.


    Sitting there in the tower, surrounded with the strange mix of completely normal and impossible, he reflected on the last few months. Life changing months, in many ways. A cancer diagnosis for his dad, chemotherapy, remission, great joy after deep fear. He had graduated high school a year early, before the diagnosis. His parents insisted on it.


    ¡°Public school was so you learned how to deal with shitheads, of which you will find many flavors in life. You¡¯ve got everything that place could ever teach you.¡± His mom told him seriously, when he had whined about staying his last year, with a relatively light schedule, just for fun, mostly.


    She¡¯d raised an eyebrow and smirked at him, making her case solidly by telling him ¡°And besides, you¡¯ll like the college girls more, they won¡¯t have their dads just down the street. You¡¯ve got my eyes, my build, your dad¡¯s color, and wit. You¡¯ll clean up, Little Falcon.¡±


    College girls, she said? He was far more pliable after that. Alexander Gerifalte had dreams and aspirations, but he also had a functional set of gonads that wanted other people to enjoy them as much as he did.


    ¡°Hear that? You¡¯re mine now, you little bastard.¡± His father had told him, in a rare use of profanity for the quiet man.


    So ended his high school career. Papa Gerifalte had distinct ideas about what a proper education looked like. They included more calculus than was healthy for any human. The carrot was flight school. Knew how to get his gears turning did the father unit. He could attend flight school four times a week, as accelerated a pace as could be managed through his mom¡¯s contacts with the old comrades that ran the school. But only if he put in a dedicated forty hours per week on his dad¡¯s ¡°Real Thing¡± coursework. Alexander liked a challenge, enjoyed the feeling of mastery no more than the struggle to get to it. His parents cultivated him like gardeners tending one of those flowers that only bloom once a decade, he didn¡¯t lack awareness that he was his parent¡¯s project. From his perspective, people with less interested parents were being hobbled in the race that life always would be.


    The pace of that old life accelerated drastically, especially once the chemo started. Cancer had shaken his father, had instilled in him the fear that he wouldn¡¯t be able to pass on whatever he could before the sickness and treatment dulled him too much to do it properly. Hence the aggressive schedule of lessons. Alexander shouldered the burden, turned into the wind, and soaked up as much as his father had to offer. There were several months where they both thought it was all the time they had left with each other. He got mornings, before the drugs dulled his dad¡¯s thoughts too much. His mom got the rest of the time, took her husband out for regular little ¡°vacations¡± where they didn¡¯t speak of what they did or discussed. She had resumed birth control though so Alexander could guess. No surprises meant reasons for being surprised.


    When the doctors declared remission, the now bald retired nuke cried in front of his family. One of the only times. The other being when Vivi, their black lab of fourteen years passed quietly one Saturday morning. Alexander got the okay from his senior flight instructor, standing frozen just ten feet away where he¡¯d stood, alive, some twenty hours ago, to try for his wings just a week later.


    And, now, here he sat in the dead control tower miles out into the lower Maine forest where the small airport sat in isolation, because nobody liked the sound of plane engines over their houses.


    Alexander sat on the couch trying not to aggravate his arm, either of them, and watched the rain. He listened to the steady hiss of the downpour on the roof, the only break in forest silence. At no time did he hear a single siren or see a single contrail of a passing plane above, when rare gaps in the clouds revealed clear blue above. That was beyond unusual. Toronto airport had a flight path that ran over his hometown for their flights between London. It was a busy patch of sky, there were always tiny silver dots streaking high over the cloud cover. The absence meant that nobody was flying.


    ¡°Whoooo boy, I might be boned.¡± The young man hypothesized.


    No flying said that whatever had happened to him had happened elsewhere. Many, many miles, of elsewhere. Maybe all of it. The whole planet.


    There would be bigger fish to fry than Alexander Gerifalte if that was so. There would even be the possibility that nobody even knew he was out here. Other than his folks, who would also be caught up in whatever madness had killed the tower. And whatever it was that had made him feel like he¡¯d gotten squeezed through a blender and reverse slurried too quickly to die. He hadn¡¯t forgotten about that; he just didn¡¯t like to think about it.


    A day passed, mostly in boredom, carefully suppressed panic, and extreme discomfort, just to sweeten the pot. On the second day, Alexander consumed the last of the food in the minifridge. He had two of the tiny plastic bottles of fruit juice left. On the third day, blessedly clear of rain clouds or any sign that a follow-up system was bearing precipitation, Alexander Gerifalte discovered that his arm was healed.


    Sort of. It hurt, but in the way that things hurt that haven¡¯t moved in too long. Not in the should have taken months to heal, if ever, kind of way that a break so severe should have done. The shoulder that had dislocated was, more or less, as good as new. His bruises, body wide, deep, and without sign that they had ever been, were gone, same as the road rash. Scrapes like those, through all the skin layers, should have left scars, and gnarly ones.


    That wasn¡¯t right, Alexander scrambled, with surprising alacrity to the bathroom and looked into the mirror. He lifted a grimy, ruined shirt and beheld himself. Skin untouched by blemish, even his mediterranean tan, courtesy of father unit¡¯s Spanish heritage was absent any indication it had ever been peeled by the cheese grater like surface of the asphalt. His black hair had even grown in just as it had been. No bruises on a face that had felt like it had been Mike Tyson¡¯s speed bag just a couple of days ago, his pronounced nose unbroken. Deep green eyes edged by a nearly golden brown, the gift of his mother, saw a body untouched by injury, if covered by the filthy evidence of it having existed once.


    He wasn¡¯t a doctor. But. He¡¯d broken bones before, courtesy of a short-lived hobby of skateboarding. They did not heal in seventy-two hours, without intervention of medical attention to set them properly, no less.


    ¡°Okay man. Something spooky¡¯s going on around here. It¡¯s time to bug the fuck out, get home, get the parental units, and run for the hills.¡± Alexander decided, escaping the image of himself in the bathroom mirror.


    A plan, that¡¯s what he needed. Something to calm a racing mind that was surrounded by impossible events. Something to focus on that wasn¡¯t biology doing what it couldn¡¯t do.


    First, clothes. His had gotten mostly shredded while he was careening across pavement.


    Alexander was a tall, narrow dude. Just a smidgen over six feet and a few inches, weighing a paltry hundred and sixty pounds. His adolescent body dysmorphia said unkind things such as ¡°You are a scarecrow with half as much stuffing as you need¡± to him. He despaired of putting on weight until Mama Gerifalte told him he had her build, and she hadn¡¯t filled out until relatively late. That was good news, his old man was many things, but he wasn¡¯t big on heavy lifting, running long distances, or hand eye coordination. It was like the man had packed all his metabolic energy into his uncanny brain or something. That left the gangly youth needing new clothes which none of the statues would provide that remotely fit. His trainer came closest though.


    With as much reverence as a grave robber could manage, Alexander undressed the statue of Victor. He took great care not to so much as chip the figure while he removed a flannel overshirt, a decently clean white cotton undershirt, rugged denim jeans, and boots that had to be discarded for being slightly too small. At least the wool socks were cozy.


    From one of the air traffic controllers Alexander obtained a nice down jacket, far too big in size, with sleeves slightly too short that would work, nevertheless. Almost as an afterthought, he detached the small nine-millimeter pistol held in its inside waste band holster from the other controller.


    The brat of two service members, although they both joked that the navy didn¡¯t really count, Alexander had his share of range time. Not to mention this was Maine, people didn¡¯t have so many hobbies around these parts, but they shot guns like people in Florida played golf: Straddling the line between casual and competitive. He¡¯d taken his first doe when he was eight, when the rock of a seven point six two rifle was enough to punch his shoulder aggressively through his jacket.


    Alexander was young, but he wasn¡¯t stupid. He knew the gun was more of a moral support, than anything else. A pistol like that wouldn¡¯t do a lot more than piss off a bull moose, the most dangerous thing that he would encounter in the Maine autumn. It wasn¡¯t nothing though, and he needed every boost to his spirits that he could get. Thirty miles wasn¡¯t far at all, not really. Thirty miles through heavily wooded terrain when you didn¡¯t know what kind of mad house waited for you, given that his entire civilization was built upon something that may, or may not, even exist right now. People were dangerous when they panicked. A bunch of people panicking was even more dangerous.


    There was no way to tell how things looked until he got there.


    A quick test, accompanied by a prayer that went unanswered, confirmed that his car was toast. Not even a click from the starter when he tried the key. He had to get to his backpack in the trunk by climbing in from the fold down seats in the back, the trunk being operated by a button on his key fob or dash that was as dead as the rest of the electronics. With no manual access, because Chevy didn¡¯t know what the hell they were doing and only police edition Impalas had cylinder locks on their trunks, for reasons that defied anything approaching logic, he climbed into the trunk and pulled his school bag out from the cold, dark of the trunk.


    Immediately, he upended the pack to pour its contents into the back seat, considering all of the notebooks and educational supplies there mostly useless at the moment. The interior of the car was dim, slightly, with the sun at midmorning. He climbed out of the car to better assess what he had to work with.


    When he turned around, five wolves that had been extinct from this region for a hundred years stood growling at him. They were massive, grey, brown, and black furred things, yellow green eyes and heads slung low, menacing. A low growl issued from the front most wolf, and Alexander decided he was in trouble.


    Alexander slung the pack in their direction before launching himself back into the cab of the vehicle, just in time to slam the door shut against the animals¡¯ rush.


    Furred bodies slammed against the vehicle with surprising force, and claws immediately began to screech against the exterior. Vicious growling told the young man that these wolves weren¡¯t fucking around, they meant to eat him. A snarling muzzle in the glass, eyes lit by bestial cunning, put the fear into him, about a half second before the wolf slammed its head through the safety glass of the driver side window and started climbing in after him.


    As fast as he could, he dove between the front seats to the back, reaching for his waist.


    Fumbling with the pistol, Alexander screamed when the shoe he had stuffed against the canine body was seized in a vice grip, teeth popping through the false leather easily. He pulled the gun in line with the animal and yelled when the trigger didn¡¯t pull, his weight jerking roughly because the creature was shaking its head back and forth, trying to mangle his foot, only stopped by the awkwardness of being half in the car and straddling the console.


    ¡°Fucking fucking fuck! Fuck!¡± his screams sounded high, and he finally remembered to turn off the safety.


    He racked the slide, desperate to save his leg, watched the already chambered round, because of course the controller had carried with one in the pipe, fly off to the side, disappearing into the floorboard and recently poured clutter.


    Five loud blasts as he cycled the trigger as fast as he could stopped the wolf, along with the lead that they discharged. Blood blossomed against the windshield and the beast howled briefly before it stilled abruptly. Its partners did not stop their aggression. Instead, they tried to come in through the same window as their leader. He put the smoking gun in line with the first head that came through and put one into the head. It dropped immediately. A third came through and, this time, his shot was high, into the roof of the car. Two more rounds into the head and neck killed the wolf. The fourth was only delayed because it had to wait for its companion to fall out of the window, and then it was coming. This one learned, it jumped through the window entirely, and was almost on top of him, all teeth and fury before he even realized what had happened.


    Alexander kicked out again, levering the incredibly strong animal away with his legs and aimed between them, sending five more shots into the beast center mass, which yelped but didn¡¯t stop trying to maul him for almost half a minute. The growling faded away, along with the life of the beast.


    That left Alexander holding a shaking handgun, barrel smoking, with the slide locked back on an empty chamber showing an empty magazine and one more huge wolf outside the car, which raised up an unearthly howl. He was a prophet, in that moment. Gerifalte knew the last wolf was coming in after him and he scrambled to find the first bullet he¡¯d ejected. Hands shaking with terror he scrabbled clumsily, found the shine of brass about the time the last of the wolves sailed through the window and promptly got stuck on the two corpses of its brethren, which were clogging the front seats. That was most of the reason why it didn¡¯t tear him apart within a couple of seconds.


    Time enough to put the last of the rounds on his person into the chamber and work the slide. Not time enough to keep the wolf from biting his calf and starting that shake, jerking his leg with agonizing power as it tried to shred his limb.


    Screaming, Alexander shot the wolf in the neck. It didn¡¯t stop shaking him. He had to kill it, he was bleeding already from the ripped leg and the monster grabbed him again, higher up near his knee.


    Desperation fueled his next act, and he grabbed one of the pencils he¡¯d shaken free of his pack while searching it and slammed it home through a baleful eye, working the shiv back and forth as hard as he could, which broke the slender stick off in his hand. But it made the wolf flinch back, made it release his leg, which was bleeding badly through the denim, and Alexander clawed the door open, rolling out of the car, the beast slavering on his heels.


    Teeth snapped just behind his good leg, and the young man scrambled to his feet, trying not to put too much weight on the bitten leg, in time to see furred head and shoulders emerge from the car.


    Without a thought he charged the door and slammed it with all his strength, striking the animal behind its head with the door, pulling a sharp yelp when he did. Courage inspired by terror and certain death made him take the door in hand and start slamming it closed screaming all the while in feral rage, beating, pounding, and praying that the wolf would succumb before he exhausted his strength. He didn¡¯t realize he was slamming the door against a still form for at least a minute.


    Just as abruptly as it started, it was over. Five wolves, dead. Alexander Gerifalte alive. With a leg that was on fire and sheeting blood down into his shoe. He dropped to the ground, heart racing. The sling that he¡¯d left around his neck after changing became a tourniquet, wrenched tightly just above the knee to slow the loss of vital fluids. He pulled the pant leg up, ignoring the sharp pain when it parted from the wounds. Fucking fuck. His left leg was chewed pretty good.


    Shock, for the second time in recent memory was starting to set in.


    ¡°Gods above, below, and in between, why!?¡± He shouted at callous skies, before he limped back to the brick haven of the control tower.


    There were towels there, there was a first aid kit, which he had planned on taking with him, which was why he was getting his backpack out of the car when the wolves ambushed him. Wolves. In south central Maine? Not in a century. How?


    Thoughts were disorganized now, coming almost randomly. He focused on the only thing that mattered, limping to the first aid kit and trying to keep his blood inside him. One legged hopping up the three flights of stairs saw him stumbling through the door into the room with the stripped statues, each a David of impeccable capture of human form, in all its imperfection.


    He ripped the red box with a white cross off the while and fumbled it open, hands shaking badly now. Gauze, he needed that. Elastic wrap, that too. Quick clot, he needed the fucking quick clot, why are there so many fucking alcohol wipes, he needed the godsdamned THERE!


    Hurried, frantic ripping of the packet scattered the white powder into the lacerations tracing his lower leg. More pain when he then stuffed the wounds with gauze and then still more to wrap them tightly binding the wounds far more tightly than was good for him. He would deal with that later, when he wasn¡¯t hemorrhaging.


    Finally, flow staunched, lying propped against the couch, first aid kit in shambles around him, Alexander Gerifalte was able to take stock.


    ¡°I should have just pushed the stick down and died the fast way.¡± He summarized.

 Chapter 2: Sunrise Over Neverland

    Not long after controlling the trauma, Alexander lost consciousness and didn¡¯t wake until nearly noon. He was ravenously thirsty, which wasn¡¯t a good sign with blood loss, or so he¡¯d read. He was also just the normal kind of ravenous, which was completely normal in a seventeen-year-old boy. Too bad there wasn¡¯t any food. Or was there?


    ¡°I could eat those goddamned wolves, is what I could do.¡± He said to the control room.


    Would serve them right, being served like fresh dog sashimi. Maybe a little light roasting over a fire. Assuming he could somehow get a fire going. What did he know about quote unquote survival? Just what you might pick up from watching ¡°Survival Bros: Here¡¯s How to Bush Hippie¡±. It was a favorite bit of televised nonsense, not meant to be taken seriously. But they always made a fire, and, the first season, they¡¯d done it a different way every episode.


    Alexander was going to cheat. There was a Bic lighter on the desk of the control room. He had notebooks that were dry in his car. Yep, wolf was back on the menu boys.


    Could he get out there to them on his leg? Careful testing said, Yes, You Just Won¡¯t Like It.


    He didn¡¯t like much of anything right then, did Alexander Gerifalte. Thusly armed with a growing hate for every minute of life since his plane fell from the sky, he descended, slowly, painfully, the stairs of the tower to find the wolf corpses right where he¡¯d left them.


    They were big motherfuckers. The ones that had gotten hold of him had shaken him like a rabbit. Maine wasn¡¯t wolf country. Hadn¡¯t been for a long time. Maine had never been wolf country for the likes of the massive canids sprawled cold on the concrete parking lot.


    He got to work on the first wolf carcass, giving it the same treatment as tag in the rut. All good boys in Mainerland carried a pocket knife, it was standard operating procedure, just like having snow tires on your car in the winter, a backup generator at home, and a snowmobile for going uptacamp. Unless you were one of the sissies who lived Downeast, or, gods forbid, a flatlander. Alexander was in an awkward position, half seated, keeping the injured leg out straight to avoid putting any pressure on it. Speaking of pressure, he was losing feeling in his foot and would have to go easier on the wrap when he changed out bandages.


    Later. He focused on slitting the belly of the monster sized wolf. It parted with more difficulty than he expected, but a sharp blade dealt with the task. Guts? Check. He pulled them out. Carved the diaphragm away from the body cavity and opened up the thoracic, reaching in to join guts with heart and lungs in a pile.


    From there, it was just patient knife work, parting the hide from the limbs and torso. He got the whole thing off relatively without damage, shocked by the weight of just the dense furred skin. Alexander set aside the first of the pelts, probably the best one he would get: It was from the wolf he¡¯d shot cleanly through the temple.


    The rest would be worse, for having more holes in them. Not that he was going to be selling them or anything, he was mostly skinning the creatures out of habit.


    With the first corpse cleaned it was another few minutes of careful cutting to quarter the canine. Alexander wasn¡¯t really a pets kind of person. He didn¡¯t like having to take care of things, it was aggravating. He was more of a houseplants sort, they stayed where you put them and, mostly, didn¡¯t do things like shit in the house when you had to stay at school a little later than usual. Even so, he didn¡¯t enjoy killing things, not just for the act.


    A clean hunt was a different matter, especially when you did it on a slightly more even playing field, stalking on the ground, rather than sitting in a blind or stand. His mother wouldn¡¯t be seen in public with a man who hunted from a blind and she made sure everybody in the house knew it.


    Mostly these idle thoughts were born of a dedicated mental effort to avoid asking dangerous questions that might send him into a panic. Questions like: What was happening to his parents, if neither of them had been able to get out here? What had caused his blackout? How did bones knit in three days without causing the arm to be a crippled mess? Where did these fucking huge ass wolves come from?


    Fire was a welcome change, crackling happily on the provided notebook along with some scrap plywood he knew about in one of the hangers. You could just always use plywood around, and that was a fact. Wolf meat, it turns out, cooked up about like you¡¯d expect: Stringy, lean, and tasting like absolute shit. It was sustenance though and Alexander ate until he was full, with many a chug from the refilled water bottles he¡¯d toted down with him. The airport had its own water tower, a much smaller affair than that of the one on down toward town. It wouldn¡¯t last forever but, for now, it was saving his ass. Without that water, he¡¯d be freaking out for real.


    The gun he¡¯d taken with him had served its purpose, but that was over now. There were no more bullets. He¡¯d used every last one dispatching these animals. Gods that was a close call.


    Shivering set up in him at the image of the slavering maw chewing him, the memory of his form being pulled and dragged to and fro in the jaws of the carnivores.


    Full now, and with no plans on going anywhere until his leg was healed, Alexander went upstairs to change the bandage. That started with removing the old one, not fun, inspecting the wound, dirty and ragged, crying like a little bitch when he had to clean it with alcohol swabs, and then re-bandaging it. Not so tightly this time, or he¡¯d cause himself more problems when his foot fell off from necrosis due to having the blood cut off too long.


    Back to the carcasses. It took another three hours of cutting to dress and dehide the wolves. He had, for his effort, five pelts that would have gotten a gold star at wherever you went to buy hides these days. He knew some psychos still trapped fur up in these mountains but he didn¡¯t know where they sent them. For now, they were used to trap smoke from some of the nearby cut birch trees that he was intent on using to smoke enough wolf meat to survive for as long as it took for his leg to heal and to hike in to town. Slow going, hopping around on one leg. It went faster after he was able to cut a branch down to use as a shitty crutch, but still slow. Not that it mattered, the sun was on its way down now and he didn¡¯t have anything better to do at the moment.


    It was a little hard to believe. A few days ago, he¡¯d have sworn he should die of internal injuries or something. Then, he was almost totally healthy again. Now, he was working on one leg, the other one a bit of a gnawed mess. All with so little time between. He stayed out with the smoking meat until well after dark, managing the initial heat was critical to getting it cured out, forming the barrier of hardened meat that would keep the interior from going rancid. When the moon rose, a waning silver thing, oft covered by October clouds, he levered himself up on his crutch and returned to the refuge.


    And on the third day¡­Alexander Gerifalte realized that his mauled leg was completely healed. He also realized that there was something not quite right about the world. When you have nothing better to do than watch, you do that watching with particular enthusiasm. Alexander had watched three sunrises now and, each one brought with it a pulse that he had never experienced, a wave of renewal that rang his being like a bell.


    He was surprised that he hadn¡¯t noticed it on previous days. Then again, he¡¯d not been awake to feel the flush of being made new that passed through him swiftly as a cloud shadow fleeing the sun¡¯s chasing light.


    When the bandage pulled free from the unscarred skin below, he was certain that fuckery abounded. Wounds didn¡¯t heal like that. There was scarring, there was weakness, not¡­wholeness. Not so soon or without intense rehabilitation. The same applied to his right arm¡¯s now completely hale bones. Something happened when the sun rose that refreshed the body and mind. It could be felt, if you happened to be looking at the horizon when the first rays of Sol broke from behind the Earth.


    ¡°Captain, we are at Spook factor five. Advise caution, we don¡¯t know how much more the ship can take.¡± Alexander narrated to the three statues that had once been people he¡¯d known at least in passing.


    The wolves were completely preserved, and, since he didn¡¯t have much in the way of options, passing edible. Vitamin deficiencies were probably still a thing, but who knew? Whatever the case, the would be pilot was thoroughly done with this three-story brick tower. He needed with every nerve in his body to get the hell out of here and get back to town. He had to get back to his folks, to let them know that he hadn¡¯t died when his plane fell out of the sky. If he could just get back home, they could figure things out. Whatever had happened, his old man would know and his mom would take care of things. It was on him to get back though.


    Time to be off, again. But this time was different! No gun, though he now had a somewhat bitching spear. Duct tape a Bowie knife that, in other circumstances, he would have asked its owner if they were compensating for a little something-something to a length of quarter inch steel pipe and you had yourself insurance against anything that liked having all of itself on the inside. He didn¡¯t think it would have stopped him being kibble for the wolves, but, since he was now without a firearm, it was a solid deterrence.


    His clothes were reinforced by wrappings of wolf hide.


    Alexander decided that, after having his trousers ripped apart, a little extra durability in his clothes might come in handy. Some time with a suture needle and silk thread had the thighs, calves and knees of his pants double layered with wolf skin, presenting the fur outward. It made his legs look ridiculously puffy, but it was warm and might scare off anything that thought the wolves were as bad news as he did. It worked so well he¡¯d done the same to the sleeves of his pullover jacket, as well as the hood and back. So, what if he looked like a scroungy Halloween costume of a werewolf?


    The backpack now carried a first aid kit, full bottles of water, some copper wire rolls, because you never knew, duct tape, a lighter, an empty gun, and some notebooks, those that hadn¡¯t been soaked in wolf blood. Or his blood, for that matter. In addition to those, wolf claws and fangs were in a trash bag in the bottom of the pack. Maybe someone who knew about wolves could use those to tell where these had come from.


    Lastly, he also had rolled up wolf hides strapped under his pack, having only used the worst of the shot-up animal skins to touch up his clothes. They were heavy, but it felt wrong to leave them behind. Besides, they could be used at night to keep him off the ground. He¡¯d have to tan them soon though, cool or not, unpreserved hides would start to rot.


    ¡°Good bye Victor, guys. I don¡¯t know what happened to do that to you, but I hope you didn¡¯t suffer.¡± Alexander intoned, before turning his back on the control room.


    It was time to get out of here.


    Not quite frost overnight but distinct chill marked the sunrise. Alexander was marching away from the airport with determined strides. If he kept a good pace, he¡¯d reach town today.


    Gravel crunched under his boots to a metronome, a steady beat of footfalls, each bringing the cautious young man closer to home. He ate on the move, from a trash bag belt pouch, rather than lose time by stopping. As the miles vanished behind him, he noticed that his breath came easily, in spite of the weight of hides strapped to his pack. Of course, this was a mostly downhill stretch, so that always helped. Not as much as an uninitiated hill-climber thought though. Downhill was damned near as bad as up when you did enough of it. The muscles it worked were different from the uphill portion and, mostly, weaker than the glutes.


    Still and all, Alexander had recently been hurt badly enough to require hospitalization, twice, and here he was trudging along without a problem. That was not the rules as he¡¯d grown up with them.


    By rights, he ought to be half crippled.


    The previously mangled leg didn¡¯t feel crippled. Didn¡¯t feel anything less than perfect. Three days. Was there now a rule that people above a certain age turned to stone, and those below were restored to perfect health every three days? Alexander turned aside from that notion, it was too fanciful, and touched something a that he wasn¡¯t ready to think about, a poisonous thing his heart wouldn¡¯t contemplate.


    ¡°Keep your head out of the clouds, Little Falcon, or you¡¯re going to get eaten by wolves.¡± Alexander warned himself, using the term he hated when his mother used.


    He resumed the attempts to be wary, even while he turned over the hated nickname in his head.


    It was a play on his father¡¯s last name. Gerifalte meant gyrfalcon. He thought it sounded incredibly lame to be given a pet name. It was one of the few things his mother did that was silly for the sake of silly though, so he never complained about it.


    With an eye on the forest, the gnarled brown tree trunks of tall pines dominated the view around him, scattered maples as red as their names suggested lent autumn brilliant color, white paper birch leaves mostly yellow and brown their mottled trunks interspersed, and some standing naked this time of year already, and, lastly, the deep green red cedar, though not as much of that as up higher on the mountain. Mixed together, the Maine forestland was normally a joy. Right now, not so much, those woods were dark and deep. He kept his attention on the gravel road and surroundings while he marched.


    Casual meanness to family was one of those things you didn¡¯t do, his mind cycled back, as it did. Casual meanness to anybody, really. His folks looked down on introducing more cruelty into the world than it already had. They said that once, when they sat him down and explained why he¡¯d gotten a pat on the bottom and a time out, which had seemed like overkill to young him, for telling them a lady was bald out loud.


    She had been bald, and he hadn¡¯t intended any harm, but he hadn¡¯t considered how the woman might feel about hearing some little twerp point out something that pained her in public and it didn¡¯t take his parents any time to set him aside and make sure that he understood How Things Worked.


    He did understand, now, and tried to avoid that kind of thing.


    Not that they were hippies against violence or anything, both of them had served in the navy, and they made sure that he made use of very specific applications of cruelty, as his father had called it, when they boxed or shot guns. Very specific, and intentionally applied cruelty was fine. Just not for no reason or beyond need to be safe and healthy.


    Walking for miles and miles gave you time to think. So did trying not to think about certain thoughts, who remained unvoiced, even to himself.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    It wasn¡¯t hard to keep looking around while he marched, the forest was a thing to behold this time of year, red and yellow abounding around the mix of evergreen. The mountains were even more amazing, rearing up as they did behind him. He was headed down the mountain, into the foothills where his tiny little hometown lived. It sat nestled between a couple of low ridges though, you almost wouldn¡¯t know it was there if the road didn¡¯t take you through on the way to elsewhere. That was how a lot of Maine was, and he, for one, was all about it.


    Such were his thoughts until he came around a bend, maybe eight hours into his hike, and, just next to one of a thousand tiny streams and watersheds that made their way off the mountain, was an Elk. A big one. With a spread of dagger like tines, the rack of horns was wider than he was tall. That elk was a problem, mostly because, like wolves, Elk hadn¡¯t been seen around here in over a century, since the late eighteen hundreds or so. They were being reintroduced elsewhere, and there were a couple of tourist trap preserves scattered about, but those were fenced in, carefully reared for squeezing the flatlanders of their hard-earned rupees. This one here was big, wild, and not where he belonged.


    The Elk bugled at him, an intensely loud sound.


    Alexander had never tried hunting an Elk. He¡¯d never tried hunting a moose either, mostly for the same reason as he wouldn¡¯t have considered the Elk: they were fucking huge. Why kill an animal so large you couldn¡¯t pack it out without a side by side and at least two people helping to quarter it?


    This one here that was turning toward him was a brute. Ten feet head to haunches, seven feet to the shoulder, it was more like a horse than any Elk he¡¯d ever seen. Brown pelt slightly mottled by gray, and the head of the animal lowered aggressively presenting a wall of spikes toward him.


    ¡°Uh oh.¡± Alexander grunted, lamely, carefully retreating backward.


    Slowly, very non threateningly, he back away from the creature. Every step backward was accompanied by a step forward from the Elk, waving its antlers side to side.


    ¡°Peace is an option, you horny bastard you.¡± Alexander said, shakily, trying to muster as much calm as he could.


    ¡°I¡¯ll just go around. I¡¯ll go waaaaay around. You can just go back to doing Elk shit, I promise. I won¡¯t even tell any of the local hicks you¡¯re out here. See? I can be reasonable, there¡¯s no need for -AAGH!¡±


    The Elk brushed a foreleg across the litter just off the road and charged him. Fast.


    Adrenaline soaked, the young man threw his pack off and followed after it with his body, leaping aside from the charging animal, the only saving grace being that it couldn¡¯t see with its head down. He got to his feet about the time the beast stopped its rush and turned, waving those horns at him.


    Hands suddenly sweaty gripped the spear. A foot of knife duct taped to a piece of steel pipe. He was a dead man if he fought it.


    Plan revised on the fly, Alexander grabbed his pack and ran, looking over a shoulder to see if the bull followed him. It pawed the earth again, throwing gravel this time, and almost fell when it launched itself forward. That was one hell of an almost.


    The young man made it about ten meters before the sound of the charging bull made him leap aside again. He jabbed the spear into the side of the bull as it passed, and nearly had the spear torn from his grasp by the sheer mass of the animal. As it was, he dropped it and the flailing, kicking leg of the animal launched the spear into the wood line, and he followed as fast as his pumping legs could go, breathing loudly. He picked up the spear and heard another piercingly loud whistle as the bull bugled again at him. The animal lowered its head and started forward, this time slowly, like it was going to walk him down.


    There was only one thing to do, take to the trees!


    Hand over hand, he scrambled desperately up the limbs of the closest pine that had limbs to climb, thankful that they were on the side of the road, where enough light got in for big old pines to still have limbs. Climbing, reaching and pulling, and throwing himself upward, he heard a crash of wood and horn. He looked down, saw the bull thrashing the limbs of the tree he had taken to for safety, as if it wanted to cut the trunk down to get to him.


    ¡°What the fuck is wrong with you? !¡± Alexander screamed at the Elk.


    Were they supposed to be this aggressive? He¡¯d never heard of it. But he didn¡¯t know. Why would he know? The threshing horns carried on, tearing large chunks of bark away.


    Could he throw the spear and kill it? No, no way, never. It wouldn¡¯t even notice. If he stayed still, maybe it would go away.


    Sunset observed the waiting game. Sunrise, after an eternity of darkness, announced that the game was still on, the Elk pacing around the bole of the tree. Alexander was exhausted. It turned out, you could sleep in a tree. For, perhaps, fifteen seconds at a time. He¡¯d gone in and out for hours. Now he found, in the predawn twilight, that it was for nothing. The Elk was still there, circling like a shark.


    Alexander Gerifalte had had just about enough of this shit. Carefully, leaving the pack hooked on a sturdy branch above, he lowered himself down branch by branch. This Elk was going to pay.


    Hours of being laid up in the control tower, looking at corpses with extra steps, pain most days for a week now, exhaustion, fear, nameless worry, and flickering hope that salvation lie at the end of this road took over. Alexander was pissed.


    He got down to about twice as high as where the bull¡¯s horns could reach, the animal still making its circuit around the tree and readied the spear. This was all or nothing, no second chances, no redo¡¯s. Two hands gripped the spear tightly and he begged all the gods above, below, and in between for luck, as he watched, calculating, before dropping fifteen feet down, riding a spear like a Pogo stick. He hit without a great deal of force, the animal was tall, but its head was down and the Bowie knife spear point drove through the top of its skull, punching through brains.


    Alexander landed in a heap on top of the bull Elk, damned near goring himself on those widespread tines as he fell. The smooth steel of the spear pulled free of his hands, his grip insufficient to hang on and the metal too smooth to hold. His legs folded under him and he rolled awkwardly away, not at all smoothly like the movies showed. More a collapse than a roll, really. But his gambit paid.


    Panting, in spite of the lack of exertion, just sheer excitement and terror, he saw his work. A folded corpse, over a thousand pounds of muscle and aggression. Antlers propping up a harpooned head gracelessly. The Elk was dead. Alexander was alive. That was all that mattered.


    Giggling senselessly, he hurled insults at the bull. All the way up the tree to retrieve his pack, and all the way down he mercilessly delivered scathing commentary on the foul stench of the animal, its clumsiness, the likely retardation of its offspring, anything, and everything. There was a decent chance he was starting to crack under pressure.


    ¡°You dead fuck! I¡¯m not even going to skin you, that¡¯s what I think of you!¡± the sleep deprived and unstable adolescent yelled at the corpse, ¡°I¡¯m gonna peel those horns off though, gonna put¡¯em on some wall somewhere, just like the rednecks. You¡¯ll be my coat rack for ten generations of Gerifalte, you hear me you smelly bastard? !¡±


    And, pulling his spear free and using a big rock, he did just that, smashing the antlers off the bull elk to tie to his pack.


    It wasn¡¯t a reasonable thing to do, but he was exiting reasonable territory at escape velocity. Everybody had their limits, and he was at his.


    Nearly ten hours later, stumbling along in a sleep deprived haze, Alexander Gerifalte made sight of the town. It was¡­in shambles. Fires had started and burned themselves out, taking a few houses, but, fortunately, stopped from spreading by the heavy rain. Cars were strewn about in the middle of the streets, as if their drivers had simply stopped controlling them. Many were crashed into the sides of buildings or folded around trees off the sides of the road. There was no sound, no lights on.


    Just like the tower, he saw nobody moving.


    ¡°Oh fuck, this can¡¯t be happening.¡± Alexander whispered.


    Was he the only one left? No, no, no, that couldn¡¯t be true. Whatever happened there, it happened here too. He had to get home.


    Home was a lovely two-story cottage built sometime in the early fifties. Arched windows, high peaked roof, doors with curtains and a tiny fenced in back yard, it was a cozy place. It was hope. And, now that he stood in front of it, Alexander felt despair. He¡¯d yelled as soon as he¡¯d come to the mailbox. He¡¯d seen no one the entire way through the town. No one but the statues. Here, like they¡¯d been up in the control tower, there was no sign of humanity other than those statues, frozen while they¡¯d gone about their lives.


    Dread filled his stomach. He didn¡¯t want to go in. He had to go in. Dark was falling, he was out of water, his feet were killing him from the miles of walking, and he was reaching the end of his tether, even the strength of youth failing before the exertion and lack of sleep. He dropped the pack, the bound antlers, and the hides to the ground. His mom would throw a fit if he brought that smelly stuff inside.


    Carefully, Alexander opened the door to the only home he¡¯d ever known. He walked into the big open kitchen, its gas stove still lit, blue flame dancing. His mother stood, like she had so often, with an apron on, her smiling face turned toward the upstairs master where she was about to tell her husband to come down for lunch. Pale stone, frozen in time. The spear hit the floor and bounced loudly, dropped from numb fingers. Tears fell now, and he didn¡¯t try to stop them. He had to know. He walked by, choking out a sobbed, ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± And dragged himself up the stairs.


    Down the hall, past his room, he opened the cracked door and found the statue that had been his father sitting at his desk, tools still gripped in alabaster fingers delicately, the remains of a gutted laptop in front of him. He was looking down towards the kitchen, gently grinning as he did when he knew he was teasing his wife.


    Alexander fell to his knees now, weeping silently. The dread thought he¡¯d fought, avoiding it to prevent ever giving it life had found its way into reality, nevertheless. The curse, whatever it was, had hit his home, leaving none alive. His parents were gone. His friends were gone. Classmates, teachers, neighbors, there was nothing left except the shell of his old life. He stayed there for a span of time.


    The next part wasn¡¯t really conscious. For reasons he didn¡¯t really understand, the last living Gerifalte dragged his mother¡¯s statue upstairs, where it could be with his father¡¯s. They had loved each other, dearly, passionately. It was the least their son could do for them to let them be together. After that, he turned off the lit gas stove and broke into the neighbor¡¯s house, unwilling to stay inside the place that held memories that felt like hot knives in him now.


    Fortunately, none of them had been home when the curse landed. He was thinking of it as a curse because his mind had no framework with which to describe every living human he¡¯d ever known being turned to stone. Whatever the case, there were no Davids to deal with inside the place, no memories to haunt him when he locked a bedroom door and collapsed in exhaustion. He fell asleep, numb inside, with a promise of grief to welcome him back to waking.


    It was a promise kept.


    Alexander sobbed quietly for an hour on waking, and, when the tears ran out, he was left raw and filled with hatred for everything on this planet. Something had taken everything he had ever loved from him. Hate causes transcendental change to a person¡¯s mind, much as love does. You do things out of hatred that seem insane, just like you do for love. Only, instead of sacrificing everything to preserve someone, you do it to destroy something. In his case, Alexander didn¡¯t know what it was he was supposed to destroy, only that, when he found it, he would bend his life towards ending it.


    Toward that end, the recently bereaved young man began searching the town for clues, hints, anything that might tell him what had caused the nightmare.


    That was how he came upon the goblins. Short, gangly, child sized creatures with warty gray skin and bulbous yellow eyes, slitted like a cat¡¯s. The miniature hominids that looked like they were starvation victims had two rows of shark-like teeth and made sounds like howler monkeys combined with a hyena¡¯s laugh. They turned to look at him, scuttling alien things desecrating his homeland, picking through a set of overturned statues that had shattered, clambering over them to find shiny bits to stuff into their crude loin cloth pouches.


    Alexander raged.


    The goblins weren¡¯t real, just like he wasn¡¯t real. Whatever was real was stone now. Killing things that weren¡¯t real didn¡¯t count, so kill them he did. Lashing blows of steel crushed skulls, knife blade spear stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed. Bone knives tried to cut into the leather sewn into his pants and failed, rejected by the hide. Jabbing spears driven by monsters about the size of eight-year-old children caught on rugged clothes and turned or tangled, unable to withstand his mindless aggression. He received small wounds that were inconsequential and, in exchange, slaughtered ten of the little monsters in a wrathful fury that culminated in slamming the broken off knife, having snapped when run through a goblinoid chest into the concrete below, repeatedly against a shark toothed maw until it was a pulped ruin.


    His shriek of anguish rolled out across the place that had been home so recently.


    Slowly, it was all coming together now, the small hints. Huge wolves where there were no wolves. An insane Elk that circled a tree for an entire night with murderous intent. Little monsters prowling about. The rising sun, that, every third day granted a healing light. None of it was real.


    Alexander was in some kind of hell shaped like his old reality. He must have slipped through to it when that mind tearing pain tore him apart. His world was gone, and all that was left was insanity. The only rational response to insanity like this was to embrace it. Breathe it in, nice and deep. And return the favor. Alexander Gerifalte was going to make this hellscape pay for bringing him here, and that was all there was for it. Starting with any more of those little grey monsters he could find.


    He went back inside the place that had been home and opened the gun case. The simple, functional, no-frills handgun fit nicely in his palm, and the four magazines slipped easily into his pants pockets. The long-barreled bolt gun, made longer with the suppressor screwed onto it, because his father had forgotten to take it off, and Alexander had been too lazy to clean it that afternoon, was a comfortable weight on its sling.


    Only two five round magazines for that, but it was a hunting rifle and Alexander was going hunting. For nightmares.


    A fact that had once amused him was that gyrfalcons were hunting birds. Prized by falconers for their grace and power in the air, they pursued their targets from behind, instead of swooping like most falcons. A little falcon he might be. But a falcon nevertheless. He patted the box of rifle shells in his coat pocket comfortingly as he closed the door softly behind him.


    It was just past noon, when he strode off down familiar streets, made unfamiliar by the absence of familiar people.


    There were no goblins left in the town when the sun rose the next morning. He¡¯d shot close to forty of the things, including a great big one, tall as him, if beefier, with a huge bone spiked club and a smaller one, a head shorter than him, with a feathered staff that had to be female with its almost comically bulging breasts and pregnant swollen stomach. A grotesque caricature of humanity.


    They were stupid creatures. Almost all of them had charged him in a straight line, a direct path that was easy to intercept with bullets. The time of year was his ally, the cool night caused the monsters to huddle in clusters, shivering in the late October air. A high moon with no cloud cover bathed everything in silver light, including the bunches of monsters. Easy targets. They didn¡¯t seem to know about fire, whatever they were, the stupid little unreal things.


    Stupid, but unexpectedly tough for creatures their size. The large one had taken three of the big rifle rounds to put down, two center mass, one in the head while it tried to crawl toward him. He¡¯d dropped the feather bearing staff carrying female with six nine-millimeter slugs through its chest, ignoring the spitting yowls it made when he killed the big one.


    He didn¡¯t know what exactly motivated him, other than spite, to impale the creatures on sharpened stakes and mount them at the ¡°Welcome¡± sign by the road but it seemed appropriate.


    If any other nightmares decided they wanted to come to this simulacrum of his home, they would know what waited for them.


    That morning, in silence, he ate canned food, grateful that people around here had a kind of lingering mistrust regarding electrical appliances.


    Nearly everybody used gas to cook and heat. It was a reasonable suspicion when it happened that it could snow two feet over night, wet, heavy stuff that dropped power lines with some frequency. The rugged winterized culture of his hometown meant Alexander could probably survive the coming cold easily. Plenty of places had wood stoves, he could stay in those places overnight. He could cook sparingly using the gas, saving the precious resource for when it was necessary.


    As far as food? Canned food would last for years and the grocery was full of it. There were freezers all over the place. Even if they weren¡¯t powered, the good ones would seal and stay cold for a long, long time. There were things he could do to extend their duration too, such as filling a few of them with ice alongside their meat. If he got them good and full of meat with ice on top, they should stay fairly well frozen until the winter temperatures made freezers a non-issue. After that? He would have to worry about after thats at a later time.


    There might not even be a later time. Who knew what was possible when the world wasn¡¯t even real anymore?

 Chapter 3: Mad World

    It took Alexander the better part of a week to come to terms with losing every single person he¡¯d ever known and the two people he¡¯d loved. He hadn¡¯t been inside his old home since retrieving the guns and ammunition with which he¡¯d purged the little monsters he thought of as goblins. The rage and grief that had driven him to massacre the creatures faded, now replaced by a dull listlessness, characterized by long hours spent staring at the water that ran from a large creek, through a nice little park with a rustic stone bridge in the middle of it.


    He wondered the town, cataloging all the frozen humans he¡¯d known. Most of the statues showed a people that were completely absent any indication that they¡¯d realized what happened to them. Whatever petrified them had happened so quickly that they still wore expressions of prosaic small-town folk going about their lives in peace.


    The schools, full of children, were the worst.


    Classrooms full of kids petrified looking towards an adult in mid-explanation made for an intensely sad sight. When he got tired of torturing himself for surviving, he scavenged supplies, stocking the small house he¡¯d selected as his dwelling before, sure as salmon returned to their home river to spawn, he was drawn back to the little creek, where he watched the running water burble along its path.


    Slowly, the sharpest edges of the negative emotions were wore down, replaced by acceptance. Five days after returning to his home he¡¯d, mostly, made peace with his being completely alone in a reality that probably wasn¡¯t the one he¡¯d known before his plane went down.


    There was still some niggling feeling that he was insane. He still wasn¡¯t totally convinced that any of this was real. A magical healing dawn on a seventy-two-hour timer was without any logic. The little monsters were another added wrinkle, they were flat out nothing that existed in anything but fantasy.


    Or myth.


    There were several bits of folklore that conjured murderous little beasties that had a penchant for murdering wayward travelers, children, and the like. Redcaps. Boggards. Goblins. Pucks. The unseelie. Tales that almost universally painted a rather grim picture of the nature of these critters.


    Alexander was thinking that maybe the Brother¡¯s Grimm were more prophets than story tellers.


    The miniature shark-mouthed bastards hadn¡¯t turned everyone to stone though, that had been something else. But what? He didn¡¯t know. He was fairly certain he never would. Especially not if he died when the Maine winter settled over this tiny, remote, town.


    The good news was, he was perfectly healthy in body, if not mind. The debilitating injuries to his arm, and likely more than that, were gone. The meat of his lower leg was perfectly hale. It made no sense.


    Other things too, made no sense.


    Whatever had occurred had completely fragged anything that had a diode, resister, or electrical gradient of any kind. Alexander had gotten a bright idea to make a battery bank using car batteries, only, when he went to test them by running a set of jumper cables between the terminals, they were all dead. Every single one. Which left him without a whole lot of options for electricity, even if anything had survived that could use it. The old incandescent light bulbs probably would still work, if you could find one that hadn¡¯t been shattered. The LED ones that were sold these days were a no go.


    So, no light that wasn¡¯t the sun or moon or fire. At least he had a literal ton of candles.


    Scavenging through supplies in various stores made him painfully aware of how dependent modern civilization was on computers and electronics. Almost nothing ran purely mechanically. He had hand tools, loads of them, half of which he had no idea how or why or when they were useful. That was just about it. Alexander¡¯s schooling hadn¡¯t included any ¡°How do you live without electricity¡± lessons.


    On that score though, there was one saving grace, call it a parting gift from his parents, born of their quirkiness.


    Old Man Gerifalte had a hobby of collecting textbooks and instructional ¡°How to¡± magazines. He called himself an ¡°analogue archivist¡±. It wasn¡¯t quite an obsession, but his father had a saying ¡°Don¡¯t trust computers to think for you.¡± A strange attitude for a man of his background, who used computers almost daily. His mother was complicit in this, telling a young Gerifalte ¡°Nothing beats that smell of paper and ink, and it gives your dad something to keep his tinker spirit busy. Now get your ass to bed!¡± when he asked them why they spent the last hour they were awake reading old books.


    Alexander read enough for his academics, he didn¡¯t touch a book or tablet outside of that. Unless it was about planes, that was. His old man¡¯s library had such an eclectic collection of books on everything from manual transmissions to crop rotation and irrigation techniques. Only problem was, most of those assumed you¡¯d have things like motors to work with and that wasn¡¯t looking like an option.


    All the gas engines he¡¯d tested hadn¡¯t worked. Their spark plugs were all burned out and there weren¡¯t any batteries. He¡¯d have to figure out how to make a power source from scratch, one that was strong enough to generate the amps to spark a gas engine to life from a homemade spark plug.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t his father, he didn¡¯t have that kind of knack, that kind of brilliance. He took after his mother, more interested in the direct, the tangible now. Not to mention, he didn¡¯t have thirty years of casual reading about, if the library was any indication, absolutely everything engineering in the last ten centuries. Not yet, at least. It was looking like he¡¯d have a lot of time on his hands to learn though. Not much to do when there was nobody to talk to, not much to do after increasingly early sun downs, no television, radio, or internet.


    So, for the week after he regained his sanity, such as it was, the last Gerifalte spent his days combing the town for supplies, caching them, making an inventory on graph paper, like some kind of Byzantine clerk, and studying the art of gears, wheels, and chemistry.


    Gears and wheels, because that¡¯s how all mechanical apparatus derived their power, the capture of water¡¯s fall to become rotational force, to become¡­whatever you needed it to be, so long as the river ran, and you had enough gears.


    Chemistry because, what he was realizing upon doing his inventory was, everything was manufactured. The world he lived in was a construct, generated from the minds of chemists and materials scientists, like Prometheans handing fire to the apes to transform them. He would never achieve anything but a life of subsistence if he couldn¡¯t figure out how to identify, isolate, extract, alter, and purify substances.


    Electronics were gone, the delicate circuitry and silicone pockets of the semiconductors that had made them possible ruined by the Pulse, as he¡¯d come to think of it.


    An EMP, but with extra sauce.


    In the absence of those little electron holding miracles, Alexander would be forced to learn, from the foundational theory to the manufacturing application, how to produce them. And it started with gears, wheels, and chemistry.


    Maine was being nice to him. The weather was beautiful, unusually calm, clear, and absent the typical October rains that made this portion of the northeast a dreary affair most years. Sitting quietly in the candlelight, that odd, flickering source of orange luminescence so vital compared to the cold, constant illumination of an LED bulb, Alexander realized that he heard footsteps outside.


    It was their rhythmic sound, breaking the near total silence he had grown accustomed to over the last seven days that pulled him from his research.


    Quiet hope kindled in him, as he rushed up from the L shaped arrangement of desks, he¡¯d hauled to become his workspace, littered by texts, manuals, and notebooks where he organized his education and brainstormed for the future.


    By habit, he picked up the long gun and twitched aside a curtain to observe the exterior of the somewhat modern house he was calling home base. Not home, because that was gone, but home base. His laboratory he would call it, cackling madly, playing the part of a mad scientist in the lonesome isolation. Mostly playing.


    While he looked out the window, hiding his frame, waiting to spy the source of the sounds that had disturbed him, Alexander Gerifalte lamented that he was a rules guy. He believed in following the rules. Rules were what bound a chaotic, aggressive, incredibly short sighted, and territorial animal like Homo Sapiens into relatively peaceful cooperation.


    When everybody followed the rules, life was grand. When the rules fell apart, you got wonderful happenings like the butchery that had gone on in Darfur, or the purging of the Native Americans, or, worst of all, when the rules were warped to become a weapon to commit barbarisms like that maniac down in Cambodia, Pol Pot.


    What stuck in his craw hard, the deaths of his parents and, so far as he could tell entire civilization, aside, was that the rules he¡¯d known had been broken. His grasp of what was and should be were broken with it. Nothing was right when he didn¡¯t know what the rules of reality were. How do you play a game if you don¡¯t know what you¡¯re allowed to do? His mother accused him, regularly, of Rules Lawyering, both over their weekend tabletop, and in their interpersonal relationships, but Alexander was a stickler. Sanity demanded rules.


    There. More proof that the world was gone mad. The sounds outside were the slap of small bare feet on pavement. That slap was why the newly kindled hope had died in its crib: People didn¡¯t walk bare foot in Maine¡¯s Autumn.


    From the sliver of outside he saw from behind his hiding place he saw more of the goblin creatures. These were more heavily armed than the ones he¡¯d killed earlier. Those had crude spears, bone, and stone flint napped knives, and only wore rough loin cloths and wraps of badly processed hide. He saw metal weapons, roughly ground, badly forged, notched, and dull, but weapons, nevertheless. The creatures also wore thick boiled leather pieces of armor, strapped to their bodies. Nothing sophisticated, just pieces of hard-boiled leather covering parts of chests, shoulders and back, hanging by jute thongs or leather cords. But, sophistication aside, there were thirty of the creatures in loose double row formation led by another of the Hobgoblin couple he¡¯d killed earlier. Different in feature, clearly not the same individuals, but the same idea.


    This was a war party. But from where? How? Alexander had been all over this town. High and low he¡¯d wandered it, for thirteen days since discovering the end of everything he¡¯d known. Aside from the goblin scavengers he¡¯d seen nothing to indicate that there was anybody around. So where had these little bastards come from? Speaking of which, where had the ones he¡¯d killed earlier gone? His explorations of the town found none of the bodies one morning soon after his mental break and slaughter, a mystery then, on top of too many mysteries.


    As the ugly hominids in their crude arms pattered by, grunting, hissing, and growling at each other as they went in some approximation of communication, Alexander stayed still and silent.


    The goblins had to go. But he couldn¡¯t just start shooting.


    First of all, the scavengers had proven that these creatures were durable, for something so small. It took some doing, even for nine-millimeter hollow points to drop them. Good shot placement, and repeated hits to bring them down fast. The rifle was far, far better, but it was a bolt action. Reliable. Accurate. Hard hitting. But fast it was not, even for an experienced shooter.


    If he started an engagement, he¡¯d have to do it like a sniper. From cover, from range. Pick them off a few at a time and move, break sight. It was a high skill tactic that he was a novice, at best, in executing. You didn¡¯t have to work so hard to sneak up on deer, so long as you were quiet when they were quiet, and the wind didn¡¯t shift. They had a killer sense of smell, did deer.


    Smell. Oh, gods above, below, and in between, thank you that I threw those wolf-hide wrapped clothes away, Alexander prayed. If he¡¯d been wearing untanned hides he¡¯d have stunk to high heaven. The goblins would have been able to see the stink on him.


    What do I do? He asked himself, trying to stay as calm as he could, trying to avoid doing something stupid from fear and stress.


    Take the high ground, Anakin, Alexander told himself.


    The wisdom of Obi-wan wasn¡¯t to be discarded so lightly. If he got up to a high vantage he could see these little monsters from a lot farther way, maybe far enough that they couldn¡¯t see him. Those big, bulging, cat eyes said they were probably more nocturnal, but he wouldn¡¯t trust them to not have excellent vision. Same for the big ears, hearing had to be impeccable. They were little predators, carnivores, and he had to assume they had the standard carnivore sensory package of eyesight, hearing, and smell.


    He had a plan, now, and so he acted on it. Stepping carefully to avoid creak of wooden floors, Alexander exited the Laboratory from the back and stuck to the shadows of buildings. Hyper-alert, freezing at any sound, adrenaline on a steady drip, the young man hustled the opposite direction from the goblin troop.


    He had a cache up on the hillside, in an old root cellar. Perishables like sugar and flour by the ten-pound bag, transferred into plastic totes he¡¯d vacuum sealed by a bicycle pump and rubber gasket, because he wasn¡¯t an idiot. Potatoes, carrots, squash, radishes, pumpkins, bags of brown rice, in abundance.


    Trying to control his breathing, shooting looks behind him compulsively to try to peer through the gloom that promised an overcast sunset, the reason he¡¯d been reading by candlelight this time of day in the first place, he made furtive way the half mile to the cellar.


    It took a grunt of effort and more noise from the hinges than he ever wanted to hear to pull open the heavy doors and reveal his stash. He wasn¡¯t a gardener or farmer, but he learned enough from the library to know which things you could plant and get to grow back. It wasn¡¯t the season for seeds to be out, so getting a store of renewable produce was mission critical.


    But he wasn¡¯t here for the food.


    Because losing everything you ever knew made you paranoid, he also had a stock of weapons and ammunition. In particular, he wanted the three hundred Winchester magnum stored here. He loved his steady three point zero eight. His good old pretty freaking NATO. The gun carried bittersweet memories, old faithful, but it wasn¡¯t enough oomph for this.


    Alexander was going to be shooting through thick leather and he needed something with the energy to put down a moose, from a good godsdamned long way away too. He¡¯d scoped and zeroed this one at two hundred yards, and, after a couple hours fiddling with the bi-pod and figuring out the trigger, it made a single ragged hole through the pie pan target tacked to an old barn. Now it was going to make holes in fairy tale things.


    Smiling more than a little cruelly, the young man wrapped the rifle case in a prone pad, both from the same hunting store he¡¯d ransacked last week.


    From the cellar, it was twenty minutes to make his cautious way to the water tower that sat on the middling ridge above town. He was shivering in the cool air, partly due to nerves, because he was wearing a sturdy set of hunting pants and jacket in that good old standby hick tie die, woodland camouflage.


    The pad rolled out and Alexander opened the case with a muted *click* retrieving the heavy bolt gun with the twenty-six-inch barrel and long ass optic. It was good glass though, worth the weight. From his vantage, the onetime pilot wannabe spotted the goblinoids. They were circling through town, not pillaging, or looting or going through houses. They were looking for him, is what they were doing, Alexander realized suddenly.


    When the raiders didn¡¯t come back, somebody must have decided that they ran into trouble. These warrior caste critters were the answer to that trouble.


    Alexander looked through the scope, illumination helping to get a decent sight picture as he used the minutes of angle reticle markings to get a range. He put the Hobgoblin with the big ass club in the center of the scope, counting the number of hashes and recalling that the other one he¡¯d killed had been about six and a half feet tall. That gave him a decent range of about six hundred yards.


    Sharp mechanical clicks from the turrets sounded as he dialed in the optic, adjusting less than normal thanks to the elevation difference. He was shooting a flat running bullet downhill, it would be a problem not to miss high, rather than to grab dirt too soon.


    Deep breaths, he reminded himself, controlling the tension and anxiety. He¡¯d take five shots, empty the magazine to clear the leaders and whatever else he could, then he was gone from here. If he could stay on target and kept his mechanics clean, they shouldn¡¯t be able to figure out where they were getting hit from, the mountainside and valley geography would make the rifle report echo from damned near everywhere. The muzzle break wasn¡¯t a flash suppressor, they¡¯d see his general direction if he hung around too long. Better to take what he could get and hustle, rather than get pinned down.


    ¡°What are they gonna do about it, throw rocks?¡± A sarcastic part of him looked down on the primitive creatures.


    ¡°There are no rules, you don¡¯t know what they¡¯re gonna do about it, which is why you aren¡¯t going to let them try.¡± The cautious part of him corrected.


    No risks, he decided, jacking in a round from the sleeve on the rifle butt, which would give him six shots, instead of just the five from the magazine. Six gave him three sure things, two apiece. Two rounds from a . 300 Winchester magnum would down a moose, no problem. Leather armor or no, these goons wouldn¡¯t take those hits and cause him trouble later.


    He wasn¡¯t going to be greedy and aim for head shots, this was big game hunting rules, you took the center mass shot for heart and lungs. Nothing fancy.


    For a minute he watched, letting himself get settled behind the gun, letting the patterns of movement ingrain themselves on his senses. When they paused, when they started, it all mattered at this kind of range. There would be about a second and a half between the flash and the report of the rifle, the bullet would get there about three quarters of a second before they heard the crack. He¡¯d get one freebie. The rest he¡¯d have to work for.


    Alexander found his moment, a pause, while the beasties looked at stakes that had once held their impaled brethren. Maybe it was them that had taken the bodies? Not important.


    Hold. Release. Squeeze.


    The rifle jumped backward into his shoulder, trigger breaking cleanly, crisply, and he worked the bolt, keeping his scope sight picture on the goblins. The Hobgoblin warrior and all the rest alerted, looked around rapidly, scanning, searching for the sound that had echoed through the valley, and Alexander was suddenly uncertain. Had he pulled it?


    Uncertainty was replaced by excitement, the Hob dropped to the ground, legs boneless. One down. He clamped down on the emotion. Found the target, his scope trained on the female Hob, the one with the feathered staff. He put cross-hairs on the grotesque cleavage and fired again. Through the optic, Alexander watched as the creature raised the staff, its mouth working while it howled alien sounds.


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    He watched with satisfaction the vapor trail; it was money. Hit! Right up until the bullet disintegrated on a shimmering blue honeycomb of nested hexagons that appeared from nowhere.


    ¡°Oh godsdamn.¡± Alexander moaned as the barrier faded from sight, working the bolt to get another shot, rushing slightly, pushing the second attempt at the goblin co-leader high.


    His hurried shot mattered little; the projectile hit that same invisible barrier. This time, though, the barrier didn¡¯t disappear. This time, there were cracks across its spherical surface, the perfection of the hexagonal field damaged by absorbing two heavy hitting slugs.


    There was a chance!


    Steadying, ignoring the movements of the goblins circling their leader tightly to defend against the invisible attack, Alexander readied a third round and sent it, hoping that the visible chanting of the goblin mage didn¡¯t mean the barrier was getting stronger.


    A flare of blue light and the sound like a broken bell rang out alongside the boom of the gun, the Hobgoblin female squealed and fell, its staff falling to the ground as it clawed at the hole in its chest.


    Pay-dirt! He grinned behind the scope and worked the fourth round, targeting a hatchet wielding goblin that had its eyes looking toward his position.


    One second, repeating the shooter¡¯s mantra, he put the little monster down, the bullet slightly low and through its middle. The way it folded, he¡¯d broken its back for sure. Its comrades were now spreading out, were trying to find the enemy blooding them. None moved toward his position. None moved toward their fallen companion, even though the goblin was still clearly alive, thrashing its claws around, hacking up blood too dark a red to be human, almost rust brown.


    Another bullet jacked in, another sent, this one at a goblin with a crude long bow. The monster howled and started running, making it ten steps before it fell and began to crawl. The rest broke, scattering.


    Time to go.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t going to hang around, not with the creatures fleeing. Taking running shots on targets that small, from that distance was just wasting ammunition and risking giving away his position, even more than he already had. He was out of here.


    It only took a minute to fold the bi-pod, roll the rifle into the shooter¡¯s pad, and settle the instrument into its case. Then, the young man was climbing down the long ladder as fast as he dared in gloves.


    A glimpse of hard rocky ground a long way down reminded him it was a damned good thing flying had taken most of the fear of heights from him. Most. Not all.


    Back to ground level, Alexander ran all out, circling the town along the ridge, keeping his eyes on the streets below, looking for signs that the goblins were rallying to head in search for him. Luck. They were scrambling, terrorized from losing their leaders to an invisible thunder. He slowed, crouch walking, getting his breath back. He needed to be ready to set up quickly if he spotted a group of them hiding, keep picking them off. Keep them disoriented.


    A low growl from his left was all the warning that kept him alive when a huge black panther leapt from a nearby tree to tackle him, one swipe of wicked re-curved claws ripping through his jacket and knocking the rifle case from his grasp when it sent him ass over elbows.


    Stunned by the sudden assault, he had barely rolled over before a couple of hundred pounds of cat gathered itself and leapt. A lesson learned from the wolves, he had a chest holstered sidearm, safety off, bullet in the chamber out and cycling as the animal landed on him, white fangs flashing a vicious maw closing on him.


    Rapid shots, cracks of sound, drowned out his frenzied cries somewhat, as well as the awful growl of the predator that took his warding left arm in crushing grip and savaged it. Alexander emptied the pistol into the animal¡¯s body, not even knowing how many times he¡¯d squeezed the trigger and come up empty. His arm was jerked with hideous pain, the punctures fire hot and he felt the bones of his forearm break in its grip.


    The knife on his belt! His last chance, Alexander dropped the empty gun and desperately pulled the fixed blade and rammed the drop point between ribs, pulling free to do it again. Again.


    Something important must have gotten stabbed, or the bullets finally worked, because the panther released him and jumped away, circling, growling.


    Pain was there, hot as the blood he was losing, but he was too hopped up on fight juice to care, Alexander got to his feet, holding the injured arm close to his body. Despite the trembling, the knife wielding hand waved threateningly at the animal.


    How the fuck hard was this thing to kill? He wondered panicked, fearful.


    The panther¡¯s fur was matted with its blood, steady drips ran down from its chest and stomach. But still it circled, ears low, with a threatening growl in its throat. It would jump him if he turned his back, he knew it.


    Cold clarity reached through the terror, the sudden violence. He had to attack. He couldn¡¯t let this thing go. Now was the only chance he¡¯d ever get to see it coming again.


    Screaming, goblins forgotten, Alexander charged the wounded panther with his five-inch drop point held in a hammer fist like a dagger. The animal hissed and turned to jump away, and then, its wounds showed effect, its back legs folded, and Alexander tackled the heavier animal ramming the knife into its neck, the hand of his broken arm clenched in fur. Pain was searing his mind blank while he stabbed relentlessly.


    The animal had been dead a little while before he stopped killing it, and he shook like a leaf in the wind when he stood up over the steaming blood rising from the corpse.


    Agony radiated from his arm again. Why was it always the arms? He wondered senselessly.


    Worse, when he turned his head, teeth chattering from the shivering that refused to let him go, he saw tiny humanoids converging from the town, moving toward this side of the ridge. They¡¯d found him, the sounds of his gun finally giving him away. That and all the yelling, probably.


    Gladder about it than anything he¡¯d ever known that his legs hadn¡¯t been clawed up and chewed, Alexander hurriedly gathered up the firearms and worked back the way he¡¯d come. These creatures didn¡¯t know the terrain, but he did. These were his hills; it was his mountain. A creek made a rapid path for descent from the ridge, in a narrow fold that would hide the sight of him.


    He only had to get to it.


    Wild, inhuman cries dogged his unsteady steps as he ran, leaves crunching loudly without care. He thought about throwing away the big gun to save weight but couldn¡¯t do it. He needed something heavy hitting if he was cornered. If any of the others could make one of those blue barriers the pistol wouldn¡¯t cut it, it had taken three direct hits in a relatively small area to penetrate the shield. A nine-millimeter would barely scratch that whatever the fuck it was.


    A spell. Magic. Insanity. What were the rules?


    Compromise, he decided. Alexander removed the rifle from its protective case, discarding the bulky, hard plastic and the pad, hopeful that the jostling hadn¡¯t broken the scope¡¯s zero. He took off across the mountain, awkwardly holding his weapon with the one good arm and tried not to smack the mangled one on anything.


    Scattered thoughts chased him as hard as the goblins as he ran, panting, legs burning.


    There! Alexander spotted the nearly hidden creek, recognized the triad of maples around a red cedar that marked one of the only tells that the little fold in the landscape existed.


    Gasping now from the fading of his endurance, he clambered down to the creek running fast from recent rain. Slick rocks challenged his weakened body, forced him to slow.


    For the best.


    He abruptly realized through the fear driving him that if he made too much noise on the rocks the monsters would be able to track him, even if they didn¡¯t know exactly where he was.


    It took a force of will to ignore the animal urge to flee at top speed, but Alexander set himself a methodical pace, recovering his wind, taking meticulous care to make as little noise on the stony banks of the creek as he could. He was using the rifle as a walking stick now, after setting the hard safety because there was a last bullet in the magazine, even though he didn¡¯t remember jacking it in. No chances, he was too shaken to risk something like a reflex causing him to shoot himself in the face.


    His foot slipped, mossy betrayal taking his leg from under him. Instinct made him reach out with the broken arm to grab a nearby sapling and he choked back a howl of pain, sobbing quietly, unable to stop the flood of tears as abused bones pulsed agony and he lost his grip. A wet sprawl and painful scrapes across Main¡¯s ever-present rock were his reward for a minor misplacement of a single boot.


    Slowly, the young man managed to lever himself up, avoiding using the injured limb. He was gritting his teeth against the urge to make sound. Vertigo made the dim hillside wobble. It was all he could do to stay on his feet now and Alexander realized he had a flaw in his plan.


    He couldn¡¯t make it back to his shelter. He was too tired now, too hurt. The panther¡¯s mauling and the goblin¡¯s chase were finding him at the end of the day with the sun already behind the hills. The dim twilight would be true dark long before he ever got to safety.


    The realization shifted priorities and he almost felt his brain click when he started looking for a hollow or cave to huddle in.


    ¡°Thanks be to all the gods, above, below, and in between.¡± Alexander whispered, recognizing this particular bend in the creek, the set of the banks, and the contour of the hill.


    There was a cave, just a quarter mile down the way. It was small, but under an overhang that stayed almost dry. It was barely enough to stuff himself into, but that was better than sitting huddled under a tree with things that saw better at night than him all around. There was another saving grace: there was no moon tonight, and no light pollution. Dark tonight would be as dark as dark got.


    Quiet desperation guiding his steps, he made the cave just about the time his eyes became useless. Silently as his booted, tired feet could manage, he climbed mid-way up the bank and stuffed himself into the outcrop, curled up protectively around the battered limb. Without light, he clumsily ransacked the first aid kit on his belt, whimpering when the alcohol pads went over the punctures. Cat bites. Filthy things, he¡¯d always heard. Infection was the actual last thing he needed so he ruthlessly cleaned the wounds and bandaged them, giving in to another round of the shakes when the ordeal was past.


    Laying there, hoping that nocturnal predators wouldn¡¯t be able to follow a trail of blood to his hole, hoping they wouldn¡¯t drag him out into the night to murder him, chill from exerted sweat, late October autumn night, and anxiety, Alexander experienced another bit of the impossible: he fell asleep.


    Predawn light awakened the young man and put him into a fierce shiver with its cold. Autumn had come a little early and a lot cooler than the last couple of years, and he saw hints of frost in the shaded grasses and undergrowth. The heavy jacket and pants had saved him from freezing to death over night while he hid.


    Before he left the relative safety of the outcrop, Alexander uncovered the hastily cleaned and bandaged wound from the night and was shocked at the extent of the damage, having been unable to see it clearly in the fading light and shadow of the nook.


    His left hand was useless, muscles and tendons shredded. The bones of his forearm were broken cleanly, he could see them where one of the long canines of the panther had penetrated almost completely through the limb. That he¡¯d ever managed to grab anything, the panther¡¯s fur or the tree to catch himself was absurd, witnessing the ruin of his arm. Seeing the wounds almost sent him into shock, bile rising into his throat, but he closed his eyes and willed it down, concentrating on the immediate surroundings, and his next steps as intensely as he could.


    Wrap mangled arm. Sneak down the mountainside. Get inside. Do nothing until the third sunrise. Heal. Kill everything.


    It was a plan and Alexander grimly set to executing it, starting with the awfulness that was going to be an alcohol wipe.


    Five minutes later, cold sweat beaded, and limp from another session of taking care of a mangled body part, Alexander was ready to travel. This was becoming too familiar a pattern.


    Slowly, slowly, the camouflage clad seventeen-year-old worked his way down the narrow creek, having taken the time to reload his rifle and sidearm, but knowing that if it came to using either he was probably beyond help. He was thankful for the camo, thankful that the leaves still on the trees, in their wild arrays of golds, yellows, browns, and greens rendered him almost invisible against the forest backdrop.


    Birds called joyfully. Singing counterpoint to the terror that permeated him. A single misstep. A broken branch. A fall. Anything could create a sound that would carry in the cold Maine air, echo down into the valley and alert the monsters to his presence. The monsters wearing cloth, and, now, he was intimately aware, the monsters bearing fur of their own growth.


    Maine wasn¡¯t cougar country. It certainly didn¡¯t have lion sized bastards like the one that had jumped him.


    Huge Wolves. Massive Panthers. Aggressive Elk. Raiding goblins. None of these were from this land he called home and all of them had been incredibly, wildly, hostile. If he ever found out who sent them, he was going to tell them what a knob they were. Right before he zero¡¯d them.


    But, first, he had to get home and wait out this whole grievous injury thing again.


    Anger was a fine way to distract himself from residual fear, and Alexander kept a finely simmering rage while he picked his way down the mountain. The heartbeat metronome of hurt coming from the bandaged limb helped with that as well. Half an hour of intense concentration, meticulous steps, frozen pauses, and deliberate surveys of the creek bed below and the narrow ravine above, saw the young man finally reach level ground, just past where the road would bend to enter town.


    One thing he¡¯d noticed about the goblins was how loud they were. Boisterous, vocalizing loudly, frequently in seeming argument with each other, with exception of their more imposing leaders. Alexander didn¡¯t hear any of that as he crept closer to the once humbly busy streets, the bustle of people getting ready to ride out winter, the motorized scramble of men and boys scouting for the upcoming gun season gone. All was quiet, except for the birds.


    A fox crossed the street ahead, darting fervently between houses, before crossing the street, about fifty yards ahead of where Alexander crouched, his breath fogging in the sharp morning air.


    That was a good sign, if the fox felt safe enough to pass through the open, there wasn¡¯t likely to be anything threatening around.


    Fortified by that observation, he hustled, moving at a fast half duck-walk sort of stride to stay low. It made his thighs burn from exertion, quickly. Stop and go, he would flit from the shadow of an empty house to the corner of a street-side business, furtive eyes checking the sight-lines before he made his next move.


    Creeping was exhausting. Daylight had risen in full, finding the last Gerifalte slipping into the back door of his Laboratory, tired, hurt, and tired of being afraid and hurt.


    He leaned back against the door and sighed, an almost silent, shuddering exhalation.


    There he stayed for a minute, pausing to marinade in how close the shave had been.


    His damaged body forced him to move, he was hungry, thirsty, and needed to use the lavatory. The water tower¡¯s reservoir wasn¡¯t infinite, so Alexander was going with the chamber pot method of dealing with bodily waste. That did very little for his attitudes on the overall situation these days. Going to get a bucket of cold creek water every other morning, throwing your shit and piss into a pile because you had vague notions of creating a nitrifying compost bed for saltpeter was getting old.


    Where had the goblins gone? He mused over a cold meal of crackers, peaches ripe headed toward rotten, and scoops of peanut butter. Where had they come from?


    And another mystery to add to the pile that wouldn¡¯t stop haunting Alexander while he lay on a soft mattress, waiting for the dawn that would bring healing to his battered form.


    In his roamings around the humble little pass through that had been home his entire life, Alexander had conducted something of a census. He didn¡¯t know everybody, by any stretch of the imagination, especially the younger children. But he knew that, essentially, all of the pre-adolescent children in the school were accounted for, petrified. Most of the adults too. However, names he knew, faces that were familiar to him were missing. When he applied some napkin math to the problem, he roughed out that about one in three adult or nearly adult humans were missing from the rural parish. There should have been survivors of the Pulse.


    Where were the missing folk?


    The first answer that came to mind was the obvious: goblins. The thirty or so scavengers he¡¯d come across might have gotten them. If those little monsters had come, with the squad of soldiers he¡¯d, as far as he could determine, driven off, they would have stood a good chance of overwhelming the few disoriented remnants humanity here. Alexander had only been armed because he¡¯d gotten a taste of what was out there before ever returning to city limits.


    However, that led him full circle to where he started, where had the goblins gone, and where had they come from?


    Round and round it went.


    Eventually, to keep from driving himself completely nuts, the youngest Gerifalte fled his contemplations by opening the tomes of his father, annotating his growing collection of documents detailing how he might engineer some semblance of modernity. The key was to scavenge the finely machined pieces from the remains of the old technology.


    Without electricity or skill to operate a forge or machining tooling, Alexander could never hope to reproduce the complex shapes and subtle design specifications of complex metallic components. His notes included lists of where he might find the pieces he¡¯d need, predominantly from manufacturing sites and hardware stores.


    The other facet of his research was in learning the basics of organic and inorganic chemistry. Primarily, he was focused on how to create the reagents that seemed ubiquitous in the reaction processes about which his texts were full.


    Namely, Alexander got himself a set of procedures for the synthesis of the key acids, nitric, sulfuric, and hydrochloric, all at the ninety nine percent purity range, along with an ozone bubbling apparatus that would help to further dehydrate and destroy contaminants in them, if necessary, and thus protect that purity. In addition to the acids, he assembled the procedures for generation of the alkaline side of that spectrum, the sodium hydroxide, the ammonia, the ammonium salts.


    Lastly, he had himself a shortlist of metallics he would most frequently need, mostly the key alkali and alkali earth metals, sodium, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, a few particularly useful transition metals like aluminum, silver, copper, platinum, each both electrically and chemically active, and some of the more esoteric, like lead, cobalt, calcium, and nickel.


    Unfortunately, many of these compounds were toxic, reactive, and corrosive. Which meant they had limited shelf lives, if he could even find them, and he would, likely as not, be forced to synthesize them as he needed them, and store them safely, which meant that trying to solo jump-start civilization would take years, just due to the time sink necessary to create the materials he¡¯d need.


    He sat back, having just completed reading about the process for manufacturing clear glass, to store the aforementioned reagents and to blow glassware he might need for more complex apparatus required by those processes in his notes. For now, he could scavenge. But what if he couldn¡¯t find what he needed? What if where they had been stored was destroyed by one of the cars that had veered into the joint, when its pilot had suddenly petrified? The only answer was that he would have to make what he needed, which meant knowing how.


    To make clear glass he needed a furnace that got to right at seventeen hundred Celsius. That was, in his way of thinking, really fucking hot. Getting a furnace to that kind of temperature meant fuel that would burn with sufficient heat. The only thing he knew of that would cut it was propane or coal, and he¡¯d have to find a way to create manual blowers to cycle the heated air into the forge or it would melt its housing.


    On and on, it went like that, every solution had its own set of problems. Solving those problems dug up more problems. Civilization was a web of chemical engineering and metallurgy that was far, far beyond his capability and had, as its underlying requirement, the assumption that electricity was, essentially, infinitely available.


    Alexander¡¯s two days of research, coupled to those of his previous efforts were leading him to the conclusion that it was a lost cause. One person couldn¡¯t do all of this, there wasn¡¯t time. There wasn¡¯t talent.


    He¡¯d just wanted to fly planes that soared like super eagles, to feel the pressure of acceleration, the freedom of breaking into the realm of supersonic, the mastery of engines delivering thousands of pounds of thrust while operating instruments that dissected the world.


    All hope of that future was gone.


    ¡°Fuck this.¡± Alexander decided, raising himself up slowly from where he¡¯d sat, reading and writing until he¡¯d grown stiff.


    Today was the third day. He was awake before sunrise, doing his endless dance between reading texts for theory, and manuals for engineering, and recording the applications processes he needed to lift himself out of savagery, because that was what awaited. The food would run out. The water tower dry. He was living on borrowed time.


    Slightly hunched over the injured limb, he walked softly through the borrowed house, avoiding making noise, like a burglar even in this supposed place of safety. The goblins hadn¡¯t come back, but he didn¡¯t know that they wouldn¡¯t. On the contrary. Alexander was certain they would return. And Alexander would be waiting for them.


    Grim ideation occupied him while he ate bacon, sliced apples, and a large salad of spinach, carrots, lettuce turning brown, and olives. Heavy on the ranch and shredded cheese, he might as well enjoy himself before he died.


    The problem with his previous tactic was that he¡¯d left himself in a position that demanded he move quickly. Moving quickly was dangerous, as the panther had proven, because it decreased your ability to scout, to be methodical in your travel. What Alexander needed was a way to deal with large numbers of the monsters at the same time. Namely, he needed to devise a trap.


    Currently, he was thinking something along the lines of poison gas. There were some easily manufactured gas bombs, the old bleach and ammonia would work. To get coverage in the open though was too hard, required a literal ton of material, a complex way to get adequate mixing of such large volumes of liquids, so that he could guarantee lethal dosing, unless he could lure the beasties into a room and barricade them in.


    Rather than go that route, he was settling more along the lines of pour diesel fuel across the road between the brick bank branch and the cinder block elementary school in two places, trap the critters with fire, then throw Molotovs down on top of them from the bank roof. It beat using himself as bait for a noxious gas, now that he thought of it.


    That bait route was risky, he wasn¡¯t about that kind of hazard, not when he wasn¡¯t crazy, like he¡¯d been when he¡¯d slaughtered the scavengers.


    He still didn¡¯t know how he¡¯d gotten away with that and chalked it up to the wolverine effect.


    How does the smaller animal terrorize the larger one? Insane, belligerent, aggression. Absence of any regard for well-being or survival. Well, Alexander was getting there, but he currently still wanted to live. He had a score to settle with whatever had caused the Pulse.


    Dawn broke over the mountain and Alexander felt the cleansing wash of healing light. The arm, healing more rapidly than it should have in the first place, yet another mystery for which he had no explanations, showed no scarring, and gripped with full strength. Miraculous.


    What other physics breaking rules were there to this unreality in which he found himself?

 Chapter 4: Mother of Invention

    To break himself out of the depression that threatened to demolish his morale, and to close a gap in his skill set, Alexander decided that he was going to try his hand at smithing metal.


    His spear blade, a Bowie knife of dubious quality, had broken and he had been taught by a massive panther why having some kind of big, long-reaching, melee weapon was a fine idea. He could just walk over to the hardware place and grab a new one, not an issue. This was Maine, you found knives in most gas stations, even if you should never, ever buy them. However, to his thinking, the last representative of humanity should learn forge work and carry an instrument of civilization to beat back the horde.


    First though, there was another project that demanded his attention: the goblins had magic.


    He hadn¡¯t forgotten the blue hexagonal barrier that the goblin shaman or witch, or whatever the fuck it was had raised. A shield that soaked up two direct hits of high caliber lead moving at about three thousand feet per second. Energy had welled up from around the hobgoblin female and formed the barrier in half a second, from thin air. Which, you know, was bullshit.


    So, what he was going to do was to go find the corpse of that shaman and see if he could figure out how in the hell it had made that hard light. His reasoning was simple: If there was a way for some piece of wood and feathers to come together in ways he deemed impossible bullshit to make a shield, there might be a way to use it to make something that would break similar shields.


    He was making that up, he had no idea what the rules were, but it was worth looking at. If he could unravel the secret, perhaps he could figure out what caused the Pulse. Or, perhaps, even figure out how to undo it. Above even destroying whatever had caused the happening, finding a way to undo it was a worthy life¡¯s pursuit.


    With that in mind, the youth left his refuge and, with utmost caution, returned to the scene where he¡¯d sniped the leaders of the goblin war-band. He found them, just where he¡¯d left them. Unlooted, uneaten, untouched. He set down the bucket of water he¡¯d been carrying, one of a couple of additions to the regular rifle hanging from his body by its sling, and a few items for inspecting the corpses.


    Curious. Buzzards should have been all over this. Three days left in the open and not so much as a pecked eye? Foxes, coyotes, ravens, buzzards, all kinds of things should have been interested in this sort of meal, but nothing had disturbed the bodies.


    Why? Was it because these things didn¡¯t belong to this world? Were they poisonous? Gods above, below, and in between, was Alexander tired of not knowing anything.


    It seemed morbid, but the first thing he needed to do was to investigate the corpses. The last ones had caught him while he was crazy, he¡¯d burned most of them and impaled the two leaders. This time, he was going to open the bodies up and see what made them tick. For one thing, he¡¯d have a better idea if there were better ways to kill them. What he was doing now was working, but there might be ways to do better. Like that moronic remake of War of the Worlds, what if they were poisoned by water or something dumb?


    He put one hand on the female hobgoblin¡¯s shoulder and used an exact o-knife to cut away the crude leather coverings. Those got a brief inspection before being discarded as trash, too crude to be anything useful, badly processed leather that stank already.


    Onto the corpse. He cleaned the hobgoblin exactly like you would clean a deer, like he¡¯d cleaned the wolves. What he found inside was notable for its familiarity. Muscles, organs, congealed blood, which he had to rinse off the various innards to really be able to examine them, and not much else. Other than that blood being slightly off color, more brownish than human blood, all seemed sort of normal.


    The hobgoblin shaman, or whatever, had died to a hit to the heart that had torn right through the organ, destroying the ventricle and the aorta behind it. The internal bleeding and massive shock had dropped the creature, just like it would have a regular human or animal. Nothing magical about that.


    Or so he thought. Hands covered in gore to the elbow found, behind the ruins of the heart, the first clue to fuckery being about: a gem, no bigger across than a quarter, a perfect little octahedron sitting behind the heart, inside a fibrous sack that looked like it was made of networks of fine wire mesh attaching to the spinal cord. When he cut open the peri-core-dium, a joke there for all the medical nerds, the little crystal reminded him of amber, but cut with a jeweler¡¯s attention for capturing light with its facets.


    That right there, was not normal. No sir, Alexander told himself with certainty, bouncing the tiny thing in his palm, freshly rinsed in the bucket to see what he had.


    His shot had been just off center, had missed the¡­whatever it was. He wondered how hard it was. Would a gunshot destroy the crystal and kill the creature instantly? Was it a vestigial organ, a calcified or mineralized something that lacked function? No way to tell, not without further testing. Destructive testing would have to wait until he¡¯d found more of them, it wouldn¡¯t do to start by breaking something that may be a rare feature of the monsters.


    He hadn¡¯t found anything like it in the wolves, but, then, he hadn¡¯t been looking for it either. He¡¯d dragged the organs out pretty much without looking at them, having no interest in eating heart of the canines. What if they¡¯d also had these gems, what if this were proof that the creatures were alien or, somehow, extra-planar?


    Too many questions, on with the dissection!


    Twenty minutes later, he sat back on his legs, stretching them out in front of himself, ignoring the wet ground beneath the water-resistant material of the hunting pants. Leaning on his filthy palms, Alexander had to admit that, to all appearances, the creatures were humanoid. Everything in the same general position. They died from gunshot trauma just as near as he could tell. Even the one that he¡¯d crippled, that one must have succumbed not long after he¡¯d fled, its liver was chunks, in addition to the shattered spine just above its pelvis.


    Before him, in a tidy row, sat four little amber colored gems. A jeweler would have marveled over their clarity, the precision of their polish, the perfection of the angles of the facets. Alexander wasn¡¯t a jeweler, so he didn¡¯t appreciate the fine details. So far as he could tell, these little doodads were the answer to how the shaman had made magic. The staff was nothing, softwood with feathers, animal bones, a few fox skulls and whatnot lashed to it with leather thongs. But then, why had the female creature raised the staff to summon the barrier? Who knew? Alexander had given the instrument a good looking over, holding it in his hands, and he couldn¡¯t figure out any reason why the monster had needed it. He didn¡¯t break the thing though, there might be secrets yet to ferret out.


    Of the big club wielding Hobgoblin, Alexander could determine nothing except that the critter was ripped. Shredded. A rabbit lean, corded muscle, physique that would easily have pounded him to mud with that club. Where the goblins were scrawny and half-starved looking, the Hob was strong. Probably why it was in charge over its smaller brethren, a simple hierarchy of might. Which sort of begged the question, why were there little goblins at all? Unless they all started the size of goblins and some grew much, much larger, for reasons that he didn¡¯t understand. A form of adolescence or multi-phase life cycle, or something like that.


    Images of Uruk-hai tearing free of membranous wombs from which they were birthed flitted through his mind. Something like that might be possible.


    What part did the gems buried inside the creatures play? He did not know. However, he¡¯d spent as much time with the bodies as was reasonable and he had some forging to do to make sure he could modify stock into simple shapes. The world had ended, it might prove necessary to be able to use bulk supply materials and scavenged metal to construct things.


    Back to the Laboratory!


    Based on the manuals he had available, he spent the rest of the day on a simple charcoal forge, using a hacksaw, an old gas drum, and some metal shears to shape the main part of the forge. Then he decided to go with a system using a bicycle powered fan to act as a blower, the wheel of the bicycle connected with a belt and pulley pulled out of a lawnmower to operate the fan with a fair degree of power. He could sit and pedal with his legs to operate the large fan blades, which blew air into a smaller eight-inch square vent below where the charcoal lay, drafting heavily into the coal bed.


    Alexander did not know what a bellows was and thus made his life harder.


    Blissful in his ignorance, he poured a small pile of charcoal into the forge and lit it.


    Legs pumping furiously, he soon had an intensely burning coal bed, one that turned the broken knife of his ruined spear red hot within a few minutes. Success!


    The proof of concept was nice, a simple forge was operant, now, he just had to, somehow, find an anvil, hammer, tongs, a punch, and those other items that would permit him to make simple implements, or to modify things he could scavenge from the hardware stores to fit his needs.


    ¡°No galvanized shit, Alexander, you¡¯ll burn your lungs up.¡± He reminded himself.


    Galvanized metals released toxic gas when they got hot, his dad had warned him about it.


    That memory made him sad for a moment, before he went back out to find smithing equipment. None of it was to be located in the hardware stores, blacksmithing was, apparently, too niche a consumer base. The antique store, trader¡¯s mall, odd¡¯n¡¯ends shop, more a warehouse with a paint-job than an actual place of business, had what he was looking for. There, a big old steel anvil, a whole peg board full of hammers and tools, in variety that boggled his mind, and all the little goodies that a competent blacksmith might need. Except that he wasn¡¯t competent. He wasn¡¯t anything.


    ¡°How the fuck do I move you?¡± Alexander asked the anvil, which had to weigh at least three hundred pounds, with its big, curved horn, the punch dyes, and other features of its shaping that had to serve some kind of purpose that he didn¡¯t understand yet.


    Several minutes passed while he eyeballed the mass of metal, kicking his booted feet on the concrete before the light of brilliance shone down on him.


    ¡°It¡¯s a concrete floor in a big tin roofed warehouse, doofus, you just bring the forge here!¡± He chastised.


    There was, like no fire hazard in this place, he could use the flea market like a workshop.


    So, after dragging his forge set up onto a pallet dolly and hauling it over without much effort, he poured charcoal, lit the mass of blackened softwood chunks, and got to pedaling.


    While the coals burned down to a yellow-white mass, he read up on knife making. Bar stock? Check. Charcoal forge? Check. Hammer, tongs, and anvil? Check check check. By the time the coals were ready to heat steel he was reasonably certain he had what he needed. Time to make himself a nice big knife.


    Sunset fell on an exhausted young man, forearms throbbing with the effort of holding a five-pound hammer and tongs with a two feet length of inch thick bar stock for hours. The result of his labors was¡­not fantastic. The stock had been drawn out substantially, wasn¡¯t even close to straight, and had a profile that make him think that maybe he was going to have a future in making super low tooth count saw blades.


    ¡°It¡¯s shit, Alexander,¡± He confessed to himself, ¡°It¡¯s actual shit. It makes what I throw in my saltpeter bed look less like shit in comparison.¡±


    Can¡¯t win them all, he supposed. With that failure sitting heavy in his heart, he went to the haven of his laboratory and went to bed.


    Day two of his efforts went a little better. For one, he found a diagram for a straightening jig that he could make to put on the big vises he discovered he needed to have on hand yesterday. Holding the piece with tongs, all day, was exhausting.


    The ruined bar stock from the previous effort he used to practice shaping the metal, to use a neat little metal wedge to pound a primary bevel onto the stock, rather than trying to eyeball it. He punched a few holes, to make sure he could make places to rivet a handle, pommel, and guard into place. He tried, not so successfully, to draw the stock out even more, while keeping it relatively straight and unbent. Lastly, he beat and folded steel, working it into layers, practicing that oft warned difficult art of forge welding. Heat, wire brush the scale clear, fold, and hammer, fast and hard strokes to force the metal together while it was still hot, trying to avoid scale inclusion or cold shuts.


    He took lunch when his coals burned down too far to put a good heat on the stock and left everything laying, walking out with only his rifle, wearing only a light t-shirt, because working the forge was hot and the sting of metal sparks short lived compared to roasting himself over the flame and heated metal.


    His ears still rang with the sharp, high pings of metal on metal, hammer strikes that echoed off of the high roofed warehouse ceiling. The mangled bar stock he¡¯d worked was not now, or ever would be, anything useful. That didn¡¯t stop him from being grateful to it though, he¡¯d learned a great many things regarding the shaping of metal from that piece. The next one would be a knife, he was certain.


    When he opened the door, there was a massive goblin, too big to be even a Hobgoblin standing in the middle of main street, just a stone¡¯s throw away. It was all of ten feel tall. Where the big male Hob had carried a dense wooden club with bone spikes set into it, this one carried something like the badly forged attempt at a knife he¡¯d made earlier that day. It had been headed toward him; no doubt attracted by the hammering. It¡¯s yellow, blood shot eyes locked with his. The weapon lifted high over the beast¡¯s head, and it roared at him, shark toothed maw opened wide with the booming howl shaking him to his core.


    Alexander ran.


    Back through the door he¡¯d come through he ran, fleeing at top speed, he sprinted through the warehouse.


    A crashing bang, and he turned his head to see the ruined metal door, cloven like thin tin, kicked from its hinges by the awful strength of the Ogre in a loin cloth. A not big enough loin cloth.


    ¡°Intrusive thoughts, Alexander, run your ass off!¡± He yelled.


    Skirting stalls in the large, relatively open space of the picker¡¯s market, he fled, the crash of obstacles being obliterated behind him telling him he wasn¡¯t really gaining much ground.


    He came to a side access, and jerked it open, running parallel to the wall, boots crunching too loud in his ears on pavement. His heart hammered.


    Alexander thumbed the safety off the rifle, turned, knelt in a crouching ready, lifting the rifle scope to his eye and saw the thick, blunt metal of the Ogre¡¯s sword/axe, thing, punch through the door he¡¯d kicked shut behind him.


    Another stab easily ripped a jagged hole through the metal. When the blade was withdrawn, large, scarred hands reached through the holes, gripping the door, and ripping it, and the frame, out of the wall, two by four boards screeching and cracking in protest as they were demolished.


    The Ogre stepped out into the fading daylight and Alexander Gerifalte shot it in the knee, the two hundred grain slug blasting the front of the joint, rusty blood spattering the sides of the building.


    The monster howled again, this time in pain, its hands going to the limb, massive cleaver dropped. It didn¡¯t fall.


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    Alexander worked the bolt and shot it in the neck, cursing, he¡¯d been sighted on its collar bone, aiming for the head, but his scope was still zeroed at two hundred yards and this monster was less than fifty away, his windage was off. A great hand slapped at the wound like he would slap at a mosquito bite. Fuck.


    Rearing up, the Ogre reached down and grabbed the sword-thing with surprising agility and threw it at him about the time he squeezed off a round into its upper thorax.


    Death flew at him faster than a diving hawk, whirling metal humming loud in the cold air.


    He flopped down to the ground, rifle jammed up in his chest painfully and heard the sword pass overhead, heard it clanging across pavement. The youth rolled, freeing the gun from under him and pulled it up, readying prone, knowing that the adversary would be coming. Instinct told him the Ogre wasn¡¯t crippled, slowed, maybe, but it wanted to chew his head off and he had to hit it again.


    Instincts were correct, his scope was full of the lumbering hulk¡¯s mass. He put a fourth bullet into the monster¡¯s gut, abandoned the rifle, running again.


    The pained howl was just behind him, ten feet, no more. Adrenaline pumping, fear induced flight had him legging it faster than he¡¯d ever run in his life. Heavy thuds of bare flesh harder than bull hide, thudded behind him as the chase continued.


    He turned the corner to the peddler¡¯s mall and jerked the pistol, a forty-five ACP with over pressured jacketed hollow points free, assuming a Weaver stance, legs planted, two hands on the gun, both eyes open, and waiting for the bastard to come around and catch the best chance he¡¯d get to put it down.


    A huge hand flew around the corner of the building and the injured creature used the building, which made distressing metal sounds when it did, to help it change direction. In full view, pistol lined up with the angry Ogre face, Alexander put seven into the monster¡¯s head.


    After the panther soaked up fifteen nine-millimeter and still managed to savage him, he wanted his sidearm to have a hell of a lot more murder potential.


    The Ogre took the first two in the cheek and lower eye socket, not understanding what was happening that caused it to feel such pain. Three more hammer blows to its upper head, one smashing its nose the other two thudding into its forehead rattled its consciousness. A last round smashed it dead center to the forehead.


    It fell to its knees dazed, unseeing. It didn¡¯t see the tiny vermin that hurt it drop a spent magazine and replace it.


    Alexander shot the kneeling beast seven more times in the top of its skull. The hulking creature¡¯s struggles ceased, it flopped down to the ground, twitching.


    He panted, shaking now, and leaned back against the flea market¡¯s sheet metal walls, looking around the once familiar neighborhood for more threats. There were none. Big Daddy over there had come alone or left his crew of little fuckers behind. Maybe he ate them.


    A relieved sigh escaped him when nothing else tried to eat, murder, skin, or otherwise bring him harm.


    These goblin fucks had to go; Alexander resolved. This was the third time, no, four, counting the scavengers when he was insane. Each time, there had been an escalation, of some kind. They were clearly on the offense, sending this fucking juggernaut after him. Well, it had taken a lot more doing than the other ones but he¡¯d put the plus sized asshole down. And, now, he was going to go over there and carve the sonofabitch apart and see if they were all made the same way.


    Twilight, fading close to true dark, found him holding a freshly retrieved gem just slightly smaller than his fist. Amber, but, this time, radiating a deeper orange, damned near neon orange, like a sodium vapor lamp. The shape was different too, closer to a teardrop. The last surviving Gerifalte didn¡¯t know the rules guiding this difference but he knew he was looking at something special, something that reflected a true watershed difference between the enemies he¡¯d fought and whatever this Ogre thing was.


    Slowly, Alexander was coming around to the idea that he was dealing with a type of organism that had tiers or phases of its life cycle. Somehow, the little ones grew into the bigger ones, and, he had a gut feeling, some of those bigger ones turned into this biggest one. One thing was for absolute certain, if they got any more humongous, he wouldn¡¯t be able to take them down with just a gun.


    His autopsy had revealed, to his horror, that the creature¡¯s anatomy was much more resistant towards the firearm¡¯s than he¡¯d suspected. The knee was fairly mangled, but that was because the heavy bullet had ricocheted off the bones and jacked up the ligaments as it did. A through shot wouldn¡¯t have stopped the monster. Wouldn¡¯t much have slowed it. A similar tale for the chest and neck shots. Even a long action magnum, more than adequate for large game, had failed to produce the sort of trauma that he would have expected. It was almost like the Ogre¡¯s flesh soaked up the kinetic energy of the bullet, sponging off the damage.


    It hadn¡¯t died from the internal damage caused by the rifle at all, the wound channels were pitifully small. What it had died from, was the lucky handgun bullet that skipped off its lower orbital bone up into its brain, where it had fragmented, the pieces ripping through grey matter of the monster. Of the seven direct hits on the top of its skull, which had fractured the bone like a sledge hammer on concrete, two had gotten through to finish the destruction of the Ogre¡¯s brain.


    It was a good thing he hadn¡¯t known how damned near impervious the creature was to gunfire beforehand, or his hands would have shaken too much from pants shitting terror to aim well enough to kill it.


    Fourteen bullets as hot as you could get, right to the noggin, and it took all of that to kill the bastard.


    ¡°What in the name of all the gods above, below, and between are you, you fucking monster?¡± Alexander asked the dead thing.


    The opened corpse he left lying, not that he could have moved the massive thing, and he retreated with quiet steps out from the gloom of his deserted town to his haven. Victory felt hollow, Alexander knew that two of those things, or even just a handful of the little ones to distract or back stab him and he¡¯d have never survived.


    Thoughts spun wildly, a combination of determination and despair, interchanging.


    Next time, because there would be a next time, he knew it to his toenails, there would be more. An instinct, something from the reptilian calculator in the base of his brain, told him that the next time he saw yellow bulbous eyes, grey-green warty skin, and loincloths, it was going to be everything and the kitchen sink they could throw at him.


    Sleep claimed his consciousness, and his last thoughts before succumbing to the exhaustion of the forge and defeating the Ogre was: ¡°When you don¡¯t know the rules to the game, it¡¯s time to stack the deck.¡±


    Ten days later, armored by multiple layers of clothes against a fairly bitter November wind, Alexander Gerifalte lay on the roof of the big old Courthouse, its crenelated architecture providing him cover. From the wind and from the goblins below.


    They had come. Just like he¡¯d known that they would.


    Following the Ogre attack, Alexander spent the next three days getting ready. Firstly, detection. No more surprises. He strung fishing wire across streets, with decorative bells from the Knick knacks shop hung. They would alert him when, and from what direction that the monsters came.


    Next, decoys. Figuring that the monsters had always come close to sunset, he knew roughly when they would arrive from wherever they hid until they invaded. He put scarecrows up around town, placed them in the windows of some of the burned-out houses, put them along the sidewalks, put them on corners of alleys, anywhere he thought that might confuse their scouts or trigger the big ones to come charging.


    It turned out that the monsters didn¡¯t rot. They didn¡¯t get eaten by birds. It turned out that, on the third sunrise that brought its healing light, they evaporated. Turned to ash, and that ash rose up into the air, vanishing into smoke, which itself disappeared, leaving no sign the goblin things ever existed. Magic. Even their weapons faded to nothingness. What didn¡¯t, however, was the little gems he¡¯d extracted. Those, and only those, remained trapped in whatever simulacrum of reality Alexander currently occupied.


    Not being real anymore had stopped bothering him.


    In a way, it gave him hope. Maybe, just maybe, he was in a parallel reality that, to him, made it appear that all the people he¡¯d known were stone, but who were actually just in a separate facet of existence, separated by some barrier. Maybe, he could find a way to undo the Pulse and cross back over and he would come back to find that everything was fine, everyone was alive, and time had stopped in that world. A fairy tale. But one that helped, when he found those lowest moments where the void called ¡°Just end it all and find out¡±.


    Whatever. The goblins were back, and that was what mattered right now. From his vantage, he saw what some premonition had told him he would see:in vanguard for three dozen goblin warriors, an ogre, flanked by four of the shaman women Hobgoblins, with a particularly muscular pair of male Hobs out in front to serve as honor guard for the ogre.


    This ogre wasn¡¯t wearing a loin cloth.


    Instead, it wore ugly, pitted metal plates badly sewn into leather to form a kind of ragged half plate armor. In its hand it gripped a gigantic axe, half moon blade sharpened, the handle nearly as long as Alexander stood tall. That axe could cut a pine tree down in one whack. Atop the beast¡¯s head, he saw a hint of culture: a polished bone crown, ivory points standing a foot over top its twelve-foot height.


    An evil grimace found its way across Alexander¡¯s face.


    ¡°They sent King Goblin.¡± He whispered, almost giddy with joy and anticipation.


    Nothing more could he have asked. Not for the little surprise he had waiting for the ugly hominids advancing steadily down the wide single main street through his ruined town.


    Bells had alerted him to the encroachment half an hour beforehand. They came from the northern side of town, a note he made mentally as he sprinted from the Laboratory to ready his welcoming party. Bare hands twisted cold metal wires, together, the copper folding around itself easily, in spite of the temperature. Insulated wire was going to pay dividends. So would the barrels of diesel fuel siphoned from trunk gas tanks.


    As he watched, the Royal procession advanced down the streets of his city like they owned it. A goblin scout spotted one of his scarecrows in a burned-out building. A screeching hyena warble sent a dozen of them scattering to encircle the ruins of the home. One of the Shaman females pointed its staff and, incredibly, a ball of fire blossomed at the tip of the fetish covered staff, before launching in a high arc to hit the window into which the decoy had been propped up, as if glancing out from behind stained and charred curtains.


    Red orange flame blossomed in a gout of flame, rising up almost viscous, dainty compared to the energy unleashed, and the timbers went up, burning brightly. His dummy was gone, burned away to cinders and kindling in a flash of heat.


    An impressive display of¡­firepower. Alexander couldn¡¯t help himself; the joke was there. What kind of parallel reality ghost would he be if he didn¡¯t make excruciating puns from time to time?


    The encirclement ended, the goblin warriors returning to their positions, and the King Goblin led on. Another decoy was spotted, the King and his court stopped, small goblin warriors encircled, and, again, a female Shaman, a different one this time, sent fire toward the corner of the building. So. They had a standard set of tactics. Alexander slipped that piece of information into his growing catalog of knowledge on the humanoid monsters.


    While he watched, the process repeated three more times, each time a different staff was raised to fling fire toward a decoy. All except one, and Alexander had a feeling that one was holding back as a reserve to raise one of those barriers. He¡¯d attacked from long range, each time. The ones that survived from his ambush, when he¡¯d had to retreat from battle thanks to the panther attack, must have carried word that they were attacked from a distance, and that a barrier had delayed the attacks.


    Pure conjecture, maybe giving the nasty monsters too much credit for their smarts, but Alexander wasn¡¯t going to be relying on his enemies being stupid to beat them. Well, only a little stupid. He was really banking on them not realizing that the big ¡°X¡± painted on the road had significance. Or that the boxes with wires running between them were anything more than trash.


    Watch. Wait. Keep still.


    Alexander made his play when the Ogre-Hobgoblin vanguard cross over the painted target. A Bic lighter flicked, brought to life a tiny flame and he lit the wick to the firebomb he held in his hand. And then the next five, until he had enough to guarantee his plan.


    Up he jumped and sailed the bottle high, then the other four, gasoline mixed with Styrofoam to make a sludgy, clinging type of incendiary approximating napalm, directly at the Ogre King, all five bottles in the air before he was spotted.


    The reserve Shaman raised her staff, yammering guttural syllables and that blue honeycomb shield burst the bottles, flinging a shower of burning goop into the air. Several goblins got a coating and howled, the sticky substance doing what napalm did best: burn like hell and spread when you tried to get it off in panic.


    Alexander didn¡¯t have to wait for the next bit, the diesel fuel barrels he¡¯d kicked over had been well placed, and some of the flaming material hit them and caught, spreading a ring of flame around the square holding the ¡°X¡±. When that racing flame burned through the wooden shims holding up barrels of unspilled fuel, they toppled, dumping their contents into the streets. In the intensity of the diesel those wooden supports lasted only a few seconds before losing their integrity.


    King Goblin roared a challenge about the time the entire square filled up with heavy black diesel smoke, roiling flames burning hot as it consumed the goblins in the fire trap.


    He didn¡¯t wait to see if the shield magic would break, Alexander hefted the semi-automatic rifle he¡¯d lifted from the police station and he opened fire into the center of the pyroclasm.


    Thirty small caliber bullets tore into the shield, breaking it after ten hits, and a small whirlwind of fire formed when the barrier vanished, cold air being displaced by the hot. Alexander didn¡¯t stop shooting, aiming for where the Shamans had been, even though he couldn¡¯t see through the smoke.


    His weapon clicked; the bolt thrown open on an empty magazine. Alexander thumbed it, dropped the empty mag and slid a fresh one in. Then he resumed firing into the town square. Another magazine empty. A clatter of plastic and metal on the stone roof of the courthouse, another metallic clack as the bolt was thrown forward on a fresh thirty rounds. Alexander was laughing maniacally while he emptied the gun again.


    Step two complete, he threw himself down and retreated from the roof of the courthouse. He slid down the ladder that accessed the roof for maintenance like a firefighter down a fire house rail. Next to the ladder was a bicycle cobbled with a system of gears and belts to a hamster wheel which had been set into a poured concrete slab, wires connected to either side of it.


    The last Gerifalte hopped onto the seat and pedaled like a maniac, thus providing the torque to spin the hamster wheel at incredible frequency, magnets duck taped to the wheel¡¯s surface spinning in the high gear rapidly enough to generate a current in the coiled wire inside the wheel.


    Induced current hurtled through his network of copper wires, run through the wood boxes full of scrap metal, at the center of which a central coffee can of Tannerite from the local funstore, safe from the burning flames all around, served as the heart of Step Three.


    Triggering arcs detonated half a dozen shrapnel bombs in the square simultaneously, sending ragged metal hurtling through anything standing nearby.


    Alexander sprinted across the street from the courthouse, out of sight from the square where he¡¯d arranged his welcome party.


    He ran along a per-determined route, up a side street, into a two-story house with a window facing a convenient vantage, to the ten plastic jugs of premixed chemicals arrayed there. He uncapped each, holding his breath, and slung them out into the flaming street. Instantly, the flames took on a new role. They reacted the contents of the containers, combusting them to form horrifically toxic fumes that now filled the square. Fumes which Alexander, after fully comprehending what he was reading from his father¡¯s stash of now questionable literature, wanted nothing to do with.


    Upwind he ran, not bothering to look back at the results of his work. Time would tell. For now, he was moving toward the source of his problems. The goblins had approached from the north side of town, and it was the north side of town to which the young man was headed.


    If any of the little monsters had survived his trap they would be headed home, returning to carry word of what he¡¯d done to them. They were going to show him the way back to their nest. This part he didn¡¯t have hashed out as well as the square, but he had spent days thinking of contingencies, of nothing other than plotting the end of the goblins. Alexander was starting to get the feeling that, maybe, he wasn¡¯t a very nice person, because the ideas he came up with were, frequently, unbelievably cruel.


    ¡°They started it.¡± He panted, coming up on a dumpster that was keeping one of his scattered weapon caches free from the weather.


    Alexander rearmed and headed to the road out of town. He had been living a good life. Hard working, goal oriented, law abiding, disciplined. He had the love of two doting parents who had poured themselves into making of him a good and decent person who would find success no matter what path he trod. He was going to soar the skies. Now, though, now he was here doing all of this.


    Two goblin soldiers, badly burned, limping, one with a ragged stump for an arm, were making for the outskirts. He watched them from the cover of the gas station that was the last port of call for many a trucker headed Upta. Not much but wilderness for a good many miles from here. The thing about hick towns like this, full up with good old boys and people who loved to live on the edge of civilization, they had all kinds of fun toys stashed.


    Alexander loaded a bolt into the crossbow. He¡¯d figured out one of his problems. Guns, you see, made too much goddamn noise. They drew attention. A crossbow, with nasty looking razor bladed bolts, would reach out and touch something, not from as far away, granted, but far enough. And it would do it quietly.


    Fear was in the bulbous eyes of the little monsters as they scurried. They didn¡¯t take the road out though, surprising him by turning up the hill, like they were headed to the long-neglected path that led to an old¡­silver mine.


    ¡°Alexander, you are retarded. You are cultivating brain eating pond scum instead of synapses. How did this never occur to you?¡± He condemned himself.


    Up the hill the survivors of his flame trap hoofed it, making as much speed as their damaged bodies could manage. Behind them, Alexander Gerifalte shadowed, crossbow at the ready to take the monsters down in relative silence. Sunset was close now, he had to make some choices.


    Let the creatures show him exactly where they had come from, and risk being caught in the open come full dark, or, kill them here and now and return in the morning to discover the source of his goblin problem.


    The young man decided on a bold course of action: to follow the creatures and know for certain. He suffered from a lack of information. Constantly was he running up against the simple fact that he didn¡¯t know what rules guided this unreal world. He¡¯d seen magic performed directly now. He¡¯d felt the touch of some otherworldly force that threatened to break his mind. Now, he was going to get some goddamned answers, dark or no dark.

 Chapter 5: Message in a Bottle

    Careful, measured footfalls of booted feet allowed Alexander to trail the two survivors of the goblin horde to their origin. They were, in fact, headed up the underbrush riddled track that led to an abandoned silver mine, its owners having closed the doors on the facility when it became more costly to extract the silver ores than to simply invest their fortunes in the stock market. A good broker made better return on investment than risking the silver seams thinning out and so, an entire town¡¯s livelihood was stripped away overnight, the miners and their families left high and dry without so much as an ¡°attaboy¡±.


    He and his classmates learned about the history of the mine and its owners in elementary school, they even got to visit on a field trip. It was kind of exciting, seeing a system of corridors carved through solid rock that extended three miles deep into the northern Appalachian range. In addition to silver were all sorts of subsidiary metals, copper, some gold, zinc, quite a bit of lead, a reasonable titanium occurrence, iron, of course, and others. In short, the mine had been a bit of a catch all source of precious metals, only, it was some tough digging to get to them.


    The goblins patter of bare feet led him surely until they turned onto the unkempt road to the mouth of the mine.


    The mine exterior was all big rough timber framing, six by sixes arranged in methodical spacing to support the tunnels dug into the Maine mountain side. He¡¯d been there before, so he knew what to expect. What he did not remember seeing before was a shimmering blue wall, sort of like a mirror that reflected an azure reflection of the world outside the mine entrance. The interior was completely blocked by this decidedly supernatural phenomenon.


    His tour of the complex had been restricted to the upper level alone, he was on the clock. He now knew, for certain, that this was the source of his trouble. Should he go in? Should he let the goblins report their failed mission and plan a follow-up ambush?


    Trust in the violence of action, Alexander.


    It was something his mother used to say, mostly when she was telling him to get off his ass and lay hand to whatever chore she had planned for him, in response to his asked question why he was the one who had to do it. But he knew its proper meaning: when you had initiative you could dictate the course of events. Attack first, and you chose the time and location of battle, push the enemy into reactive action and you controlled them.


    The pair off goblins became a singular goblin when he put the crossbow sights between the shoulder blades of the one with all its limbs and pulled the trigger on the weapon.


    *thump*


    A muted sound of string whipping forward and the bolt flew with incredible velocity, taking its target squarely in the back. That one fell without a sound, as if tripped on a stone. Its companion stopped, turning to see what happened. Alexander didn¡¯t stop to reload but, instead, dropped the crossbow, drew his knife, and, running full steam, tackled the one-armed creature, ignoring its shrill screams while ramming the knife down into its neck and chest until it stilled.


    The violence of action, indeed.


    With both of the last members of the war band dead, Alexander decided it was time to go on offense. For whatever reason, there was a delay between rounds of monsters. They didn¡¯t come one after the other. The length of time between the offenders had even increased. Perhaps they were weakened, or it took time to grow more of them, or something. Only one way to know.


    He retrieved the crossbow and approached the shimmering blue wall that separated the interior of the mine from the outside world. Gingerly, he put a hand against the barrier, almost expecting an electric shock. None came. There was no sensation as his hand passed through the field covering the mine.


    Withdrawing his hand, he looked at fingers that showed no ill effect at all.


    A few deep breaths were all he allowed himself, forcing himself through before his courage failed.


    <table style="width: 23.4776%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="269">


    Tirnanog Contested Space Entered!


    </td>


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    </tbody>


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    A pulsing blue scroll erupted before his eyes and Alexander bit down on a shriek that might reveal him to the goblins that might haunt this mine. Heart rate around mach two, he breathed sharply through his nose to avoid hyperventilating. While he did, he considered the scroll that seemed to remain centered in his field of view. It was transparent, he was aware of the landscape behind it, as if he¡¯d closed one eye and was viewing the scroll from a different perspective.


    It¡¯s all in your head, Little Falcon, he realized. Since he was a lunatic, visual hallucinations were just par for the course, and the last Garifalte took comfort from that knowledge.


    Tirnanog? Alexander recalled that being the name for wherever the hell the goblins had come from. And he had just entered it. Or, at least, a piece of it shared the space that belonged to part of his world.


    Once through the barrier, he recognized the interior as belonging to the abandoned silver mine. It was just like it had been all those years earlier, dry, dusty, dark, and most assuredly claustrophobic. There was the impulse to bend over, even though he wouldn¡¯t quite be able to touch the roof of the mine with hands stretched overhead. Even so, the place gave him that sort of feeling.


    Alexander realized, that one thing was off. It was dark, but in that way that an under-lit room was. Already his eyes were adjusting to the interior. Where was the light coming from? There were no lamps glowing, no torches, no indication anywhere that a source of light should be permitting the mine to be anything but pitch black. Behind him, the glowing gate shimmered with a soft blue glow, but that didn¡¯t come close to providing enough light to allow him to see down the carefully hewn corridor.


    Crouching, stepping softly, he slowly stalked down the dusty stone floor deeper into the mine. The not real things had come from this place. It was here that he might find a way to stop them from returning. A risk. Necessary. Alexander continued to justify his presence in this creepy place, every step taking him farther from safety and pitting him against the unknown. Turning back wasn¡¯t so appealing either, he knew, while peering around a bend in the tunnel; it was already dark outside. He was safer inside the mine than in the darkness of the forest, where more of those enormous panthers might be hunting.


    Slowly, Alexander¡¯s senses adapted to the low light and he could see fairly well, eyes penetrating the gloom to let him perceive a solid hundred feet into the carved stone path. He wasn¡¯t a geologist, but something was off about this place. This was once an active mine, they¡¯d carved deep into the mountain, over three miles deep from the guided tour lecture way back when. Where were all the side corridors, the prospecting tunnels? The gradually descending, almost winding spiral of his path didn¡¯t seem like it was very efficient in terms of delivering ore.


    ¡°Hey now.¡± He whispered softly to himself, coming to the realization that there was no sign of mine carts, rail, heavy equipment, wiring or any of the kinds of trappings of a modern excavation operation.


    He stalled, noticing now that the carefully reinforced and squared off corridors had gradually become smooth and round, almost like a naturally eroded formation, but that didn¡¯t make any sense, how did a mine shaft erode? It didn¡¯t. He was experiencing more unreality.


    One booted foot forward. Then another. Carefully, Alexander continued his hunt. He was coming closer to the source of the nightmares; he just knew it. Clammy hands gripped the crossbow, shifting to sure up his hold while he crept. The satchel on his hip was heavy, but he wouldn¡¯t have left behind some way to deal with another Ogre. The real trick would be not killing himself if he had to use its contents. Better not to think of it, he chided.


    A gradual bend opened up, widening, the pressing roof receding up to form a cavern, and Alexander got an answer to one of his mysteries. The missing people. The folk not amongst the statues frozen in their places, petrified in the act of going about their small town lives, were in the widening chamber ahead. Smell assailed him. Rot and filth. The townsfolk, or, more correctly, their remains, were found. Skeletons stripped of flesh were jumbled in piles. Skeletons of all sizes, from teenaged to adult. Clothing ripped away was stacked in a nearby heap. Big cook pots and spits sat empty, no burnable wood remained in the rough stone circles, the charred remnants long, long turned to ash. Except for the bones. A multitude of crudely assembled chains and manacled rings staked to posts held no captives, but human scat, some of it only a few days old, told the story.


    The goblins had been scouting for food. They had been running out of theirs and were coming for fresh meat. Alexander¡¯s insanity, the slaughter of the scavengers and their leaders, and then his ambush, had deprived them of resupply. He had, unknowingly, been starving the creatures. They ate all their remaining prisoners and came out in force.


    Goblin life must have been simple, brutish, and absent any but the barest similarities to civilization. Dirty, soiled fur blankets covered parts of the cavern floor. A primitive forge lay cold to one side of the huge chamber. Hunks of metal, the same color and form as that of the Ogre¡¯s weapons and King Goblin¡¯s armor could be seen tossed in a jumble nearby. He saw a claw hammer lying on a cut stone block about the size of a kitchen table, scraps of beaten and dented metal left behind. Failed products, probably.


    But where had they all come from? That was the real burning question.


    Driven by a quiet anger at the fact that he hadn¡¯t been alone, that there had been those who could have joined him, that his neighbors had been taken by these monstrous fuckers for cattle, Alexander carried on through the cavern. The cavern narrowed to another set of corridors at the back end.


    One led to a pool of sullied water. A spring that spurted from the wall, carrying fresh water into a deep cleft in the rock. It had to drain, maybe through another cavern below, he didn¡¯t know. And that explained how the creatures were getting water. They didn¡¯t appear to care overmuch about boiling it though, their human soups aside. Or shitting near it, he realized grimacing against the smell.


    Hate flared, a cold fist in his chest.


    Retreating from the goblin¡¯s toilet, Alexander tried door number two. Here he found another mystery¡¯s answer. Goblins were born from eggs. Eggs that were about the size of a beach ball, slimy and anchored to the floor by webbing of fibrous material that almost appeared to be sinew. He also learned that goblin eggs were laid by a goblin Queen, because, at the end of the chamber laying upon a pile of furs, with tributes of metal scattered about, animal skulls, including humans, and even other goblins, was the hulking monstrosity herself. Ogre in size, teen feet or more would the thing have stood, if it could have stood. It lay supine, gigantic swollen breasts pendulous on its chest, and its pregnant belly heaved.


    Alexander watched the creature deposit another egg to the cave floor, ignoring him completely. He wanted to be sick. This was what his people had died for? To feed this fucking monster? Nope. Not anymore. Too late to save anybody he might have been. Too slow to put the pieces together for where the monsters had come from to find this charnel house before they¡¯d eaten what remained of the people he¡¯d grown up with. But not too late for vengeance.


    Without further thought, Alexander hefted the crossbow and sent a bolt toward the Goblin Queen, the dart penetrating deep into the creature¡¯s thick neck. Alexander didn¡¯t bother reloading; he was already swinging the satchel into a spin. Two good spins and he loosed the thing, ignoring the monster¡¯s pained shriek. It was so fat with more goblins it couldn¡¯t stand. The satchel thudded to the cave floor next to it, scattering black sand, or so it appeared. Alexander pulled a road flare from his coat pocket and struck the brilliant red torch to life. He tossed the flare in a high arc and ran, diving around the corner. Nothing.


    ¡°Keep running then, idiot!¡± He yelled, caring nothing for stealth now.


    His boots and voice were the very least of the noise about to-


    The detonation roared behind him deafening him, a fist hit him and knocked him down, and dust filled the big cavern. Whatever magical effect lit the interior of the old silver mine didn¡¯t affect the space being filled by dust, it appeared. Some sort of ventilation had to exist, else the little bastards would have suffocated themselves with the fires they used to make their shitty armor and to cook his friends and neighbors.


    He crawled to one wall of the cavern, away from the smell of old death and feces, and stayed there watching, listening for any sign that reinforcements were coming. Nothing. Long minutes passed and, eventually the dust cleared from the chamber, rising up he noted. So, some kind of updraft, probably the cave ceiling had some kind of access to the surface.


    Rising slowly, hand against the cool cave wall, Alexander stood straight. He had to be certain that the creature birthing the goblins was, for absolutely certain, dead. Retracing steps, he returned to the site where the satchel of Tannerite had been thrown. A gigantic, mangled form lay against one side of the birthing chamber. The eggs that had been laid were still burning somewhat, although they appeared to be too moist to really take off. Alexander drew his knife. Easy fix.


    After slitting open each egg and thoroughly killing the still developing goblin inside, he examined the corpse of the Goblin Queen. It was an up-scaled version of the female Hobgoblins, made more grotesque for its bulk. It smelled awful, too. Quickly he drove off imagined couplings between the goblin royals, before he made himself sick.


    The monster was dead, that much was certain. Its bloated body had been torn open by the circular saw blades inside the satchel of Tannerite, and viscera formed a shallow pool near its corpse. Without further thought, Alexander carved open the creature¡¯s chest and pulled free the prize, a fist sized jewel so similar to that of the Ogre, but of greater size and increased number of facets. The crystalline thing almost burned with inner light. He didn¡¯t know what to make of that so he stashed the gem in his coat pocket and left, after making certain no goblin eggs had gone undestroyed.


    If he¡¯d had any salt, he would have scattered it around, just out of principle.


    Steeling himself, Alexander strode toward the last offshoot of the cavern, the largest diameter one. Whatever lay beyond here, he would face it with a knife in his hand. The last Gerifalte was getting awfully tired of being afraid. It was someone else¡¯s turn. Like whoever had done this to him, had inflicted this long nightmare on him.


    The corridor wound, deeper into the mountain. He walked calmly, boots echoing off the cold stone. Eventually, maybe half a mile of winding corridor without branches later, he turned a corner and found a chamber of glimmering crystals growing from the rock walls. Like a massive geode, the chamber glowed brilliantly compared to the rest of the subterranean space. A space that was illuminated by magic. He saw the source of that magic before him, a singular pillar of crystalline perfection, blue-white, facets glowing powerfully.


    His skin felt tight, like he was being squeezed, almost as if he¡¯d dove deep beneath a pool of water. The air he breathed was too thick in his lungs. Alexander realized that if he was going to do what he knew he was going to do, then he had to do it now, while he still could.


    Rapid steps carrying him forward, Alexander Gerifalte charged the source of the magic and brought the knife down in a hammer grip against it as hard as he could. The blade sank into the crystalline surface to its hilt, smooth as stabbing modeling clay.


    Sight vanished in a sapphire brilliance and a voice, melodic, vaguely female, filled his mind, body, and soul.


    WORTHY. WORTHY. WHAT IS THY DESIRE?


    What¡­what was his desire? He laughed, even though he couldn¡¯t feel his body or hear anything. A laugh born of immense pain, rage, and rejection of disbelief. His desire? He wanted to go back. He wanted to wake up in his bed, before any of this had happened. He wanted his parents back. He wanted to punish whoever had done this to him.


    IMPOSSIBLE. IMPOSSIBLE. POSSIBLE. POSSIBLE.


    More of the all-encompassing voice. Like the Earth itself was speaking to him. Which it was, a newly conscious god manifest, projecting its will toward one of the few of its beloved children who had proven themselves worthy to speak with it. Who had conquered the challenges it laid to test them, to refine them. It would give a gift of itself, a reward for its promising children. All they had to do was speak their desire.


    Alexander¡¯s mind rocked with the wash of the presence he had accessed by stabbing the crystal pillar.


    What did it mean? Why did it repeat itself? What was impossible? What was possible? What were the fucking rules? ! He raged, furious with himself for not understanding.


    You know what I fucking want? Alexander asked himself, I want to know the rules. And I want to be strong enough to break them.


    WORTHY. WORTHY. THOU HAST ASKED WHAT CAN BE GIVEN.


    Another wash of the attention of something so far beyond his perception he couldn¡¯t attempt to see its edges. A heat began to grow inside him, filling his body. A fire lit within his soul.


    SEEK. SEEK. TOUCH THE DRAGON PULSE.


    Those last cryptic words echoed through him before the presence receded, drawing back like an ocean tide, leaving the human hollow, except for the imagined fire that warmed him with its vital energy.


    His senses returned, over a period of time that he would never be able to describe later. Hours. Years. It could have been anything at all. Spongy grey meat in his skull lacked the capacity to speak with gods or world minds.


    Slowly, he realized that he was standing in the crystal chamber, the geode that held the massive glowing pillar. A pillar that wasn¡¯t glowing brightly at all now. It was dim, a pale blue light that barely would have made for a nightlight.


    The unearthly radiance inside him was fading, retreating, leaving him feeling¡­altered. Alexander had the vague impression that he was like one of the pieces of metal stock he¡¯d hammered a few days ago fresh from the forge, losing its cherry red temperature, returning to the dark grey of unworkable steel. Made of the same stuff as before, but distinctly changed.


    ¡°I have no clue what just happened to me,¡± He told the geode, rocked by the encounter with some sort of ascended being, ¡°But I think I¡¯m done being here.¡±


    Retracing his steps from the noticeably darker corridors of the unnatural cavern, Alexander uttered a silent prayer to the pile of bones that they would be allowed peace. He also offered, for what it was worth, an apology for not saving them. It didn¡¯t make sense, but, then, nothing did anymore. And hadn¡¯t, for a while now.


    It was all too much.


    Heedless of anything, absent thought, Alexander left behind the goblin cave, exiting the also faded barrier at the mouth of the mine. It was dark outside. He didn¡¯t know how long he was inside, but he had only experienced perhaps an hour¡¯s worth of subjective time. Which was why, when he turned toward the south, preparing to head home, he stopped mid step when he realized that there was the faintest hint of dawn to the east.


    Dawn? He¡¯d gone inside just at nightfall.


    ¡°Fuck it. Time dilation. Sure. Why not?¡± He mumbled to himself, resuming egress toward his borrowed home.


    Unable to shake the niggling feeling of wonkiness from himself, he pushed to make it to the Laboratory.


    He had one stop first though. The Goblin King. He wanted to pull the jewel out of its chest to compare to the one in the horrendous matriarch of the little bastards. His samples required experimentation to understand and he would feel better about destroying something potentially useful if he had duplicates. The firetrap should have left at least a couple of the biocrystals intact. Given their toughness, compared to their size, he didn¡¯t doubt that he¡¯d have plenty. He needed to hurry. The gradual lightening of the horizon promised daylight soon. It was the third day; the sun¡¯s first light would erase the corpses. Alexander had until then to extract the jewels from his prey or see them evaporate away. He doubled his pace, pushing through the tiredness.


    Operation Kill With Fire had been a complete success. Grimly satisfied, he permitted himself a moment of gloating as his eyes canvassed the square that was the site of his trap. Scorched asphalt, corpses burned to blackened husks, and scattered bits of shrapnel lay strewn about the kill box. The Goblin King lay where he¡¯d stood when Alexander began hurling Molotovs down at him.


    Intent on his objective, he was stunned utterly when his focus on the corpse caused his vision to flicker, an image akin to the blue glowing doorway into the mine unfurled before him.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="148">


    Goblin King


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="158">


    Status:


    Deceased


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Soak: 0%


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Mana: 0%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    44


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="91">


    12¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/0 broken, 3<sup>rd</sup> degree burns, shrapnel


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    7


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="91">


    760lbs


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/23 2<sup>nd</sup> degree burns, shrapnel


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Goblin Crown


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/2 damaged, 3<sup>rd</sup> degree burns, shrapnel


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="91">


    67


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Crude Pig-Iron Vambrace


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Crude Pig-Iron Gauntlet


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    6(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="91">


    Imperial Topaz, pear


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/12 damaged, seared lungs


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Great Goblin Cleaver, dropped


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    4


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="91">


    Tirnanog


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Pig-Iron Half plate


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    3(-5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="158">


    Monster Race:


    Goblin-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Ogre, King Variant)


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/7 damaged, 2<sup>nd</sup> degree burns


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/0 broken, 3<sup>rd</sup> degree burns, shrapnel


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Pig-Iron Schynbald


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    0/0 broken, shrapnel perforated organs


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Pig-Iron Schynbald


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    15(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Pig-Iron Half plate


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="573">


    Physical mitigation, Flammable, Nobility, Dull wit, Cannibalistic, Goblin King¡¯s pride


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="573">


    Bash, Greater throw, Rallying shout, Sundering strike, Berserk, Savage flurry, Demoralizing growl


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="80">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="573">


    Ogre Aura


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Information assaulted his mind, as if he¡¯d opened one of his father¡¯s advanced calculus books, the scrawling formula reverting into letters and words, heavy with context.


    Alexander tripped over himself and threw up, vertigo tilting him upside down from the torrent of knowledge pouring through his consciousness, a valve opened with tons of pressure behind it, pounding down channels too narrow to confine it. Too much!


    As quickly as it had come, the sensation of falling vanished, leaving him merely slightly motion sick, a construct holding a wealth of knowledge about the Goblin King hanging in his vision.


    Curiosity replaced agitation and discomfit. Here then, was the gift of the strange omnipresence that had spoken to him. He¡¯d wanted to know the rules. Well. Perhaps not exactly what he¡¯d had in mind, but it was a close enough thing.


    Alexander saw a bewildering array of data on the creature, including a rough summary of its injuries. Some of it he didn¡¯t understand. Okay, that was a complete lie, there was an incredible amount that he didn¡¯t understand. But at least he had something to even attempt to wrap his brain around. A few things seemed to be obvious enough. Integer numbers reflecting physical and mental parameters, okay. Mana, fair enough, he already knew there was a great deal of magical nonsense in his unreality.


    Soak? What exactly the fuck was soak?


    Unbidden another scroll unfolded in his eyes, overlaying the previous one, but not replacing it, another flash of vertigo, swiftly gone and much less potent.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="623">


    Soak: the imbuement of the mundane with the magical. Creatures possessed of cores concentrate mana within their bodies and this mana resists alteration to their bodies by a fixed amount so long as they possess mana reservoir.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Oh, okay, uh¡­thanks¡­insanovision.¡± Alexander said to the newest manifestation of his madness and it vanished, as if knowing his use for it had vanished.


    He tried again, concentrating on something else within the data array. How about Ogre Aura? Nothing. Not specific enough? Not intentional enough?


    Alexander tried again. What is an Ogre Aura?


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="623">


    Ogre Aura: a natural ability of ogres to exchange their mana for increased might, durability, and passive increase in soak. Deactivated when mana insufficient.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Hohoho¡­Alright!This. This is what I¡¯m talking about!¡± He crowed, overjoyed for the first time in a long time.


    It was like being blind and learning you could see. In an ecstatic frenzy of exploration, he concentrated on each of the corpses and a new window appeared to him, replacing the prior one, unless he really focused to keep both in sight. It was a little like crossing your eyes to hold two objects in view. Five minutes of indulging his euphoric access to information hidden by this nightmare reality and Alexander calmed. Standing in the ruin of the square, pockmarked by metal flung by explosives, surrounded by charred monster bodies stinking with the smell of burned asphalt and diesel fuel, he remembered his purpose for coming back to the flame trap. The cores.


    He now knew what the gem inside the bodies represented.


    They were magic stones, like in stories. Fantasies. Escapist trash that a purposeful human like Alexander Gerifalte would never in a hundred years have wasted his time consuming. Why would he have ever read about nonsense when he could bug his father to take him to the airport to fly a real plane? Or, failing that, he could put himself in the digital cockpit of an F-18 Hornet, dog-fighting Russian Migs with shockingly realistic physics and controls.


    Except that, now, flying a plane was a distant fantasy, and the magical stone he ripped from the King Goblin¡¯s chest, still covered in gore, was as real as cholera. What a twist.


    Quickly, before he lost them to the rising of the Renewal Sun, as he had come to think of that third sunrise that cleansed injury and evidence of the evil things from the land, he carved free the cores of the Hobgoblins and as many of the smaller goblins as he could.


    A glance at the horizon revealed that he didn¡¯t have much time. Instead of removing the tiny little amber gems from the small goblins, considering he had a dozen of them right now, he turned back to the Goblin King¡¯s body. He had seen what ¡°soak¡± was, but he wanted to understand it. There were percentages next to the values, which Alexander interpreted as a certain amount of damage reduced due to trauma.


    Pulling open the cavity of the Ogre variant, he inspected the dead thing and found about what he was starting to suspect, terrible, terrible damage caused by the flame, extensive wounds caused by the explosive flung metal, but nothing like what he would have expected. The Goblin King had been standing nearly on top of one of the crates containing his improvised explosive device, the shitty metal armor it wore was deeply dented, gouged, and outright penetrated to reflect the power of the flung steel shards. Its insides though simply did not reflect the energy that those fragments would have possessed. So¡­if he was understanding this correctly, soak sort of was exactly like it sounded. It, somehow, magically, absorbed some fixed percentage of the energy in a collision or attack.


    That explained how the first Ogre had withstood so many heavy slug rifle shots. It explained why even the little ones were tougher than expected. They were passivating his rounds spontaneously. It explained why the heavy forty-five caliber had managed to do its damage too, he¡¯d put enough rounds into the creature to probably deplete its mana, permitting the bullets to exert their full lethality on the ogre.


    He grinned, satisfied as a predator that had discovered a limp in its prey. Guns were of limited usefulness against the soak property, in the long run. You had to wear it down or have exquisite shot placement and massive overkill. Both could be arranged, but he wasn¡¯t made of ammunition and he¡¯d blown through quite a bit of it in his trap.


    He regretted nothing about that though.


    Fire had probably relatively swiftly eroded whatever magical protection the passive reduction imparted, after all, fire was aggressive change, but mag dumping the Shamans had permitted the flames to access the threat that was the Hobs and their Ogre king.


    ¡°Ten out of ten, would napalm my enemies into submission again.¡± Alexander giggled, slightly off kilter at new revelations and not a small amount of combat fatigue.


    Dawn reached out with golden light across the valley, the sun having crested the mountain. Bathed in its phoenix aura, Alexander was refreshed, mentally and physically.


    Two things immediately occurred to him, firstly, the goblins all came from somewhere called Tirnanog. Whatever the fuck that was. Secondly, if he could examine the monsters, maybe he could do the same to himself.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="104">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" width="104">


    Class: Entropic Neophyte


    </td>


    <td width="68">


    Status: fresh


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 15%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 150%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Might


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    9


    </td>


    <td width="62">


    Height


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="75">


    6¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    12/0


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="62">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="75">


    160lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/5


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    None


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/5


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="62">


    Age


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="75">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting jacket


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting jacket


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    14


    </td>


    <td width="62">


    Core


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="75">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    14/5


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Hunting Knife


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    12(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="62">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="75">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting jacket


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    15


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="136">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/5


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/5


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting pants


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/5


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting pants


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="63">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Hunting jacket


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Raptor Gaze, Fantasia, Spatial Adept, Back from the Brink, Lethal, Artisan of war, Scholarship, Gaia¡¯s Child


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Heart¡¯s blow, Rage, Greater Focus, Greater Analyze, Lesser Stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Entropic aura, Chaos bolt


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    A less disorienting explosion of information assailed him but it was still a chunk to take it. He¡¯d concentrated on himself, and, to his surprise, he witnessed now the same kind of scroll of knowledge that he¡¯d gotten from examining the Goblin King. What he saw both made sense, and, didn¡¯t. At all.


    Firstly, what by the good grace of all the gods above, below, and in between, was a goddamned class? This sounded like the dungeons and dragons stuff. Real hard core nerd shit. Alexander didn¡¯t indulge in escapist entertainment, he liked his world, and he¡¯d mostly ignored fiction of any kind as a pointless distraction. Shooters and simulators had been his thing.


    ¡°Joke¡¯s on you Little Falcon,¡± He rued allowed, ¡°I bet those geeks would already be plotting how to use this¡­whatever this is to start kicking asses, while you sit here with your thumb up your ass.¡±


    With his full attention on the words, each of which on their own obvious enough, but together forming a conundrum, his curiosity and full throated need to know triggered another unfurling of scrollwork, an answer to the question unuttered, but deeply desired.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="623">


    Entropic Neophyte: the WORTHY whose purpose is unweaving of mana, to pierce the shroud of mystery and lay bare the reality beneath wields chaos as a weapon. Talents multifaceted from uncommonly diverse experiences and diligent training leave branching paths toward the future. Martial tendency dominates, as does the inclination to engineer answers. Walk the path to find the way.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°What the fuck is that supposed to mean?¡± He complained, but no answer was forthcoming.


    Alexander¡¯s shoulders slumped when he realized Gaia, a name plucked from nowhere to give personification to the planet that had so marvelously fucked him over this past month, enjoyed her riddles and obfuscations. The wretched clow of a piece of water-logged rock circling a dust speck of a star. Maybe he was a touch bitter


    An instinctive dismissal sent the near useless class scroll back to the void of unreality from which it came. Alexander needed something more concrete to focus on, so he turned to the numbers, which had always seemed to him a firmer ground on which to build..


    His physical might parameter was, compared to the Ogre, pitiful. Yep, that was pretty much expected. He was more graceful than the hulking monster, which was, slightly surprising, the creatures moved plenty well for something that big. Well, or, maybe not, if the one chasing him could have used its incredible strength properly, it probably would have been able to hit him with its thrown weapon or navigated the flea market fast enough to snatch him. Alright, so, notably, the mental parameters for Alexander were much higher. He tried not to get too excited about that, he¡¯d spent his entire life being educated by very competent humans. The goblinoids were shitting around their drinking water, so, you know, not real bright.


    Things got interesting when he saw, to his absolute disbelief, that he had a core. How? When? He couldn¡¯t feel it, could he?


    ¡°Oh fuck, wait. I remember.¡± Alexander not quite moaned, recalling the flood of heat that had kindled inside him when he touched the crystalline pillar and communed with¡­a fucking god or something.


    It must have catalyzed something inside him. Why? He¡¯d only asked to know the rules, the lines between that and the blue scroll phantasm of his addled mind didn¡¯t add up to anything that made sense. A ghostly whisper from his subconscious said ¡°You¡¯re insane, nothing will ever make sense. Run with it.¡±


    Standing in the cool morning of Main¡¯s November, he tried to think back to just that last night. Things were slightly jumbled in his head. So much had happened, too much unreality to keep track.


    It took almost five minutes of trying to piece the moments between stabbing the crystal core of the space that must have, somehow, brought the goblins across from some distant place to Earth. An alien world. Or a parallel one. Poh-tay-to. Poh-tah-to.


    Ah! It dawned on him; he¡¯d wanted to know the rules. He¡¯d wanted the power to break them. That must have been it. To know the rules, he had the gift to see reality in a way that let him understand it. To break the rules, he had the gift of magic to change that reality. There was a twisty, fae kind of logic to it. Not quite a monkey¡¯s paw, more like something so very much vaster than he, giving him an answer to the wrong question. Giving him the answer to the answer he wasn¡¯t smart, wise, or knowledgeable enough to ask.


    The bodies of monsters around him finished evaporating while he had his epiphany.


    Now clear of goblin corpses, Alexander saw the mess he¡¯d made. Not too shabby, for a young man with a siphon hose, some copper wire, and a redneck supply store. He wasn¡¯t even certain why Tannerite was even legal to sell like that. Thank all the gods above, below, and in between that it was. Explosive powder had allowed him to finish the goblin royal family.


    ¡°I gotta go lay down.¡± He decided, voice echoing across empty streets, off the faces of the buildings that had made up his world, not very long ago.


    Steps fresh from the renewal, he sought the comfort of his soft mattress, one of the few luxuries left to him. One doesn¡¯t appreciate the delicious hedonistic wonder that is a hot shower until it is gone.


    Ensconced under a down comforter, flannel sheets keeping him toasty in spite of the roughly sixty-degree Fahrenheit interior of the modern cottage, Alexander let himself peruse the information that he could, at will, summon about himself.


    For over an hour he did nothing but catalogue the various pieces of information, gathering the corners of the puzzle that was this unreality.


    Firstly, the numerical parameters, deceiving for their simplicity. He just went down the list, focusing on a specific question regarding the function of each of these quantities, starting with the ones that seemed to dictate the function of one¡¯s physique.


    <table style="width: 77.0833%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Might: the strength of body, power to move heavy objects, to wield weapons, to use one¡¯s form as a weapon.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="width: 76.5224%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Grace: the link between mind and action, increases the deftness of movement, reducing unintended motions and wasted effort.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="width: 76.5224%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Impetus: rapidity of action and reflex. Improves the subtle speed with which the body responds to command as well as the velocity of its movement.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander didn¡¯t spend much time pondering those descriptions, they seemed relatively self-explanatory. The numbers themselves were without direct context, he didn¡¯t know what the unit values themselves meant, which somewhat robbed the numbers of their informational value. Trying to compel an answer to that question revealed nothing, indicating that he didn¡¯t know what question to ask, or how to ask it. Moving on, the mental.


    <table style="width: 76.1218%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Cogitation: this attribute reflects the ability to recognize patters, and apply logical thought to interpret information as well as to retain and recall that information accurately.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="width: 76.5224%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Wisdom: reflects the mental faculty of making sound judgements, assembling experience and instinct to create a holistic understanding of events and their relations to one another.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="width: 76.6026%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Ingenuity: mental quickness and flexibility of thought, this attribute describes the ability to synthesize mental constructs and adapt to new information or engage in creative thinking.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    He had to admit, he wasn¡¯t entirely certain he understood the subtle differences between some of these. He was debuffed, something called Fantasia was inflicting a negative five, that was something like a thirty percent penalty to his wisdom. Alexander resolved to look into it as soon as possible, but, for now, he was concentrating on the core attributes. Maybe if his cogitation score was a little higher or he was a little more ingenious he¡¯d be able to connect the dots. That seemed like a good way to generate anxiety, so Alexander turned to the last two parameters, which seemed to be referencing the resistance to injury or harm.


    <table style="width: 76.6026%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Durability: robustness of body and fortitude against illness or infirmity, this attribute also reduces the effects of Time¡¯s passage by substantial margin.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table style="width: 76.7628%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Valor: resilience of mind and enduring spirit, this parameter guards the sanity of a sapient and defends against the intrusion of another¡¯s will.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Rolling over on his side, forming a cozy burrito of goodness, Alexander had to reflect that his highest stat appeared to be the one that guarded his mind from insanity. He didn¡¯t like that implication, especially not with the additional thirty three percent boost to Valor that suggested he was probably not, in fact, insane.


    The main reason he found that unpalatable was because, if he wasn¡¯t crazy, then there was a better chance that this world wasn¡¯t some kind of very involved delusion. That would mean that everything was real, that his parents were truly gone, and that he was going to have to fight menaces like the goblins for the indefinite future, however much future he might have.


    For a few minutes he simply hid from that realization. When he couldn¡¯t force himself to any longer, he wanted to weep again for the loss of his life. It took an effort to choke down that grief, surprising for its intensity, but he managed. One of the things that made it easier was the advice of his parents delivered after a funeral for a grandparent of whom he had been fond.


    ¡°The dead don¡¯t weep, Little Falcon,¡± His mother said, wiping the tears from her own face after the service, while his father drew him away gently to leave, ¡°Nor do they feel pain. Pain is for you, and so is memory. It¡¯s good to be sad. But remember too that your grampa loved best to see you smile. So, smile for him, Little Falcon, and laugh, and remember the joys you shared.¡±


    It took a long time for him to understand her advice. It took even longer to be able to use it. It would take longer still to ever be able to apply it to the wonderful woman who had given him that advice.


    Alexander, for all his tender young age, was going to have to be a man. There wasn¡¯t anybody else to lean on. He¡¯d known that, ever since returning to his home to find the curse on everyone here. Knowing wasn¡¯t understanding, and, certainly wasn¡¯t accepting.


    So, he shelved the hurting that had started anew and continued to catalogue whatever information was available to him. Basic information for his body was a skip, he didn¡¯t need to look at those more closely, likewise the health and armor indicators, there just wasn¡¯t a whole lot to look at there, he was healthy and he wasn¡¯t wearing armor.


    Life force, that was kind of nebulous. He knew if it was zero though, that the critter was dead. Mana at one hundred percent, he was topped off. Shame he didn¡¯t know how to use it. Soak was five percent, which didn¡¯t sound like a lot. By all the gods above, below, and in between, the young man dearly wished he had a good way to test that in detail. It very likely would have prevented his desperate tangles with wolves and panthers from being quite so desperate. Best not to get cocky though, just look at what soak had done to keep the goblins alive.


    Onto the meat and potatoes, traits, skills, and arcana, by which he assumed he was to infer his ability to do magical horseshit of his own. He would test that out, later. He would test it all out. Later. For now, he was just getting the edges of the puzzle in hand, he¡¯d put things together after.


    First though, he¡¯d had enough lying in bed being sad. Trust in the violence of action.


    He rolled to still booted feet, abandoning the warmth and headed outside, mid morning Maine offering him its very finest.


    Clear blue skies, absent cloud. Yellows, browns, golds, and reds turning the mountain into a painter¡¯s dream of color. It wouldn¡¯t last much longer, the frost and a good wind would soon strip the deciduous trees for Winter but, damned if it wasn¡¯t a sight to be treasured while it lasted.


    ¡°Alright.¡± Alexander told that open air, and those empty streets, ¡°I guess this is real after all. As real as what came before anyhow. And hating it, and being hurt over it, doesn¡¯t change it.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m gonna whip your ass!¡± He cried out, telling the world that had changed so abruptly his intentions, ¡°I¡¯m gonna get strong! I¡¯m gonna learn how to use this, and then, I¡¯m gonna fuck you up!¡±


    All the rebellious fearlessness of youth was in him now, ¡°My Name is Alexander Gerifalte, son of Etri and Minerva Gerifalte, and I will not stop until they live again or you and I don¡¯t!¡±


    Thus, was his challenge laid against the world.


    He turned to the very real, very magical words upon a scroll of magic in his sharp green eyes and he began to study his talents, so that he could begin working toward victory. Victory against anything, and cold winds blew down the valley, carrying his words.

 Chapter 6: Labor鈥檚 Fruit

    Two weeks of November passed after the conquering of the first dungeon, which was how he had begun to think of it upon stumbling across a trove of fantasy role playing books held in one of the abandoned homes of his territory. Besides the occasional pack of wolves, panthers, and, once, a huge goddamned bear, nothing had broken the silence of Alexander¡¯s solitude. The role-playing books had provided a crucial route to relaxation from his intensive study or practice of means to attempt the revival of civilization. They had also proven slightly prophetic in some regards. Alexander was slowly coming to terms with the existence of magic in his paradigm.


    He didn¡¯t like many of the conclusions to which that, admittedly dubious, guidance led him.


    Impossible animals, more cunning and lethal than natural counterparts. Even more impossible monsters, of varieties and characteristics beyond his imagining. Alexander¡¯s encounter with goblins was, in the terms of the notes and books and research materials he read, ¡°rookie shit¡±. The same humanoid creatures that had taxed his skills to improvise traps and dispatch from range with guns were considered almost pests. Weak, slow, stupid, without truly hazardous abilities or skills. If all of that were true in comparison to whatever else lay in wait for him, then he was officially in deep shit.


    Alexander was no longer facing these nightmares unbaptized in their metaphysical advantages, however. He had his own abilities, his own advantages. Contact with that huge crystal had altered him, somehow. The odd voice, a combination of alien vastness and almost motherly beneficence, had empowered him with a measure of strength.


    On a notepad he had scrawled notes, penciled chaos incarnate. Arrows led from definitions and snippets copied from the scrolls of information seen only by his eyes to hypothesis, scratched out when evidence contradicted his suppositions. Atop his desk, the disorderly mass of papers clipped together with their wild stream of consciousness annotations combined with methodical experimentation, contained all he had come to know.


    Firstly, the parameters of his body were discrete, measured. He had come to determine that might could be quantified as approximately the poundage he could dead lift divided by forty. The number was higher than anything he¡¯d managed in a gym prior to the Pulse, but he¡¯d verified it in the now deserted high school gym¡¯s weight room. Other exercises hadn¡¯t produced as exact a ratio, so he failed to see any clear delineations between that stat and what he could do. All he knew was he was slightly behind the jocks of the football team in most lifts, but ahead of most others in his age group.


    Other categories played out similarly, grace significantly above average, he noticed his ability to do things like walk on his hands, toe a narrow line, do footwork drills, throw darts, anything that required a deft touch was improved. Impetus held a measure of speed. Alexander clocked himself at almost exactly twenty-six miles per hour in a dead run. A speed twice his impetus. A speed that was right up there with world class sprinters. He¡¯d never been that fast, not even close. Too lean, not enough power in his muscles, and, yet, the hourglass¡¯s falling sands did not lie. Other things he was less able to directly observe.


    Cogitation, Ingenuity, Wisdom, he had no real way to apply a direct calculation. He did notice that he seemed to be much faster at reading, memorizing, and generally processing his father¡¯s hoard of technical documents. He was a little more emotionally stable too, less up and down. That could just be human adaptability to stress though, Homo Sapiens was a robust critter in the face of adversity.


    About the weirder things he actually had a better idea. Firstly, magic and cores. He had one, apparently, inside him. Kindled by his touch of the dungeon core, it was labeled as black fire opal, a precious gem notable for its flares of reds, greens, blues, and yellows, as well as a heavy black component. He was no geologist though, and nothing in the library revealed any more information, other than a footnote on opals being considered bad luck.


    Normally Alexander would have put such a statement right up there with astrology in his horseshit people believe rankings. However, his fortunes did seem to run towards glass half broken and scattered across the floor these days.


    Mana was another thing that was actually sort of cut and dry. Alexander had magic. Two different supernatural manifestations that he had practiced since discovering the dungeon granted powers and ability to see scrolls of information about the world.


    The first, Entropic aura, was something like a field of interference that eroded mana. By keeping it active around one of the goblin cores, he recorded a progressive decay of the crystalline facets and a diminishing luster of the glowing force that had to be magic inside it. After about five minutes, which also cost him his entire pool of mana, the little grape sized core shattered and turned to glittering dust, which Alexander scraped into a bottle and kept because he squirreled everything away that might be useful. So far as he could tell, the aura functioned as a kind of anti-magic zone, which could be exceedingly useful if more things that liked to throw fireballs at him showed up.


    The second bit of arcana was called Chaos bolt. It was an offensive magic, consisting of a fist sized ball of black and grey light that whirled with eye hurting twists of almost negative light. All at once glowing and drinking in light, he didn¡¯t like to look at the thing when he made it. He was certain the magic was a kind of weapon though, when it hit things, it did more damage than a rifle bullet and had kind of material weakening effect. The steel plate he used as a practice target became brittle as glass, shattering on the third hit, which also was how many of the little arrow fast bolts of magic he could use in a short span. Wooden targets took on a definitely aged look around the impact of the spell and concrete looked like it was separating into sand and gravel, like the mortar holding the aggregate material had come apart.


    The effects on living things were quite destructive, as he learned when he turned aside an ambush from another panther.


    Two strikes of the bolts left great bleeding wounds that looked like they caused the tissue nearby to become withered, as if the wounds had spread, tried to heal badly, and scarred around the impact. The panther barely managed to lift its head to growl at him when he finished it with an axe blow to the skull, so badly devastated was it from the magical strikes.


    Rising from where he had been adding to the anarchy of his investigations, Alexander drank cool creek water from a pitcher, and went into the living room to add wood to the big iron stove, stirring the coals first to make space and get the wood burning hot. If he let it burn without the stoking it made more smoke. More smoke would make his hidey-hole visible from farther away and Alexander didn¡¯t want anyone or anything to know where he was. Just because the goblins had been too stupid to figure out how to follow a rising white spire of wood smoke to his home didn¡¯t mean everything else was.


    Winter was coming early to Maine. More days below freezing than not recently and he was hammering through ice to draw water from the creek a lot more. The woodpile out back attested to the increasing necessity of keeping a fire going to warm his cottage. Alexander hated splitting wood, but he was going to be doing a great deal of it if he had to hazard a guess. Maybe he could practice his skills.


    In addition to the physical and mental parameters, magical nonsense, and core, he had a list of traits and skills that offered manipulations to his stats and abilities. Some of them were pretty nifty and useful, some had distinct drawbacks. Fantasia was a perfect example of the latter. It added half again to his mana pool. It also inflicted a negative five penalty to his Wisdom. Alexander was almost certain his almost dreamlike attitude towards reality, the certainty that none of this world was real, that it was all some kind of exotic fiction, lent him additional strength in the magical bullshit that surrounded him. It also made his judgment somewhat suspect, as he very definitely could not shake the suspicion that he had gone mad while flying his plane that fateful day.


    Rage was what it sounded like, when he was hurt, fighting for his life, angry, he gained a boost to his Might, Valor, and Durability, at the cost of losing a proportional amount of Wisdom and the ability to use spells. He¡¯d tested the skill against a wolf, after dispatching its pack-mates, holding his magical eroding aura, and fighting the beast with a knife. Alexander hated risks, but he had to know more about himself, he had to explore all options, even the ones that seemed most insane.


    With an effort of will, a heavy welding glove on one arm acting as extra defense against fangs, Alexander activated the skill and instantly experienced a burst of strength, vigor, and a reddening of vision that brought an end to the aura and an incredible, overwhelming anger. It was hard to let go of the fierce passion for violence that came over him, that threatened to overwhelm him until the wolf was dead. Without an enemy to focus on the anger faded quickly, leaving Alexander shaken and disoriented for a few moments.


    He didn¡¯t test Rage again, just jotted its effects down in his notes and resolved to never activate it unless all other options had become futile.


    Alexander left the house, scanning the skies for clues to the weather that was coming. Grey skies. A stiff breeze on occasion carrying Canadian continental air, dry and frigid. Nothing else to note. He resumed his steady examination of the ruined town from his front porch, noting nothing dangerous, or, at least, nothing obviously so. Down the stairs from the porch he climbed to the street, headed back to the forge in the old flea market.


    The Ogre had overturned it during their mad chase and Alexander had been forced to repair it. He¡¯d made a few improvements and was coming along nicely in his smithing. Hammer strokes were more precise now, a feel for the metal in his hands, and a better judge of the working temperatures by the metal¡¯s color, all let him shape the material with more ease.


    Pondering over that occupied him while the charcoal burned and he pedaled his ass off to operate the blower to stoke it to temperature. The current project wouldn¡¯t be up to the right working heat for a minute yet.


    Artisan of war. This little nugget in his skills was both more and less than the others. Alexander didn¡¯t have any way to know how much he was the one that created this skill and how much this skill influenced him. What he did know was that the improvement to his attempts to manipulate the metal he forged was nonlinear and this skill had to be responsible for that. Alexander was sharp kid, highly motivated, and he learned fast. But he wasn¡¯t some kind of genius. The blue scroll work that appeared when he summoned a concentrated attention on the Artisan of war skill purely freaked him out a little.


    While the project in the coals took on a reddening hue, he made the effort and the odd gift of the dungeon core pulled the information he desired to within his view.


    It was a whole heap to take in and he wasn¡¯t sure he truly understood the implications that such a thing suggested about the way things worked in his new reality.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="623">


    Artisan of war: committed practice to the crafts of conducting warfare, through operation of machines and weapons, the creation of traps, armor, knives, and spears, forges, and the study of means and methods by which war is conducted grants proficiency in the following:


    ¡¤        Lesser Blacksmith: craftsman of stout metal.  Iron, steel, copper, brass, and bronze may be worked with improved ease.  Weapons, armor, tools, and brackets made by the smith may take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.


    ¡¤        Lesser Silversmith: craftsman of precious metals.  Brass, silver, gold, and other soft metals may be worked with improved ease and engraving gains improved precision.  Fittings, guards, buckles, brackets, rings, necklaces, and the like may take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.


    ¡¤        Greater Alchemist: advanced craftsman of the materials of Gaia.  Substances may be synthesized, decomposed, and replaced to create solutions that take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used.  Greater alchemists may now use materials not of Gaia in their craft without spontaneous incompatibility failure.


    ¡¤        Lesser Chirurgeon: healer and surgeon, this craftsman of the body is skilled in the repair and recovery of wounds.  Improved effectiveness of first aid, basic surgery, and treatment of disease.


    ¡¤        Lesser Mechanic: crafter of moving parts, gears, wheels, belts, pulleys, and levers.  Machines may be constructed with improved efficiency and precision.  Constructs may take on special property, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    He pumped his legs hard for another minute to get the steel bar stock that was twisted together with re-bar. Whether his own random assortment of knowledge or, somehow, instilled by the advent of this freaky blue scroll-work, Alexander was making a laminate alloy for creating a spear head. More like a sword blade he was going to mount to a spear haft, really. The reason for it was fairly simple: his primary weapons, firearms, were a limited resource whose effectiveness was blunted by the existence of this magical buffer called Soak.


    The unusual toughness of the wolves, the goblins, and, most especially, the Ogres, had revealed that weapons designed to put small holes in soft humans or slightly tougher animals like bear and moose, weren¡¯t sufficient to be viable against things that could absorb a measure of the energy of the cartridge. Alexander had been about a step and a half away from being slaughtered by the first Ogre that ambushed him and he¡¯d been using the hardest hitting firearms he could find in his former town. The monster ran him out of ammunition, in spite of his aiming at critical joints and taking lethal shot placements.


    If you¡¯re fighting things that can shrug off bullets like they¡¯re wearing armor, then you start using things that can defeat armor.


    Alexander¡¯s magic, Entropic aura, ate through the magical buffer. He could, as long as he stayed within about three meters or so, degrade their defenses. But that meant getting close. He didn¡¯t like the thought of doing that without something to keep a wolf or goblin at bay. Hence the spear.


    He pulled the metal from the forge, cherry red and ready to work and laid it across the anvil, hammer rising, then falling with a loud clang of steel on steel. The stock wrapped in re-bar flattened impressively. More than it should have, Alexander knew he wasn¡¯t strong enough to move that much steel in a single hammer stroke. Up the hammer, down again, *clang*, and the stock flattened.


    San mai was the name for this kind of forging. Another mysterious bit of information he had no business possessing. A high carbon steel core jacketed by softer mild steel, he would produce a bar that, when ground away during profiling, would reveal the high carbon core at the edge only. The resulting blade would be springlike, flexible, and withstanding of the kind of abuse that came with using a bladed weapon, but with an incredibly sharp edge. There were better ways to do this, he had a feeling like an itch that suggested it, but he didn¡¯t know how to figure out what those ways might be. So. Alexander hammered, put the steel back into the forge coals, and resumed pedaling like Lance Armstrong, the low gear spinning the blower blades to drive air through the coals.


    Another reason for making a blade himself he¡¯d discovered after completing his attempt at a knife. The finished product, more like a high-quality prison shank than a real knife, had possessed the property ¡°Deep Penetration: ignores 2Soak/2AP¡±


    Artisan of war let him make weapons that were better than guns, in terms of pure destructive power. Ignoring that magical buffer was the same as adding kinetic energy. If he could figure out how to manufacture his own guns, he might be able to use firearms that had the same lethality he was used to. That would require reinventing the techniques to gunsmithing though, which required precision machining. Alexander had simple forge and hand tools. No lathes. No drill presses. No machine tooling at all. Making a gun without those was asking to blow your hands off.


    So. Alexander took the bar from the coals again and continued to pound the metal into a flat bar, thicker than the stock he started with. Then he started forge welding layers. Flatten, wire brush, sprinkle borax flux, fold, flatten. This cycle he repeated for three hours, completing some few dozen cycles. He had to be careful not to overwork the metal, doing so risked losing carbon, the binding component of the steel migrating out of the metal and being lost to scale. Most of this was going by feel, he wouldn¡¯t know how successful he was until he was done, which wouldn¡¯t happen today.


    Alexander sat the cooling bar down across the anvil, soaked with sweat. He worked bare-chested inside the hanger-like building of the peddler¡¯s mall, in spite of the cold outside. The charcoal burned hot and he would ruin his clothes with sparks if he wore them. Clothes Alexander could not replace. Small burns on his skin from metal sparks would heal like new, especially on the third sunrise. It was an easy decision to make.


    Leaving behind the building as he shrugged on his coat, breath fogging in the cold, Alexander had some less easy decisions. Such as, how long should he stay in this ghost town? He had supplies. He had shelter. He could, very likely, manage to scratch out a living in these hills just about as well as the old frontiersmen had. But. The goblins dungeon had revealed to him that he had been mistaken when he thought himself alone.


    Sometime between the Pulse and the world going insane, the old silver mine had become a nexus for magical power with a huge geode in its heart, a magical engine that, somehow, brought the goblins from a place called ¡°Tirnanog¡±. Wherever the fuck that might be. The goblins had rounded up whoever hadn¡¯t been turned to stone and ate them. Alexander hadn¡¯t known. Not until he mounted an assault on the goblin camp after decimating the forces sent to kill him and scour the town for fresh food, after they¡¯d run out of people. He found the bones and clothes of his friends and neighbors and cold cook pots.


    Part of him wanted to blame himself for their deaths. The rational part of him knew that was madness. He was barely surviving. Three times he¡¯d nearly been killed by wild animals and the invading goblins. The whole damned world was crazy. That he was still alive at all was wild luck.


    His boots crunched on the pavement and he picked his way back across the small town¡¯s streets, headed back to his laboratory. The rifle he carried, heavy three hundred win-mag shells, didn¡¯t comfort him like it used to. He knew better now.


    Green and golden-brown rimmed eyes took in the town under the reddish cast of fading light.


    Another change. Or, maybe not a change. More like a natural gift that found its true nature when the world shifted.


    Raptor gaze was described as a trait, a characteristic that he possessed that passively increased certain aspects of himself. In the case of that particular skill his vision was something better than strictly human. Alexander had always had twenty-ten vision, perfectly clear eyesight. He could see insects on trees now, from across the valley. Anything that moved registered to him, he was damned near able to see air currents, from the slight shifts in density as the air moved if he concentrated. His amplified sight was particularly adept at finding weakness in animals and predicting their movements. When you could see the muscles shift beneath the skin you got a pretty good idea what they were going to do. A limp might as well have put neon paint on the creature.


    Other traits and skills synergized with that awesome targeting vision. Lethal was another trait, it increased his ability to find a way to hit vulnerable locations for inflicting critical damage to vulnerable anatomy. Eyes to see the weakness, a natural inclination to slide the knife into that weakness, and, an active skill called Heart¡¯s blow that, as far as he could tell, increased the raw damage that he could do when he struck vital locations.


    How did it do that? He didn¡¯t know. Against the lone wolf he put a perfectly placed knife thrust into the monster¡¯s chest and, after he opened it up later, found a wound channel that belonged to a weapon twice as large as his knife blade. He had a theory that his mana was somehow used to amplify the attacking weapon somehow. No, theory was far too generous a term for what he had.


    Alexander had a wild-assed guess that his mana could infuse critical strikes to amplify them.


    As much as he wanted to know the rules, there were limits to his ability to see everything that was happening, especially when a huge dire wolf was trying to claw his stomach open and eat him.


    Up the stairs he hopped lightly, enjoying his improved dexterity, and he slipped indoors quietly.


    Two weeks of scavenging, organizing, tabulating, and cataloguing the town¡¯s supplies and Alexander knew he would not starve this year. Probably not next year either, even if he grew no food of his own.


    After stoking up the fire once again he put a cast iron skillet on the stove, and cracked open some of the last good eggs he had. His diet had been heavy in perishables the last little bit. The early Winter was helping him quite a lot, refrigeration wasn¡¯t absolutely necessary, but even with the cold he didn¡¯t have long to enjoy fresh produce, eggs, and milk.


    ¡°I will miss milk so damned much, by all the gods above, below, and in between, I swear it.¡± He sighed as he scrambled eggs.


    Milk. Eggs. Oranges. So much he would miss. But not quite yet.


    He sliced some green onions, green peppers, put a heap of shredded cheddar into the skillet to start melting, and stirred everything together. A big, cheesy omelet for supper was just the thing, after the exertion of smithing.


    The hot meal finished, Alexander pulled the cork free from a bottle of wine, a dark red that tasted rich and dry when he took a pull from the bottle. A satisfied sigh filled the room before he ambled about to light a pair of oil lamps for light, before the sunset threw him into the total darkness of a long winter night.


    With that done, he retired back to his laboratory, carrying the lamp by its wire handle.


    It only took a few minutes to change into heavy sweatpants and a thick plushy robe, his preferred evening attire.


    While he reclined on a big cozy couch he¡¯d pillaged from a different house, he summoned the mysterious scroll-work that defined Alexander Gerifalte in these crazy times.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="105">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" width="105">


    Class: Entropic Neophyte


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Status: tired


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 15%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 150%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Might


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    9


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Height


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    6¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    12/0


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    160lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    None


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Age


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    14


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Core


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    14/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Crude Steel Knife


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    15


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="143">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Raptor gaze, Fantasia, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Artisan of war, Scholarship


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Heart¡¯s blow, Rage, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Lesser stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Entropic aura, Chaos bolt


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77"> </td>


    <td width="28"> </td>


    <td width="29"> </td>


    <td width="62"> </td>


    <td width="1"> </td>


    <td width="56"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Relaxing in the soft lamp light, a bottle of wine in hand, a comfortable couch on which he could just recline, he mulled over the revelations he¡¯d had since clearing the goblin dungeon.


    The shimmering doorway hadn¡¯t opened again, and the insides of the mine were exactly as he remembered now. No weird corridors or goblin camp, just the shafts, the lifts, and all the detritus of a venture that had been abandoned when it proved not profitable enough for the mine owner to keep employing most of a small town.


    What was that place? He didn¡¯t know. What was the voice that spoke to him? He didn¡¯t know. There was a lot that Alexander didn¡¯t know. He had come to accept that.


    Which was why he focused on this blue page, to decipher what he could know. Back from the brink, a flat additional ten to his Valor. Just about dying gave you spiritual resilience, huh? Whodathunkit. Gaia¡¯s child, a passive increase to ability and skill gain, and¡­complete revitalization every third sunrise. Also, the reason he was listed as a Shaggoth. You know what? He didn¡¯t even want to know any more about that.


    So. There was the secret to his seventy-two-hour cycle. Gaia¡¯s child. That was how he¡¯d survived being mauled by the wolves. That was why he hadn¡¯t been laid up crippled, to starve or succumb to exposure from his wounds. Good to know.


    Greater analyze was what granted him the sight of this scroll of knowledge about himself and his surroundings, with additional details for the greater version. Lesser stalk, the ability to move with reduced notice, provided you were concentrating on stealth, with a specific target in mind. Spatial adept, he was able to visualize in three dimensions his surroundings and the structure of objects, animals, or whatever. Scholarship improved his memorization speed and sharpened his recall of studied knowledge. He hadn¡¯t been imagining learning more quickly, then.


    All told, Alexander was, seemingly, rather well suited to making single devastating attacks to the vital organs and to learning and improving his skill set at a rapid pace. What that told him was, he¡¯d better be smart, or else. His potential was high, but not so front loaded. Alexander Gerifalte was not some kind of juggernaut like the Ogre. He had distinct limitations. Those limitations, if he was understanding this correctly, were not permanent. Unless he was interpreting this insanity wrongly, because the world had stopped making sense a long time ago, and he was just trying, vainly, to rationalize his madness.


    Being crazy had kept him alive so far, however. Alive was better than being petrified with his parents, wasn¡¯t it? Best to avoid that train of thought all together, he told himself.


    A swirl of wine in the glass before he swallowed it whole in a gulp. Bitter alcohol, grape tang, it went down surprisingly smoothly. He poured another serving from the bottle and added wood to the fireplace. The wood stove was more efficient, as the owners of this home had known, but the open-hearth fireplace was more aesthetically pleasing. Above all, it was calming. Alexander needed calming, he needed something to take the edge off his nerves that wasn¡¯t booze. He couldn¡¯t indulge too heavily in something that might inhibit his senses too greatly. Always in the back of his mind he considered the possibility that some monstrosity might smell smoke and come looking.


    Even his paranoia had limits, however. He simply couldn¡¯t predict or respond to every eventuality. At some point, Alexander just had to be lucky. He was due for it, right? Just a little?


    Anyways. The young man contemplated the hearth flames, the hypnotic dance of fire over charring wood, the play of smoke as it drew up the chimney, alongside the blue scroll of magical information. December was coming, Winter was arrived, Alexander was staring down the barrel of a cold season unlike anything in the last decade. He¡¯d have to be considerate of his food options, balancing the nutrition with what spoiled fastest. There was a feeling in his gut that he and peanut butter, normally something he avoided, were about to become fast friends. At least the canned fish would be tasty. Soy sauce went bad, like, never, so that was a plus.


    When Alexander turned into his blankets that night, long after the early sunset, he was almost hopeful. There were many projects that he had lined up, and reason to believe that he would find success in them, eventually.


    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Upon rising, the last remaining human in this tiny little forgotten corner of middle Maine went to work with a vengeance. The ring of hammer on anvil echoed for hours through the valley. Steady snowfall buried the town, except for the track that was shoveled between Alexander¡¯s stopovers. He traveled regularly between a wood shop, not for its equipment but for the collection of hand tools and seasoned wood, the improvised smithy in the old Peddler¡¯s mall, a hardware store, and the supermarket.


    When the snow path started to become more like a tunnel, Alexander realized that the weather was not quite normal. Maine got snow. It didn¡¯t get this much snow. Not a week before Christmas.


    Despite the abundance of fluffy white bullshit, he continued to persevere. A calendar in his Laboratory ticked down and was replaced by a chalkboard for the new year. January was gone and Alexander continued to study, to design, to attempt, fail, assess, and repeat until failure become success.


    Operation Naginata was in full swing, he was almost certain he had the trick of creating the jacketed carbon steel blade. His initial failures, about a dozen of them, had each taught him something new. Those pieces of flattened steel he had hammered into banded rings, riveted together and bound by leather cords into a sleeve of steel that flexed easily with his arm. A mechanic¡¯s glove served as a template to create a gauntlet to wear, a welding glove with metal backing that would withstand even the bite of one of the black panthers that haunted the mountain.


    Probably. He wasn¡¯t going to test that theory, not if he could help it.


    Some careful study of football pads revealed how to create a wearable set of pauldrons that could be slipped on over his head and tied into place rather easily. Side project Half Plate was coming along nicely, it wasn¡¯t nearly as demanding from a skill perspective. Tedious? Oh dear, yes. But not as difficult.


    Other activities were proving fruitful as well. Alexander had a working gasifier, as of three days ago. He¡¯d gotten it mated up to a small generator and, for the first time since the Pulse, produced a current of any significance. That had been a cast iron sonofabitch. Every leak, every sloppy cut in the metal, every hose clamp had to be sealed or the pressure needed to drive the gasifier would be squandered. Its power output wasn¡¯t mind blowing, but it didn¡¯t have to be, all Alexander needed the thing to do was crank a generator, for now. This was a proof of concept for when he tried for a steam engine. Now that would give him some horsepower!


    February marked a turning point when, after learning enough circuit theory to figure out how to put a charge into the dead battery bank and regulate its current, he got an incandescent light bulb, hidden away in a basement, to light, briefly, before it exploded. Alexander Gerifalte had electricity. Sort of. Except that the battery then, for reasons unknown, slagged itself shortly thereafter, leaking acid all over the shop floor next to the gasifier. Batteries, it seemed, were off the table, and so too was dead his dreams of a generator, when, a few days after the battery died, it burned a hole in itself with a massive electrical discharge that zapped the piss out of Alexander, putting him on the ground wheezing.


    Nothing digital had survived the Pulse, so nothing with a semiconductor chip or circuit board would operate, not until he figured out how to do analog circuit driven motors. That was close. It turned out that most resistors, being little bits of dielectric wrapped foil, hadn¡¯t been destroyed by the Pulse. Capacitors? Toasted. But not the resisters, which meant he had the means of regulating voltage, Ohm be praised. After the near electrocution, which shouldn¡¯t have happened according to any literature he read later, he had to concede that electricity might be impossible for now.


    That was more than disappointing, it was heart breaking, but, the youth threw it on top of the pile of heart breaks and soldiered on.


    Sixteen-hour days without much in the way of distraction made for a lot of getting shit done. Alexander forged in the night, using the light of the forge fire to work. He studied in the morning hours. He fiddled with his engines, gears, belts, and machines in the afternoons. Only when his arms were too tired to raise the hammer did he pack himself off to bed, rifle held at ready in case anything sprang from the drifts to try to eat him.


    Three times they did, and three times the heavy caliber rifle just barely managed to put the critters down before they got close enough to hurt him.


    Two bears, big, shaggy brown fur, longer claws than they should have had, and glistening brown and white cores inside them. One an Elk, but this one made sunlight between its antlers and tried to blast him to bits, the solar lance cutting a steaming streak through the snow before Alexander shot it between the eyes.


    He had to shoot it three more times to put it down for good. That was a learning experience, standing next to seared, flaming pavement shaking while a Sunlight wielding animal twitched in death throes. His Greater analyze revealed that the glimmering golden core of the beast, Heliodor in a trillion cut, was full of solar mana. He didn¡¯t know what that meant, really, but he figured he¡¯d find a use for it, so into the growing collection of cores it went. The glass-like antlers proved to be totally internally reflective, like fiber optics. Go figure.


    Bear hides were similarly interesting, they reflected the cold. Not blocked it, reflected it, Alexander¡¯s gloves grew stiff and his knife blade snapped off, brittle, when he skinned the creatures, or, did until with his second knife he pulled the polar mana containing cores from them. He had solved his refrigeration problem by alternative win condition. The fur, absent its cold reflective properties was simply very thick bear hide, which he tanned in their own brains. The meat was inedibly foul. Rank, tough, so tough he would spend more calories chewing it than he¡¯d get digesting it. Claws and fangs went into his stash of bits and parts for eventual use in his experiments with crafting using imbued materials. The rules, as he had suspected, were different now.


    Greater analyze was a godsend, giving him little tidbits such as:


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="623">


    Polar Grizzly Fang: hardened bone capable of withstanding incredible pressures, channels Polar mana, binding agent for Frost solutions when ground fine.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Just because Alexander didn¡¯t currently know what a frost solution was, didn¡¯t mean he wouldn¡¯t find out. The fangs and claws both had similar properties and now he had a load of them sitting in his stash. Polar mana was, as it suggested, the magic that produced cold, and the bears¡¯ cores were loaded with it. Didn¡¯t that mean that if they¡¯d gotten close enough to bite him, he¡¯d have, like, shattered like that old movie where the cop-robot fell in liquid nitrogen? Abort, Alexander, do not envision that fate.


    Experimenting with voodoo alchemy, Alexander put to the side, for now. His goals this Winter were to try to establish a base of civilization and not die. The old rules still worked, mostly, and he was going to make the most of them before throwing himself into the new ones. Still. Those antlers were giving him ideas.


    If not for the incredible amount of time he spent keeping occupied, it was likely Alexander would have gone completely batshit. Batshitter. Isolation in the Maine wilderness with snow nearly to the eaves of the houses, almost total silence, and nothing but his own mind and hands to distract him from sharp pangs of grief, that, slowly, etched their way into his bones. And, alongside them, a scalding fury.


    Morning came, bright and cloudless, by the light pouring in through his window. Alexander ignored the slight chill and traced familiar steps to the wood stove, stirring its coals and replenished its supply. The smell of wood ash and char were old friends by now. So too was the breakfast of oatmeal porridge. Frozen milk, it turned out, kept very well, stretching out a supply that Alexander had not expected to maintain through the months. Once thawed, it went bad rapidly after, but there was a window for palatability that he exploited gratefully. Bacon sizzling lent its own cadence to the morning tradition.


    A devout believer in breakfast was Alexander now. Hard work demanded calories to maintain the effort and he horked down a thousand calories in a sitting. After he¡¯d eaten, he cleaned the kitchen and utensils in a bucket of creek water that sat thawing next to the stove, replenished daily with icy water. A touch of soap, a scrub brush, and out the window the dirty water went, clean dishes replaced in cabinets.


    By rote, he went outside to a small hole in the snow to shit, covered his waste with snow, and returned indoors to a rag bath dipped from a metal pan that sat heating on the wood stove for that purpose. Once he was clean, he scrubbed his previous day¡¯s clothes in the bath water and hung them from a drying line that ran across the attached garage, its cars dead and useless. Chores complete, a naked Alexander dressed in comfortable cotton slacks, thick wool long-sleeved shirt, and a fluffy robe before he returned to his Laboratory to study.


    There was so much to learn, to rebuild civilization. At his desk, stacks of paper neatly compiled held the current topics that held his interests. He took a look at the chalkboard with the big bold title ¡°ACTIVE PROJECTS¡± nailed along one wall of his library, chalk dust thick on the floor below the text that read:


    <ul>


    <li>Acquire horse powers: currently in design phase to power motors driven by steam-sterling engine schematics available, electricity nonviable until circuitry review of disassembled machines complete. Boiler construction ongoing, gearing and pulley system laid out, wheel/axle needs testing</li>


    <li>Acquire personal defense: Operation Half-plate ongoing, nearing final fit up. Operation Naginata in secondary bevel grinding phase, file work¡­eternal. Link gasifier engine to sanding belt apparatus? Investigate.</li>


    <li>Decipher joinery: nails/fasteners considered nonrenewable resource. Continue practicing dovetailing, dowel, and arcane Japanese/Korean techniques to mate lumber. Mission critical all new structures must rely on hand carpentry. Sharpen your saws, idiot!!</li>


    <li>Alternatives to firearms: ongoing. RDX stabilized charges field test needed. Possible option in Solar Elk antlers, demands research, solutions not found in classical physics. <u>Magical bullshit!!</u></li>


    </ul>


    Alexander¡¯s active project list was much the same as it had been for the last month. He had determined the initial approaches to solving these problems before the snow got too deep to see over, but the devil, as always, was in the details. Certain things he had assumed to be easy, or, at least doable with some slight finagling, had, as he should have known they would, made an ass out of him.


    Fingers steepled, Alexander mulled over where to start. He needed that steam engine. A stable way to produce rotary motion, at high revolutions per minute, was critical to his plans. Everything from drill presses to hydraulic pumps, demanded a reliable mechanical energy source. After tearing apart the mechanisms for a lathe, a band saw, and a few other items to see how they operated, he was confident that, if he could secure an engine, he could figure out a linkage to drive them. He¡¯d have to rebuild the damned things to operate by analogue control though, none of that computerized digital stuff would work anymore. It was fine, gearing systems and transmissions were something to work out once he had power. His engine was nearing its final build, maybe even ready for testing.


    The naginata would be finished soon, he was down to the tedious stages of bevel grinding, polishing, and fit-up, having quenched, straightened, and heat treated the blade blank already. It was difficult to work with the hardened steel but he did so gladly rather than to waste his time preparing a blade geometry only to ruin it with a failed quench that warped. The metallurgy and forge work he¡¯d learned while creating that instrument were proving invaluable. How many times had he needed to fashion a coupling or bracket or some such? Those thread cutting dies in his shop were worth more than the Hope diamond to him.


    Skip joinery today, the geometry made his brain hurt, and he was progressing nicely on the concept. The real problem was not flubbing a chisel stroke and ruining hours of careful sawing. Keep sharp tools, go slowly, and finish the project faster, was what he was learning about woodwork. Once he got an engine to turn drill presses and saws, he could work exponentially faster.


    Alternatives to firearms? Skip. For now. Pairing the Solar core to the antlers had released a series of finger thin lances of light from the tines that had scorched his workshop and started several spot fires. He wouldn¡¯t play with that until the snows were off and he could find someplace he didn¡¯t mind burning down.


    Steam engine it is, Alexander decided. Safest project with the biggest return on investment. But only safe if he was confident in his metalwork. A boiler that over pressured was, from what his texts suggested, catastrophic. That was why he had used thicker steel plate than the schematics called for, had cut the plate into segments that he had riveted down to a sturdy skeleton of a frame. The boiler should hold.


    Every day of this construction, he¡¯d thanked all the gods above, below, and in between that acetylene torches weren¡¯t electronic. Just a good old pressure gauge and a couple of compressed gas tanks hooked to a regulator and a nozzle. Without that, he¡¯d have been unable to cut the steel he needed to make the steam engine. Smithing small objects was one thing, pounding out sheets of steel with a hammer? Nope. He¡¯d die of age long before he ever got enough steel at consistent thickness to attempt this project.


    When mid-morning had passed, Alexander bundled up in his cold weather gear and marched out to the smithy that had been a Flea market.


    Ensconced inside, out of the reach of the still bitter wind, he attached the flywheel and pulley system that should turn the up and down stroke of the steam engine¡¯s piston into a radial motion. Alexander had that contraption rigged to turn an axle with multiple car tires on it. He¡¯d have a good idea how much rotational power he was getting from how fast the heavy set of tires spun. A few calculations would give him figures on torque and output. That final fit-up took an hour. Another hour went by while he went back over every rivet, every joint, every possible failure point on the engine. He found nothing. The steam would find everything though, so, he wiped down each joint with soaped water in hopes any leaks would reveal themselves in time to vent the steam.


    Moment of truth, the last Gerifalte declared silently, as he lit the charcoal.


    It took time to get the water up to temperature. The pressure gauge rose rapidly inside the boiler once it did, the steam expanding. No bubbles formed in his work; his joints were holding. The pressure gauge continued to rise. When he hit the operational threshold, Alexander opened the feeder valve that would inject the steam into the piston system, the pressurized super heated vapor driving the first piston up, turning the motor in a fit, one half turn at a time, hitching, until the engine began to stroke cleanly, driving a smooth circular motion, a motion that accelerated drastically.


    Now, Alexander thought, and engaged the belts that connected the engine to the axle holding his car tires, belts spun for a moment, caught, and the axle spun almost violently fast, turning the wheels without effort, heavy as they were.


    Alexander felt radiant, watching those tires spin. His old man would have been proud of him for this. His ma¡¯m too. This was a bold step towards reclaiming the world of men. He fed the engine more charcoal, carefully dosing the machine to prevent it overheating. No leaks presented themselves. The wheels continued to spin. He let the system run, keeping hawkish eyes on the pressure gauge for any fluctuations, for an hour before he bled off the steam and let the fires die.


    What would he use his engine for first? Alexander considered it. An old power hammer was sitting unused in the old factory machine shop. It hadn¡¯t been used in decades, but that was mostly because the machine shop closed when the machinist retired without any journeymen to take over the place. Getting the massive thing from there to here, now that was the problem. If a hydraulic jack were laying around, he might just do it with levers, shims, rollers, and a shit ton of patience. It might not be possible though, the old power hammer weighed literal tons and dying crushed under heavy equipment wasn¡¯t how Alexander wanted to go.


    A power hammer would speed up the forging process exponentially. But a drill press, lathe, and band-saw were honestly just as useful to him. Decisions, decisions. Ultimately, he decided on the hammer. Mostly because neither of the other machines utilized the high power of the steam engine and he still needed to test its upper limit work output and the power hammer was sturdy enough to probably survive if things got a little out of hand. He was already dreading the slow process for moving the damned thing.


    Just about the time he considered the test finalized, the blue scroll-work unfurled, unbidden, before his eyes. He knew why immediately.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="105">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" width="105">


    Class: Entropic Neophyte


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Status: tired


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 15%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 150%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Might


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Height


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    6¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    12/0


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    160lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    None


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Age


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    15


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Core


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    14/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Crude Steel Knife


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    13(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    16


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="143">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Raptor gaze, Fantasia, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, *Artisan of war*, Scholarship


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Heart¡¯s blow, Rage, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Lesser stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Entropic aura, Chaos bolt


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77"> </td>


    <td width="28"> </td>


    <td width="29"> </td>


    <td width="62"> </td>


    <td width="1"> </td>


    <td width="56"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Artisan of war was pulsing against the backdrop. He instinctively reached his attention toward the indication and saw it open.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="202">


    Artisan of war ?Warforger


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Uuuhhhh¡­¡± Alexander hummed, looking at the script, forehead wrinkled, ¡°Okaaay.¡±


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Accepted, Hierarchy adjusted, first Warforger of Gaia


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Warforger: the architect of war¡¯s designs, laying the foundations for greater conquest through arms and armor.  Dedicated application of the crafts of conducting warfare, through operation of machines and weapons, the creation of traps, improvised explosives, armor, knives, and spears, forges, and the study of means and methods by which war is conducted grants proficiency in the following:


    ¡¤        Blacksmith: craftsman of stout metals and other realm materials.  Mundane metals may be worked with improved ease or alloyed with other realm materials to synthesize novel materials.  Products made by the smith may take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.


    ¡¤        Silversmith: craftsman of precious and aberrant metals and Gate materials.  Worked materials using correct tools are shaped with improved ease and engraving gains improved precision.  Products made by the smith may take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.


    ¡¤        Master Alchemist: penultimate craftsman of solutions and substances.  Substances may be synthesized, decomposed, and replaced to create solutions that take on special properties, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used.  Master alchemists may now use Gate materials alongside Gaian without spontaneous incompatibility failure.  Skill: Mana Extract, Analytic Ingestion.


    ¡¤        Chirurgeon: healer and surgeon, this craftsman of the body is skilled in the repair and recovery of wounds.  Improved effectiveness of first aid, basic surgery, and treatment of disease.  May utilize Gate materials in medical care.


    ¡¤        Mechanic: crafter of moving parts, gears, wheels, belts, pulleys, and levers.  Machines may be constructed with improved efficiency and precision.  Constructs may take on special property, depending on the skill of the craftsman and the materials used in the work.  Skill: Schematic


    Skill: Entropic Imbuement


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    A rush of information induced vertigo and Alexander rushed toward the ceiling, or so it felt, but it was the floor that caught him. None too gently, either.


    Gone was the insistent pulsing in his mind, the blue scroll-work having returned to its usual form, with the minor exception that Artisan of war was gone, replaced by Warforger. He noticed that several of his base parameters had increased, Might, Wisdom, and Ingenuity. No wonder, he¡¯d beaten metal until his arms wanted to come off for weeks. He¡¯d cracked his brains over how to solve his problems and studied his ass off to find solutions to his problems as well. Alexander was a better man than when the apocalypse had found him.


    And now, when he found it, he would be an even better man. Warforger. Now that sounded like it had some kick. The description made it out like his skills in manufacturing his projects had increased qualitatively. So, by completing as complex and precise a task as the steam engine he¡¯d, fucking, evolved himself or something. It was true that the machine was a game changer. Mechanized power. Machine powered tooling. Alexander¡¯s options just increased exponentially.


    Now, he was going to go see about that heavy freakin¡¯ power hammer. While he did, he reviewed the additional skills that had cropped up from the advancement of a gaggle of maker professions that seemed all bundled together with the Warforger trait.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Mana Extract: decomposition in appropriate solvents, and the presence of a suitable vessel permits the retrieval of magical essence from infused materials or cores.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Neato. His hoarding of the goblin cores and Nick-nacks from the beasts that tried to eat him had been rewarded. He would obtain the pack-rat trait, the relentless hoarder skill, and he would create a hidey-hole of treasures that would make a dragon cream its jeans. Whenever he figured out what the hell constituted an ¡°appropriate solvent¡± and a ¡°suitable vessel¡± for magical bullshit, watch out!


    Next.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Analytic ingestion: consumption of small quantities of materials and burning of core energies, renders them to aether and reveals their properties and limited intuition of interactions with other analyzed materials.


    Caution: Toxins will still apply their effects.


    Caution: Energies released may take time to dissipate, do not mix aethereal components within, interactions not controlled.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Aaalrriighty then,¡± Alexander drawled slowly, ¡°Do not eat poison. Got it. Do not make monster part salads and try to examine them, double got it.¡±


    Kicking his way through some fresh powder to get to the old factory, he knew those two skills were big time useful. They basically cut down his R&D time by orders of magnitude. Alexander didn¡¯t know how exactly all this stuff worked, but he did know that it worked. Goblins launching fireballs at him told him in very certain terms that it worked. Polar bears that took that term way too literally told him that it worked. It was on him to figure out how to manipulate the new rules to his advantage.


    Those thoughts occupied him until he dug his way through to the door of the factory, where within his prize awaited him.


    It took both hands, hauling with all his strength to budge the frozen metal door. Its hinges were iced over but, amazingly, he managed to pull the portal free by brute force.


    Panting, bent over with hands on knees, Alexander nevertheless knew victory. He was without a single doubt stronger than before. That door would have needed a hammer and a spud bar a few weeks ago.


    Grunting his way through dragging the metal all the way open, he revealed again the innards of what had once been a smelting and refining factory for the ore that got pulled out of the mountain. Here they would bring the stuff in by the ton, separate the different ores physically, then pitch the stuff into the furnaces to burn them down to liquid and separate the metals chemically, before doing some other fancy shit Alexander wasn¡¯t quite familiar with yet to separate them. The other half of the huge building was devoted to testing, cleaning up, and inventory of the riches of the mine.


    Now that he knew a hell of a lot more about metallurgy than he had the first time he came here, he understood what an absolute treasure this old factory was. He¡¯d never be able to recreate the facilities for handling large amounts of metal, ore, or thoroughly processing them.


    Grinning despite the musty, dim interior, Alexander Gerifalte all but cackled and washed his hands like a super villain in their nemesis¡¯ lair. Here though. Here he had everything he needed.


    Too bad the place functioned on the premise that there would be electricity to power everything. All the digital controls, just like everywhere else, were burned out. That rendered the vast majority of the machinery inoperable. However, the forges could still be lit, if not their temperatures regulated with computerized precision of digital thermometers and complex control systems. The big chain winches would still work to lift and hold large pieces while he worked on them. Most of the tooling and equipment was intact and left behind, being too heavy, cumbersome, and expensive to transport for a mine that had been shut down fairly suddenly.


    Suddenly, Alexander was questioning his initial idea to move the power hammer. It might be far better to just move his smithy here. He had the space to work. He had the big toys to play with. It was, even better, fireproof, being designed to accommodate the possibility of a vat of molten metal and slag tipping over. Yes, indeed. This might do nicely for the newly minted Warforger.


    The testing room even had an, albeit small, chemical lab. Its stocks would probably be nonexistent, there were rules for the storing and disposal of most of the kinds of compounds used in metallurgy. But Alexander could make it work.


    He thought back to the remains of his first chemical lab, where he¡¯d followed exceedingly clear, explicit instructions, annotated as being chosen less for efficiency, than for ease and safety, for the manufacture of a certain nitrogenated ring compound that was developed in the forties and called in the field RDX. More commonly though, it was called C-4. His first lab had not survived the achievement, and he had come remarkably close to joining its demise. That hadn¡¯t stopped him, because he was seventeen, already dead, and his continued existence depended on coming up with a way to deal with ogres that didn¡¯t end up with him being pulverized.


    The young man only wished that he could produce the stuff at a larger scale, he was coming up with only a few hundred grams of product at a time. Upscaling was what had nearly gotten him killed. Note to Future Alexander: When red smoke begins issuing from your ice bathed RDX drip flask, it is time to dump and run.


    ¡°I will hug you, and squeeze you, and we will be the best of friends, George.¡± Alexander purred to the power hammer, already envisioning great things they would do together.


    George did not reply, but Alexander knew it appreciated the sentiment.


    Rumbling from his left startled him into turning, half crouching in reflex to the unknown. He held his rifle at low ready, to meet whatever threat might present itself. Alexander peered into the gloom, trying to pinpoint the source of the grinding sound, like stone scraping over steel. A massive fist of glittering stone closed over the edge of a crucible and Alexander Gerifalte nearly voided his bladder when fifteen feet of silver-slag golem, rough stony approximation of humanity that it was, pitched over out of the crucible and crashed to the ground. It rose from a mass of crumbled rock, reforming from the thirty-foot drop, reassembling itself into the caricature of human form.


    Why does it have pointy little rocky teeth? The part of his mind not yammering in animal terror questioned, detached. The yammering animal part got his legs going without his permission, and he was fleeing the behemoth before it finished its self-repair.


    ¡°Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!¡± Alexander chanted as he ran, boots pounding through snow.


    He heard the mass of living ore tear apart the door he¡¯d struggled with like it was paper, and the walls of the sturdy building around the door frame with it. A hasty glance behind him confirmed the nightmare that the creature, whatever it was, was chasing him. More slowly than he fled, oh praises be to all the gods above, below, and in between, but chasing nevertheless.


    A plan! He needed a plan. Instead of thinking of a plan, Alexander¡¯s panicked thoughts were focused on the fact that he needed a plan. He was across town before he started coming up with one, the distance between himself and the golem tripling as he¡¯d run.


    Gulping air, his breath¡¯s puffing steam, Alexander saw the problem, like it had neon lights attached to it. The golem wouldn¡¯t get tired. He was already winded. It was going to walk him down.


    What did he have that would kill rock? His trusty old rifle would do exactly fuck all to the creature pursuing him. So why are you hauling it around making yourself tired, idiot? He tossed the gun into the snow off his path, to keep it from getting stomped. The spear? He almost giggled at the thought of trying to stab fifteen feet of silver ore, right up until he mentally envisioned the monster snatching him up and feeding him face first down its toothy maw.


    Magic? Magic!


    ¡°I have magic!¡± Alexander exclaimed and turned to point a hand, like he was palming an imaginary basketball.


    It helped speed up the casting and aim. He didn¡¯t know why.


    A sizzling Chaos bolt came into being, black and grey, churning magic that beckoned for release. Alexander obliged it and the magic tore ahead as if shot from a crossbow, leaving without exchange of momentum, its weight purely metaphysical.


    The spell struck the golem in the chest and Alexander saw pieces of silver-slag gravel fall to the ground, smoking, raising steam where the chunks hit packed snow. It didn¡¯t slow though. The ¡°wound¡± from his spell was a baseball sized divot in a Mack Truck. Inconsequential.


    Again.


    Alexander summoned another Chaos bolt, sent it hurling into the monster, and was rewarded with an impact a foot away from the first hit, with similar effect. The creature came on, undeterred.


    ¡°It¡¯s gotta work!¡± Alexander prayed.


    Another bolt. Another hit. More silver-ore falling to the snow. The golem came on. No divine intervention.


    Alexander realized his head was pounding and he¡¯d run out of whatever energy it was that powered his magic. He was back to the old rules, while the golem got to cheat by being a living rock impervious to any weapon he could bring against it.


    ¡°The charges!¡± He yelled, taking off around the back side of town, hoping that if he broke sight the monster would lose him.


    It did not. Some sense, smell, radar, something more than physical, guided the monster like a blood hound along Alexander¡¯s trail. He tested the tracking by running through the remains of one of the burned-out houses, climbing the stairs, jumping from the second floor to the half-collapsed porch roof, which sent him pitching into a rough landing in snow when it became a completely collapsed porch roof.


    ¡°Huagh!¡± He grunted, picking himself up, brushing snow off himself from habit, not because he gave any particular shit about anything but the creature that hunted him.


    Green and brown eyes scanned, and he saw his adversary approaching, the same steady gait eating up the space between them. The space where its eyes should be glowed with a blue-ish silver light. The impacts from his Chaos bolts had sent cracks streaming from around their little pitiful pockmarks, but the monster minded the damage not at all. He turned and ran, crossed the street, and back through the square that had heralded his goblin regicide.


    A loud crash of wood splintering and collapsing announced that the golem had walked through the house Alexander ran through. It didn¡¯t slow as it tore its way out of the remains of the two-story home, endless strength against the kindling around it.


    He¡¯d confirmed his theory, and took off again, this time jogging at a sustainable pace, if not one that gained him ground on the golem. The young man ran, ran to lead the creature on a merry chase through the tiny town¡¯s streets and byways.


    However the magical construct followed him, it did so exactly. It was recreating his path and that meant getting to the C-4 would mean leading it home. He might make it to the shaped charges stored in his Laboratory ahead of the thing in time to extract them from his lock box. He might even be able to arm one of them before it caught up to him, the little magnesium fuses weren¡¯t too hard to get going with the lighter in his pocket. But. It would then walk through his home and destroy not only the place where he had all his comforts, but also his research. It would ravage his notes, his plans, the stored cores, and materials, all the work he¡¯d put into these last weeks. His father¡¯s books.


    Unacceptable.


    The Laboratory was more than just survival it was his life. If he lost it, other than what lived inside his head, he would be back to square one. Only as a last resort.


    Onward Alexander continued to jog, mind racing as fast as his legs to find an alternative win condition. He had guns stashed around town, little weapons, and emergency food caches just in case. But he didn¡¯t have any field artillery. If only he had a lava pit. Or a disintegrator. Or acid. Acid? He had all kinds of acid.


    ¡°You are a fucking moron, Alexander!¡± He derided himself, but with a mad grin on his face.


    Alexander had acid. He had concentrated nitric acid, kind of a lot of it, left over from making the RDX, which did a number on most minerals. It did a number on a lot of metals too, including silver, which was resistant to most other acids. He had to get to the second chemical lab and now.


    His legs were growing tired and the stitch in his side was a throbbing agony, but adrenaline was a hell of a drug and not being eaten by a golem was one of the most powerful motivators known to a young man being chased by said golem.


    Boots pounding on the packed snow of his paths, Alexander put on as much speed as he could dredge from his body and came to the final stretch. The tiny little high school, its sights heavy with memories of a life, long gone, blurred past in his desperate run. He skidded across the gym floor, falling from his fatigue but throwing himself up, and fought to drive his legs into coordination to sprint. A hand on the corner of the hall, pitched him into lockers, banging against the metal hard but saving him precious moments to cut down the hall to his destination: the science wing, with its tiny little one room lab, containing the unlocked closet that hid a big, harmless looking Styrofoam box holding a two-liter flask of orange-red smoking liquid. It was beautiful to him at that moment.


    Alexander hauled ass back down the hall with his treasure held to his chest, fingers worrying the paraffin tape that sealed the flask before he realized that he was being a clownishly stupid animal. He was just going to throw the flask anyway.


    The clamor of destruction announced that the golem had found the school and was working its way down the halls, legs shattering the wooden floors as it stamped its way down his path. Alexander met the silver-ore beast in the gym and let the flask fly in a sidearm throw. Glass shattered easily on the stone of its chest, and acid did what acids do, sending up brown fumes while the monster¡¯s chest bleached white. Fuming nitric acid does not fuck around and the golem stopped for the first time since rising from its fall out of the crucible. An almost fearful flash of blue lit animated eyes before its arms began to beat and claw at its chest.


    Stone fragments, glittering with silver, pelted the floor and the golem made a grinding, low pitch sound like a ton of gravel falling. A scream, Alexander realized. He was transfixed by the sight, shaking legs too exhausted to move, whatever he wanted. This was the gambit, the bet on his life.


    Rocky fingers broke apart as they were corroded by the acid, the nubs continued to scrape and claw until they too broke off, and the golem¡¯s chest opened to reveal a pulsing core of pure silver metal, cut in the shape of a gemstone. Its heart. Two liters of acid was a shitload of acid, but the golem was a massive pile of stone and metal. Alexander couldn¡¯t risk the creature recovering, he had to take this opportunity. No magic, exhausted by half an hour of continuous running, the last Gerifalte was down to the last fumes in the tank.


    Alexander gritted his teeth against the insanity of his last card played, his ace in the hole.


    Concentrating, burning up the last of the mana that had returned while he ran, he summoned the field of anti-magic and threw himself on shaky legs at the golem, the knife on his belt in his hand. The golem froze like it suffered a glitch when his field passed over it. The fumes pouring out from the cracks left by Alexander¡¯s Chaos bolts showed that his attack earlier bore fruit, the acid was clawing down through the thing¡¯s body.


    Screaming fury, denial of his mortality, the young man launched himself at the struggling monster and scrambled up its back, using the craggy material as handholds. It swatted at him once, bone crushing force against its damaged body, but then it returned to scrubbing the devastating liquid away from its core, ignoring the fleshy soft thing that could not hurt it, and yet stoked its hatred so greatly.


    The beast turned suddenly, and he lost his grip with the fingers clenching the knife, choosing to keep the weapon rather than the hand hold, and he dangled one handed from the shoulder blade of the golem.


    One last burst of energy, and Alexander swung his legs, bringing himself around the creature¡¯s side, fingers scraping as they dug in for purchase on the rocky frame. Before strength failed, he launched himself up past a snatching nub, one that would have squeezed him to paste had it not melted off, and drove the knife into the core, his Entropic field slowing the golem and weakening its defenses. Just enough, the roughly forged steel of the knife blade slid into the metal crystal, and the golem fell backwards, dissolving around Alexander.


    He must have blacked out for a moment.


    Gasping for air, Alexander realized that he was lying on his stomach, half buried in rubble, the remains of the golem.


    Still clenched in a death grip, the last Gerifalte held a hand forged knife on which was pinned the heart of the golem. He tried to rise and failed. After a few minutes of quiet breathing to recover, he tried again, this time shifting the heavy metal and stone mix from off his body.


    Alexander climbed out from the remains of the inorganic monster and raised the knife over head in victory. Sweet victory.


    ¡°Take that, you crazy fucking world! You messed with the wrong motherfucker today, Silver Stone!¡± He shouted into the echoing gymnasium.


    He didn¡¯t know why he shouted; he was completely alone. Still. It felt like it needed to be said and he felt better for saying it. Sometimes you have to let the other guy know how it is, so he can hold that loss nice and deep in his chest. The other guy, from Alexander¡¯s point of view, was this entire messed up world and all its messed-up monsters, and its glowing gateways to wherever the fuck those goblins came from.


    Aching from the strain of running like he¡¯d never run before, bruised from being pelted by the remains of the golem, Alexander limped his way back home, the silver-ore monster¡¯s heart still on his knife. He ate well and slept like a corpse as soon as he got there.

 Chapter 7: Living in a Winter Wonderland

    Starship¡¯s log, day one hundred twenty-six since the Pulse. Supplies are holding steady, but the ship¡¯s computer suggests that the Captain is sick to damned death of oatmeal porridge and chicken taco soup.¡± His voice echoed faintly, muffled through his hands to resemble an intercom.


    Alexander dropped the ruse and stirred his porridge with a spoon, anticipating the joyless nutrition to come. According to his calendar, February had come to an end, one day longer thanks to this being a leap year.


    The last Gerifalte liked to spend his mornings resenting breakfast and reviewing events. Pregaming the day, as it were.


    Progress in some areas had been swift after disposal of the silver golem. No others had reared their craggy heads, but Alexander had prepared four more two-liter flasks of the acid that won him the day against the first. It wasn¡¯t like the stuff would treat goblins, or ogres, or whatever the hell else much better. But, before that, in a fit of mild insanity, Alexander had hurried in the day after his bout with Silver Stone to load up the furnace in the old smelter factory and he¡¯d smelted up the golem¡¯s corpse, one wheelbarrow load at a time.


    A taste of a small, powdered piece of the golem revealed it to be an anomaly. Most silver containing ores were mined concurrently with ores predominantly of some other metal. Beneath the mountains of Alexander¡¯s home were rich lead-iron-copper-silver deposits, dominated by galena a lead sulfide and chalcopyrite, an iron copper sulfur mineral. The town¡¯s silver mineral was argentite, a silver-sulfur mineral and polybasite, a complex of copper and silver along with antimony and sulfur. The golem was none of that. It was pure silver metal embedded in a matrix of, from what he could determine, iron, copper, and sulfur. Nothing in Alexander¡¯s books said anything like that was possible.


    That discovery prompted him to toss aside his other projects and unlock the mysteries of magically animated constructs in favor of cooking down the monster¡¯s ore-based corpse.


    Bath time.


    While he scrubbed himself with hot water and soap, the young man reviewed his notes on ores and metal alloys, continuing to organize himself for the day. His initial research into the monstrosity made of inorganic materials had been eye opening.


    He knew the composition of the animate rock and metal of its body because he slowly brought the temperature of the smallest furnace to a roaring 2,500<sup>O</sup>F, at which point all of the metals were melted, the sulfur burned off, and the silver was left unoxidized but it spontaneously combined with the copper in an alloy and refused to separate outside of very specific conditions. From there, he applied a few passes to separate out the iron and was presented with what tested to be sterling silver, the ninety-two percent eight percent split of silver to copper. Sort of, anyway. The almost iron sat in bars in the corner of his new smithy area, alongside the sterling silver bars. Almost and sort of because, while tasting a sliver of metal was intensely unnatural to his senses, the ingestion analysis skill paid dividends.


    The golem was native to Gaia, that is, not from some other land, like the goblins had been, but its composition was warped by magic. Very fortunately, that stopped the creature from dissolving when the renewing light of the third sunrise hit Gaia¡¯s surface, which gave Alexander time to process the damned thing. The results were worth the effort. The iron read back the identification Golem Ferrum, and the sterling silver read back Golem Argentum.


    A test smelt of ore that never got processed, along with a taste test, revealed the regular old metals silver, copper, lead, iron, and just a little zinc. Somehow, even the rocks of the planet had been altered in seemingly random ways.


    Alexander¡¯s great mystery of why he survived wasn¡¯t solved by breaking down the golem, but an extremely nervous and minute taste test of the concentrated nitric acid, revealed itself to be the ¡°appropriate solvent¡± spoken of by the extraction skill from before to use on basically all the metals he had on hand, and also the golem core. The vessel he still didn¡¯t know about, but he had a feeling the Golem Argentum would work just fine to house the essence of the core that once powered it. A glassful of baking soda solution neutralized the acid and helped ease the burn to his tongue with minimal damage.


    Worth it.


    In related news, he lost all the dissolved parts of his animate rock enemy, unable to retrieve them from the gymnasium floor, courtesy of the acid eating through the broken floor and delivering the dissolved golem bits into the gravel below.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t going to dig through acid coated gravel for scraps, he had about fifty-fiveish golem iron ingots, eighteen golem silver ingots, and the two golem copper ingots and twenty pure golem silver ingots told him he could refine the special golem metals if he really worked hard at it. The nitric acid had more uses as a reagent than as a weapon.


    Greater analyze indicated that Argentum, the name for the sterling silver derived from animate metal creature he¡¯d defeated, was far tougher than regular old sterling silver. Same story for the golem variants of copper, silver, and iron. His silversmith skills were absolutely necessary to fiddle with these tougher materials, just like the blacksmith skills were required to deal with golem iron. Neat.


    Done with the scrub down and dressed in his fuzzy research robe, he returned to the library and the chalkboard.


    When Alexander contemplated that he now had potentially far stronger materials to make arms and armor with he grew momentarily sad. He would have to re-make his half-plate and naginata, and drew an angry, chalky line through that note on his board. On the other hand, if he understood things correctly, the golem metal equipment would be far sturdier than vanilla steel. He might not even need to dick with the San-mai methods of creating a jacketed blade. Or¡­perhaps he could do it with the Ferrum and Argentum and get a truly potent weapon out of the deal.


    The near-death encounter with the monstrous giant almost made him rethink the armor and spear altogether, but just because he¡¯d encountered one threat that those items were useless against, didn¡¯t make them altogether useless against the wolves or panthers running around. If he encountered more goblins, both would prove useful, if they managed to corner him. Hell, Alexander wasn¡¯t above casting golem iron bullets and reloading for his rifle. A harder projectile than soft lead might be just what the Warforged Chirurgeon ordered.


    His plots were coming close to fruition, as he¡¯d just finished rebuilding his forge in the smelter factory and his steam engine now sat enshrined next to George the power hammer. Today, they would make beautiful music together. First though, Alexander took up the almighty chalk and began to inscribe his designs. The skill he acquired from his Mechanic aspect of Warforger was the key to his rapid progress.


    <table width="608">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Schematic: drawing detailed blueprints and plans for the design of components and machines enhances their fabrication efficiency. Once a schematic is completed for a particular item its effectiveness remains until a new schematic is created.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    By planning out his designs here in the Laboratory, Alexander gained an almost instinctual appreciation for the interplay of gears, pulleys, dimensions, and steps for the construction of almost anything he understood how to make. It did nothing if he wanted to make something with which he was unfamiliar, like a nuclear bomb or something, but joining a pulley system on his engine with the drive system of George? Very doable.


    Better yet, the skill was cumulative. The more he designed things, the more he understood them, the more he understood them, the more insight he gained into how other machines functioned. It was a positive feedback loop, by every definition.


    Fair was fair. If discarded silver ore got to up and walk around trying to kill him, he got to figure out how to tinker his way to creating ways to kill them back.


    So, for the next two hours, chalk scratched and tacked against the slate board to inscribe the mechanism for bringing George to glorious life again. It had taken most of two weeks to blacksmith twenty of his fifty-five Ferrum ingots into gears and drive chain. Chain making was now right up there with a vegetative state for the most mindless thing Alexander could think of doing with himself. It would all pay off when he was able to harness Sterling, the steam engine, to George and let their powers combine.


    It no longer bothered Alexander that he named and befriended pieces of equipment. In a world where his parents were statues locked in their bedroom, not much really bothered him anymore. Aggravated him? Sure. Terrified him? Frequently. But he was well the fuck past bothered.


    When the last notation of dimension was complete, the quotation mark indicating the inches and feet, the drawing on the board congealed in his mind like glass cooling into crystal. He could see the shape of the connections between Sterling and George, he could almost feel the movement of power from engine to hammer. A twinge in his temple graced that awareness, because, in that moment of insight, he found the fatal flaw that would have driven George¡¯s hammer up through its housing, the slip between power stroke and neutral gearing he had not accounted for earlier.


    Back to the drawing board.


    Well past noon it was before Alexander managed to complete a schematic that did not give him the programming equivalent to a compiling error. The skill was, unexpectedly, even more profoundly powerful than he¡¯d thought. Knowledge was, indeed, power.


    Flames fed with coal, bags of the stuff hauled from their repository in the hardware store, because there were still no few yokels who loved to heat with the dirty stuff in his beloved microcosm of rural Maine. Or, at least, there had been no few yokels. He missed those yokels now, their twangy accents much like his own, their wisdom in the ways of navigating the realities of life out here. Having to do everything yourself made you appreciate how damned useful community was.


    Tangent, Alexander, return to task. He was getting the fire good and hot, bringing the water up to boil to produce the steam that would put Sterling into action. Just for good measure, Alexander checked the drive connections to George one more time, even though they had been perfect a minute ago. He was nervous. This was a defining moment, the first hint of modern industrial capacity since the Pulse. The forge was already lit, 1090 steel bar stock, golem Ferrum, and golem Argentum sitting there at working temperature inside.


    The young man patted the shaped charge under the welding coat he wore, clipped to his belt by a carabiner, a wooden frame holding a cone of plastic explosive with a golem Argentum needle at its tip, aimed forty-five degrees above horizontal, the magnesium fuse ready to be lit and whatever he pointed it at would get to know what armor penetrating munitions would do to them. Silver Stone had opened Alexander¡¯s eyes to new types of danger. It wasn¡¯t unreasonable to create tank buster type weaponry.


    The vault door of the town¡¯s bank, freshly ventilated, had proven his prototype¡¯s effectiveness about a week after the demise of Silver Stone and his metallurgical bonanza. It was also a lesson about eggs and baskets, never again would he just leave his home without a variety of implements to deal with threats.


    It was a damned good thing, Alexander contemplated, as he watched the temperature and pressure gauges rise to operational levels, that he hadn¡¯t attempted to shoot the golem using the imbuement skill and his gun.


    He tested it last week, another experiment that proved both successful and not.


    <table width="638">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="638">


    Entropic Imbuement: channeling the unraveling mana within into a held instrument concentrates it within the item, transferring the effect of Entropic field into your tool or weapon. Concentration increases the potency of the field and also reduces the duration the item can retain these energies.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Focusing on the .300 win-mag, its combination of steel match barrel, polymer stock, fine trigger assembly, instilled the rifle with the same kind of hazy grey-black aura that accompanied his Chaos bolts. The bullet he fired retained none of the aura, however, and it bled out from the gun a few moments later, before he could fire a second round. If he had attempted that to kill the construct, his mana would have been exhausted completely and he wouldn¡¯t have had enough to deploy the field that crippled the thing just long enough to get at its heart.


    Lucky boy, Little Falcon, he teased himself.


    ¡°Time to rock, George!¡± Alexander shouted, pulling on the earmuffs.


    Throwing the crude lever that permitted the chain drive transmission to link the incredible power of Sterling¡¯s pistons to George, Alexander grabbed the steel bar stock in his tongs and laid it on the flattening die of the industrial hammer, put his foot on the pedal, and, for the first time in thirty years, George gave a great peal as the hammer fell on steel.


    Sparks flew and metal flattened, Alexander flubbed the pedal and got a short stroke. He leaned in too hard and bounced the stock off the die, failing to get it in place for the consecutive stroke which knocked the bar out of his tongs.


    Cursing, Alexander got the still workable steel back on the die and took more care for his boot on the hammer¡¯s pedal. It took three heats of the bar stock to figure out how to get the timing right, and he learned his tong skills needed serious improvement to make full use of George. Even so, his inexperience couldn¡¯t offset the sheer power of the multi-ton hammer and he held up a piece of flattened bar stock, a third longer than it had been when he¡¯d started, within fifteen minutes of forging. It was unbelievable. This was the exhausting work of half of a day at his anvil.


    ¡°George, you loud sonofabitch, you¡¯re beautiful!¡± He cried in glee.


    Next the Ferrum. It came out of the forge softly orange and flattened with more resistance than the steel. It kept its heat longer too though, and Alexander was able to get a quarter inch piece of flat bar in the same quarter hour as the steel. He fed Sterling, frequently checking the gauges to make certain all was in the green. Next, the Argentum. The sparks that flew from this ingot in his tongs burned whiter than the other two, hotter in their flight. The ingot flattened with far more ease and Alexander felt like he was molding a cold modeling clay in his hands rather than metal under a power hammer.


    Frowning, he noted that the Argentum lost its heat much more quickly than the other two materials, which made sense. Silver and copper were both fantastic conductors, they needed less temperature and force to become workable, but lost their temperature faster, making them more challenging to shape. This one actually got hotter than the other two ingots but lost that heat rapidly. He had to know what strokes he needed before he pulled the super-silver from the forge.


    Inspired, his arms unburdened by relentless swinging of a five-pound hammer, Alexander combined the golem smelted iron and silver, according to the protocol for the jacketing technique he had planned for Project Naginata, and laughed, though it couldn¡¯t be heard over the steam engine and the hammer, as the metals shaped to his will.


    Forge welding by hand had taught him much about the technique for this process. With the power of George, he held a cooling blade stock of Silver Stone alloy within the hour in his tongs. One more heat, and he used a wedge to cut off the unalloyed end that his tongs gripped, giving him a completely forge welded blade stock. Hard as shit iron core jacketed by still hard but much more flexible Argentum, in his guts he knew it would quench true.


    The impatience of youth railed against the hours that would be needed to raise the temperatures of the blank to normalizing temperature, a process that shrank the tiny crystalline structures of the metal and made it more uniform, thus tougher. Then he would have to thermal cycle it before annealing all to ensure the metal of the golem iron and sterling silver were at ideal hardness for his file and grinding.


    Alexander rode high when he disengaged the transmission and vented the steam from the engine.


    The primary bevel was already roughed in, his hands had felt like they knew exactly how to hold the bar to achieve a smooth taper. A day of file work would see the primary nearly complete and a secondary bevel to reveal the hardened metal edge not far after.


    So it was that the last day of February passed in glory for the youth, and he was able to find his sleep untroubled.


    Another day, another bowl of porridge. The youth inhaled his food without tasting it, so eager was he to get into the day¡¯s activity. He had to very deliberately not skip his rag bath in excitement, after all, even though he had George now to do the donkey work, standing in front of a forge and working tongs was still a laborious, sweaty process. Clean meant less chance for disease and getting sick because he wasn¡¯t practicing optimal hygiene was not in the playbook.


    Now that the blank was completed and properly annealed, Alexander went to the chalkboard and rubbed his hands eagerly. He sketched out the form of the blank first, its dimensions and shape. Then he roughed out the blade geometry he wanted, the length of the tang, the positions of the iron bands and cross pins that would hold the naginata sword point in place in its haft. He¡¯d settled on three rings and pins separated by four inches. That meant a foot of tang, in addition to the two and a half feet of curved blade. He had more than enough thickness on the blank to work with, having already done this part of the project three times before.


    Practice made perfect, and all that.


    Then he sketched out the bevels, the profile that he wanted for the sharp curve. Alexander decided on a clip point, the very tip of the naginata sharpened for six inches on the reverse side. It would make the tip more fragile, but allowed the weapon to cut when swung from two directions without changing grips and gave it better piercing ability. He briefly entertained serrations down the reverse edge until the thought of the thing getting caught in an ogre¡¯s rib cage so it could haul him in by the handle dissuaded him.


    Don¡¯t get cute, Little Falcon. Keep it simple, keep it smooth.


    A ruler and a protractor lifted from the school let him get detailed with the exact thicknesses of metal he wanted.


    Schematic worked better the more detail you fed it, so Alexander went ahead and calculated all the final dimensions for the sword part, the haft, the pins, all of it. He had a mockup of the final fit drawn out, certain parts detailed at different angles for comparison, before he was satisfied that it was complete.


    Upon deciding that his design was sound, Alexander felt the rush of analytical power that sought to connect all the dots on the board to reality. The intuitive error checker didn¡¯t generate a catastrophic failure, so he knew his concept was sound. All that remained was to go to the smithy and execute.


    There¡¯s not much to say about filing. Nor is there much to say about using a sanding belt nailed to a little jig to do your grinding by painfully slow increments. His enthusiasm died somewhere around the fourth hour of profiling, and the other eight passed him by in the almost Zen trance of repeated motions.


    Primary bevel, clip bevel, all set, secondary bevel roughed in. Eat. Cloth bath. Sleep. Repeat.


    This first day of March, Alexander realized that if he didn¡¯t drill his holes before the quenching and heat treat, he¡¯d never get them done without using forge heat and a punch. The metal of this blade was harder than his hand drill bits. He¡¯d have to either do the holes now, while the alloy was slightly softer, or move getting the drill press operation up in his queue, which meant redoing the schematic for the naginata, since he could only have one in his thoughts at a time.


    Damn.


    Holes meant a bigger chance of bad warps in the quench. He¡¯d risk it, he decided, his instincts regarding the blade staying true said the metal could take it, especially since the tang was deliberately a little thicker than the blade, with a gentle shoulder to reduce stress concentrations.


    Hand drilling metal is just about as slow a process as filing and hand sanding it. The young man remained diligent and careful; these holes needed to be clean. Onto the geometry of the blade. The journey of a single bevel begins with a thousand strokes, or something like that.


    Tedious, mindless, easy work, Alexander could do. That was what most of public education amounted to, and he¡¯d excelled without any trouble whatsoever. It was Papa Gerifalte¡¯s program of curriculum that had introduced him to real challenge.


    That thought made the young man pull up from his work, wincing. Grief stabbed him seemingly at random. He never knew when it would well up and threaten to paralyze him with its intensity. He¡¯d never gone back upstairs in his old home to see the statues of the ones who had raised him. He didn¡¯t think he could bring himself to leave if he did. Alexander was very certain they would have been proud of him, he had carried himself with the best of both of them, in this world gone mad. But he¡¯d never really know, because they¡¯d never be able to tell him, and that thought turned the bitter sadness into rage.


    Hands moving again, the anger sharpened his concentration. Greater focus tuned out everything but what he was doing, the skill zoomed his thoughts in on what he was doing to a tremendous degree, the feel of the sanding block in his hands, the pattern of the metal shifting ever so slightly as he shaved microns off at a time, the clean sharpie line that told him where the bevel ended, all of it as clear and hard in his thoughts as good glass.


    Once the final stroke was done, Alexander held a two-and-a-half-foot curved blade whose coloration blended from lustrous silver to a darker gray, the golem iron showing through where the edge formed. It was a convex grind, harder to do than the constant angle of a flat angle, but it bought him extra material on the blade, extra strength. The secondary bevel he wouldn¡¯t complete until after the quench and thermal cycling. That was going to be a hollow grind, a concave curve that created a truly razored edge along the naginata¡¯s blade. This weapon Alexander wanted to be able to slash an ogre to the bone. After seeing how tough their hide was, that required sharp, his strength alone wouldn¡¯t be sufficient. Hence the deformed s shape of the convex blade profiling into the hollow grind.


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Alexander smiled as he held up the blade and examined the hand drilled holes, sanded to remove hard edges, and thus strengthened. Reverse threaded cross pins in the rings that he would use to bind the blade in its handle would tighten with use, rather than loosen. Speaking of the haft, after much debate, he had decided on using steel. A quarter inch diameter of round spring steel would be strong enough to not snap like kindling if he encountered something big. It would give the spear a little flex, a slight whip action too, which he hoped would add a little to the cutting power.


    The weight didn¡¯t bother him, good hickory didn¡¯t weigh much less. Besides. Months of swinging a blacksmithing hammer until they couldn¡¯t lift it had turned his forearms into ropy things and his hands were like a rock climber¡¯s. The extra mass was worth the gain in strength.


    Such were the doings and thoughts of the youth while he finished his work and lit the forge for the moment of truth, a PVC pipe full of vegetable oil ready to immerse the metal and grant it its springy strength. Just as his instincts had shouted to him, it quenched true. A rasp dragged across the metal sounded high, announced the hardness to be exquisite. From there, he had to go slow, spending most of an afternoon tempering, bringing the metal up to about 1250<sup>O</sup>F for a couple of hours, which, in a forge, was basically staring at the blade to make sure it had the right color and lifting it from the coals or closing the vent on the blower to reduce the temperature if it looked like it might be getting too hot. Boring. Boring. Boring. But crucial. Greater focus again lent him its aid, tightening his mind on the procedure.


    It was nice to have a kind of reverse ADD meditating on a specific task skill.


    Were the skills part of him? Reflections of him? Were they tacked onto him in some way by the Pulse? Who the fuck knew? None of this was probably real anyway and he¡¯d wake up one day in the cockpit of his plane, being told he¡¯d blacked out from excitement or something. In the meantime, he accepted his gift of being tied to the madness of this world and its quirks.


    Eventually, the temper ended, and he beheld a blackened length of golem stuff crafted into an almost weapon. But he was now tired of smelling charcoal burning and looking at glowing hot metal.


    Outside the old smelting factory, it was already nearly completely dark out.


    Alexander returned through the snowy beaten paths to his Laboratory. While snow still blew, it wasn¡¯t new snow, but rather that coming off the tree branches, or off the sides of the mountain. No new snow in a week, now he thought of it. Winter was about wrapped up. He was damned glad of it; the young man had had about all the cold he could take.


    Caution born from repeated attempts on his life by feral monsters, sentient little green demons, and landscape made him freeze. Alexander¡¯s penetrating vision scanned slowly in the fading twilight, he turned his head by gradual increments, still uncertain what subconscious datum had caused him to alert. There! To his eight o¡¯clock, a hump of snow that hadn¡¯t been there when he¡¯d come through this noontime, and which didn¡¯t sit beneath any roof that might have deposited it.


    The shape was what triggered his instincts, it was too big, too out of place compared to the terrain around it. No, this here was far too sketchy, and Mama Gerifalte had raised no fool.


    Slowly, Alexander thumbed the safety off the rifle and shouldered it, tightening the sling to stabilize the weapon. Through the optic, illuminated but not great in this light, not necessary at all for the scant fifty yards that he¡¯d spotted the hump of snow, Alexander saw a slight motion, rhythmic, subtle. Breathing. There was something hiding, buried, waiting. It was just off the entrance to a little town park, not much more than a walking path around a circular clearing amongst the side streets of the town, some well-tended old oak trees, and a few swing sets for the little ones.


    Nothing he¡¯d encountered so far had used the frozen precipitation for cover. The bears prowled through it, plowing their own paths with their great strength, the panthers liked to use the trees to leap down on you, and the wolfs, big as they were, had wide paws that distributed their weight like snowshoes, letting them run atop the snow effectively. Whatever this was, it was a fresh hell for him to face.


    ¡°If you be a thinking thing, know that you do not hide from me! Nice and slow, show yourself! Nobody needs to die today, if we all here be reasonable.¡± Alexander called, firm and calm into the not quite night.


    It was a low probability that anything he encountered would be non-hostile, but you thought over a lot of things during those days while winter storms hurled blizzards around. Just because he hadn¡¯t met anything that hadn¡¯t tried to kill him didn¡¯t mean he wouldn¡¯t. Right?


    Wrong. Powder erupted and a huge shaggy, white-haired form launched from the pile.


    Alexander fired and missed, the sudden motion, the gloom, and the too high magnification of the optic ruining his aim.


    Cursing, he worked the bolt and reacquired the apelike thing that sped toward him. Firing again, he knew the bullet hit, saw the creature slap at the stinging strike to its breast and blessed his eyes that could see even in the low light.


    Alexander worked the bolt again but did not fire. Instead, with thirty yards between them he raised his hand and sent two Chaos bolts into the monstrous ape-wolf thing that charged him. Grey and black magic hammered into the monster, and it staggered, a leg crippled by the chaotic energies degrading its knee and thigh. It crashed headfirst into the packed snow along the street, digging a trench and now Alexander put the rifle to work again, shooting into its exposed back.


    *Crack* called the rifle and he jacked the spent shell free, slammed home the next, and fired again, this time hitting between neck and shoulder.


    The strangled howl of the monster told him he¡¯d hit something important, but it levered itself out of the snow divot its fall had made, and it loped on four limbs, like a gorilla, fanged maw wide.


    Twenty yards.


    Alexander put his last Chaos bolt into the Yeti¡¯s slavering mouth, and, while it shrieked from the pain of the energies ravaging its face and throat, put the final round from the magazine into its head, just above its right eye. The heavy round snapped the creature¡¯s head back and it fell, twitching.


    Heart racing, he lowered a smoking barrel, let the rifle hang from its sling and drew the heavy caliber pistol from his chest holster. Methodically he emptied the magazine of the forty-five into the creature¡¯s head and upper neck. The spasming limbs stopped moving and he reloaded both pistol and rifle from his belt.


    Only then did Alexander Gerifalte approach the newest nightmare to haunt his dreams.


    ¡°It¡¯s gotta be almost nine feet tall¡­¡± He whispered.


    It was a little less imposing than the ogres, but it was faster than they had been, lanky, wiry limbs covered in that dense, long fur lending it speed. He saw four long fingered hands, more like a gorilla¡¯s feet than a humanoid hand, the thumb not truly opposing. The claws on those digits were all three or four inches long and cruelly hooked.


    He knelt next to the monster and inspected it, dark red, almost black blood oozed from the wounds. That head, shaped not like a wolf but like a fanged baboon¡¯s maw, now that he stopped and thought about it, with a largish dome shaped forehead and heavy brow. Or, it had been, Alexander had done a number on that cranium, it was closer to bone shards than a skull now.


    Chaos bolts had ravaged the face and throat, looking like a combination of badly healed burns, acid, and scar tissue. The flesh of the monster¡¯s upper abdomen and lower chest, hit dead center on its gut, looked no better. The awful scarred and mangled wound the entropic magic left was terrible to behold. Which was why he¡¯d put the second bolt on its knee, risking the miss to buy himself time.


    Even a quadruped will slow down if you suddenly take away one of its legs mid run.


    Preliminary inspection done and starting into the adrenaline shakes that always seemed to come on when he finished being afraid for his life, Alexander Gerifalte utilized the gift of the magical geode, the voice that had demanded his desire and granted it, if not in the way he¡¯d meant it.


    Greater analyze brought up the shaggy furred monster¡¯s blue scroll-work, the image appearing only for him to reveal its secrets.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="120">


    Immature Yeti


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="157">


    Status:


    dead


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Soak: 0%


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 0%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    28


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    8¡¯4¡±


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/10 Chaos burned, catastrophic brain damage


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    522lbs


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    0/8


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    Dense bone


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    0/8


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    2 months


    *Manaborn*


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Yeti Fur


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Yeti Fur


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    6


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    Tourmaline, cushion


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/8 lungshot, perforated diaphragm, Chaos burned


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    empty


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    3


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    Yeti Fur


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    7


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="157">


    Monster Race:


    Sasquatch-2<sup>nd</sup> Tier (Immature, Polar variant)


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    0/8


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    0/8 Chaos burned, crippled


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    19


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Yeti Fur


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/5 lacerated liver, multiple organ failure, Chaos burned


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Yeti Fur


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    14


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Cunning, Ambush predator, Frost resistant,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Savage rend, Cold blooded, Hide, Stalk, Lesser charge


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Lesser regeneration, Frost claw


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Hah! So, it really was a Yeti! But where did the fucking thing come from?


    Twice in rapid succession the young man¡¯s heart fell into his guts. Firstly because he saw that the Yeti was ¡°immature¡±, meaning there was a bigger version of the menace that absorbed four rifle rounds and three chaos bolts, and still needed a close-range rifle shot and a pistol magazine to the noggin to dispatch, much like the ogre had, while being even faster on the move. Secondly because the age of the monster in front of him was only two months ago and that it held a tag that said ¡°manaborn¡±. It was from Earth, or, rather, from Gaia, but born from magic? How?


    Groaning, Alexander cursed loudly and lustily against the nonsense that sprung up with regularity. He should have known. Manaborn. That explained the golem. Were there other sources of mana than the Pulse? Something that catalyzed the transformation from the stuff of the old rules to the new?


    What about that crystal core in the mine? It had bathed itself in what Alexander could only describe as mana, had exerted enough influence to create a pocket dimension, so far as he could tell. When the blue threshold was crossed, the mine¡¯s interior was not that of his old world, he¡¯d seen that for himself. Going back, it was as he remembered. Magic. Gates to beyond. Corridors through which things and magic could come through to his world.


    Kneeling in the snow over the corpse of a monster, nothing was off the table.


    ¡°Things are different now though, you bastards!¡± Alexander cursed quietly, hating these monsters, and whatever hell had shat them, pulling free the crudely crafted knife, and opening the Yeti¡¯s chest.


    Now he had the eyes to see, to be able to make visible the secrets first hidden from him. Now he could penetrate the mysteries and find the clues that revealed Gaia¡¯s rules. Later for that though, for now, he had a Yeti to harvest.


    First the core of the monster. Then he¡¯d field dress and skin it. Not because he wanted to eat the now obviously disgusting smelling fucker, but because it might have utility to one of his next major agendas: alchemy.


    The old-time chemists had been called alchemists because people suspected them of using magic to dabble in the transformation of matter. Alexander¡¯s father, ever the eccentric and with an undeniable fetish for collecting literature on how to make just about anything, had in his library the methods to do everything from metal plating to fabrication of high explosives.


    While not the genius that his father had been, Alexander wasn¡¯t stupid, he could read, and he was thoroughly trainable. If he applied the techniques in those books to the otherworldly shit he was carving out from monsters, like this Yeti, he thought, pulling free a four-inch-long canine from its jaw, ignoring the nasty squelching sounds that event made, then there were likely to be ways to fight them. Maybe ways to undo whatever had been done to his parents. To fix everyone in this rinky-dinky town. A town he¡¯d always wanted to escape from, and which he now wished he would have appreciated for what it was: home.


    Samples of the Yeti he rolled up in its own fur, a surprisingly heavy pelt, and he dragged his grim prize home with him, with determined steps. It wasn¡¯t until he was almost halfway back to the Laboratory before the horrifying thought ¡°What if Yetis were pack animals?¡± occurred to him. His hands shook as he ate chicken taco soup that night, thanks to that haunting idea.


    There were now had a handful of encounters that even what he considered excellent marksmanship with heavy caliber weapons had nearly failed to bring him victory. Whatever permitted these bestial creatures to survive what should have been damage enough to knock a moose down on the spot made them incredibly dangerous when they had the initiative.


    ¡°What can I do about it?¡± Alexander wondered, laying in bed.


    Traps, he decided. He would use the anti-goblin strategies for early warning, but, this time, he would have traps prepared for anything that prowled around uninvited. First, an early warning system of bells and fishing line. Then, an interior perimeter of cruel devices and lethal mechanisms. He had three of the shaped charges, and a fifty-milliliter beaker of crumbled product that he¡¯d scraped from his glassware. Not good enough to be used in his charges, but, maybe good enough to be made into a coffee can shrapnel bomb, alongside the gun powder he had stashed from the funstore.


    Too bad nobody fur trapped anymore around here, the young man lamented, some steel foot catches would do wonders to discourage guests.


    ¡°If it makes you feel any better, Little Falcon,¡± he mocked himself in the dark, ¡°An ogre wouldn¡¯t even notice the annoyance before it pulls free and squeezes your guts out of you.¡±


    With that, he strained to quiet his thoughts and, eventually, passed the night in sleep.


    Next morning, instead of spending his post breakfast time in the library studying, Alexander hooked up his early warning system. Before the sun was two fist widths higher than the horizon, he had each of the main streets and many of the streets around his beaten paths set with bells and fishing line.


    A coffee can with a hole punched in the opposite sides of it, with a match connected to a tripwire run through, which pulled said match across fine sandpaper, thus igniting the match as it was pulled into the can¡¯s black powder and nail loaded interior, made for an effective antipersonnel mine. There were about a dozen of them scattered around the approaches to his usual paths through the town by noon that day.


    Alexander looked up from the last of the bunch he had ready and considered whether it was worth posting warning signs in case anybody happened through. It probably wasn¡¯t worth the time, he judged.


    Since the Pulse, not a single sign had he that he wasn¡¯t the last human being on Gaia¡¯s surface. Given that some of the townsfolk had survived the pulse, if not the goblins that captured and ate them, he knew he wasn¡¯t actually the only person alive. But whatever had happened had definitely put movement across distance on hold. Without a vehicle, or horses, or some way to travel and haul goods, moving was a tremendous challenge. Doing it in Winter was right the hell out; only a complete moron would try to move in the bitter cold and heavy snow.


    Softly whistling ¡°Ring of fire¡± he finished setting the trigger on the trip wire. He didn¡¯t even like Johnny Cash, but for all things a season.


    Morning was long gone, the sun stood high overhead, just past its apex.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s about time I get Operation Naginata off of my to do list.¡± Alexander decided aloud.


    *Thoomp*


    A flash from across the town square accompanied by the sound of one of his traps going off had adrenaline singing in his veins and Alexander ran to the courthouse to climb to its roof and get a high ground vantage. He wasn¡¯t going to let whatever set that trap off even get to see what was shooting it if he couldn¡¯t help it.


    Waist high drifts met him, his legs churned, and his boots kicked deep into fresh snow, because this wasn¡¯t one of his usual routes. For fifty feet he fought hard through the snow-pack to reach his destination. It took another two minutes to clear enough snow away to get to the door and step into the darkness within. Another two minutes to run to the maintenance door and climb the ladder to the snow laden rooftop.


    Eight minutes after the explosion until Alexander Gerifalte turned eagle sharp eyes on the spot where the improvised explosive device had gone off. There, in the once pristine snow, was a wreckage of flesh. It was also vindication to the sneaking pessimism that had clung to him the night before: lying in the snow was another Yeti. Bigger, this time.


    But where he¡¯d met the last one with small arms fire, this one had gotten a taste of close-range shrapnel. The sight that greeted him was a grisly one. Black powder sucked as an explosive, but, if you put enough of it in one place it could be made to work. Not this well though, what had it done, sat on the damned bomb?


    The creature¡¯s left leg was mostly torn free. From his vantage, he saw easily that its intestines were strewn steaming on the ground, a ropy mass of grey and red. Half its baboon head and face were gone, and the left arm ended mid forearm, the big claw ridden hand missing entirely. The wounded creature made no noise that he heard and didn¡¯t move. Neither did Alexander move, he sat his ass still as a gargoyle and watched.


    Patience was a hunter¡¯s great friend. Patience saved his life again, as, an hour after he made the roof, two more Yetis, one large, one small. crept down from the mountain side to pay homage to their dead kin. He thought they were eating it until he watched them begin to cover the fallen monster with snow. Empathy never crossed his mind for the bestial creatures, what he was focused on was that the creatures were demonstrating complex behaviors, which meant that they were as intelligent as the goblins, maybe, which meant he had to be incredibly careful about how he approached dealing with them.


    Option one: do nothing. He had eleven more IEDs scattered all over the place and those traps worked. The monsters were bound to wander into them if he sat tight.


    Option two: engage from high ground and try to put them down from where they couldn¡¯t reach him, like this rooftop or the water tower.


    Option three: leave out poisoned meat. There was rat poison, insecticide, all kinds of nasty things he could use and, if these monsters were following the biological rules of everything else, they wouldn¡¯t last long after ingesting it.


    Option four: put the almost finished half-plate on and go meet the beasts in the field in fair and honorable comba-


    Okay, he couldn¡¯t get through that last one without breaking, he giggled quietly to himself.


    The problem with options one and two were that, while he was dressed for the cold, he didn¡¯t want to contemplate what spending a night in the open on a rooftop would be like. Hypothermia would almost definitely kill him, the nights were still somewhere in the mid-twenties to low thirties, according to the mercury thermometers. Melting snow would soak him if he lay here too much longer, accelerating that process.


    To judge by the sun, Alexander had perhaps six, maybe seven hours of daylight to work with. Once the monsters had turned the corner of the street, he¡¯d lost sight of them. They went back up the mountain, most likely, which meant that it was going to be dicey to spot the camouflaged creatures again, even with his eyes.


    Think. Why were they moving around? Why cross into the open? Didn¡¯t the analysis have them listed as ambush predators and they had particular skills to indicate that that was how they hunted, not roaming around at random but stalking and lying in wait.


    An idea blossomed in his head: they were looking for the missing juvenile. Somebody stayed out too late partying and they were hunting for their young pack member¡¯s whereabouts. Alexander had probably confused them by hauling the scent of the dead one around town, forcing them to search through his trapped lanes. They¡¯d covered their dead comrade and left the way they¡¯d come swiftly, as if keenly aware that danger lurked around close.


    Come to think of it, Alexander thought, stuffing cold hands into his jacket to warm them beneath his armpits, the Yetis were smart enough not to set off his bells. No alarms sounded, and he¡¯d made sure to put bells wherever it was most likely anything would cross into the town.


    Had he simply gotten lucky with the shrapnel bomb? Had the smell of the gunpowder got its attention and cause it to investigate? There was such a thing as using a predator¡¯s investigative nature against it. Poison now made all the more sense. It would also let him hunker down out of the weather. Alright, Alexander decided, he liked door number three best. Time to get the hell off this roof before the wind froze him to it.


    One thing the young man knew was certain: the Yetis would return, and they would kill him if he let them.


    It took him an hour to reach the Tractor supply, grab his selection of anti-Yeti solutions, and another half hour to cross the quarter mile to his home, so slowly and carefully did he stalk to reach safety. Alexander figured the strong smell of canned fish would hide most of the poison odor, so he went heavy on the application and darted out into the late afternoon to set his newest trick for pest removal out. He¡¯d be damned if anything survived a combination of fast and slow rat poisons in the volume he¡¯d sat out.

 Chapter 8: Unforced Errors

    Alexander was damned. Next morning¡¯s light revealed that all the poisoned food was consumed and there wasn¡¯t a single dead Yeti to show for it. Some of those poisons took three or four days to work, but the shaggy monsters should have been bleeding from every orifice in the meantime and the young man found no evidence of it. He did take the opportunity to harvest the dead Yeti, but that was small consolation for knowing that two more of the polar camouflaged things were prowling around his town.


    While predators like that roamed, he didn¡¯t feel safe enough to risk round two of being ambushed on his way back home, so he decided to forego the smithy. Instead, he spent his time trying to figure out how he was going to kill two monsters about as smart as a particularly malicious bonobo, one of which that was probably too tall to fit inside his house, and both of which were fast enough to run him down, judging by their Impetus stat.


    One thing had to change; they couldn¡¯t be allowed to track him home. That afternoon, harried and looking over his shoulder for signs of the monsters stalking him, he spread ammonia around all his walking paths, down alleys, inside the courthouse, his smithy, and anywhere he might go. The idea was simple: destroy his scent trail, limit their ways to follow him around.


    He¡¯d come up kind of dry of safe options, now that the poison had failed. As far as why it had failed, he could only surmise that the Lesser regeneration magic the fuzzy ape things had let them out heal the effects of the toxins. Micro-bleeds and effects of calcium leakage weren¡¯t shutting down their organs like they should have. Tough nuts for Alexander.


    The lack of loud booms coming from around town meant the critters hadn¡¯t stumbled into another bomb either. They avoided his trip wires and learned from the mistakes of their dead. Still. Animals were animals, even if they weren¡¯t stupid. He verified that suspicion with another round of poisoned food that went untouched overnight. Yetis, it would seem, can smell the toxin. They were simply curious and tougher than they had any right to be, so they tried it anyhow.


    March third came, and Alexander suffered another setback. He caught the little Yeti sniffing around in the open, close to where he liked to do his business. The big one wasn¡¯t around. Judging this as his big break, the young marksman put eight rifle rounds into the monster¡¯s chest and abdomen from the courthouse roof. Three times it stumbled and fell, but it dragged itself behind a cottage and he lost sight of it. Later that afternoon, Alexander, with extreme caution, tracked the blood trail up a clear path of beaten snow that led up onto the mountain. No shot was he going to follow the monster into its domain, wounded or no.


    Nearly a week since he¡¯d made substantial progress in anything but researching methods to dispatch the Yetis. In this his father¡¯s books failed him, there was simply no precedent for dealing with a creature that was effectively immune to the poisons he could deliver and intelligent enough to avoid most simple traps he could create, while also being physically powerful enough to tear out of whatever rope or hold he could think of to use to restrain it. Alexander was on his own to solve this problem.


    Instead of smithing, Alexander practiced Chaos magic. He didn¡¯t truly understand his own powers, they being part of the new rules, so he experimented, documented results, and repeated trials to gather data. The Chaos bolts created disorder, decomposed matter into almost random arrangements, disrupted structure, all to a severe degree, but in a way that didn¡¯t outright destroy it. It wasn¡¯t like fire, melting, burning, creating ash, char, and vapor. Whatever his magical projectiles hit just stopped being what they were before, losing integrity.


    By using multiple instances of the magical strike on the same target, the degree of corrosion magnified exponentially. A cast iron skillet hit once, looked like someone had taken a rusty grinder to it, twice, it took on the appearance of having been left exposed to the elements for a hundred years, deeply pitted, cracks forming, rusted solidly, and a third, caused the skillet to fold like brown-black tissue paper, falling apart into loose sediment.


    As with any new thing, practice was the key, and Alexander¡¯s parents had insisted on diligence. So, in addition to his morning rituals of bathing and breakfast, a new tradition emerged in which Alexander slung a series of Chaos bolts into the side of one of the car wrecks littered around town. He¡¯d worked his way through this particular target¡¯s body to the engine block and the potent degradation of the disorderly energy was impressive to watch. It also gave him much needed target practice.


    This morning, on his way to the smithy to see if he could finally complete the naginata, Alexander casually slung a bolt of energy from a quick drawn finger gun, practice having made it trivially easy to launch the magic, and, instead of the oblong missile of loose mana, a sharp edged ball of malevolence pelted into the car hard enough to rattle its frame, the engine block collapsed into a warped hunk of degraded metal.


    Halted mid stride, Alexander brought up his scrollwork when the astonishment over what happened truly registered, almost pained by the sensation in his chest, from what he knew was his core.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="105">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" width="105">


    Class: Entropic Neophyte


    </td>


    <td width="67">


    Status: tired


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 15%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 150%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Might


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Height


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    6¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    12/0


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    160lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    None


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    9/3


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    14


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Age


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Core


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    14/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Crude Steel Knife


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    13(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="73">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    16


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="143">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/4


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/3


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton slacks


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="57">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    High quality Cotton robe


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Raptor gaze, Fantasia, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Artisan of war, Scholarship


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Heart¡¯s blow, Rage, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Lesser stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="8" width="543">


    Entropic aura, *Chaos bolt*


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="77"> </td>


    <td width="28"> </td>


    <td width="29"> </td>


    <td width="62"> </td>


    <td width="1"> </td>


    <td width="56"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    <td width="113"> </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The same impelling desire from before compelled him to concentrate on the straining to become that was Chaos bolt.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="202">


    Chaos bolt ?Chaos strike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    He didn¡¯t even need to call up the scroll to know the difference, he¡¯d witnessed it firsthand. A chaos strike was Randy Johnson compared to your average knuckle baller. The violence of its effect on materials was magnified, along with its now aggressive velocity.


    Alexander¡¯s sharp eyes scanned the engine block that looked like it had been left to rust for a decade or two, or treated to a taste of malignantly hostile acid, and beaten by a hammer to boot. Those Yeti¡¯s won¡¯t know what hit them, he gloated.


    Two days later, both the Yetis he spotted digging themselves into another set of burrows from his perch on the water tower.


    The little one he¡¯d shot up didn¡¯t even have missing fur. He¡¯d creamed that thing but there it was, wallowing into the snow to disappear next to the track he¡¯d walked earlier that day, where they would hopefully catch him slipping so they could eat him. The fuckers. He didn¡¯t waste the cartridges on the pair of them, he was growing concerned about his ammunition. Alexander hadn¡¯t considered that he would ever need more than two shots to kill basically anything. Now he knew better, ogres and Yetis were a step above his rifle¡¯s pay grade, so he held fire until he could make it count.


    Instead of shooting the hiding monsters, he slipped away back to his laboratory and contemplated. None of those thoughts were pleasant. One of the more constructive ones was: What the fuck was going on with his magic? Entropic field. Chaos bolt. Experiments with both implied they were more effective, the more his enemy relied on cheating magical nonsense.


    What was he, some kind of witch hunter? I AM the old rules! He cackled into the darkness of his library one night.


    March sixth, from his perch on the water tower he concluded that hunting wasn¡¯t going so well for the Yetis. He watched as the monsters ate his poisoned food again, and Alexander then tracked them as they sauntered off back up the hill to sleep off what should have been deadly shock and who knows what else? They didn¡¯t even wobble. The fuckers. His frustration was growing. He couldn¡¯t make noise, couldn¡¯t travel freely, had to watch like a hawk for every single hump of snow to avoid being ambushed, and he couldn¡¯t even shoot the bastards because they limped off and healed the damage away, wasting his bullets.


    Only the dumb one that had gotten close enough, alone, for him to finish off, had he managed to kill. The curious one had killed itself through curiosity. The others were less prone to the same inclinations, or, worse, had learned from the mistake.


    The only thing going in his favor was the weather, it was noticeably warmer, and the snow was melting. Slowly, but surely. At least he was almost certain that there had only ever been this little tribe, clan, family, gaggle, whatever, of four Yetis, half of whom were already dead. The young man would have to get creative.


    From his place lying flat on the narrow maintenance access on the water tower he decided that some measure of risk was in order. The only thing that seemed to really deal major damage to the creatures, aside from opening up a shrapnel bomb from point blank range, were his Chaos bolts. They didn¡¯t kill, not outright, but the damage they did seemed to be extensive and unlikely to heal, given what he¡¯d seen when the magic struck living targets, and what it did on repeated strikes. Three of them, to something important, and Alexander was confident that the Yeti couldn¡¯t heal its way out of that before perishing.


    Testing that hypothesis, however, meant getting perilously near to the monsters, which only traveled as a pair now. If he got close enough to ambush them when they came down the mountain, he might be able to pelt them with the three bolts he could manage before running out of juice. Not them, rather, one. By crippling one of the creatures, he made getting surrounded or flanked much harder.


    ¡°Oh boy, Alexander, you¡¯re playing with fire.¡± He told himself when he considered the odds.


    As he lay there, the sun rising slowly, listening to the drip of melting snow, nothing else came to mind. Putting food near the explosive traps had done nothing, he hypothesized that they could smell the gunpowder and avoided it. They didn¡¯t seem to care for the smell of ammonia and avoided it, though he¡¯d watched them cross through streets where he¡¯d sprinkled the foul stuff, so he couldn¡¯t count on it as a deterrent.


    Yetis were the exact wrong combination of smart enough to be a pain in the ass to deal with, but too dumb to cut their losses and find easier prey.


    Later that night, sitting in his plushy rocking chair, half full wine glass in hand, bottle empty, and the flames of the fireplace skipping playfully across the logs, he had come to no better solution. He had arrived at a compromise, however. Against one, he would ascertain the effectiveness of his eerie Chaos mana on them. He would also find out what a flask of piranha solution did to Yeti flesh. If the beasts fled to heal the damage, he got to see the limits of Lesser regeneration. If the beasts were dumb enough to chase him, he would lead them into a bomb trap.


    ¡°May all the gods above, below, and in between watch over fools.¡± Alexander beseeched, before he rose and headed for bed.


    What he had going for him was that the Yetis were creatures of habit, much like prowling wolves, they liked to stick to their game trails, to hunt along the same paths. They never hid in exactly the same places twice that he¡¯d observed, but that too was a pattern he could exploit. It told him where the shaggy fuckers wouldn¡¯t be.


    These were his thoughts as he washed and ate a meal of fried bacon and pancakes, heavy on the syrup, he was going to splurge on an energizing and tasty meal. It might be the last one he got, which he tried not to contemplate over much.


    Next, the clumsy attempt at half plate strapped on over his hunting jacket and pants. The whole thing was awkward as hell. He didn¡¯t like the way it made rolling his shoulders difficult and adjusted his balance to make him top heavy. Thigh guards of flattened, rounded steel, set in compression stockings and shin guards strapped on made him feel better that if things got bad, at least his legs had protection this time. One arm heavily armored by rings of steel and a metal festooned welding gauntlet, the other with just the coat and some light winter gloves.


    Alexander couldn¡¯t fire a gun with the welding gloves on, and they made it hard to throw. Throwing stuff was all he needed today, hopefully. He wouldn¡¯t bet the farm on it, and he had a new backup plan that he patted comfortingly. If things went completely tits up, he¡¯d need it.


    The dark brown smoked glass bottle was the kicker. Formerly holding iodine, today held part two of Operation Kill da Yetis. It was prepared yesterday afternoon and was tied to his belt rather snugly, so that it wouldn¡¯t bounce around. If that broke and got all over him, the Yetis were going to be the least of his problem. A piranha solution, a combination of sulfuric acid and concentrated hydrogen peroxide, destroyed organic material, aggressively turned it to smoking tar.


    Time. He couldn¡¯t afford to sit around dwelling on the next part, the Yetis liked to come down the mountain just about daybreak. Alexander needed to be there to meet them, before they dug in and he missed them in their snowy hiding spots. His eyes were good, but he didn¡¯t like the thought of wandering around town searching for hidden monsters.


    March seventh, it was time to toss the dice.


    Three rapid applications of Chaos bolt were sufficient to break down metallic bonds into random assortments of metal flakes, corroded in the air. These experiments also led the last Gerifalte to conclude, definitively, that the only reason the golem died to his acid attack was because of his Chaos applications. It had similar effects on everything he tested, and, as he softly closed the door to his Lab behind him, ready to go settle matters with the Yetis, he was confident that the big one he planned to unload on wouldn¡¯t just heal its way through that bullshit.


    ¡°You¡¯re waffling, Alexander.¡± He told himself.


    It took an effort, but he forced himself off the stairs of his front porch and into the streets. Snow slushed around his boots, little rivulets were starting to form along ditches, to mark where the runoff was streaming. Alexander took two minor detours, to collect two of his trapped coffee cans of doom. He needed these for his backup plan. The young man was glad the match trigger on the traps wasn¡¯t some kind of delicate figure four contraption, his hands were shaking too much to handle that. Speaking of hands, snow inside the gauntlets chilled his wrists, from laying them down to deal with the bombs.


    He¡¯d reset them in the predawn, right across his path between the small pharmacy and one of the three churches. Why did one piss-ant town in middle Maine need three churches? He¡¯d never figured it out, back when the world made sense. He hazarded a guess it was because people in America had the right to be delusional according to their personal taste now. It took a crazy to know crazy, and what was Alexander, headed to battle a couple of goddamned Yetis, if not crazy?


    Alexander wielded a new rifle this day, an instrument of justice known as the brush gun. It was a forty-five-seventy lever action, with a relatively short barrel. He¡¯d always called it a Hick Cannon before, why would anyone need anything like it? If you like to shoot fast just plink with a .223 semiautomatic black gun. If you want to go hunt, just use a bolt gun, like all the gods above below and in between intended. Why a seven shot boulder thrower that was useless past a hundred yards?


    Well¡­turns out because an African elephant charging you was about the same level of ¡°Uh oh¡± as a Yeti, and rednecks liked to LARP as Safari guides. Alexander would no longer judge them their hobbies, his were now crafting armor and weapons from the dark ages, reinventing industrial machines, and chemistry that was going to blow him up one day.


    He was very much hoping the big slugs would at least cripple the monsters, because, if not, he might be a dead man. Lurid images of his lying dead on the snow flashed before his eyes in a series for a few sobering seconds.


    Enough. The uncomfortably armored youth posted up across the hood of an abandoned Jeep in front of the antique furniture and general odds n¡¯ends shop, as good a piece of cover as he was going to get.


    The iron peep sights were fine in the low light that climbed ever so gradually to reveal the end of winter town. He guessed it was somewhere around thirty-eight degrees, the drip of water all around, even in the morning chill, heralded a new season.


    Lo! And Behold! There came the sources of Alexander¡¯s discontent. His guts clenched and his heart rate climbed. Adrenaline worked its miracles on his body. Even the lurking fear went away, replaced by what he could only call readiness.


    Two damned near invisible shaggy white forms loping down a familiar path, ready to take another crack at ambushing the wise-ass primate that had killed their brethren. If his eyes weren¡¯t as good as they were, and, at this point, he was confident in saying they were supernaturally precise, he¡¯d never have spotted the monsters.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    He was pot committed, the beasts were too close to back out now. But not close enough for his plan of attack. He wasn¡¯t going to shoot them that far out, not if he didn¡¯t have to. He had six of the big, jacketed, hollow point slugs in the magazine tube of his Hick cannon, with one ready to go in the pipe. Another seven decorated the sleeve on the gun¡¯s stock. He hadn¡¯t much practiced using it though, and it wasn¡¯t exactly a precision instrument in the first place. Besides. Alexander already knew the monsters could survive being shot, if he didn¡¯t kill them straight away. Today¡¯s plan revolved around the most brutal chemical oxidizer of organic material he knew of. That required the beasts to get close, he didn¡¯t trust his Chaos strike just yet, it was better to rely on tried and true, instead of mystical bullshit. Even if mystical bullshit was turning out to be way more potent than he¡¯d originally given it credit.


    Alexander had himself a theory that Chaos energies would prevent the monster from healing. If at all possible, he was going to let the one of them live long enough to test that. For the other, he trusted how effective chemical weapons were, even if he wasn¡¯t exactly sure how much Soak affected something like the piranha solution, how much durability permitted it to resist the damage from having its flesh melted off it. Nowhere in his mind did it occur to him that anything could have the vitality and sheer viciousness to power through such weapons. It should have though.


    To the young man¡¯s thinking over this last week, the only way to know how well his weapons worked was to use them. To some extent, he was hoping to get one alive. If they were alive and conscious, with their core¡¯s driving their abilities, he could get even more insight into the effectiveness of conventional tools, as well as test out this new magical stuff. Risky. But necessary, in his mind. All science was gambling, one way or another. Uncertainty, error, and estimation were part of the process innately, you just minimized failure and maximized likelihoods of positive outcomes enough to make the laymen think you knew what you were doing.


    Neophyte that his class named him, he knew to his bones that worse than the Yetis lay in wait somewhere out there, and he would be ready to kill them too. He just needed to take care of a couple of shaggy nimrods first was all. No problem.


    Twenty yards away, the big one reared up, its big baboon nostrils huffing, growling at the ammonia odor that destroyed its sense of smell for important things, like Alexander meat.


    Chance!


    Alexander Gerifalte loosed all seven slugs, four into the bigger one, three into the smaller, rounds that would knock a buffalo on its ass at this range. Each impact splashed blood, eruptions of gore, some from behind from exit wounds, that spattered the snow. They were still standing, turning now, roaring from pain and hurt, but still standing.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± He said, distantly aware beneath a welling certainty that this was not going the way he¡¯d planned it, with neither beast even crippled by what should have been mortal wounds to their thoracic cavities.


    Alexander let the rifle flop over, knowing he had not a prayer to reload the weapon, and threw two of the flasks on his belt at the beasts. His coordination didn¡¯t fail him, the glass shattered on hard muscles hidden beneath thick fur, the contents spilling over the forms just recovering from being assailed by infuriatingly hurtful stings, whose damage was already mending. More pain, as fluid ate and tore at their bodies, burning like fire. But not burning enough, a sinking feeling told Alexander, as he held one outstretched hand with the other, locking his aim, before he called the magic. Yetis with insane rage in their baboon faces turned and charged.


    Chaos strike one boiled into being and rocketed for the large monster¡¯s chest, plowing into its powerful breast, slightly too high, and he adjusted lower. The monster ducked and Alexander splashed the side of its face with the second, having been aiming for the same place as the last bolt. The beast staggered, its face a boiling ruin and its comrade howled fury, seeing Alexander. Chaos bolt three hit the big one in the forehead and it slumped into the snow, but, even half blind and tortured by his assault, the little one got to full speed, all two hundred fifty pounds of it.


    Alexander¡¯s plan was a success, and a failure.


    The little one was faster than its peer had been, it was furious and fearless, and, as he ripped the third flask from his belt, he did so too slow to meet the creature from a distance. It was already there, fanged maw wide. Alexander side-armed the flask into its chest from barely five feet away, about the time it reared back and he found out what savage rend was.


    White hot pain and the impact of a small car hit him, and the last Gerifalte rag dolled across the melting street, swatted like a soccer ball. He didn¡¯t hear the pained roars or much of anything and blood ran freely from the three clawed tracks that shredded his plate armor, forcing the edges of it into the wounds, deep ones that ran from breast bone to rib cage.


    Awareness fled, and returned, and he screamed when he tried to roll over onto his stomach, to lift himself. He screamed again when he did it anyway, and pain gave way to Rage.


    Standing, he knew something was wrong with his body but it didn¡¯t matter because the Yeti rolling around in the snow, yelping and biting and clawing at the boiling flesh-eating substance on its body was still alive. Alexander ignored the blood soaking his jacket and the pinch of steel in his wounds that shifted as his body moved, the ill fitted armor still in place and worthless.


    Mined path of flight forgotten completely, he threw himself toward the Yeti and ripped the pistol from its holster. The holster fell off as he did, the last of its shredded leather snapping from the force and it bobbled at his thighs. Alexander forced himself forward at a halting walk, one armored arm and hand trying to stem the tide of blood, the other raising the pistol. He shot the Yeti in its head three times out of the seven, missing four while it rolled around. The apelike form jerked and its maw snapped, but he¡¯d hit something vital to controlling its movement and its flailing failed to gain purpose.


    Alexander dropped the gun and drew his knife with the welding glove gripping it with all his strength and he stepped around the snapping teeth and dropped down to his knees, and hammered the knife into the monster¡¯s thick skull as hard as he could ignoring the wrongness in his side. Carbon steel punched into and through the bone half way to its length, and Alexander curled over the blade, pushing all his weight onto it, jerking the knife back and forth through the Yeti¡¯s brain, and an instinct from some half awareness drew him to push his entropic magic through the knife, to still the healing beast¡¯s efforts to hold onto life. Something gave, the blade broke and he sagged against the stinking form beneath him, his wounds throwing white static into his nerves.


    The snapping stopped and so did the buffet of its limbs.


    He left the knife buried in the monster and limped to the Jeep, grabbed the rifle still laying across its hood, and dispatched the larger Yeti with five shakingly loaded slugs into its head, pulverizing it into a sledgehammered melon. A final chaos strike, leaving him feeling tapped in a way he wasn¡¯t familiar with ended things for good.


    When the monster was dead, the focus of his Rage went with it, and Alexander dropped into the slush next to the creature like a puppet with its strings cut. The strength that had allowed him to move drained away and Alexander¡¯s clouding mind began to panic. He was bleeding out. He was dying.


    Shaking, cold with shock, he pulled off the welding glove and unstrapped the ruined plate, taking twice as long as it should have with quivering hands and flagging focus.


    Focus! His addled thoughts sharpened immediately and the panic fled, driven away by Greater focus. Clinical precision returned as he assessed the wounds.


    Slashes had sheared through breast bone and ribs, his heart and lungs were intact, obviously, he had only narrowly avoided having his diaphragm torn, and he was bleeding to death. The aid pack on his belt was insufficient. He pulled open the kit anyway and, with teeth grit, Chirurgeon insisting that the plate must be removed to treat the wounds, he tore the metal that was embedded in the slashes free with the armor.


    It was too much, even for Greater focus, he blacked out for a moment and lay bleeding in the snow.


    Alexander came to a few moments later and howled himself hoarse from the pain assaulting him. Greater focus was long gone and his concentration was too shattered to reclaim it. Chirurgeon was still in effect, he knew what he needed to do. The bandaging and kit he¡¯d pulled free he used to stem the bleeding, quick clot poured over the gaping rents in his body, and bandages stuffed atop it. His side was a disaster, rib bones cut, abdominal wall opened, the Yeti had carved him open like a fish.


    Quivering hands did what they could with the wounds anyway, packing them with gauze until he ran out.


    He had to get home. There were medical supplies in his lab. There was heat. Food and water. The only chance he had was to survive until the next sunrise, when the healing light repaired the ruin. This was his backup plan, in case he was wounded. The laboratory was a quarter mile away, he¡¯d never make it.


    ¡°Oh, fucking fuck, I fucked this up!¡± He sobbed into the snow.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t going to make it. He was cold. Ice bath! He needed an ice bath, Chirurgeon insisted. Only way. Go cold. Go hypothermic to slow the blood loss, to slow everything. Slow down dying, just long enough to make it through the night.


    The last of his fading strength saw him pry himself up using the rifle and he limped over to the frozen ditch he¡¯d noted earlier. Alexander dropped himself into it and gasped when the frigid water immersed him. Cold bitter beyond anything he¡¯d ever felt assailed him, cold that burned. He was committed now though, he¡¯d lost the strength to move. Hypothermia had a mercy though, in that, as it shut the body down, it removed the care or concern for much of anything. Panic receded.


    Alexander grew, not quite lucid but drifting in the grip of freezing and bleeding to death. It wasn¡¯t a bad run. He¡¯d made it quite far, for a kids just not quite at majority, taking on a nightmare all by himself. Failing mind turned to his parents, memories wheeling by of times gone, better times, sad times, happy times. He faded away, glad that, at least, it didn¡¯t hurt this way.


    Sunlight tore away the cloak from his thoughts.


    ¡°Aaaaahgh!! Haaggh!Fuck!¡± Alexander screamed, suddenly alive and freezing in the cold waters sluicing around him.


    Hands that were already going numbed pawed at his chest and side and he sobbed in relief when unblemished skin revealed itself below the mangled jacket. He lived!


    Energized by the healing light, the youth clawed his way out from the ditch and its killing, saving waters.


    ¡°Oh, thank you, thank you, all the gods that listen to this grateful idiot, thank you!¡± Alexander said through chattering teeth.


    He ran back toward his home, left the guns and the Yetis laying in the melting snow. Left the site where his own blood had left stark crimson reminder of how closely he¡¯d come to ending. All he wanted now was to go home.


    ¡°I¡¯m cooking a steak!¡± the youth proclaimed, ¡°A big one! With applesauce! Chocolate bars! Skittles!¡±


    Near death made for a lack of inhibition.


    The fire was out in his home, but the residual sixty-five-degree heat was paradise compared to outside. He stripped naked in the living room and built a fire, barely able to work the lighter for the clumsiness in his fingers. Still naked, he ran water from the tap through a hose that led to a fifty-five-gallon drum with one side cut off, resting in a wooden frame supported on cinder blocks above a used fire pit. That was where Alexander started a second fire, stacking wood for a luxury not frequently employed, a hot bath.


    Watching from the window, he closed the tap on his precious limited water from the tower when the barrel bath was three quarters full.


    A big T-bone steak got sat out on the table to thaw, along with a jar of applesauce, a pack of chocolate bars, and a family pack of skittles.


    Today was a day for celebration. And to sit and cry at how stupid he was and how closely he¡¯d come to getting his idiot ass killed.


    Finally, having gotten his preparations in order, the naked youth put on the big fuzzy robe and started a third fire, careless of the wood he was burning through in the fireplace. There he sat, eating crackers and peanut butter and, occasionally sipping from a can of doctor pepper. Shaking that had nothing to do with cold came on him from time to time. It had been a little while since he¡¯d nearly died. He found that he didn¡¯t like it anymore now than before. This time had been a little different though, he¡¯d been grotesquely wounded, ripped open by Yeti claws.


    ¡°Was it worth it, you great, dumb, ass of a child?¡± He demanded of himself, after he¡¯d renewed all the concurrent fires.


    The close shave still had him shaken, although the warmth of his home, the refreshment of the sweet pop, and the tang of skittles, treats he didn¡¯t indulge too frequently were helping. Comforts he desperately needed just right now. If only there were someone to talk to, someone to break the silence but himself. Right about then, Alexander wouldn¡¯t have minded a hug.


    He sat back in his chair and thought about the question he¡¯d just asked himself.


    Was it worth it?


    No. Easily no. He¡¯d badly underestimated how quickly the Yeti could charge and he¡¯d vastly overestimated how quickly he could do much of anything wearing that ridiculously useless armor. On the other hand, how was he supposed to know that the monsters could tear through solid steel like that? A grizzly bear couldn¡¯t have torn through that armor.


    ¡°You aren¡¯t dealing with bears, you fucking mook!¡± Alexander reminded himself harshly.


    ¡°Okay, okay, it¡¯s over, just¡­just figure it out.¡± He soothed himself.


    Guns bad, Alexander realized, and the failure of his reliable form of attack shook him badly. The large beasts had tanked the damage from the slugs, had shrugged it right off. He couldn¡¯t rely on his only innate advantage, range. Not unless he found some way to stop Soak or regeneration from rendering the weapon an annoyance. Armor good. Goblins wouldn¡¯t have been able to do shit against him wearing it. Armor good against huge monsters? Not so good. Not until he had something better than merely steel. Did he have something better than steel? Maybe. There was the golem metal. It was very possible that the golem iron might have stopped the Yeti claws from hacking him open. Was it worth the weight, the slowing of his movements? Now that was a better question. He just didn¡¯t have enough information to work on, he needed to train in the armor though, that was an obvious failing on his part, he realized.


    ¡°Okay, one thing kind of sorted.¡± He decided.


    Next? Idly, he chewed another mouthful of skittles and washed them down with the second can of pop, a mountain-dew, the redneck¡¯s best friend. He wasn¡¯t worried about his teeth or figure today.


    Next was the piranha solution.


    ¡°It did its job.¡± Alexander concluded, ¡°But it was the wrong job.¡±


    The little Yeti hadn¡¯t been able to come over and murder him while he lay bleeding. It was ravaged by the sheer hostility of the solution to flesh. It didn¡¯t outright kill the beast, but it crippled it, hurt it, blinded it to anything but the pain of having its body dissolved. Put that one in the win column. If he¡¯d hit them in the face and head with that first, maybe they never would have been able to even close the distance.


    Lastly, Alexander considered the Chaos strikes. He didn¡¯t get a chance to put three full blasts on the same place, like he¡¯d wanted. Skill issue, the young man acknowledged bitterly, that was all on him. No plan survived contact with the enemy, a little nugget of wisdom he had now internalized. However, he¡¯d put two of them more or less where he wanted them on the small one, and it had come on, but it hadn¡¯t been in condition to do more than flail at him.


    He found himself rubbing his stomach where it had been opened. That was a bastard of a flailing, teach you to underestimate the abilities of the monsters. But chaos magic had done what the rifle hadn¡¯t, hurt the fuckers. One bolt of condensed entropy to its head and that had been enough to drop the larger monster, enough to put it out of action. He¡¯d still had to finish it off, but it was completely inert in terms of fighting or attacking him. And, in the end, his class¡¯s chaos magic had slayed the monsters. Good enough. That too would go on the win column.


    Unfortunately for Alexander, every single check on the lose column meant he might get fucking killed to death, so he had to be a little smarter, and a lot more careful. Come at them from behind, immobilize them, bait traps, learn where their blind spots are, and, when the time to kill comes, do it right the first goddamned time. You¡¯re not a fucking soldier or some asshole hero. You¡¯re a hunter, he scolded himself. You don¡¯t have the right to get angry, you have to be ruthless.


    His perspective shift nearly gave him vertigo. Epiphany is a hell of a thing. Linked through his core as he was, somehow, this was the kicked stone that started the avalanche.


    In front of his eyes the scrollwork sprung, not to be denied, and he was assenting without pause to examine, trusting an intuition that said this was the way, the path forward revealed.


    <table style="width: 13.3013%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="121">


    Rage ?Ruthless


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    An unburdening welled up, a relief of pressure inside him.


    Rising spirits almost euphoric, he concentrated on the new blip on his scroll, an unfamiliarity that begged to be explored, demanded to be acknowledged. Alexander did so without pause.


    <table style="width: 49.2788%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="418">


    Class requirement met, Harmonizing core¡­ Hierarchy adjusted, First Entropic venator of Gaia


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    A rush of fullness like his skin was too tight suddenly left him. He hadn¡¯t even noticed the strain until it was gone. It left him feeling sort of bonelessly graceful, smooth. Alexander would have sworn that the air tasted sweeter.


    ¡­What?


    Almost unbidden, blue scrollwork unfurled in his vision.


    <table style="width: 66.5064%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="623">


    Entropic venator: A pursuer of particularly dangerous prey and dealer of death from afar or close range, employing all the tools to efficiently terminate targets, including the entropic rending of magical defenses and the Chaos warping of flesh, armor, or mana alike. The efficient hunter studies their enemy, watches them, understands their movements, and turns that knowledge into their doom. Be it the blade, a crossbow bolt, or lethal toxins, a venator employs any means deemed most effective in the execution of their targets.


    Lesser stalk ? Stalk


    Heart¡¯s blow ?Baleful smite


    Rage ?Ruthless


    New Skill: Broken Silhouette


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The blue scroll, for once, confused him more than it enlightened. What in the hell was an Entropic venator? Cause it kind of sounded like an assassin and, excuse the fuck out of him, but since when had he assassinated anybody? All he¡¯d done was fight off monster after monster.


    Using guns fired from very, very far away from stealth, or in ambushes using decoys. Or bombs with tripwires and electric arc triggers. And poison¡­sort of. And Chaotic magic to their heads and necks. And knives applied to vital areas.


    Ah. Well¡­when he thought of it like that, he was acting kind of assassinish now, wasn¡¯t he? But what else would a reasonable person do, go stand in the streets with a trash can lid and a machete screaming about justice? Only an absolute baboon would do something like that. And, from his experiences, a very quickly dead baboon.


    ¡°Fine. Fucking whatever man. I guess mom would be kind of impressed. Dad would, at least, applaud the ingenuity, if not the underhandedness.¡± The young man reflected.


    Now he had to take a look at whatever the hell Entropic venator was.


    That¡­was surprisingly not as extensive as he expected. Mostly because, so far as the young man could determine, he was actually already doing the things that this¡­class? Whatever, it was, he was doing most of what it did already. Which maybe was why he¡¯d qualified for the¡­whatever the hell a class was.


    Do not ask, Alexander, the eldritch scroll of knowledge will only break your fragile brain. Ironically, he couldn¡¯t stop himself from concentrating on the eldritch knowledge he already had. If curiosity killed the cat, it had Alexander on its shortlist.


    With that, the status scrollwork shimmered and reappeared, reflecting the new reality of Alexander Gerifalte.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Entropic venator


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Lively


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 120%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    7/0%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    167lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    6/10% bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    none


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    6/10% bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    High quality welding jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    High quality welding jacket


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    none


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    10/10% bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Messer


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(-5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    High quality welding jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    8/80%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    8/8%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    High quality leather pants


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    9/20% bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    High quality leather pants


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Raptor gaze, Fantasia, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Warforger, Scholarship,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk, Broken silhouette


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Entropic aura, Chaos strike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Huh, Soak actually went down. Not that it was doing me many favors anyway.¡± Alexander noted.


    It would seem his new class had exchanged a poor defense for a more razor sharp offense. Alexander¡¯s abilities interfered too greatly with his own Soak, so, it would appear, his class discarded the defense nearly entirely. Perhaps that was a subconscious choice.


    His stalking skill improved, which made a lot of sense, he¡¯d been evading Yeti patrol for a week and almost habitually sort of padded around cautiously as a general rule. Heart¡¯s blow was now a new thing that sounded sort of the same, except that it was also accompanied by a pulse of Chaos magic, rendering the wounds incredibly difficult to heal and dissipating Soak entirely. Like a shield breaker or something. Broken silhouette seemed like some kind of stealth skill, decreasing his visibility somehow, making him appear unremarkable against the background. It was a perfect Grey man skill, requiring his complete concentration, but drastically reducing the odds of something or someone, noticing him if he didn¡¯t want them to. Neat.


    Rage was the most significant change to what he¡¯d been working with, now something else entirely. A reflection of a paradigm shift in Alexander¡¯s world view.


    It took barely a thought to bring up the transformed ability.


    <table style="width: 62.4199%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="598">


    Ruthless: implacable aggression coupled to killing intent. Reduced sensitivity to mental effects and pain. Drastically reduced empathic tendency toward entities designated as targets. While under the influence of Ruthless 20% increased Might and Impetus, self-inflicted injuries increasingly likely.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    On the balance? He¡¯d take it. The word ruthless had some pretty negative connotations, but so did tough-guy and Alexander wouldn¡¯t mind being tough. For one thing, pain tolerance was, as he knew now, a tremendous bonus.


    He put the magical shit on hold, now he¡¯d given that weird scroll some examination. He¡¯d come back to it with fresh eyes, after a few other things whose priority had bumped thanks to the lessons learned this day. Hard ones. First of which: know your weapons. His magic was powerful. As powerful, if not moreso than those he¡¯d been relying on to the exclusion of the fantastic. And also, Use Your Head. Alexander thought back to his entire strategy for dealing with the Yetis and found it badly lacking, optimistic to the point of suicidal neglect.


    ¡°Planning a retreat from something faster than you are? Kind of really goddamned dumb there, chief.¡± Alexander stated the now obvious aloud.


    Those bombs should have been in front of him, between his ambush site and the Yetis, where he could attack them from behind the cover of the things. At least they might have bought him time.


    Stupid. Moron. Imbecile. Aho. Gilipollas. Pirla. He chanted obscenity towards himself. His parents had picked up many ways to question the intelligence of people from ports around the world. He figured he might be humanity¡¯s last surviving dumb-ass.


    The last Gerifalte marinated in his folly and in the fortune that favored him enough to survive his wounds and the ice bath just long enough to live to see the life-giving sunrise for two hours soaking in the barrel hot-tub. So lucky. Not all lucky, however. Preparation and contengency had done him no little good, had bailed him out from a terrible decision in his failed plan, whose execution had so nearly cost him everything. Chirurgeon was the hero of the day, no doubt. He credited the emergency response skills to stem the bleeds, the emergency solution to delay his expiration for his seeing a new day.


    Again, he couldn¡¯t help but wonder: How much of that came from within him and how much from the package of traits in that blue scroll-work? Was that aggregate collected from random bits here and there and packaged into something more concretely useful or was it added to him? Por que no los dos?


    ¡°Alright, stop brooding, you lived. You got away with one, for sure, but you lived. That¡¯s good enough. It¡¯ll always be good enough too, so just be happy.¡± The young man consoled himself.


    The steak, tenderized and soaked in Italian dressing, pan-seared to medium-rare, accompanied by treats, frozen rolls that fluffed and baked nicely in a little Dutch oven, thawed garlic butter from a tub coating liberally applied, washed down by wine and followed by chocolate, was the best meal in Alexander¡¯s life. The only bitterness to that evening was that he had no one to share it with. He went to bed before that sudden bout of intense loneliness could ruin the night.

 Chapter 9: Gathering Steam

    Early did Alexander Gerifalte rise, as was his habit, beating the coming daylight by an hour. He washed himself, breakfasted heartily, and spent the morning in study and meditation. By ten o¡¯clock, he left his library and home, to begin shoring up some of his weaknesses in position and remove items from his chalk board agenda. Prior to the advent of the Yetis, he had been ready to complete his naginata made from the refined corpse of a silver ore golem he had dubbed Silver Stone. The metals purified from the creature¡¯s animated mineral body he would use to strengthen his defenses and to permit him at least some hope of fending off monsters in melee. Today, Operation Naginata would be complete.


    Slush made footing rather treacherous, so he went slowly toward the smithy. Every hump of snow and silhouette got a look, he was now even more aware to the types of things that might try to murder him, more alert to hazards. Careful strides took him to the smithy¡¯s door and he pulled it open swiftly, raising the Hick cannon, as he had now officially dubbed the large bore lever gun, to ready, just in case something had snuck into the building hoping to catch him with his back turned. Nothing moved. A sniff revealed no unusual scents. All the piles of scrap and ore and whatnot lay right where they had been a week ago, when last he¡¯d seen this yawning building¡¯s interior.


    Nothing.


    Alexander pulled shut the door behind him and latched it, so that he could work in relative peace.


    Across the dimly lit floor he strode and he lit the forge, the light of the coals would be all he needed to see clearly his work. He went to Sterling, checking over its riveted seams, inspecting it for any sign of fault, and found none. The steam engine was the greatest of his workings and today, coupled to George, they were going to do great things. Steel was gone for his planned naginata haft, the claws of a Yeti had determined that stuff to be too frail against what foes his spear might come across.


    His weapon would be made entirely of the enhanced metals of a golem. Every pin, ring, cross piece, and fitting. The rings would be made of magically enhanced sterling silver, too soft to bite the metal haft he planned to make stronger by addition of carbon.


    Alexander had thought long on the matter this morning and he concluded that iron, even iron reinforced through the animating magic of a golem¡¯s heart, wasn¡¯t good enough. Thanks to the coal forge, there was a reasonable amount of carbon naturally sort of infiltrating the iron core of the blade, but he doubted if it was more than a fraction of a percent, too low to truly count as a steel. Alexander would introduce carbon to the stuff and see if he couldn¡¯t forge out some reasonably consistent material that would qualify, if he understood the rules, as golem steel. Did that mean he had to completely redo the naginata blade?


    Very likely, yes. All that grinding, filing, careful treatment of heat and metal, would not go to waste, however.


    The knife Alexander had used to stab the Yeti had broken when he pulled it free of its skull, cracked badly along the spine by his full body yanking, doubtless compromised when he drove it through the creature¡¯s dense bone. The more than two feet of carefully shaped metal would become a short sword, another line of defense. It wouldn¡¯t need to be as strong; Alexander couldn¡¯t even hold the thing against the kind of forces that would break it. He wouldn¡¯t be stopping a Yeti¡¯s charge with a sword, no sir. Mama Gerifalte raised no fool.


    So, today, the young man would finish the hollow grind, sharpen the knife, and make a copper hand guard, using the hickory he initially planned for the haft of the naginata for a hilt. One of the reverse threaded pins he¡¯d use to attach the pommel he was about to forge out of more copper.


    All things considered? Alexander had low expectations for this weapon. It was more a technique piece, something to practice his skills. It would serve though, sharp blades were always useful, even if they needed sharpening more often than he liked.


    His wool gathering ended, the coals of the forge were hot, the copper ingot was ready for forging, and Sterling had reached operating pressure. With a throw of a lever, the engine engaged the drive belts connected to George and he grabbed the copper out of the coals with tongs, ready to ply the pedal to forge out the copper fittings.


    The first stroke of the hammer drastically altered his plans, smoothing the bar more than he wanted. Damn. Alexander sighed and pulled the mashed ingot over to the anvil, around whose horn hung the five-pound blacksmith¡¯s hammer. He was going to have to do this the hard way.


    Strokes of hammer beat the crosspiece out and Alexander punched out the slot for the tang to fit through, he¡¯d have to make certain that the shoulders of his blade mated cleanly to the cross piece, but that was file work, he only needed to leave enough material to be able to remove it appropriately. The rectangular prism of the guard he shaped, going for a slightly flared rectangle that got thicker at the ends, like a broadsword¡¯s crosspiece. He figured the old-time weapon smiths probably knew their business better than a snot nosed wanna be pilot.


    Once that was hammered out, he used more of the cut off from that same ingot, and pounded a long thin section, before he rolled the soft metal into a ball. A wedge cut the ball free, and Alexander then set about smoothing the ball with light hammer touches. It was tedious, tedious work, but it would save him filing, which was even more tedious. He drove a thin punch into the ball while it was cooling, digging a thin channel which he would thread to fix to the threading he was going to put on the tang.


    Since the coals were still hot and he had a fresh bag of fuel ready, he went ahead and tossed two ingots of golem iron into the forge to work out how he was going to carbonize the metal. He figured he could forge weld with coal dust, over saturating the metal, then work it down to the correct percentage. That was going to be time consuming, careful work, requiring many heating and cooling cycles because he¡¯d have to file stroke the bars to test their hardness or risk working all the carbon he added back out of the steel. Just for good measure, he added another eight ingots of golem Ferrum into the forge. Best to test in increments, with repeatability.


    Day¡¯s end found the Warforger blacksmith plying his skills to get a mate up of the guard ready for a final glue up. The wooden handle was already roughly carved, its final shaping left until after the gluing, it had been burned in on the tang though and he figured he was close enough on that. Careful, considering, meticulous file strokes shaved the guard¡¯s soft metal until it fit without gaps to the shoulder of the San-mai jacketed blade.


    When it fit, without rattle, without visible defect, the youth locked the blade into his clamps and used the threading dye to cut the threads into the tang. Then he mixed up the two part epoxy that would seal wood to tang, liberally coated the handle region with epoxy, coated the burned interior of the hilt more epoxy and hammered the handle down, pinching the guard in place. He scraped the excess glue away from the threads, preferring a slathering of Loctite to hold his copper pommel just a little smaller than his fist, in place. The last little bit of glue that squished out of the handle told him that the clamping of the pommel had tightened his work that extra little bit.


    Sterling and George had long since been allowed to rest by this point and Alexander left the smithy with almost optimism. He¡¯d done good work this day. The billets of maybe steel would keep until tomorrow, folding coal dust into the metal had been difficult, demanding of his skills with power hammer and tongs and he wouldn¡¯t know how well it worked until he actually forged a piece of each out, quenched it, then broke it cold, to check the grain structure within.


    If he didn¡¯t see the fine austenite or hard as shit martensite, or, at least, a detectable carbide edging of the grains, he¡¯d know his attempt failed.


    That would be reserved for a different day!


    No more creeping nightmares chose to assault him on his way home so he ate dinner, a far more reserved affair of chili than yesterday¡¯s celebratory meal, in peace, if not content.


    It wasn¡¯t until he finished the Zen experience of sanding and staining the handle, filing and polishing the guard and pommel, and, lastly, hand sanding, polishing, and final sharpening and stropping of the blade that a twinge of expectation rang through his mind. He felt a mighty impulse and used Greater analyze on the completed one handed short sword.


    <table width="638">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td>


    Silver Stone Messer: a warforged blade crafted of Far Eastern techniques and western design, using the refined body of a silver golem.  This war knife possesses superior cutting power, cleaving armor easily and heightened durability compared to average. Its silver will debilitate the undeathly or unclean that it touches, as if sanctified.


    Ignores 10 soak.  Sundering.  Spectre bane.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander was struck still. This was far above his anticipated result. The short, broad, curved blade with its clip point was a hacker, that was for sure. It cut things, all the things. Magical buffering nonsense, armored nonsense, and ghostly nonsense.


    Well. Well, well, well. He couldn¡¯t stop the slight giggle that bubbled up from his chest.


    Prompted by a feeling, Alexander hefted the weapon and, with a full armed swing, brought it whistling down on the spring steel round stock he¡¯d intended to use for his naginata haft.


    Sparks flew as if from an angle grinder and Alexander was treated to the slightly reddening edges, swiftly dimming, of a cleanly cut quarter inch round of steel.


    ¡°Mother of all gods above, below, and in between!¡± He cried, jubilant.


    Sundering. He made a sword that cut steel, with not a single nick in its edge to show for it. He had to know what else it could do.


    A square stock of some of the golem steel he¡¯d been playing with the day before he clamped tightly in a vise, standing upright. A wicked overhand hack threw more sparks and he felt the shock up his arm as the blade hammered half way through the ingot before stopping. He felt pure joy, even as he cursed and shook his hand, stung badly by the metal on metal impulse.


    Three inches straight through something tougher than high carbon tool steel, at least. It took some effort to remove the embedded war knife from the block of metal. He inspected the edge, slightly rounded. He¡¯d have to sharpen it. But. It cut. It godsdamned well cut.


    This was beyond any hope. He could take an ogre¡¯s arm off. He could chop through a Yeti like¡­like a Yeti had chopped through him. This magical bullshit, this was a game changer. He had to step up his game.


    Would armor made from the same stuff grant him equivalent protection? He had to know. But first: Operation Naginata.


    Alexander didn¡¯t even lament the endless grinding, sanding, and filing that awaited him.


    The enthusiasm carried him through the next week, whereupon he successfully created golem steel, the blue scroll-work revealing what he¡¯d prayed it would:


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Golem High Iron: refined golem ferrum infused by firestone dust, impregnated to form a high iron matrix.  Greatly improved hardness and durability compared to golem ferrum.  Challenging to work at low temperature.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That last line, he should have paid more attention to that last line. The ¡°High Iron¡± he planned to have jacketed with sterling silver, just like before, forge welding the two together. Mokume gone, or the combination of layers of different qualities of metal was an old and well documented technique, as was the San mai method for making blades. His old man¡¯s library had detailed descriptions of alloying methods throughout history, up to and including the synthesis of the high-performance tungsten-cobalt-nickle and exotic alloys used in all sorts of applications. The mass percentages were common knowledge, tabled explicitly.


    What none of them mentioned, but that Alexander should have inferred, was that, as the materials performance indices grew, so too did the difficulty of shaping them. Alexander¡¯s forge barely got the golem high iron to working temperature. Even when it did, without George, he¡¯d never have worked it into anything but a rounded bar. Pinched between an anvil and a five-pound smith¡¯s hammer, the hammer bounced off the golem steel as if from a stiff trampoline, almost flinging the tool from his hand. He ruined one of his rounding dies creating the blade blank, the die was flattened, blunted across its top. He¡¯d ruin more of them creating the armor plates. As many as he needed.


    A realization made him sit up from bed one night: If he didn¡¯t make a replacement hammer for George out of the stuff sooner than later, he¡¯d find himself without a power hammer.


    That spooky thought had him creating more of the wonderful material and he spent three days upgrading his beloved tool.


    Just after he¡¯d affixed the meticulously shaped replacement head for George, he felt another welling need to examine the improved hammer.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Greater Forgemaster¡¯s Hammer (George): powered by steam, the dwarven technology instilled in this hammer, along with the golem high iron of its head makes this device the envy of forgemasters across worlds.  There is little this mighty instrument, guided by a skilled hand, cannot bend to its master¡¯s will.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Grinning like an idiot, Alexander hugged the power hammer, its cool surface housing a comfort against his cheek. Why did the blue scroll genie of wisdom call his hammer dwarven technology though? No. No, insane world, the young man decided, snuggling into his industrial machinery, you do not get to take this happiness from me.


    Life got easier after that, except that he had to reconfigure Sterling to run a belt sander because he was physically unable to actually file or grind the material. It ate through high grit belts like titanium. There was a very real chance the hardware store would run out of sanding belts before he was done with the armor he planned. Still, other than having to put Sterling on a pallet jack and wag it around the shop, very, very carefully, he made good progress.


    It wasn¡¯t until he noticed flower buds, spots of color on the still snowy mountain on his walk to the smithy one morning that Alexander became aware that Winter had, gently and without much fanfare, been replaced by Spring. That brought on a slight panic.


    Spring meant warm. Warm meant his free refrigeration was at its end. That morning, instead of going to the smithy, Alexander scrambled to fill as many refrigerators and box freezers with snow as he could, so that he could keep as many perishables frozen as physically possible. That would buy him a few extra weeks, maybe a couple of months on some things. Every single, ironically enough, Yeti brand, freezer he could find he loaded up with snow and ice, along with as much milk as he could manage. Anybody who spent four hundred dollars on a freezer had been a lunatic in his mind, back before he truly appreciated what long lasting cold temperature regulation was worth.


    Now? Each of those heavy coolers was worth solid gold.


    When his bonanza of snow gathering and food preservation ended, it was dark and he spent the night reorganizing his to do list to include figuring out where he should plant crops. Once the ground thawed, he would need to see to putting garden beds into order.


    Alexander continued through the ghost town, savoring his accomplishments in the crafting department. While he walked, his thoughts turned, to his class and its recent evolution. Entropic venator. Fancy sounding. Changes that seemed small but felt big, a culmination of his choices and actions, especially against the monsters that had nearly claimed his life.


    He had been badly, traumatically, injured half a dozen times now and it never got easier. That last incident with the Yeti was the worst though.


    ¡°Gods above, below, and in between, I never wanted to see myself hacked open like that again.¡± Alexander invoked a prayer, a slight shudder at the memory, and the desperate moment he¡¯d thrown himself into a half-frozen gutter to either die or live by morning¡¯s light.


    Ruthless. Venator. Baleful smite. Dubious connotations or no, he didn¡¯t mind not feeling bad for killing something he¡¯d decided needed killing and the extra strength and speed and abilities would be greatly appreciated, even if he didn¡¯t know how the little black box that was the skills worked, exactly. Self-inflicted injuries¡­okay, so maybe don¡¯t push it too hard. Alexander remembered watching football players, men of incredible physical acuity snapping their own tendons from their own strength.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t an athlete, or hadn¡¯t been one in school, preferring solo sports to team games, so he¡¯d never hurt himself like that before. Twisted ankles while trying to cross over your mom on the court were a different thing. Especially when she laughed at you before she iced and wrapped your ankle for you. It wasn¡¯t a big deal now, anyway. On the third day he¡¯d be healed of all his injuries.


    ¡°Alright, alright, that¡¯s enough gawping around. You got work to do.¡± He reminded himself.


    Onward to the smithy, there was a spear that needed some tender love and care.


    Having witnessed his prowess against unmoving metal half as big as an elephant, nothing bothered him on his way to the old smelting plant. Almost completely gone from next to the door were the once enormous piles of shoveled snow.


    The interior of the smithy, dim, as usual, greeted him with its familiar smells of charcoal, metal tang, and smoke. Today was the day for the long running project that the spear had become. Alexander had spent almost two months working through it, interrupted by one thing or another. He still didn¡¯t think a spear, even a good one, was necessarily worth all this hassle, but the improvement to his technique, the attention to detail, form, and fit, made it a sort of journeyman¡¯s test for metalworking. Especially when he was doing it with stuff as difficult as the golem steel.


    The haft was complete, a six-foot length of golem steel, an inch in diameter. The sword blade spear tip was almost finished, slightly thicker than his knife, a bit broader, with a minor re-curve at its base. Those adjustments he¡¯d made when he considered the size and power of some of the monsters he¡¯d faced. A big ass slashing spear with a little forward weight to it would probably come in handy, and a re-curve, like a kukri added to the chopping power. Today he had to finish the rings and pins, file in the hollow grind, a meticulous process to do by hand and not ruin the consistent angles that made such a blade geometry so sharp, and lastly, the final fit-ups.


    Unlike before, Alexander would use the golem steel for his rings and pins. He was also going to quench them hard, so that the metal wouldn¡¯t flex a bit under pressure. If subjected to enough force to break they¡¯d just shear off. Hopefully, it earned him some additional durability, anything needing that much force, and Alexander couldn¡¯t afford for his blade to come loose. The rings were just a cast iron bitch to shape.


    With Sterling puffing away, and George hooked up, Alexander Gerifalte locked into the focus of a craftsman with a job to do. Tongs nimble, he pounded metal to shape, curving, testing against the polished round metal of the haft, and adjusted it to fit. There would be file work and sanding to do the final mating. There was always file work and sanding. His entire life was files and sanding.


    Late afternoon found the young man using the most of his Warforger traits, applying a blowtorch to the pins to heat them just enough to thread. His dies couldn¡¯t cut the things otherwise, they were too hard. The naginata blade would have three rings and pins to hold it secure. He was going to drive hot golem copper along the seams between blade and haft, sort of like a brazing. Any imperfections of his fitting would be shored up, the softer metal filling the gaps.


    At the end, when the metal work was done, Alexander was going to wrap the metal in shaggy Yeti fur, to protect his joining from water and to soak up blood from the blade, so that it wouldn¡¯t run down to his hands.


    Reverse threaded pins, like carriage bolts got a hexagonal golem iron nut to hold them in place, making three of which that were good enough to work had taken him an entire day. He had a couple of pipe wrenches, cheater pipes, and more Loctite to make goddamned sure the nuts weren¡¯t going anywhere.


    After the hammer work was done, the last Gerifalte hooked up the belt sander and began the utterly tedious process of making certain the rings fit up flush. When the rings slid over the inch thick round and sang as they glided down its length, he knew happiness.


    This was why his old man had books on books explaining how to do everything from knitting to welding. It wasn¡¯t because the man had known how to do everything, but that he could learn to do whatever he needed and do it well enough to be satisfied at the result. Alexander found himself with that same itch to be more than adequate. Finding a connection to the memory of his father was not a small thing to the lonely young man.


    A sense of almost destiny pervaded him as he fitted the rings and bolts. His craftsmanship of this last iteration of the spear was nothing short of immaculate. The blade seated in the groove for it tightly and the rings locked it to a monolith with the haft, once the nuts had been tightened. Next the copper brazing, done with five-pound hammer and a thin wedge. He ground off the excess material and wrapped the foot of golem steel holding the pins below the blade, wet leather with holes punched for rawhide laces that his now strong fingers wrenched tight, a hold that would grow tighter as the leather dried and shrank.


    Sharpening took a half hour of careful angling on the belts, a high grit to polish the hollow ground surface of the edge, and a compounded buffing wheel to bring the blade to glittering sharpness.


    That surging urgency from before pushed him to turn Greater analyze on the naginata, to reveal the fruits of his labors, the payment for his dedication. But something was missing. Alexander ignored the impulse; his instincts told him that the project wasn¡¯t finished. There was one last thing that he needed, though he was loath to part with one of the polar bear cores. This weapon needed a touch of the new rules, a last touch.


    He made his way to the Laboratory and cracked open the wooden box holding the two polar mana cores, each creating a mist of fog around itself at the warm air that suddenly chilled. The last Gerifalte escorted the biting cold gem to his chemical cabinet, not so far from where he¡¯d vanquished the construct whose body made this project possible. There a solution of nitric acid was brought to high heat and the freezing core was dropped into the orange-red acid, fume hood drawing the dangerous vapor up and away. The core shimmered brightly before dissolving within moments and the mixture separated into a layer of yellow liquid above a blue silver, almost liquid metal layer. Alexander knew, like a memory from long ago, that the yellow liquid was wasted, depleted of its essence and potency, and decanted it off. The blue-silver substance he poured over the blade of the naginata, carefully, slowly, as if he¡¯d been born knowing the purpose of alchemical reagents. The high steel refined from a golem¡¯s corpse drank the substance like sand drinks water, soaking it in. He applied the dissolved core evenly to both sides of the metal and, when the last drop had been drawn into the steel, gave into the urge to gaze on his working.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Winter¡¯s Breath: a warforged naginata crafted using a hybridization of Far Eastern metal working techniques, dwarven blades smithing, and fae enchanting.  The weapon utilizes the extreme limits of a silver golem¡¯s forged body and a core rich in polar aether.  This spear cuts like the Arctic wind penetrating flesh and armor, the blade covers its targets in bitter frost.  Silver coated, the blade will debilitate the undeathly or unclean that it touches, as if sanctified.


    Ignores 15 soak.  Sundering.  Frostbrand.  Spectre bane.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander Gerifalte laughed aloud, a pealing humor that sounded so rarely these last months. There had been so little joy to be found. This though, this was an achievement worthy of being recognized.


    The naginata blade shimmered with a blue note to its silver steel finish, polished fine. White Yeti fur, thick and coarse fluttered in the air, a light frost on its fibers. A steady mist poured off the spearhead and Alexander could feel the potency of that cold from the other end of it.


    Outside, in the streets of the ragged town that he had called home all his life, the young man, the newly fledged assassin, or huntsman, or whatever a venator was, spun the spear in an easy circle. It felt like it weighed little more than a mop, his hands had no trouble holding the polished metal of the haft.


    With a wide sweeping stroke, he brought the naginata into, and through a six-by-six mail box post, the aluminum cube popping up into the air, both edges of the wood coated in dense white ice crystals.


    He experienced a sense of fulfillment then, a kind of completeness.


    This event, this culmination of trials, errors, and mastery, was a high-water mark for him. Intuition said that, if he¡¯d had this weapon, he could not only have dealt with goblins, but with their higher tier ogre relatives, the Yetis, and even Silver Stone. Never would he ever have thought that he could try going toe to toe with a fifteen-foot walking silver ore monstrosity, but the spear misting the air from its bitter cold blade gave him confidence.


    Now, he just had to figure out the armor situation. Already, his thoughts turned away from the uncomfortable, clumsy, and ultimately ill-fortuned half plate. Instead, Alexander thought back to the body suits worn by motorcycle riders, the plates of durable armor that nevertheless didn¡¯t restrict their motion.


    It almost felt like destiny, this day. His magic had transformed, which initiated an evolution of himself according to subconscious tendencies and, from his own perspective, rational decision making, and, finally, he¡¯d finished a weapon that would let him stave off the beasts that tried to call him prey.


    All things taken together, Alexander Gerifalte considered the past twenty-four hours a high-water mark.


    Which was why he was going to be especially careful going home, because, if the past was any indication, something awful was now lurking just out of sight waiting to pounce on him.


    Nothing did, he saw, heard, smelled, and detected nothing untoward on his journey back to the Laboratory. That didn¡¯t mean it wasn¡¯t there, just that it was being really sneaky, were his final thoughts before bed.


    Alexander reached the age of majority that next quiet morning and celebrated with a day of rest. His board of topics to be investigated stood thusly:


    <ul>


    <li>Acquire hides from probably heinous monsters (CHECK)</li>


    <li>Tanning procedure (to be adjusted upon further investigation of magical bullshit) TIME INTENSIVE</li>


    <li>Frame and Scrape: nail hides to box frame using tension lines, KEEP TAUT! Scrape fats, flesh, and ick from leather (sharp knife!); add ick to saltpeter bed.</li>


    <li>Salt?? Archives uncertain, <u>salt reserves sufficient to test</u>: perform trials 5 salted, 5unsalted result to be determined.</li>


    <li>Soaking: boil river water, submerge 72hrs, dry completely, <u>re-flesh to be certain</u></li>


    <li>Liming: refresh water in submersion tanks, add hydrated lime (hardware store) ~12-12. 5pH for dehairing</li>


    <li>Pelt Deliming: neutralize by gradual addition of phosphoric acid fertilizer at the Tractor supply, <u>double check</u></li>


    <li>Cold Soak: sink in creek 48hrs</li>


    <li>Bating? ? Sources indicate importance to tanning, bating solutions involve chickenshit? Gods above, below, and in between tell me I don¡¯t have to soak the hides in my own feces. Pancreatic enzymes documented to serve, <u>TRY grinding pancreas from beasts first!</u>!</li>


    <li>Pickle: soak with vinegar 72hrs, scrape hair, pickle 24hrs, neutralize with baking soda.</li>


    <li>Tanning: grind acorns, oak bark, oak wood shavings, simmer 6hrs, reduce to half by boiling. Bottle solution. Submerge pelt in 50-50 water/solution mix, stir often first day Soak 1 week, stirring frequently boost concentration over time:</li>


    <li>1week 50-50 split</li>


    <li>2week 40-60 (heavier tanning solution)</li>


    <li>3week 30-60 (heavier tanning solution)</li>


    <li>4week 20-80 (maximal tanning solution) let soak <u>3 MONTHS</u>!</li>


    <li>If still alive when leather tanned, incorporate into armor regime in May.</li>


    <li>Plant renewable food crops first of March (Raised beds maybe?) April first, ground still frozen.</li>


    <li>Check Mine Dungeon</li>


    </ul>


    Outside the mainline items, the research board was littered with notes and annotations as questions arose, were answered, or discarded as irrelevant to his survival in the immediate and near futures. Rebuilding human civilization was going to have to remain a long-term project, Alexander just didn¡¯t know how long he could afford to sit in one place or how reasonably he could expect to have sustainable food supplies in the heart of Upta camp country. The early onset winter and rather late thaw had him thinking that there was utility in heading a bit farther south. He could also make his way toward the coastline, where the ocean could offer its bounty.


    There were good reasons why human civilization blossomed outward from the coasts and junctions of great rivers.


    The thought of leaving his home was¡­daunting. This little Podunk hicktastic piece of Americana might not have been much, and he¡¯d once viewed it like a cage keeping him from spreading his wings, but he now found the idea of leaving it behind almost too much to bear. Here was where his parents stood, frozen in time. Still, all fledglings had to leave the nest, sooner or later.


    Alexander shook of the contemplations of what might be. This was a day to bask in the now, and to appreciate the lessons of what had come before. Besides, the young man had spent most of four months slamming his face against sixteen hour plus days. He was due for a day off.


    In the spirit of the holiday, the youth was mixing bread flour, sugar, and some of the last of his eggs and butter. Today, there would be cake! Meticulous, as had become his habit, he studied the cookbook directions and followed them to the letter. Creamed cheese whipped with sugar frosting, carrots shaved thin, walnuts chopped fine, it was going to be a wonderful cornucopia of carrot cake.


    When the Dutch oven with its round platter of baked confection was opened, the aroma of sugary goodness pervaded, allowing the last Gerifalte, for a short time, to forget that he was all alone in a hostile dark age. For just a bit, he could pretend he was preparing a surprise for his family, to spring on them when they returned home from one of their trips. As flights of fancy go, it was a harmless one. Alexander was surprised at how much it hurt to let it go, when, at the setting of the sun that fresh spring day, he had to admit that no one was coming home to greet him. One more little tragedy to heap upon the major ones, one more taste of bitterness to offset the sweetness of being alive, against all odds.


    Alexander found his bed and, with no small amount of gratefulness, slept peacefully.


    The morning routine went like clockwork. Today was going to be a bit special. Special in a maybe fatal way. Today, he would go hunting monsters. Nothing was so apparent now as the certainty that his future success was intimately linked to exploiting these gifts unlocked by whatever had happened when he struck the crystalline matrix from which had spawned that gateway or subspace or whatever the fuck was happening that allowed creatures from some place called Tirnanog to infiltrate this plane. A source of energy from which had come goblins, and ogres, beasts of fairy tales. The dark ones. The ones that didn¡¯t have happy endings because everybody died.


    Gaia was outpouring mana into the world, that much was clear. It had done so with enough oomph to completely shit on everything that was finicky about where its electrons were supposed to be. It had done so in a fashion that warped some animals, and created others, somehow, like impressions on a surface raised to complete form by running charcoal over them. The magical juice was worth the squeeze, he had found. The golem, the Yetis, the bears, there were secrets lurking in the mana, opportunities.


    Alexander would have to go forth and conquer these dangers if he wanted to thrive. He had to take their strength, harvest their powers, and make them his own. That meant putting his ass into the wind.


    He didn¡¯t like it. Risk aversion was a trait he¡¯d cultivated while learning to pilot, that and staying calm in the face of rampant ¡°Oh shittery¡±. When your trainer liked to turn your engine off at awkward times, or slump over on your stick in high winds to see how you pulled out of bad situations you got good, or you got consigned to be a land walker forever. Alexander was not a land walking dust sucker; he was one of the ones who would soar. Or was. Now, he was going to put those lessons hard learned to work on the local mega-fauna, preferably without ending up in a freezing gutter this time.


    It was the second day of the cycle. Sunrise tomorrow would heal all wounds, so he had space for mistakes, so long as they weren¡¯t immediately lethal. The plan was to make no mistakes, to use all his abilities to their maximum effectiveness, and to efficiently take his place as apex predator of middle Maine¡¯s new ecosystem.


    Which was how he found himself on top of the mountain mid afternoon, backing away slowly, spear leveled at some kind of Ent that had decided to stop pretending to be an old maple tree in favor of smashing him to paste. It had missed its initial clubbing and he¡¯d gotten distance while it pulled itself up from the stony earth to give chase, all twenty feet of it.


    Gnarled wood grains and green veins stood prominent on the bark-skin of the creature. Unlike the beasts, it made no sound, other than the wooden creak of its movements. Alexander had a flashback to Silverstone, the ore golem. The Ent was strong, but ponderous. Prior experience lent him a measure of calm against the yammering sense of wrongness associated with a tree going all Michael Myers on you and walking you down.


    Alexander enacted his gift and scanned the blue scroll-work that revealed the monster¡¯s nature to him.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="120">


    Warped Maple Entling


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="157">


    Status:


    Healthy, hostile


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Soak: 35%


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    56


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    18¡¯7¡±


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/30%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    7


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    3,042lbs


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    0/30%


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    0/30%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    5


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    5 months


    *Manaborn*


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    3


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    Tourmaline, cushion


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    empty


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/30%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    empty


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    7


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="83">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    3


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="157">


    Monster Race:


    Ent-2<sup>nd</sup> Tier (Mature, Maple variant)


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    0/30%


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    0/30%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    30


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    0/30%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="42">


    40


    </td>


    <td width="117">


    </td>


    <td width="144">


    Entling Barkskin


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Slothful, Grove guardian, Wrath of the Forest,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Barkskin, Tree-form, Shillelagh, Rapid Growth


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="575">


    Drink the Earth


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Mossy old man¡¯s beard hung down from a jaw that was disturbingly humanoid. The jaw was the only thing humanoid about its head, with a gaping mouth which had far too many jagged, splintery teeth, like a lamprey mixed with a wood chipper. A single central eye burned with emerald light, and it stared hatefully as it steadily approached with long legged strides.


    This wasn¡¯t what he¡¯d had in mind when he set out. But it would have to do. Alexander pulled on his reserves of energy, drawing on the magic to destroy creatures woven of magic. Concentrating on his spear tip, Alexander used the weapon to align his spell, sighting down it and a bolt of rampant energy crackled into being before rocketing into the tree-thing¡¯s not face.


    Instantly, the elemental creature¡¯s bark covered exterior fissured, deep cracks winding their way around its head, black smoke pouring forth and whispers of flame appearing. The monstrous Ent-thing staggered to a knee and caught its bulk with great branchlike hands. Leaves fell away from its form, dead and withered.


    Alexander hit it again, right on the crown of its branch covered skull and narrow fissures widened into gaping rents in its wooden flesh. A hissing roar broke the relative silence of the mountain top, and the creature tore up the earth without effort in its clawing attempts to reach him, prompting the young man to turn tale and flee another dozen yards away, pale with fear at what those motions would do to his soft human body.


    Turning, eyes peeled on the struggling monster, Alexander decided that the flopping motions, disjointed and without organization, meant that he¡¯d severely injured the creature. He didn¡¯t know dick about tree person anatomy, but his evolved chaos bolts were, so far as he could see, brutally effective against it.


    The scrabbling motions died down, the otherworldly strength of the thing fading, even as the dark black smoke that had risen from its head and neck/shoulder area dissipated. Alexander figured now was as good a chance as he was going to get to test a strategy that he¡¯d plotted since finding out that his entropic field ate away the magical shield that his senses and gifts called Soak. An effort of will unfurled the anti-magic shell around himself. It did not, he grinned fiercely, dampen the frost encrusted haze of his spear. Which meant that his powers were selective and would not cripple his own use of magical horseshit, only that of his enemies.


    With as much speed as he could muster, Alexander Gerifalte launched himself forward, angling to bring a vicious arcing hack of the spear blade across the finger thick as his forearm of the struggling monster in his passage. High Steel enchanted with polar mana slashed a deep line, the razor edge of his naginata exiting smoothly, the finger amputated cleanly. He jumped back, weapon ready in case the animate tree tried to counterattack.


    For whatever good that would do him.


    Frost spread from the stump of the digit down the monster tree¡¯s hand, withering leaves and feathering white crystals along moss as it went. A digging, clawing finger broke off next to the one he¡¯d cut, snapping from the embrittled cold that seeped into it, but that was all the defense the thing offered. He stepped into another cut, this time taking a deep slice into its side, where its floating ribs would be if it had any. Blossoming feathers of frozen greenery spread from the cut.


    A hissing roar issued forth, but, while he stood close to the creature, it appeared to lose the majority of its remaining vitality, growing limp. The green mania behind that cyclopean gaze was dimmed compared to before.


    ¡°Okay then.¡± Alexander commented and plunged the naginata deep into the monster¡¯s upper back, with a tight grip on the weapon.


    That was a mistake. The spasm of the monster¡¯s bulk, driven by fifty-six Might, whipped the young man through the air, slung by his grip on the staff. Fingers tore loose from the haft, and the Entling¡¯s dying gasp was enough to hurl him twenty feet into a bruised pile. Battered by his aborted flight, Alexander raised himself up gingerly and saw that the weapon named Winter¡¯s Breath was aptly dubbed.


    Frost covered the still form¡¯s back, refusing to yield to the sun¡¯s light overhead, and mist poured away from where the spear stood buried in the creature.


    Alexander approached and pulled his creation free, noting that the monster¡¯s status now declared it dead, its mana dissipated, its life-force depleted by the force of the cold magic that had inundated it.


    He had to wonder what the limits of his weapon were, at that point. It hadn¡¯t exhibited any real decrease in its emission of cold, not that he could determine, but there had to be an upper bound. For all he¡¯d learned these past months, he didn¡¯t know all the rules to this new world, let alone be able to predict the behavior of enchanted weapons.


    As usual, it would be up to him to sit down and do some testing to find the boundaries of what was possible.


    Even dead, the Tree-creature was a massive thing, and its corpse was that of a newly fallen tree, tough bark, solid wood, and impervious to his belt knife. Alexander turned to the short sword made as a trial run for Winter¡¯s Breath. That jacketed silver and high steel parted the wood with effort. It was like using a good, sharp, hook knife to cut away at pine. The blade shaved away material, but you still had to work at it to make progress.


    It took almost half an hour to dig out the monster tree¡¯s core. Alexander didn¡¯t understand what forces permitted walking rocks and trees to move with such apparent ease, but he didn¡¯t like it. What if there was a titanium golem running around out there? There wasn¡¯t a weapon in his arsenal, other than maybe the Chaos strike magic, that could put a dent in something like that.


    ¡°Don¡¯t think about it, Little Falcon,¡± He cautioned, ¡°Problems enough to solve without inventing hypothetical unstoppable demons.¡±


    A verdant core mixed with something darker, like deep green peridot interspersed with stars of smoky quartz. Its shimmer, the facets that caught and reflected light so cleanly, was enthralling. After a few more moments to appreciate the trophy of his hunt he stashed the gem in his satchel, dusted off the leaves and mud that he¡¯d picked up in his accidental flight, and carried on. There were more monsters about, and Alexander Gerifalte was ready to be on with thinning the herd.


    Nothing presented itself the rest of that fine spring afternoon. Across one ridge, down a heavily wooded valley, and halfway up the next he made before turning and retracing his path to return home.


    On his way, Alexander used his fine short sword to beaver chew his way through the Entling¡¯s knee and ankle. Sticky sap, pungent tannins mixed with the sweet note of syrup got all over his hands and clothes, the blood of the monster thickening in its phloem. Veins. Whatever. He almost laughed when he went to pick it up, just the Tree monster¡¯s calf had to weigh some five hundred pounds. A little more chiseling of wooden monster and he had himself hefty sample of the Entling¡¯s corpse.


    What secrets would the sap and flesh of a living tree offer? Charcoal that burned hot as anthracite coal? A walking stick that grew apples? He entertained himself on his walk home musing over ever more outlandish impossibilities.


    It took three days of backbreaking work to chop the Entling into pieces small enough to be moved back to his Laboratory. Preliminary investigation proved the effort more than worth the price paid by his back and legs.


    The sap of the creature, a shot glass full, mixed with two thirds clay, a third bog peat potting soil, and some loose gravel in a wheelbarrow sprouted weeds almost before he finished mixing it. Amazed at the growth, literally before his eyes, Alexander scrambled to drag aluminum raised bed frames to his home and dumped the wheelbarrow of what appeared to be hyper soil. He planted a six-foot row of corn kernels, sunflower seeds, wheat, tomatoes, and hot peppers, six inches apart from each other. Too close together in normal circumstances, but Alexander was testing the compatibility of the seeds here, not upscaling to a full crop.


    Drinking a thimble full of sap gave him a sugar high and he didn¡¯t eat anything the entire rest of the day. So. Some kind of incredibly nutritious substance, jam packed with¡­life. Or something. Whatever the case, after a rush of heat not unlike a strong whiskey, only infinitely better tasting, Alexander¡¯s Durability rose by three and his Might by two. The changes were felt immediately, and, for the rest of that day, he remained awash in the sensation of being more solid, more firmly rooted to the ground he walked. Very appropriate for magic tree blood, he had to admit.


    Not all magic was bad, just the stuff that wanted to kill him. And whatever had killed everyone he knew. Moving along, Alexander, don¡¯t make yourself sad.


    The wood was just wood, it turned out. Granted, it was beautiful, vibrant maple color, hard as aged oak, and patterned with braided grains almost reminiscent of corded rope, incredibly tough in multiple directions, which was why cutting it apart was damned near impossible without the assistance of the golem steel tools he¡¯d made. He¡¯d have to put making a big broad bitted felling axe out of some of the precious material on his to do list. Alexander realized that he¡¯d need wood for next winter¡¯s fires. Another chore. Damn.


    Anyhow, Entling wood was sure to be tough as hell and sturdy, whatever he decided to do with it. Maybe he could make a long bow out of it. The thought of a dwindling supply of bullets, whose effectiveness grew somewhat more dubious the more magical horseshit Alexander encountered, meant he¡¯d have to work out a replacement for his work horse firearms. Problem was, he didn¡¯t know how to shoot a bow. A crossbow? Sure, it was pretty much the same idea as a gun. But archery had never been his thing. Why bother when you can shoulder a rifle and do so much more? The fates had many such jokes for the attitudes of Alexander¡¯s innocent youth.


    Alexander brushed the sweat from his brow and re-gripped the draw knife he was using to peel paper thin layers of Entling finger held locked in table vises. He had a thousand or so shavings littering the floor and was about halfway through the finger. The plan he had in mind was to make a cross-grained plywood from the material. Most of the corpse was drying in a kiln one of his neighbors had used for cabinet making, a hobby he¡¯d been entirely unaware of and only learned about in his excursions snooping about for supplies.


    The young man had learned much of which he¡¯d been ignorant regarding the former residents of his hometown and found himself with greater empathy toward them than before. Mostly. Some of the discoveries had explained a great deal about his classmates, and the failures of modern society to protect its young. Anyway.


    He had plenty of Yeti bones to boil down and his plan was to render down bone glue from the Yeti¡¯s bones and sinews. From the boiled bone he would skim away the fatty scum, treat with hydrochloric acid to demineralize the bone, then alkaline bath to neutralize. Once dry, if he did it right, he¡¯d get a brittle solid that would still flex under gentle pressure and absorb cold water, instead of dissolving.


    If it worked, Alexander figured he could soak the shavings in glue and create layers of laminated wood in big molds or frames, which would make sheets of a material that would be far tougher than the soft woods of his current dwellings. That concept seemed important, now that he¡¯d encountered ogres, golems, and Entlings that could rip through a house with impunity. The unease of sleeping knowing that any sufficiently large monster could just tear his home apart to get to him was not to be discounted.


    Late that afternoon, when he¡¯d finished shaving down the fingers of the tree monster, Alexander stashed the immaculate wisps of wood in books, to both dry and keep straight the pieces, and stacked them to keep them pressed flat. By the time his glue was done, he reckoned he¡¯d be able to try a test run of about a six-by-six piece of monster plywood, a good quarter inch thick.


    His project lists abounded, and he hurried over to the test plot to confirm that, indeed, tree monster infused food was more than simply viable. Strong, tall, stems with picture perfect leaves were already risen, lush and healthy as a greenhouse on all the crops he tested. They looked close to flowering, which was unbelievable to him, since that shouldn¡¯t have been possible for at least a month.


    The tanning pits were, as per the usual, absolutely vile, and he only hung around long enough to confirm that nothing was rotting in the bating compound made from Yeti pancreas and, unfortunately, his own stool. Needs must when devil drives. He had four pits for four Yetis, one pancreas only, one stool only, one fifty-fifty split, one seventy-thirty split in favor of the pancreas. It was too small to be a proper test group, but Alexander was pretty certain he could, at least, tease out some reliable knowledge from the process.


    Returned from his morning hunt, which had come up empty, his afternoon manufacturing tasks, which were fruitful but slow, and his evening experiments with destroying materials with Chaos strikes or stretching the Entropic field as far as he could, Alexander was content. In the corner of his bedroom, clamped in a jig to keep its form from warping while it dried, sat a bow stave made from Entling thigh. A string of braided Yeti Achilles tendon hung from the jig, waiting for its chance. There was a nonzero chance that Alexander Gerifalte, with his pitiful human body, would be unable to draw the bow.


    Speaking of, the boon of the Entling¡¯s blood was no small thing. As nearly as he could tell, the increase in his Might did equate to about a seventeen percent increase in his relative strength. Durability remained to be tested. That one he could go roughly forever without finding out about, thanks very much.


    Mid-April arrived, without fanfare.


    Alexander was picking corn, placing the fat kernelled ears into a wicker basket for shucking later. His larder was prodigious with tomatoes, peppers, and more or less anything he could put into the hyper-soil created from the blood of the jolly wooden giant. No more had he discovered on his hunts, although a host of other less overtly dangerous creatures had crossed his paths. Mutant raccoons that traveled in packs of a dozen, their black and white pelts somehow blurring their appearance, like camouflage, that had been fun. He¡¯d had to regrow a foot, when the monsters managed to bury him beneath the weight of their numbers. Only the incredible sharpness of his short sword blade let him fight clear of the beasts. Out from under the pack, at reach, where his naginata, picked up from where he¡¯d dropped it when they tackled him, was best served, he¡¯d easily dispatch them. Bisected, frozen, or otherwise mangled pelts had been worth nothing and they tasted foul, not even worth cooking.


    The little cores did make a powder that could create a blurring effect when applied to cloth though, so he had a wolf fur cloak impregnated with the stuff that seemed to ripple and blend with the background. Not quite ¡°The Predator¡± level stealth, but damned tough to spot against the backdrop of the forest. That had come in handy against wolves, a panther, a different kind of bear, whose fur was like tiny razor blades, and an eagle as big as a pickup truck that had come very close to snatching his head off his shoulders in a wicked dive. The cloak caused it to misjudge the distance and merely tear his arm nearly off.


    Alexander hadn¡¯t managed to get a shot off, so shocked and violent was the attack. The eagle was still out there.


    Basket full, a bushel of corn leaning against his hip, Alexander gasped when he saw a dozen vaguely humanoid shapes shambling down the main street of his domain. The young man dropped the food and hustled down to his Laboratory.


    From the mannequin that held his motorcycle gear inspired light armor, Alexander did don the gear for joining battle. The things he¡¯d seen had been straight from a John Carpenter flick, zombies, shells of the deceased, each bearing ragged clothing and most clutching some crude improvised weapon. Golf clubs, baseball bats, crowbars, a rake, that sort of thing.


    The trusty old rifle he took with him, an instrument that had seen precious little use since completing his enchanted spear. It was safer to stab a pouncing panther than to shoot it, the frozen magic of the spearhead put them down harder than two hundred grain bullets. Against a mob of the undead though, he might find better use for the familiar weapon.


    Wrong.


    Alexander lined up an easy head shot, bench rested from a neighbor¡¯s porch. A practiced squeeze of the trigger, a booming report, and a zombie head blew half apart. And the creature continued on unphased.


    ¡°Goddamned lying movies.¡± Huffed the young man, nervously.


    Next plan.


    A coffee can stuffed with gunpowder and nails rolled down the street into the midst of the horde, spark spitting fuse burning fast. The explosion slung shrapnel that ripped into bodies and blasted apart a few of the¡­juicier specimens. Those that lost limbs fell, but continued trying to crawl to join the others in their single-minded pursuit.


    Only the ones that had had their spines almost completely destroyed were down for good. Whatever magic animated them was potent and cloying, Alexander thought he smelled the dry odor of a crypt when an errant breeze passed toward him.


    Alexander cut loose with a Chaos strike next, and was rewarded when the zombie¡¯s chest sprouted black-grey flame and the animated corpse fell immediately, never to rise. Snaking black mist rose from the destroyed zombie and dissipated. Alexander knew what had to come next, and he did not anticipate enjoying it.


    Entropic aura blossomed from him, stretching fifteen feet in radius around him. The not so newly minted venator rushed forward, Winter¡¯s Breath ready to redead the horde. When his magic disrupting aura closed over the constructs they froze, staggered, and clearly had trouble coordinating their motions. Whatever link to the will that directed these creatures, and directed they were, else they would not have randomly come to his town in the middle of nowhere, it struggled to manifest through his ability.


    Winter¡¯s Breath slashed in a wide arc, whirled by Alexander¡¯s strong arms. The white, curved blade, High Steel wrapped in silver left smoking wounds that then froze over in dense feathers of ice. Doubly effective, he removed limbs cleanly with most strokes, like shearing silk with scissors. The danger was in getting surrounded, he knew that intuitively. An individual monster wasn¡¯t so threatening. Having no room to maneuver and getting swamped was fatal though, and mama Gerifalte had raised no fool.


    Sweeping a half moon low, taking several legs from the ever-closing group, Alexander retreated. Not too far, however. The longer the creatures stayed within proximity to his debilitating aura, the denser the wafting black pall that steamed off of them, the clumsier they became. Thirty seconds into this high-stakes game of keep away the first zombie collapsed, its unearthly life-force corroded away. Within a minute, the rest of the things succumbed to his influence, each releasing that same umbral smoke.


    Panting lightly, more from nerves than real exhaustion, Alexander couldn¡¯t help but shake his head looking at the mostly badly rotted corpses. Necromancy. The other, even more horrifying thought didn¡¯t dawn on him immediately. Something tickled his brain, screaming that he was missing a key detail. Studying the bodies in their derelict clothing, he suddenly realized what it was: these were not statues.


    The zombies were flesh, not stone. These people had survived whatever had petrified his parents and townsfolk. That, or the Pulse had manifested different effects in different areas. Alexander didn¡¯t think that was the case, at all. He had a hypothesis that the Pulse had interacted with people¡¯s latent potential for magic. Those that had too little resonance with the mana that rushed through them became stone. Those like him, with enough resistance or strength or something had survived the cresting wave of magic that had, for some reason, surged over the land.


    Whatever had made these undead things had killed or obtained the corpses of killed survivors. Joy and sorrow, again. He wasn¡¯t alone. But something was out there slaughtering those that lived by the dozens. Just like the goblins and ogres had eaten the people who made it through in his home town. Damn!


    He was amazed at how little risk the group of zombies posed. So long as he saw them coming and had the room to kite them, that is. If he¡¯d been inside when they arrived, if they¡¯d pinned him inside close quarters, he¡¯d probably have been killed within a few moments. What few grasping hands had brushed his spear¡¯s haft had held incredible strength. Amazing what a human body can do when it feels no pain and doesn¡¯t care if it breaks its own bones or tears its own flesh apart with the force of its motions.


    It was also a good thing that the dead constructs weren¡¯t fast or agile. For him, given his current weaponry and abilities, he had the hard counters ready to deal with a slow moving group of animate corpses.


    ¡°The million-dollar questions Alexander,¡± he posed to himself aloud, still standing in the street amidst the bodies, ¡°Are how many more are there? And where is the thing that gives them their unlife?¡±


    And therein lie the rub. Time was wasting, he wasn¡¯t getting anything done standing here, so Alexander retrieved his corn and hurried home. It wasn¡¯t until halfway that the shakes set in, vibrating the corn silk loudly against the wicker basket.


    He deposited the corn on his kitchen floor, next to the bins containing the other evidence of the Entling¡¯s plenty. From the kitchen he went to the ¡°wine cellar¡± and poured a glass of a rich red to settle his nerves. The alarm bells would need to be restrung now.


    Tomorrow, Alexander resolved, tomorrow he would try to follow the trail of the zombie troop back to its origin. The only weapons he had that were certain were his enchanted spear and anything incendiary he might cobble together. A dozen Molotov cocktails went into his satchel that night. So did a score of little glass cuvettes of white phosphorus in a foam lined bandoleer, fitted into a pouch sewn into the satchel. He only carried them when he thought things might get hairy, afraid to fall and have the things break open. A nitric acid flask joined the collection of alchemical weapons. You just never knew.


    Dressed in black motorcycle leathers with matte painted dark green High steel plates riveted through the leather jacket and pants, a wide visored motorcycle helmet similarly reinforced, his spear, short sword, and satchel, with sturdy hiking boots, an eye twisting wolf cloak on over top, Alexander looked ridiculous. Looks didn¡¯t matter so very damned much though, when you were the last man alive, maybe in the whole world.


    ¡°Not the whole world.¡± He reminded himself.


    There was proof lying in the street outside that more people had come through the Pulse. More than just his town. If only they still lived through whatever liked to hunt humans, eat them, or turn them into a ghastly horde of meat puppets.


    Taking off down the street to backtrack the undead, he pinpointed one of the sources of his anxiety since the Pulse. It wasn¡¯t a good feeling, knowing that humanity now resided several rungs farther down the food chain. Even the plants were higher. He did himself the favor of cutting off that train of thought before contemplations of hostile sand-worms longer than a freight train could further demotivate him.


    Back to the problem at hand: Ravening zombies.


    They were slow, uncoordinated, lacking in complex movements, and, he had the impression, blind. Or, at least, they didn¡¯t evidence any real response to the stimulus of a live human in front of them other than to try to close in on it and eat them. None of the corpse constructs had flinched or made sign in any way responsive toward gunshots. Neither had they altered their behaviors when stricken by his magical attacks, other than to fall apart. Cuts with Winter¡¯s Breath had not created a pain response or any acknowledgment other than that of suddenly having limbs removed or frozen solid.


    The only change in the creatures had manifested under his Entropic aura. It slowed them considerably, weakened their responsiveness, and, if he understood his previous experience correctly, eventually degraded whatever magic compelled them to the point that it failed and they became dead again. It took between three and six minutes of exposure to his influence to reach that ultimate effect. Too long, given how close the things had to be to him to be within the range of the aura.


    Alexander kept his eyes focused ahead, noticing the small scuffs of dirt, footprints in mud, and other minute signs that led him along to the source of the zombies. The last Gerifalte did not make good time, he paused frequently to scan ahead and to stop and listen, as well as to examine his surroundings for any indications of threats such as pissed off Tree-folk, Dire wolves, Trolls, or whatever the hell else might try to eat him. Slow progress was still progress, however. Mid afternoon, probably some fifteen miles down the main road that led to town, the south-bearing highway transported him to the next burg¡¯s outskirts.


    It was a bigger town, more like a city, where everybody went to do any serious shopping, and Alexander was coming to its outskirts. The same symptoms of humanity¡¯s demise were found in the form of out of control car wrecks, broken statues inside declaring that his suspicions regarding the widespread nature of the Pulse were not unfounded. He ignored the side roads and off-ramps, they just led deeper into the back country, to places like his humble home, and he didn¡¯t need to see any more reminders of what happened to his world.


    Besides, the zombie tracks led deeper into the city.


    With a start, the young man realized that he wouldn¡¯t be able to make it back to his home, not with the remaining daylight, and Alexander Gerifalte was not repeat NOT going to be hiking his way through the dark. That meant that he would need to keep his peepers peeled for a suitable respite.


    Something defensible, something low key¡­There!


    A little ranch style house with brick siding and a long, long driveway led off the main road. It was one of those places very wealthy people who didn¡¯t worry about looking very wealthy tended to gravitate toward. All to its lonesome, private, and impressively cozy. Alexander used his short sword to cut an ¡°X¡± into the pavement next to the mailbox that led to the planned stopover and tied an orange bandana from his pack to the post holding that metal repository of things important to a world bygone.


    Deepening orange light helped the contrast with the zombie marks on pavement and Alexander grew less leery of running into beasts and more concerned that, with increasing population density, there might be more zombies than he was prepared to deal with.


    There might, the now cynical youth thought to himself, be an approximate metric shit-ton more zombies than he was prepared to deal with.


    All he could do was make his way slowly, pay attention to his surroundings, and be ready to vamoose at a moment¡¯s sign of the situation going to hell.


    Most of Alexander was convinced that he would end this day running for his life. So far, ever since losing consciousness inside the cockpit of the trainer plane, that seemed to be the safest, surest bet for the end results of exploring the unknown.


    Farther into town he went. The density of homes increased, the evidence of chaos that had descended on the people left behind was obvious: fires had taken homes, shops and stores were looted, and everywhere had the appearance of a desperate flight. Depressingly enough, the shattered remains of statues was a grim reminder of the fate of many, perhaps most, humans. As nearly as Alexander could determine, it looked like about seven in ten of the people had gone the way of his home. Many of their statues remained behind, frozen in place. A greater number had been destroyed, either by the panicked actions of the unpetrified, or by whatever had come after, some echo of the horrors that Alexander had faced.


    The difference between his home town¡¯s fall and this city¡¯s extinction became clear a few minutes later. A buzzing along his skin, the raising of hairs, instinctively sensing a wrongness. That was all the warning he got before his forward motion carried him across a line he could not see.


    Tech Duinn Contested Space Entered!


    It wasn¡¯t as obvious as a big shimmering blue gate, but the entire city had been consumed by some kind of field effect, a divergence from the world of his birth to some warped mirror of it. Just like the silver mine of his hometown had only at surface level remained similar to what he knew, the city of Earth was not any longer. For one thing, clear blue skies that had followed him all the way along his journey were no more. From where he now stood, the entire sky was an oppressive, looming pall of grey. Roiling clouds, just on the cusp of loosing rain flung themselves about on a wind Alexander could not feel.


    Rather than the wind, the air along the ground was still, dry, and musty. It smelled like an empty concrete room, long abandoned. Or, he supposed, not having first hand experience, a crypt.


    The comparison was probably apt. He was, after all, here to lay to rest whatever was causing corpses to rise and shamble their way to his home. His destination wasn¡¯t a mystery. It wouldn¡¯t take the falcon¡¯s eyes that Alexander bore to see the huge faceted crystal spinning slowly atop the roof of the regional hospital.


    Unlike the one in his town, a brilliant azure, this one was a smoky black, swirling grey. Not entirely unlike his chaos magic, but, where his was dynamic crackling with energy, this one felt like a stilling, an ending to motion and change. The crystal was brimming with undeath. Whatever force or plane of being Tirnanog was, it was nothing like the inimical thing that sat on top of the hospital. No wondering now about the zombies.


    Now the only mystery was how to find and destroy the will behind this undead place, and how to avoid being eaten by corpses in the meantime.


    ¡°Sort of a shame I don¡¯t have a better idea how to do either of those things.¡± Alexander lamented quietly.


    He¡¯d come this far thinking that there was some kind of isolated incident, a church graveyard desecrated by a witch or some such nonsense. A dungeon tying his world to another of the places from which things like goblins sprang was not in his calculations.


    Still. He¡¯d come all this way, it¡¯d be a shame to have done that walking for nothing. Besides, the young man contemplated, trying to use logic to build up courage against the foreboding black crystal hanging in the heart of the city, its malignancy palpable all the way from the outskirts, ignoring this shit wasn¡¯t going to make it go away.


    One thing he could count on ever since this weird stage of his existence had started, most of his problems seemed to have legs.


    Alexander saw a confirmation of his attitude shambling down the street. About thirty former townies, in varying states of decay, were on the move. They were headed his direction, at a pace somewhere between a stately parade and a power walk. Again, his exceptional vision took in the details and he noted that the eyes of the monsterized people didn¡¯t roll, didn¡¯t move, didn¡¯t scan the horizon. The zombies were blind.


    So how did they know where he was? Alexander felt no wind, no breeze, nothing stirred but the dead. The constructs couldn¡¯t be smelling him then. He wasn¡¯t moving, hadn¡¯t made much more sound than a few whispers and the brief crunch of boots on pavement since crossing the threshold of the dungeon.


    Data was missing. As had become a fact of his life, he didn¡¯t understand the rules in play that dictated how the zombies tracked his position, how they recognized his presence. Was it magic? Not a scent based on molecules carried through the air, but by whatever means the feeling of mana might be sensed? Maybe it wasn¡¯t his body they detected, but his life-force. A slight chill ran down his spine at the idea of something following him by the trace of his living.


    The thought of the horde being guided by some force he couldn¡¯t see was disturbing enough, but it didn¡¯t change the reality of the situation: zombies were closing in on him. Alexander had another four minutes or so before they were on top of him and he didn¡¯t like his odds for dealing with that kind of mass of necromantic puppetry in close quarters. If he could somehow kite them and stay in the open though, that was a different story.


    Ever since seeing the effect his Chaos strikes and Entropic aura had, he was certain that some amount of good fortune was on his side. Alexander¡¯s powers were exceptionally suited to destroying the forces that kept the zombies animate. If he rationed his strength, he could probably deal with a much bigger group than this one. Entropic imbuement would let him apply that disruptive field to a very concentrated location, amplifying the already scarily potent spear. Silver? Check. Sharp? Check Check. Otherworldly anti-mage powers? Check Check and motherfucking Check.


    The last Gerifalte was hell on undead nasties. He just had to play for space and keep himself from getting worn down or surrounded. His class described him as suited for tracking and destroying targets, sort of like assassination. Can you even assassinate something that was already dead? Why not?


    ¡°Let¡¯s get it done.¡± Alexander announced, resolved.


    With the street¡¯s layout, the geography of scattered wrecked, alleys, abandoned and destroyed buildings, almost like a 3-D map in his head, Alexander went forth to cleanse the necromantic horde.


    No awareness did the zombies display when he activated his skill and a combination of frigid blade and chaos magic began chewing away at their numbers. Within a dozen culled corpses, Alexander saw that he had underestimated how tired he would get hacking apart zombies in bulk.


    Take batting practice sometime, a hundred swings doesn¡¯t sound like much, until you¡¯re fortyish in and your arms and back start throbbing.


    A lurching husk of what had been a bookish looking woman, her throat opened like some animal had been at her, and half her arm gnawed off, tried to grasp him from the side, while he was recovering from a pretty clean decapitation of a form roughly a few years younger than him by stature. Alexander pulled his shoulder away from the snatching hand, feeling it graze him and he changed tactics. Instead of a broad, cleaving cut, he stabbed the librarian zombie in the chest.


    Immediately the corpse crumpled to the ground, frost mist pouring from the wound. It was the spreading wave of black and grey magic that truly did the trick though. The young man stepped back and repeated the thrust into a ratty set of scrubs, stained and sullied by decomposition. The former healthcare worker folded when the anarchic energies unwound whatever precise weave of mana compelled it, sending the man to his final rest.


    Faster now, falling into a rhythm, Alexander drove the spear home and gave the undead a final peace, back stepping rapidly all the while to stay at the outer reach of his weapon. The press of bodies began to encircle him and he broke from his waspish stabs to bolt down the street a few yards, both to rest and to keep himself free of the surround.


    Half of the corpses remained. They evidenced no response to the loss of their fellows, nor to the flight of the human that some compulsion drove them to slay. Alexander was growing concerned, in spite of the resounding success of his plan. The reason was simple mathematics.


    This city had once been home to over twenty thousand souls. If the ratios checked out, sixty percent or so hadn¡¯t come through the Pulse unpetrified. That meant that if even ten percent of the remaining had gone zombie under the influence of the necromantic heart of this corrupted place, he faced over eight hundred of the animate dead. Even at peak efficiency, there was no way he would last long enough to redead that many of the things, assuming that it remained exactly this easy.


    A nervous tingle slid down his spine, watching the corpses approach. Where were the rest of them? Were they looping around wide, while these distracted him? That sudden paranoia sent the young man sprinting away from the evident victory before him. He hadn¡¯t gone a quarter mile back into the suburbs before the instinctive sense of danger proved prophetic: there were crowds of ten, twenty, sixty undead shambling along various routes toward him, boxing him in.


    Heart in his throat, Alexander pounded down a side street, jumped a few low cul-de-sac fences, and wove free of the containment, hacking down a handful of corpses along the way. His second problem was becoming apparent, when his eyes took in the gilded horizon, the red clouds beautiful against the forests and hills of Maine in its spring. Sunset had come.


    It was with great haste that the young man fled the dungeon space, running until he felt the loosening of subtle pressure on his skin when he crossed the threshold of the contested zone to whatever hell that place might be. Free of the place, he spent his stamina in desperate flight, eventually coming to the outskirts and the marker that declared his chosen haven. Alexander stole back the fabric signal and scaled the large iron gate, hoping that whatever guiding force aided the flesh constructs within the influence of the black crystal would not similarly be able to track him from outside.


    He tried very hard to ignore the insistent whisper of his innate pessimism that said ¡°How then did they arrive so near to the Lab, eh?¡±


    Quite simply, Alexander had no way to know for certain what moved the zombies or how they were driven. He could outrun them, of that he was now sure. But he couldn¡¯t outlast them, not without some way to prevent their numbers from simply enveloping him in some fortified spot until he starved or ran out of water. If it came to that, the young man would have to hope that he could use his Entropic field to erode the monsters passively until they were diminished enough to break through a gap in their lines.


    Not his first choice, compared to not being surrounded at all, but even the most-dour eventualities needed to be considered. Especially the most-dour.


    No water ran within the house, not being fed through a suitably elevated water tower, unlike his home. The electrical pumps of the city were, of course, totally shot. Nor was there a creek convenient to this particular shelter. He would have to spend his own water. What it had was the cover of trees from the main road, a tall fence, and long sight lines to see trouble coming. Cursory inspection of the old ranch house found no food that was edible, other than some canned goods. Alexander could prepare those over a small fire instead of from his own supplies, at least.


    He found himself frequently popping over to twitch aside the window curtains and stare out into the failing light, searching for any impression of figures that might give him warning that the undead were, in fact, trailing him outside the afflicted region. When nothing registered in his view he returned to slowly simmering a tall, stainless steel pot of canned vegetables, tomato paste, and some rice. Beef bullion that was still good made that improvised vegetable soup into an unexpected treat. It hadn¡¯t even been opened, wonder of wonders.


    Deep into the night the pattern of frenetic scouring of the outside from various windows before returning to stuff himself with rich vegetable laden broth. He stacked sturdy furniture against every door and window in the building before climbing the stairs to sleep in the master bedroom, with every good solid, heavy as all shit oak dresser in the well to do owner¡¯s room stacked against that equally solid door. Sleep came slowly and stayed fitfully throughout the long hours of dark.

 Chapter 10: Raze the Dead

    A few hours of what could only marginally be called sleep did manage to restore some semblance of vigor to the young man. Such is the gift of being an eighteen year old. Alexander kept himself quiet and made plans while he awaited the dawn. Sparse clouds painted in reds and orange gave him the green light to leave his shelter to start enacting the plan he¡¯d come to last night. In short, he was going to blitz the dungeon core. That black crystal seemed to be the heart of the problem, and, if he could get to it fast, he might be able to seal the source of these undead, just like he¡¯d sealed the source of the goblins.


    It was a reasonable tactic, and it even had a high chance for success. Especially when compared to the alternative of trying to conduct a battle of attrition with close to a thousand zombies. Yesterday¡¯s scouting run had yielded several critical pieces of data.


    First, his gifts were perfectly suited to destroying the undead in small numbers. Second, small numbers wasn¡¯t what he was going to get unless he stayed moving, because the entire necropolis would feel him coming as soon as he crossed into the ¡°contested zone¡±. Therefore, a rapid advance into the territory was most practical.


    Once he¡¯d dealt with the crystal, even if the animated corpses didn¡¯t fall, absent their source of magical energy, the problem wouldn¡¯t grow worse. Probably. He was operating off incomplete information, but that was the norm. The third fact that had been demonstrated amply to him was that this problem wasn¡¯t going to go away, which made it a threat that had to be dealt with as swiftly as he was able. Call it a hunch, but the last Gerifalte had an intuition that the next time the undead paid a visit to his hometown it would be in far, far greater volume than the last.


    In the spirit of his strategy, Alexander left the heavy rifle behind in the nice old ranch house. If it wasn¡¯t effective at destroying the zombies, it was dead weight. Today was going to be all about keeping lean and clean. He¡¯d only engage with an enemy if he risked becoming stalled by not doing so.


    With a deep inhalation of the cool clean air on the porch of the borrowed house, Alexander stepped off to take initiative against the mad world that conspired to create fresh insanities with which to assail him.


    Retraced steps carried him cautiously back to the threshold of that creepy remnant of what had been an American city. A small one, but a city, nevertheless. Now a tomb, occupied and invaded by some other reality, whatever Tech Duinn was. Milling constructs aimlessly patrolled where he¡¯d escaped the evening before. That either suggested a form of memory or that the necrotic guards had simply lost ¡°sight¡± of him and paused where contact was last made.


    Alexander skirted the avenue he¡¯d first used to enter the field dungeon, as good a way to describe it as anything else he could come up with. Calling it a spatial anomaly seemed too¡­clinical for his tastes. There was nothing clean about the roiling crypt energy that put the shiver down his spine when it enveloped him. This side street would take him not quite in the direction he wanted but he was going to cut through yards and empty houses anyway, so it didn¡¯t much matter.


    At a three-quarters pace the young man pressed forward deeper into the dungeon. He wasn¡¯t concerned about stealth as he had been the day before, it was a moot point. The zombies would be closing in on him already, probably forming a huge circle to net him. If whatever will that guided these things had intellect, then it would almost certainly seek to tighten the noose faster than the day before but from closer in, so that the density of zombies would be harder to push through.


    Familiar landmarks from the shopping trips of a life long since ended crawled by as he ran. A store where he¡¯d shopped for clothes for school. A hobby shop where his father had combed for niche tools or parts for his projects. Most poignant was a novelty shop where he and his parents had gotten matching Halloween costumes for the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.


    They¡¯d jangled chains playfully at their neighbors while collecting candy and donations for the animal shelter. Not because Alexander was incredibly interested in such things, but his mother was a crusader for taking care of strays, getting them somewhere clean and dry and where they could be fed until someone could give them a home. It was a worthy cause, even if it wasn¡¯t his schtick.


    Memories propelled him on, reminding him that destroying the madness encroaching on the world was only one part of his goals. Finding a cure to the affliction of his parents, and maybe even the world, was the major objective. Failing that, vengeance was the only thing he¡¯d have left. Living like that, for the sake of punishing the sick reality that had taken all that from him would make for a long, miserable life.


    ¡°On task, Little Falcon.¡± He chided himself.


    The scuffing, shuffling feet of necromantic puppets was regular, and the sight of small groups of a dozen or so frequently had him moving to cut through an oddly disquieting empty shop, or around a cluster of houses, or some such obstacle to make the zombies cover more ground to close on him.


    Winding though his path was, Alexander was holding a constant approach toward the floating black crystal, whose slow, stately spin would have been dignified, if it weren¡¯t the nexus of the grotesque.


    His efforts at avoiding a fight ended abruptly when he came around the corner of an aisle of a trendy whole foods shopping center and came almost within arm¡¯s reach of a squad of undead. Faster moving, more robust than the monsters he¡¯d encountered yesterday, these showed almost no sign of rot, skin pallid but unblemished. Clawing hands reached for him and he had to swipe Winter¡¯s Breath across in a choked-up slash to take the grasping appendages off at the wrist. A quick stab into the face, and a burst of chaos mana put an end to that first zombie. The others had gone around their foe to encircle him, and Alexander tried not to panic, instead concentrating on working the haft of the spear to hack hands from arms and to bury the frozen blade into chests.


    Six creatures down gave him a window through which to escape. His flight was dogged though, the power-walking zombies wouldn¡¯t be left behind so easily. Alexander snatched a push broom, abandoned next to a statue of the janitor who had been pushing it, and used it to secure the inward opening doors of the whole foods joint. He took off, satisfied that he¡¯d slowed the pursuit, until a few seconds later he heard the crack of wood and glanced over his shoulder to see that the zombies had simply pushed through the sturdy hardwood handle with supernatural strength.


    Fuck.


    Where the young man went around a wood fence, the constructs walked through it. Where he climbed into a window, needing painful seconds to open it, the zombies clawed through broken glass uncaring for the laceration of their cold flesh.


    Occasionally he would be forced to pause to cut his way past a wandering corpse directly in his path. Sometimes it would be a solid four or seven. Then a dozen, as he tried to beeline through a church parking lot that had, apparently, been meeting when the Pulse hit, for all the parked cars and fancily dressed statues scattered thereabout. Inside windows sat a congregation mostly intact while they had listened to the gospel of their shepherd, a macabre audience for the drama unfolding outside.


    Hacking down the latest of his obstacles, Alexander realized that the problem was growing worse, faster than he had anticipated.


    Crisis arrived, presently. In the muted, weak sunlight of the dungeon space out into which Alexander had just burst, having just cut through yet another townhouse, a hundred zombies closed in from the surrounding streets and alleys.


    The smoky black crystal loomed large in the distance. A half mile away and no more. But the large contingent of undead lay directly between him and it. The chasing monsters would be coming from behind within a minute or so, and his options were swiftly down to one.


    ¡°Alright you poor dead sonsofbitches, I¡¯m going to put you down!¡± He shouted at the unhearing crowd.


    Not that he was yelling for their benefit. More for his own. He really wasn¡¯t looking forward to this part.


    <table style="width: 7.05128%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Ruthless


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The sudden lightness in his body, like he was removed from the situation washed through him, and the Entropic venator made ready his weapons, mundane and not so much. Suddenly he didn''t mind so much giving the marauding undead a taste of the ol'' ultra-violence.


    A shell of chaotic energy washed out away from the youth, his gifts unfurling. The flicker of entropic energy along his enchanted spear, now doubly potent, gave him distant comfort in this desperate moment.


    Alexander threw himself into the fray, lashing out with spear blade with enthusiasm, if without grace. So close to the beacon of undeath powering the creatures, his aura only briefly stunned the zombies, bought him only a second or two of stillness before the necrotic energies reasserted their dominance of the former occupants of the city. Those seconds were dear to him, and he made all he could of them, slashing, stabbing, unmaking the monstrous townsfolk as rapidly as his arms could work.


    The line of undead bulged, like a vesicle forming around him as the horde, driven by unearthly will, tried to complete the surround. Alexander fought through it, piercing the press of bodies, his breaths coming in labored gasps at the continual effort. He spun, crouching low, raking the sword blade of his naginata through knees and shins, the blossoming frost rendering legs worthless as it passed. Corpses suddenly with only a single supporting limb fell over and Alexander used the slight delay of stepping over their brethren as his gap to sprint free.


    Entropic aura faded and the imbuement with it, Alexander striving to save what strength he could. Ten minutes of hard running, interspersed with fighting, was draining his stamina. If he attempted to hole up somewhere he¡¯d be trapped. Unacceptable. All the young man could do was stick to the plan. Ignoring the growing stitch in his side, he forced himself to jog toward the source of the dungeon¡¯s strength.


    Having escaped again the attempts to cordon him, a few minutes blessed relief from skirting undead allowed him free passage to the regional hospital building. Twelve stories high, the looming prism of modern architecture buried him in its shadow. Behind him, none too distant, would be the endless mass of animated bodies.


    ¡°Final push.¡± He sighed and entered the interior of the hospital.


    Navigating the once pristinely clean, clinical environment, with its staff and patrons alike frozen in a single moment of time, was one of the most disconcerting experiences of Alexander¡¯s life. Empty hospital beds in the hall, awaiting forever the orderly who was to move them to their needed location. Equipment of all kinds, once a pinnacle of achievement, a testament to man¡¯s mastery of medicine, now as still and dead as the people who had used them. Except for the unlucky ones that had survived the Pulse that is.


    Those were following behind him, a grizzly caricature of life. It suddenly struck the young man, as he thundered through a door labeled ¡°stairs¡±, what a deeply ironic, almost insulting thing it was for the dungeon core for a land of undeath to have claimed a hospital for its throne upon Gaia¡¯s surface. Expunging that wrongness would be satisfying for more than his survivals¡¯ sake.


    Muscles burning from fatigue, labored breaths that threatened to fog his Plexiglas visor, none of it stopped him, not with the horde undoubtedly in tow. Twelve stories of hospital. Twelve sets of stairs. The brutal climb ended after what seemed an eternity and Alexander Gerifalte exited the stairwell into the half light of day inside the dungeon on rubbery legs.


    Standing tall, seven feet, at least, was a black robed skeleton, cloaked as if to travel in heavy weather, its eye sockets burning cold pinpricks of necrotic energy within its hood. It held a large scythe, like what an old timey farmer might have used to harvest wheat in its bony hands. The smooth ivory handle of the scythe threw light from its polish. The stillness of the skeleton was utterly inhuman, unnatural. When it moved, it did so in a jerky, abrupt fashion that was, somehow, even more unsettling than its motionlessness.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Tech Duinn Reaper


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" width="218">


    Status:


    Menacing


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 95%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    23


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    7¡¯1¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -30/0%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    25


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    179lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -25/5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mantle of the Reaper


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -25/5% bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    ¡Þ


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Black spinel, ball


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Fiend ivory spirit scythe


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -35/5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Fiend ivory spirit scythe


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    4


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Monster Race:


    Undead-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Reaper)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -25/5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -25/5%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    19


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    -10/5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    ¡Þ


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mourning vestment


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Spirit sight, Immortal, Poison immunity, Disease immunity, Weakness to fire, Weakness to Holy


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Life harvest, Reap, Call of the void


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Reaper¡¯s aura, Negative ward, Death knell


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Lungs worked hard to bring air into him as he stared at this final hurdle. He should have known it wouldn¡¯t be so easy as to just fight through a mass of the undead. Nothing was easy, these days. Most things worth doing weren¡¯t, in any case, so Alexander gritted his teeth and hefted the golem steel naginata, making ready to purge the guardian of the dungeon.


    ¡°Long has it been since one challenged a Reaper of Tech Duinn in single combat.¡± Whispered the skeleton, like dry leather sliding over stone.


    Those small breaks in speech, necessary because lungs needed air to create the sounds were absent in this entity¡¯s voice, and shivers crawled across Alexander¡¯s spine, from his unconscious awareness of the lack. Everything about the monster radiated menace toward the living, and hunger to bring those alive under its necrotic umbrella.


    Its head shifted, canted sideways at an unnaturally wide angle, polished teeth sharp as it spoke without lips, tongue, or fleshy aid, is hissing voice eerily precise.


    ¡°Does the mortal fear? Do not. Life is the fleeting dream, a scant iota of time separating the void from the grave.¡±


    The scythe blade raised, hefted without apparent effort by the robed form, its figure threatening in spite of the almost comforting declaration of life¡¯s ephemerality.


    A building pressure, crawling along his perceptions, weighing down on him, was met by the litany of battles fought against fiends, beasts, and monsters since he¡¯d ridden his plane to the earth those long months back and rolled off his shoulders. Ruthless buffered the assault on his senses, and he realized that this was part of the Reaper¡¯s tool kit, probably meant to suppress the will and focus of its mortal foes.


    As if Alexander needed reminding of the brevity of his mortal coil, or the suddenness with which it could be slipped. Fear was a part of his life, a companion held most dear. But not fear of death. He knew, unlike most young people, that his time was coming, and soon. No, he lived under the shadow of failure. If he fell, none would remain to lift the curse. If he perished, the injustice of his world ending, his parents¡¯ death, the grisly murder of the townsfolk who¡¯d survived, their last days being slaughtered and eaten by goblins, all of it would go unpunished. The scales unbalanced that was what kept him awake nights.


    ¡°Thanks, Chief, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.¡± Alexander quoted to the foul dead thing, his voice sounding oddly resonant from within the helmet.


    He raised a hand, not toward the skeleton, but toward the real threat and loosed a Chaos strike directly at the black crystal heart of this defiled space.


    Sizzling grey and black, the concentrated entropy hurtled to the dungeon core, intercepted at the last possible moment by the dark grey metal of the scythe blade. Cracks, pitted voids, and a maroon discoloration spread along half the length of the harvest tool.


    Another curious tilt of the head, pinprick lights radiating surprise at the change enacted on its implement, was all that separated Alexander¡¯s deflected attack from the Reaper¡¯s own.


    Fast as an adder striking, the skeletal monster lunged, sweeping the blade down to part Alexander¡¯s chest from his waist. The last Gerifalte stepped forward, driven against common instincts by the merry whisper of his mother before he went to school to deal with a bully and anger management issues.


    ¡°The scary ones never think you¡¯ll come to them,¡± said the laughing woman who¡¯d reared him with such love and ferocity, ¡°Step up and swing, Alexander my joy.¡±


    Ruthless damping the ache of muscles strained and fatigued, Alexander stepped up and swung, bringing himself within the arc of the curved blade, and out of danger from it, while driving Winter¡¯s Breath into the eternal smile of the undead monster. They came together in a crash of armored human against undead monster.


    <table style="width: 8.57372%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="107">


    Baleful Smite


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Rippling black and grey flame danced off the hooded skull, its skull pierced completely by the blow, amplified and empowered as it had been by his full weight, magical and otherwise. The creature spasmed wildly and Alexander was knocked flat by the flailing haft of the scythe as the abominable thing shrieked.


    ¡°Uggh!¡± He grunted, rolling and flopping, naginata left embedded in the monstrous visage, his grip broken by the inhuman power of the thing¡¯s errant blow. The hit was hard, but muted, his own minimal Soak bleeding some small fraction of the energy from the hit and his impact with the ground. Through all the armor, and helmet, he wasn¡¯t even bruised. His diaphragm had gotten drilled square though, and he sucked wind breathlessly, glad for the protection of the golem metal plates.


    A roll brought him to his feet, barely, kneeling hunched over his side, unable to breathe from the impact of the hit. Gasps brought a dry lungful of air, sterile and cool as a crypt.


    The enemy was distracted by the spear in its face, so he reached deep into the last of his reserves of magic and loosed a trio of chaotic energy bullets toward the Reaper, each ripping into its cloaked form, each biting huge chunks from its chest and torso. The rapid, sequential flashes of entropy magic unwound the Reaper, tearing at the unlife that sustained it.


    Polished bone clattered loudly to the rooftop concrete, the scythe forgotten, and the monster clawed at its chaos and frost ruined face, bone grinding bone. Blue, white energy pulsed, cold will animating the creature failing, and the black crystal behind it stopped spinning in a single instant.


    Bones fell apart and the creature was suddenly inert, suddenly returned to the void of which it spoke so longingly. Unceremonious was the death of the dungeon¡¯s guardian monster, and, as for all beings, whatever menacing dignity it had was gone upon the very moment of its end.


    No chances would Alexander take, he kicked the scythe away from the tangled bundle of cloth and bone and, still sucking wind, grabbed for his spear.


    One wide glittering arc of golem steel jacketed by silver later and Alexander Gerifalte drove his weapon into the hovering crystal core of Tech Duinn. Or, at least, this little pocket of it.


    The crystal rang like an iron gong, pealing uproarious across the city. Vaguely humanoid forms that had been almost upon him from the shadow of the stairwell froze at the purity of that knell, and the animating force left the long dead humans in a breath. Corpses suddenly returned to inanimate states, and they fell down the stairs audibly.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Alexander could spare them no attention; he was enmeshed completely by the sound, and the pull on his consciousness was irresistible.


    Black smoke surrounded him blocking his sight, closed in on him, cloaking him in the cold dry cloying scent of the beyond, wiping away sound in its roaring silence.


    A voice came from the darkness, the same as the last time.


    WORTHY! WORTHY! THOU HAST RETURNED IN VICTORY!


    The same all-encompassing voice shouting in his mind. He was transported back to the first experience with this entity, the cryptic words it had uttered burned into his mind.


    WORTHY! WHAT IS THY DESIRE?


    Surrounded by the feel and aura of undeath, his strength failing rapidly with the fading of the Ruthless state hiding his fatigue, only one thing came to mind, only one desire dominated his thoughts.


    ¡°You said I could bring them back! I want to undo the affliction on my parents, I want them back!¡± He shouted into the darkness around him.


    YOU WALK THE PATH ALREADY! SIP THE DRAGON PULSE! TRANSFORM!


    BECOME!


    Beckoning in the giant voice, yearning, washed through him, hammering against his mind.


    He walked the path? Sip the dragon pulse? What in the ever-loving fuck was he hearing? None of that was giving him what he wanted godsdamnit!Only a moment had he to contemplate before his thoughts were scattered by a flood of energy that surged against him, unbidden.


    Heat again ignited inside his form, radiant in veins of fire spreading from his heart. Or, perhaps more specifically, from the gem that sat behind it.


    The gloom of the necromantic crystal faded, along with its powers, and Alexander was left standing on the roof top alone, the skeletal remains blowing away like ashes on the wind, leaving behind only the vestige it had been wearing and the cruelly sharp ivory handled scythe. Suddenly claustrophobic within his reinforced biker helmet, the young man pulled it from his head, exultant at the cool spring air that brushed his face.


    Sunlight poured down unhindered upon Gaia¡¯s surface once more, the contested zone contested no longer.


    ¡°Two and zero bitches!¡± Alexander Gerifalte rejoiced from atop the hospital, shouting into the wide blue skies.


    Arms raised, he allowed himself a moment of joy, enjoyed greatly before he sagged down to lay on the concrete, completely spent. Muscles screamed their discontent at his abuse of them and a deep tiredness born of utilizing the greater part of his somewhat limited magical ability landed with both feet on flimsy consciousness. Lightheaded vertigo would have toppled him, and he rode it out for a few difficult seconds. Once it passed, he had enough of his shit together to start assessing.


    Victory was not cheap.


    Staring down at the pitted blade of his wonderful spear, the effects of using chaos magic alongside the frozen enchantment, Alexander knew he¡¯d broken his greatest invention. No more mist poured from the head of the naginata, the polar mana had escaped the confinement of the materials used to restrain it, leaks eaten through by chaos mana.


    Damn. Alexander hadn¡¯t even gotten to use it all that much.


    ¡°Don¡¯t double dip, Little Falcon.¡± The youth summarized, staring regretfully at the once pristine metal.


    It was a costly error, born of necessity maybe, since the alternative was being eaten by the minions of the undead crystal, or failing to launch his one and only first strike and being struck down by the guardian skeleton monster. The loss of precious materials and time did not sting any less for that.


    ¡°Ahh, well,¡± Alexander ruminated aloud, long since used to talking to himself, ¡°Nothing for it. I didn¡¯t get killed to death and that¡¯s the important part. Now, what changed from killing the dungeon?¡±


    He desperately needed an upside to balance the massive loss of his magical spear.


    Concentrating on himself, Alexander summoned the great blue scroll of magical fuckery that described him.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Entropic Venator


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    exhausted


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 5%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯3¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    15/25 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    165lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    11/15 fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat helmet


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    11/15 fire resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat jacket


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (broken)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    17/24 fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (broken)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shaggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/15


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/15


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat leathers


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/24 bonus to fire resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat leathers


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    27(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat jacket


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Raptor gaze, Fantasia, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Warforger, Scholarship, Singular prominence


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Entropic aura, Chaos strike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    He¡¯d gained an inch. It was one of those details that was of supreme inanity that nevertheless stood out to him. Since the early spring Alexander had grown an inch in height and he noticed this immediately within the scroll-work of the arcane. A giggle of sheer incredulity sounded out of place given the situation, but he couldn¡¯t hold one back. Soon enough he was lost in a fit of rollicking belly laughter.


    When it subsided, leaving the young man even more tired than before, a mark of how incredibly drained he was by the conquest of the field dungeon he turned his attention to the radical increase in his stats, now all bearing a modifier of plus five. That was a thirty percent increase around the board, and when he wasn¡¯t more worn out than a logging mule, he¡¯d be able to appreciate it. Unthinking, he concentrated on the new trait and its details unfurled before his vision.


    <table style="width: 69.1506%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Singular prominence: by your own power you have assaulted and vanquished multiple incursions of the hundred and eight worlds, claiming their hearts.  Excess mana has refined your form, bolstering it substantially.


    +5 to all attributes;


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Huh. Well, that was certainly something.


    Laying there in a semi-boneless pool of weariness, he mulled over the events of the last twenty-four hours. It occurred to the youth then that he¡¯d soloed two dungeons, wiping out their champions and destroying their cores. Like an absolute savage. Pride swelled in his breast. He knew he¡¯d done right by his folks. That all permeating voice was the key to getting them back, he knew it now. Twice now the voice had asked for his desire. Twice it had given him something that he hadn¡¯t asked for in as many words, but which led surely to his stated ends.


    First, he had wanted to know the rules and the ability to break them. That had translated to being able to pull up these weird pages of information and, he was certain, his entropic mana powers. Alexander¡¯s magic seemed best at unraveling the nonsense of this dreamland, pulling apart its magical shielding Soak, tearing apart the animating necromancy keeping the zombies going, and generally fucking with anything magical, as he¡¯d found with his spear. But only when he¡¯d aggressively channeled his powers into it, so there were tolerances.


    Second, he¡¯d directly asked to undo the affliction, the petrification of his parents. The gift this time was a direct amplification of his abilities, all of them. That boon made it more likely for him to be able to overcome the next obstacle that placed itself in his way, implying that he would find what he wanted by continuing to do what he¡¯d been doing. All he had to do was find these so-called conflict zones and conquer them, claiming the power inside them.


    A languorous chuckle escaped him. Sure thing. No problem. Easy as falling off a log.


    There, fatigue caught up with him and he could resist it no longer. The youth fell soundly asleep and did not rise until sunset¡¯s final golden rays beamed down on him. When he stirred slowly awake, he spent a few dazzled moments trying to piece together where he was before memory slammed in, bearing the weight of his circumstances back on young shoulders.


    Alexander claimed his prizes from the Reaper, its thick mantle and its scythe, the polished ivory incredibly smooth under his fingers. The vestments it had worn had turned to ash along with the rest of it, according to rules Alexander would probably never completely understand. Whatever, he had the fucker¡¯s cowl and weapon, that was trophy enough.


    He used the mantle as a sash, tying the scythe to his back and hefted his ruined naginata before retracing the desperate steps of his running fight through the city. The stairwell gave evidence that he hadn¡¯t dreamt the entire thing, a pile of now rotting corpses scattered along the bottom of the top flight of stairs. The stench of rot poured off them now that the necromantic energy holding them in a kind of stasis had left them.


    Dry heaves kept Alexander occupied while he walked down the next three flights, and he was never so glad for experience gutting animals and tanning his hides as then. Without exposure to those similarly profound funks he¡¯d have vomited profusely for the next half hour. Before he left the hospital, Alexander filled a duffle-bag from one of the floors of the regional hospital with medical supplies. More exotic antibiotics, analgesics, general painkillers, epi pens, and adrenaline were high on his priority list, as were I. V. bags, needles, surgical implements, all the things to handle capital ¡°B¡± bad situations.


    Every third sunrise Alexander was healed of anything that might ail him, but he had come closer to dying than he was comfortable with more times than he was comfortable with to not try to hedge his bets. It was a shame the diagnostic equipment was all trashed. Even the magnets inside the MRI machines were cooked. The Pulse had been as thorough here as back at home.


    Pervasive was the stench of death and purification throughout the city. The dungeon had reanimated and preserved the corpses of the raised and they had all simultaneously lost the protection of that magic when he¡¯d struck down the core. All across the city, the dead were moving rapidly through the stages of decay and Alexander fled as rapidly as he could manage. Sickness was nearly guaranteed with so many rotting corpses about. Even so, it was well past dark by the time Alexander managed to find his flagged mailbox to shack up within his hideaway.


    That night¡¯s sleep came easily and he slept without dreams or nightmares, blessedly unburdened for a time. Birdsong, loud, exuberant, and full of the passion of tiny creatures telling their competitors to fuck off or potential mates to fuck on filled the morning air. The last Gerifalte breakfasted heartily on the canned goods, enjoying a big can of tuna alongside another pot of vegetable stew. He ate twice in three hours to really pack on the free calories and took a lovely mid morning stroll back down the road to his home.


    The empty highway had lost the majority of its menace, now that the threat of the undead was gone. Alexander kept a hawkish gaze on his surroundings, keenly aware that wolves, elk, panthers, and who knew what else might be about, especially if they¡¯d been avoiding the area claimed by the dungeon. His boon proved a godsend, the extra strength especially, as he barely even noticed the extra weight of the medical supplies and food scavenged back from this venture, to say nothing of the Reaper¡¯s mantle and scythe. Boots clopped cheerfully all the long way home and the sight of his ruined town was bittersweet, as always when he viewed it from a vantage. Unlike many times before, there was a tinge of hope in the sight now. Alexander had reason to believe that there might be a way to revert the petrification, to undo the lethal aspect of the Pulse.


    Straight away, Alexander offloaded his supplies, stashed the trophies in his study for examination, and did a patrol around town to make sure there weren¡¯t any surprises waiting for him. While he was at it, he checked the status of the tanning pits. The foul things were going according to plan and he would be moving some of the pelts along to the dry working step tomorrow. A short stop by the smithy was in order as well, the young man had a date with the forge and had to check his inventory of Golem ingots to begin the process of crafting a new weapon, most likely another naginata, the sword bladed spear had served him faithfully and well. Best not to fix what wasn¡¯t broken.


    Late afternoon rolled around while he wasn¡¯t looking and the growls of his belly reminded him that it had taken most of the day to walk between the distant city and home, to say nothing of the chores that followed. The refinement of his body was incredible, he barely felt tired even after all that going!


    A few tomatoes, ripe already, their growth clearly drastically altered by the Entling enhanced soil he was testing, added fresh produce to his supper, a welcome change indeed from preserved food.


    That night, laying again in the familiar comfort of his own bed, it occurred to the young man that he needed to find some cows to relocate. He was finding himself in dire need of dairy products, what with the majority of pre-Pulse cheeses, creams, milk, and butter having gone rancid by this point. There were probably some ultra-pasteurized milks that were still good out there somewhere but he hadn¡¯t found any in his examination of the markets in his home and he couldn¡¯t haul that kind of weight from the city. It would require conveyance of some kind to attempt that kind of transportation of goods, a steam engine powered buggy or something.


    That little idea went onto the pile of projects for a much distant future. Alexander had bigger fish to fry currently, starting with jump starting his food stocks by planting rows of wheat, corn, barley and oats, along with a fruit orchard using beds of the, now precious, Entling soil. The rate of growth from that stuff was flatly impossible according to the old rules and Alexander would take advantage of every cheat, reality hack, and flagrant piece of mystical nonsense he could get away with. He parted from the waking world gently and dreamed of giant orchards and caramel apples.


    Dawn broke over the last week of April and Alexander greeted it from the Creek-side, bathing himself in cold, fresh waters. Naked, he reflected that, more and more, he found himself dispensing with unnecessary fires, not wanting to spend the time maintaining them or the effort to procure fuel that would be better spent in the winter season. Life post Pulse was hardening the youth, scrubbing the softness of the old world from him a day at a time. A draft of warm spring air brought a prickling of skin and he dipped back indoors to make an assessment about his spoils from the Reaper.


    It no longer struck him as odd to cut a piece of the thick, almost velvety fabric to eat it for better understanding of its properties. The sharply sour taste, like vinegar dialed to twelve, assaulted his nasal passages before rapidly fading.


    <table style="width: 68.4295%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%">


    Crypt velveteen: acquired from the fibers of a Sepulcher Lily, an unmistakable flower grown only where necrotic mana ambiance is pervasive and concentrated, native to Tech Duinn.  The dense, yet supple cloth made from processed plant fibers radiates death magic, though less potent than the leaves of the flower freshly harvested.  The glistening, unrelieved black of the material makes nearby mortal creatures uneasy, imparts sight unimpeded by darkness, and hides the wearer from scrying.


    Insufficient skill to resolve further property, proceed with caution.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Fascinating. Death magic? Was that why he was vaguely nervous around it? Alexander had himself a feeling like something might be crawling around behind him, an unease. Spooky. Proceed with caution, it had said. A new one. Definitely needed more study.


    Alexander put the loose bundle of fabric over his head and pulled the cowl up. Immediately, his vision transformed, becoming a vibrant grey scale that took on crisp, hard edges. Woah! Trippy. He lowered the hood and the stark, too sharp picture of the world faded back to its normal, soft, warmth. That fabric was worrisome, for sure. But he would find a way to make it work for him, sooner or later.


    The scythe was a trickier proposition. Alexander wasn¡¯t certain how to go about testing the materials, so he grabbed a fine, high grit sandpaper and rubbed the polished ivory down low, near the end of the handle. A taste of that, acrid and bitter, was all he wanted.


    <table style="width: 68.3494%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Fiend ivory: made from the horns of a high tier demon, aged for eons to become the finest of ivories.  This vanishingly rare material is prized by sorcerers, seers, and practitioners of arts pertaining to crossings of the veil between worlds.  Resistant to nearly any form of magical or chemical change and conductive of neither heat nor electricity, the ivory is nearly impervious to transmutation.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander had to admit, that was a pretty metal description. It also peeled back a layer on the insanity onion that his life had become, mentioning several things that should have been straight out of occultism. Demons, seers, and all that. Looking at the long length of pearlescent white mineral, all of a single piece, the last Gerifalte couldn¡¯t help but try to imagine what a demon bearing horns of such length might look like. He rapidly abandoned that notion, not needing to buy any more reasons to worry.


    Some flakes from the back of the scythe blade were similarly disturbing. For one thing, the tiny particles of metal, barely a few flecks large enough to even see, tasted like a mouthful of blood.


    <table style="width: 68.5096%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Umberite: raw wolfram ore suffused by dark energies, hidden from sunlight for thousands of years is woven with the dark and resists flame, rendering it surpassingly difficult to forge.  Requires the strength of a giant or colossus to shape, despite the impurities laced in its substrate.  Rumored to have been once used in the making of Acherontic Bronze, an abyssal alloy of myth.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    That took the youth aback. The polished scythe blade was ore? Not even metal? That didn¡¯t make sense at all, ores were too brittle to be sharpened like this, too inconsistent to polish without voids or pitting. The blade, to his hand, was absolutely smooth and visibly free of defect. What the hell?


    Suddenly, cleaning up that underworld dungeon seemed like a far, far better thing than he¡¯d first assumed. Everything about it seemed to invoke places of darkness, death, and the bowels of Hades. If it grew, expanded, entrenched itself on Gaia¡¯s plane, who knows what might have managed to crawl out of it? Tech Duinn, whatever else it was, was definitely bad news.


    The blue scroll-work describing the scythe as a whole was far less interesting than its parts, oddly enough. It was described merely as an instrument of harvest, meticulously crafted of exquisitely rare materials found only in the shadowed realms. Apparently, from his examination of the not-metal of the blade, it wasn¡¯t even truly smithed, the scythe was ore, unrefined, unfinished. That irked the craftsman in him to no end. Stupid grim reaper wannabe, at least finish your damned weapon.


    He didn¡¯t have long to dwell though, time was pressing, he had shit to accomplish. Turning aside his study of the realms of death, Alexander put his mind and hands to work on those projects most polar opposite: the growing and sustaining of life. Spring wouldn¡¯t last forever, he had to get his vegetable gardens and fruit trees planted.


    To that end, for the rest of the morning, before a noon time stop for work on the tannery, and an afternoon spent in the smithy, the young man hauled wheelbarrows of enriched dirt and prepared gardens. For the orchard, he planted apple cuttings from several of the neighbor¡¯s old trees. He buried several sets of whole green apples, rotted though they were, to see if they would sprout. Between the cuttings of the red apples and the tart greens he figured he could make do with apple preserves, ciders, and the like.


    Speaking of cider, booze was another little item on the agenda, as beer and spirits was a way to hedge his bets on having potable water available year round, as well as a way to increase the calorie density of his diet. Getting a beer belly wasn¡¯t a problem for the foreseeable future. The materials for a still and brewery were, thankfully, easily obtainable and Papa Gerifalte¡¯s treasured library housed several different tomes on the ancient art of the brew-master. The first successful IPA he drafted would be called the Etri Imperial, in honor of his father. The first potato spirits that he managed to successfully raise to above one hundred eighty proof would be called the Minerva crystal vodka. That thought cheered him until he remembered that there was no one around to raise a toast with. Damn it, sad again. And lonely.


    Alexander kept himself too busy to brood the rest of the day, forging golem steel ingots.


    Nothing impinged on Alexander¡¯s peace for the remainder of that week. Every day fell into a rhythm of work. Grape arbors were run along the hill behind his house, since the south facing slope would absorb more sunlight, the better for Maine¡¯s already too cool and short growing season to be optimal for grapes. He was trusting the Entling¡¯s bounty to assist with that shortcoming. The last of the fertile stuff went into the vegetable gardens and, by week¡¯s end, shoots were rising that promised he would not go hungry this next winter.


    As for the orchards, both experiments proved successful, thanks to the sheer fecundity of the green-blood juiced soil. The cuttings rooted and threw shoots before the week was out, while up from the black soil fresh young apple trees rose. Alexander had to divide and re-pot them, there were so many!


    His tanneries were now in the long-haul stage of preservation, sitting in the tanning solution, full strength, and would be ready not for another month or two. The youth wouldn¡¯t lack for projects to fill his hands in the meantime.


    Reforging his spear turned out to be less the challenge than he¡¯d initially thought. The haft of the weapon was unaffected by his abusive use of Baneful smite and Entropic imbuement, two things he now knew should not be done simultaneously if one wanted to continue using the item. The sword blade was, of course, a total loss and had to be redone from scratch.


    Fortunately, he was able to recover most of the material from the blade through a complete meltdown of it. The high-steel and golem silver itself was, once it had been reheated and forged out, purified of the contaminating effects of his chaos magic to the effect of having lost fifteen percent of its mass due to the disordering influence of his mana. He was out of polar cores, unless he wanted to sacrifice his refrigerators, which he didn¡¯t, so he resigned himself to being unable to perform the magical enhancements until he¡¯d had the fortune of hunting a new bear possessed of one.


    All the while he hammered and heated, the specter of that Umberite ore lived in his thoughts. It wouldn¡¯t react to heat, but that didn¡¯t mean there wasn¡¯t a way to coax the ore apart from the aberrant metals it imprisoned. Alexander wondered what the yield from such a small batch of ore as was represented by the scythe blade would even be useful for. The average take from a good tungsten ore smelt was only about one percent, according to the mining and metallurgy literature he had available. He found nothing about how to smelt without fire or heat and, so, defeated by ignorance, the scythe hung on his study wall, a trophy for courage against the vision of death.


    The mantle Alexander kept tied as a sash around his chest, ready to be untied and donned should he ever need to go lurking about in the dark of night. A few jaunts to test it proved thrilling, who knew how many critters were out and about in the witching hours?


    Almost a week after his return from claiming the undead dungeon¡¯s heart, Alexander Gerifalte was on a hunt on the mountain side. He was deep into the forests, on high alert, because he¡¯d crossed panther paw prints that were larger than his frying pan, and deep enough that the animal creating those impressions must have massed better than six hundred pounds. That was a lot of fucking panther, even with his armor, magic, and spear.


    One side benefit of the Reaper¡¯s Mantle was that it worked to keep predators leery of approaching him, which had, more than once already, given him the chance to study a great brown bear, or dire wolf pack from afar, unmolested. They felt the emanations of the Tech Duinn guardian monster and avoided it. Alexander wasn¡¯t banking on that protection keeping a super tiger or something from coming after him though so he was keeping his head on a swivel.


    Afternoon light dappled the ground through the leaves of the birch and maple and a big pine grove lent the air that distinct twangy note of turpentine. So it was that when a marvelously rich, sweet aroma drifted into his nostrils he froze. There was no doubt, the grinning young man fist pumped, he was smelling honey.


    One of the startling changes that had occurred when the flowers blossomed this spring was that many of the flowers, following the pattern of their animal counterparts, had become monsterized. They bloomed, waxy, vibrant, succulent, and fucking huge. Star-flower bigger than a dinner plate, where they were normally only a half inch across. Lily of the valley that stood half Alexander¡¯s height, with intensely lavender blooms hanging bowed from their stems. Bluets stood like small palm fronds and the four leafed blue flowers, their yellow centers so distinct made him think of colorful ceiling fans. Those flowers had to mean wonders for the pollinators.


    Those ranks had to include bees. The smell in his nostrils said that the buzzing little honey factories were eating well from the pollen of giant magical flowers.


    Not that he necessarily needed honey, the stuff was one of the few nonperishable sources of food in the stores, it would sit in its jars, edible as the day it was sat there on the shelf for years. He was mostly interested because he had a couple of brewing kits assembled and honey wine, or mead, sounded like a damned good time, if only he could find a renewable source for the honey. Lo¡¯ and behold! Nature provided.


    Turning aside from the game trail he was paralleling, the once pilot aspirant followed the potent aroma, pushing farther down into the valley that dropped behind the ridge line abutting his home town. This area was slightly wilder than his usual trekking, rock outcrops and bluffs prominent, and a fast running creek along the cleft of the narrow valley inspired big hemlock¡¯s to grow tall along that hillside. The old timer who¡¯d owned the place had inherited it from his grandfather, who told the logging company¡¯s that wanted to come in and ¡°selectively¡± log it to fuck off, which meant it was one of the few areas that was relatively untouched, except for the trees taken for the homestead¡¯s use back in the day. It showed, this section of forest was tall, tall, dark and deep.


    Golden temptation led Alexander astray.


    A disturbance in the background of the forest that grew louder, so imperceptibly slowly that he hadn¡¯t even noticed until it was a thrumming hum, suddenly became obvious. The source of the sound grew at once clear and also alarming, because a formidable looking bee the size of a basketball meandered into his view. The stinger pulsed on its abdomen, a hand long and wickedly barbed, while it droned along its merry way.


    ¡°Holy shit balls!¡± commented the last Gerifalte.


    Frozen in place, he watched and waited, as time and experience had taught him to do. Dozens of bees came and went, all headed to or from a central location just ahead. A few ambled in from behind him, coming to within a few dozen feet or so, but showing no obvious interest in the young man. Alexander took this opportunity to pause and rethink his course. Bees were one thing, he wasn¡¯t allergic and didn¡¯t mind a few stings to secure a big score, especially since he had bee boxes back in the town just sitting around unused, their wrappings untouched where they¡¯d been stored at the big agriculture store.


    Alexander had had thoughts toward maybe bringing the queen to roost in a nice convenient new home, which he¡¯d seen some of the good old boys do, just grab her up in their hand and pack her to the new box, the swarm surprisingly docile about the whole thing.


    That was that, and this was this.


    Not knowing, Alexander would bet these bees were at least as toxic as their regular sized cousins. Projecting along the trend of obviously magical creatures being more potent than their workaday variants, there was sufficient reason to believe that the buzzing monsterized bees drifting around were orders of magnitude more lethal. What they, by all observance, also appeared to be was just as calm. For once, no mindless aggression, no oddly specific hate boner just for him. He was watching big ol¡¯ bees doing bee things.


    Or, that was his position until he spied a horned rabbit scrunching its cute, deceitfully vicious face before it hopped through a regular old patch of herbaceous foliage, beneath a patch of the mutant bluets. The flowers were being serviced by three of the massive bees. The horned rabbit, about as large as a German shepherd itself, with a solid foot long spiral of sharp bone to give it its name, mistakenly bent down a bluet that held a bee. The bee, disturbed, its food taken away, dove stinger first, drilling the rabbit in the back of the neck and the other two comrades of black and yellow joined it, aggressive humming from wings accelerating them into knifing their stingers into the horned rabbit¡¯s already spasming back.


    A loud rabbit squeal cut off under a buzzing rendition of the end of Julius Ceasar, barbed stingers ripping away before driving home repeatedly, even though the mauled rabbit was long dead.


    Ah. Well. Not so harmless, then.


    Once the rabbit was dispatched, with great prejudice, the bees resumed their ambling collection of pollen.


    Nothing else, the squirrels, birds, or even a white tail that wandered through the valley was bothered by the flying super hive monsters. A few more horned rabbits showed themselves, sniffed around their downed relative but made no move toward the occupied flowers. So. It would appear to Alexander¡¯s reckoning that the bees were only hostile on the defensive. As long as nothing interfered with their gathering of food, they were content to be peaceful gleaners of pollen. However. Woe to the creature that garnered their ire.


    Alexander retreated back the way he¡¯d come, seeing no reason to tempt fate. The rich odor of monster honey called a siren song to him, but he hardened his will and made careful way back to the familiar side of the mountain. He would be back, but not until he had a plan. It was a caution born of hard earned, and painful, experience. The unknown was always dangerous.

 Chapter 11: Catering to Royalty

    Without further bloodshed or strife, April came to a close. A vibrant, full force, springtime May stomped hard on its heels, and Alexander was busier than an astronaut with three holes in his space suit. The orchard was growing rapidly, saplings already nearly his height, but still far off from producing fruit. Those trees he had put in what had been the baseball field behind the high school. His garden beds were located in the big back yard of the house he was using as his laboratory, fenced in to discourage the critters from snooping into his crops. It wasn¡¯t the animals that were a problem, he found one mild afternoon.


    It was birds that were to be a menace. Crows in particular, judging by their heavy presence in the trees near his home, liked to come down and raid the fast-ripening fruits before he could harvest them and he made his displeasure known by flying a few birds of his own when he saw a plant picked completely clean. The crows definitely possessed some form of distortion compared to their pre-Awakening forms, as they behaved even more intelligently than the already generous praises of the avian rats he¡¯d found in literature. They were larger and more voracious as well.


    Immediately, the youth erected tall poles and hung netting from the school¡¯s batting cages to prevent aerial thieves from having access. The crows cawed at him disdainfully from their perches on limbs, but they were routed, and he was victorious.


    ¡°Fuck you guys.¡± Alexander had said aloud in reply, responding to the raucous feathered commentary of birds denied their purloined breakfast. The too smart crows, displaying their maliciousness, took to the skies and tried to rain bird caca on him in vengeance. He briefly ducked inside the shelter of his home and came out with a shotgun and the warning ¡°It can be war or peace, and I can learn to eat crow you bastards!¡±


    No more bird shit fell and the birds stayed out of his covered food. He planted extra crops that he left uncovered as a peace offering. Never did the young man imagine he¡¯d be conducting hostile diplomacy against avian wiseasses, but then, he hadn¡¯t anticipated many of the changes to his life these past months.


    Young Garifalte¡¯s other tasks proceeded normally, including stirring the tanning vats, vile motherfucking things that they were. The forge was a busy place now, he was actively building a secondary steam engine, with the intent of setting it up next to his lab to provide electricity. He¡¯d just about decided to see if he could harvest the pistons from some car engines to work into a set of smaller steam engines to power each individual piece of machinery in the smithy, getting a lathe, drill press, and whatnot without having to lug them around on pallet jacks would be nice. He also wouldn¡¯t have minded having one available to pump water from the creek and establish running water. These were all time-consuming items and his time was limited.


    Alexander¡¯s board was littered with tasks both completed (few) and ongoing (many).


    This fine morning, two hours before first light, he was leaving his home without even a light breakfast. Today was going to be something special. Today, he was setting aside his normal rotation of duties to go after the unforgettable, indescribable, possibly hexed, monstrous honey of not so many days ago. It had taken a few nights sipping wine, researching, and thinking to come up with a strategy that didn¡¯t land him a savaged mess, the fate of the horned rabbit who had scampered too greedily and too deep into bee territory.


    He was leaning heavily on the tomes that discussed apiaries within his inherited library, as well as that of the town. There had been a few rather usefully detailed items held there that he hadn¡¯t expected. Somebody must have donated their hobby resources at some point in the past, the works all held that musty old book smell that had become increasingly entrancing to Alexander¡¯s senses. Mostly because nothing was normally actively trying to eat him when he was reading within the confines of his lab.


    In any event, there were several common threads to the practices that mitigated bee aggression and prevented the would-be honey bandit from being subject to a swarm. Chief amongst those was the presence of smoke. But not just any smoke, light an aggressively artificial candle or bleached paper and the synthetic compounds could aggravate and heighten the hive¡¯s aggression. No, it would seem that mint family herbs such as thyme, oregano, basil, rosemary, lavender, and the aforementioned namesake of the family were optimal. So it was that Alexander was armed with an improvised smoker holding the smoldering fuel of what had been a jar of Italian spices and a heavy dose of lavender. The wisps of smoke escaping from his calming agent made him think of take-out pizza, a thing of the past. Maybe not so much if his gardening experiments panned out, he was confident of getting seeds from spoiled tomato produce to germinate in the super powered Entling blood enriched soil.


    Another source of aggression were dark colors, which was why Alexander had prepped to don his lab coat over top of his usual gear. The layer of cloth would do nothing against the near foot long stingers but it lightened his coloration. All indications were that bees were triggered by anything colored much lower than a light tan that approached the hive. The browns of raiding bears suggested a link between this behavior and the honey thieves. Similarly, hair and exhalations were all potential triggers for defensive behavior. The soft, fluffy, horned rabbits were dark brown, and thus the incautious bunny had spelled its own doom, sniffling around bearing all the hallmarks of the great enemy. Alexander¡¯s own hair was covered beneath a white ball cap, and he was clean shaven, with a white hospital mask over his face to conceal his breath.


    Thusly prepared, the young man headed out into the cool early morning. He¡¯d chosen this morning because it was one of those throwbacks to early spring, not quite fifty degrees. In the early day¡¯s crispness the hive would be at minimum activity.


    The soft crush of foliage beneath careful steps was muted, his stalking skill growing more impactful as practice reinforced the mystical nudges of the ability. The last Gerifalte figured he would be cat quiet in a few more months of working at it. His breath froze inside him with a single foot stationary mid-step. Speak of the devil. A massive black panther, subtle shimmers of silver on its pelt like a suggestion of Jaguar spots, ghosted from behind a cluster of trees onto the ridge opposite him, unaware of the young man. The still morning air gave none of his scent to the passing hunter and Alexander knew the booming beats of his heart weren¡¯t loud enough for the almost bus sized creature to hear. It was hard to clamp down on the chittering of his monkey brain insisting it might.


    Alexander had fought and killed multiple black panthers in the past few months. Just his last trip out he¡¯d come across the tracks of a brute of a cat. But nothing came remotely close to touching the monster that he was now certain ruled these mountains. Utterly silent in spite of its size, the titanic panther trailed along down the ridge and disappeared behind more trees, as if consumed by the forest. The youth could only remain frozen and contemplate what food source could sustain a creature of that mass. The ropes of muscle along its shoulders and flanks would demand meat by the ton. It was minor consolation that such a creature preying on him would be unlikely except as desperation or incredible convenience. His pitiful hundred and fifty pounds were simply inconsequential, a lion supping on rabbits. Lions were known to eat rabbits though if the opportunity arose for an easy catch.


    For a few more minutes he remained in stasis, barely daring to let his chest rise and fall. Eventually he continued his trek, his steps even more quiet and his attention even more focused on keeping senses honed on the forest. Here be dragons.


    The remainder of the journey from his tiny town to the slope ruled by giant bees was uneventful, if nerve wracking, thanks to the fortuitous sighting of super cat.


    ¡°Game face, Alexander.¡± He remined himself when he sidled over the ridge that led to a treasure of worth to him beyond any amount of gold.


    Buzzing faint at first grew in tone, deepened in pitch, until the droning reminded him of box fans running. Dozens of them. He had arrived with the faint lightening of the sky, mostly hidden by full leaves and dense foliage of mid spring in the Maine Appalachians. Glad he was for the chill on what little skin he had left exposed.


    Piercing eyes scanned the slope, penetrating the gloom of the forest far better than was normal for humanity. The slight rustle of leaves, the flicker of grey fur from squirrels bouncing along the high limbs, the flitting of birds, he noted and catalogued everything before him, homing in on the direction from which the heavy hum of monsterized bees arose. His destination became more obvious as he moved another hundred yards beyond the area where the horned rabbit had been slaughtered: a cave.


    A natural shelf of granite under which a shadow even his eyes couldn¡¯t penetrate led deeper. The resonant voice of the bees was undoubtedly originating from the cave.


    Alexander stopped with his target a scant ten yards away and unburdened himself of his smoker, donning the white coat that draped down around his knees. His smoker was actually a small charcoal grill with the legs sawn off and packed with his bee deterrent herbal mix. A single charcoal biscuit inside would serve to initiate the smoke and he opened the side vents to ensure a draft to let the brick take solid flame. With a struck match the young hunter enkindled his smoker, and he spent precious minutes watching the dry herbs char and cinder before taking flame themselves. Only then did he close the grill top and flip the draft on the sides of the firebox to obstruct the vent. Deprived of airflow, the flames within smoldered now, and spicy smoke smelling of Italian food and lavender scented candles poured forth from the grill¡¯s stack. It was time.


    Cautious, slow steps carried him toward the cave¡¯s mouth and Alexander gently sat the smoker down within the entry to the hive, moving with more confidence now that he was committed. With the smoker in place, he scrambled up and around the side of the cave, improvising to adjust to the new scenario playing out before him. He¡¯d anticipated a tree hive, but a burrow worked even better. Instead of hoping that the bees would be deterred by the smoke hanging around him, he could now thoroughly saturate the hive, hopefully subduing even these massive insectoid monsters. A huge, waxed canvas tarp strapped to his back was unfurled and he covered the entrance to the cave with it, weighting the corners at the top with rocks to hold it in place. He had a role for that fabric, but it was going to play a more important one for now.


    With the cave covered and his smoker pouring off spiced clouds of thick, heavy smoke. White-grey vapors had only one real path to follow: down into the hive. Soon, gravity would pull his becalming blend of effluvium to the source of the incredible bass drone coming from below. Alexander now scampered away some twenty feet distant and he unlimbered the heavy mesh gill net. He¡¯d spent a few hours practicing the throw and he was confident he had the trick of it, but the moment of truth would be different from his training.


    It always was, against the monsters that sprang forth from Gaia¡¯s bosom. He didn¡¯t know when the knuckle ball was coming, but he was certain it would, everything living in these mountains after the Pulse had an ace in the hole. He was no exception, but fighting was a last resort. If he killed the source of the honey, he won no advantage in his great contest against the awakened world. Today wasn¡¯t a day for a temporary feast, today he was playing for the long game. That meant he needed his target alive. If things went awry, he¡¯d bolt, evade, and try again another day armed with whatever he learned from this attempt, should that outcome arise. Unless he didn¡¯t, in which case he was likely dead on the forest floor from horrific bee assault. He would have no problems at all anymore, at that point.


    ¡°Always looking on the bright side, Little Falcon.¡± He whispered to himself from his hiding place in a low tree branch clear of neighboring branches that might interfere with his throw.


    As advertised, the smoke did its job and dog sized bees powered their way almost drunkenly out from behind his canvas cover, their bulk pushing it aside with little hindrance. The bees-wax coating of the canvas prevented the monsters from alarming, it smelled of home and their own working. Alexander kept a running tally on the hive¡¯s numbers while he watched and waited.


    Seventy-three bees later and he finally sighted his prize. A slight effort and his eyes, charged with whatever magic that let him see the nature of things, revealed the truth of the hive¡¯s ruler.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Dire Bee Hive Queen


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Smoke calmed


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 5(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 5(+7)%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    4(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Length


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯1¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arms


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    5/5(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arms


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    55lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    4/2(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Royal Mandibles


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    4/2(+7)%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Three months


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Wings


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Thorax


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Wings


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    5(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Citrine, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    2/1(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    6/5(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    2/1(+7)%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Legs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Legs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    6(+7)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Monster Race:


    Honey Bee-1<sup>st</sup> Tier


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    4/2(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    4/2(+7)%


    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    5(+7)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    6/5(+7)%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    10(+17)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Hive queen, Telepathic brood link, Fecund, Power of ten, One above all


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Blade bite, Corrosive venom, Silvered wings


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Royal honey infusion, Lithic wax


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Flanked by four girthy bees with stingers almost half again as long as their brethren, the mistress of the hive ambled into dappled forest daylight, quite calm in spite of the interruption to her daily affairs. She was much larger, more than fifty pounds and six feet long, according to her stats, with four sets of wings sprouting from her powerful thorax. The broad abdomen that took up two thirds of her bulk pulsated gently under the dawn¡¯s gaining light, emitting a soft coppery glow on occasion. The long antennae sprouting from its head were distinct, almost feathered in appearance. Thick downy fur in the traditional colors of a honeybee, if a little more vibrant, covered her carapace.


    The information on the blue scroll in his sight convinced him of the rightness of his decision to try this at earliest opportunity. The queen had a passive ability that, if he interpreted the alien knowledge provided to his wetware correctly, amplified her strength and defense for every ten subordinate members of the hive. When she was alone, bereft of all her minions, she would obtain the strength of all of them together, a horrifying magnification of strength to contemplate. Other traits and skills and arcana didn¡¯t concern him much but those two did. Whatever else he did, Alexander could not kill the queen last if it came to that.


    Now, he just had to go about snagging her with his net without harming her or triggering an attack. Quick preview of the drones and flanking warriors revealed that they were well equipped with hook-dagger like stingers, a potent venom, less potent than the queen but still capable mandibles, and they could huddle together and do something called an immolation dance that Alexander had no intention of experiencing firsthand.


    Interfering with the feeding of the workers had driven them to strike. What would netting the queen do? If they behaved like normal bees, for whom a beekeeper could palm the queen from one bee box and rehome to another un-stung and un-swarmed, then, so long as he didn¡¯t harm her, nothing. The queen he could carry back to his prepared hive, an empty house with rooms cordoned off by sliding frames from floor to ceiling, giant versions of the apiary frames in a bee box. The netting on the frames was waxed, a process that had taken several of his evenings and a majority of the bees wax he could find in the town, and even seeded with precious honey reserves to convince them to stay around. Expensive in resources, but the payoff¡­now, net, fly true!


    Strong arms made stronger by grueling labor, reflexes honed by combat and the forge, sent the net sailing and he had to resist shouting when the net yawned wide, the small weights along its edges pulling it in a shroud around the queen and her honor guard. Against the relatively minor weight of the netting, the trapped bees descended only a little, but their wings were fouled by the press of the waxed nylon and they dropped to six legged claws on the forest floor. Alexander hopped swiftly down from his branch and moved with steady speed to the cave, pulling free the canvas to release a bank of rolling smoke from his packed grill. Bees idled, many coming to rest on the ground. Their behavior did not change, even after the capture of their matriarch. Against the cool and the fumes, the queen had not yet risen to anger from her enclosure. Her guards, pressed firmly to her had not been given the scent that would send them into fury.


    He had to go quickly now, with haste but not hurry. Any shaking or jostling of the Queen would break the spell of cold and smoke and unleash on him terrible wrath.


    Beneath his white coat and mask, Alexander perspired freely. Now that he had arrived at this point, the hard part was to come. The young man was now in the position of suffering for his success, as he had now to, delicately and gently, escort the queen of the hive back to the new home he had prepared for her. After that, he would work around the fact that he had welcomed into his town a colony of monstrous bees who would assault with savage poisoned knives anything that encroached on their flowers or comb unwittingly.


    Delicately, he ran a stave strapped to his pack through the mesh netting and then secured the fuming grill beneath his pack.


    ¡°Easy does it, sloooooowwwly.¡± He whispered, trying to encourage himself against the presence of the temporarily becalmed swarm.


    Gratitude for the muscles developed from months of hard labors he offered to whatever gods above and below would listen as he lifted the heft of the gently ensnared queen with her guards, bearing them like a hitchhiker¡¯s sack. He hoped the soft sway in the smoke drifting up from around him would act like a hammock, keeping the bees somnolent. So far, so good. Careful, cautious steps took him from the cave, across the forest floor and up the incline. The swarm rustled and his heart rate went wild but the hive merely rose to follow their queen. She had not yet deigned to order their assault. Nothing was too amiss to their senses about the white figure sheathed in smoke. The queen was all, and, so long as she was not alarmed or threatened, they were pacified.


    Alexander prayed quietly for the next five hours as he hiked with painful slowness back to his home. The marked trail he had taken was the gentlest, clearest course, with many winds to avoid steep traversals that might unduly shake the netting hanging from his pole or low branches that might catch and snag. Twice he rested, to avoid slipping on tired legs. The bees dutifully followed their matriarch, the loud drone of their wings a constant press on the youth, a reminder of the penalty for failure. Late afternoon saw the strange sight of a white clad youth carrying a hammocked cluster of bees that grew increasingly restless, accompanied by three score and more hovering workers. The heat of the day was on now and the faint sway of his prize was not his doing.


    Alexander picked up speed, having made the familiar smooth terrain of town. Steps made sure by weird talents gained from the dungeon and the strength of youth carried him with increasing desperation. He had to unload the queen in her new home, or this was all for naught. So much risk!


    Buzzing from the swarm around him deepened, the queen was beginning to become agitated, not even the calming whisps of smoke could placate her.


    Just down the street, two hundred feet away, beckoned the house and Alexander smoothly accelerated to a gliding run. The hive began to zip aggressively, noting the swift movement of the queen and their intent to ensure her safety.


    He cursed to himself, but it couldn¡¯t be helped! He was out of time; the queen was rustling now against the netting and her guards were straining to fly. The last Gerifalte streamed into the house, laid down his prize, and threw back the netting and then tossed himself out the window, with three guard bees coming in hot. The queen had declared herself not well pleased by uncouth treatment and his life was forfeit if they caught him.


    The young man ran, juking on occasion when the drone of a diving bee grew louder in his ears. Tired muscles poured on speed, temporarily empowered by fear for his life. Alexander thought he might just have come away clean when a hammer blow drove into his back. The bladed stinger pierced the backpack effortlessly and skidded off his backplate. Under the momentum of being tackled by a German Shepherd, he skidded across the ground, the guard bee accompanying as it had entangled in the shredded pack. Smoke and embers scattered from his nearly emptied grill in the tumble.


    Instincts screamed at him to roll, and he listened, rewarded by the stabbing dive of another bee in to the asphalt where he¡¯d so briefly lay. Fast!


    The young man shed the straps of his pack, leaving behind the temporarily snared monster bee, and now two took up the pursuit. Alexander flew like his family namesake, sprinting madly through empty streets and around corners of the stone monuments that were the buildings of his hometown. Close behind the bees chased, compound eyes keeping sight of the foe, gnashing mandibles and poison dripping in anticipation of taking vengeance for their queen.


    He tore into the grocery store; its door having been propped open for easy access and kicked the prop loose on his passing. The hound sized warrior bees slammed loudly into the portal. The loud thumping of heavy insectoid bodies let him know he¡¯d bought some time. Rotting food smell permeated the grocery, hopefully obfuscating his scent and slowing the pursuit. He turned the corner of the open rows of now mostly empty shelves, what was useful having been harvested and what wasn¡¯t having gone to mold or scavenging critters and launched himself through the door of the manager¡¯s office, slammed it shut behind him.


    His breathing sounded harsh in the small room and his sides burned. He was glad he hadn¡¯t leaned against the door because a violent slam against it barely presaged the stabbing blade of a stinger driven cleanly through wiggling to find flesh.


    ¡°Holy fucking shit!¡± He shouted, startled by the ease with which it had penetrated the wood door.


    The insectoid version of the Shining flashed in his mind when the stingers began to stab and chip through the apparently soft wood. Alexander was trapped inside the office and two really pissed off bees were joined by a third and progress carving through the door accelerated the clock on his lifespan.


    ¡°Damn, damn, damn, think, think, think.¡± He chanted, looking around for options.


    Killing the monsters was his last resort. If he attacked the bees they would probably remember forever. If that happened, in all likelihood he¡¯d end up having to exterminate the hive. He needed to evade capture, not go out and Rambo, these bees could change his life!If they didn¡¯t end it first.


    Alexander started to raise his eyes to supplicate the unforgiving heavens when he saw the tiled ceiling. The ceiling!


    ¡°Oh, thank you, thank you, all the gods above, below, and in between.¡± The desperate youth praised while climbing a file cabinet to reach the asbestos tiles. Only a light scuffing sound accompanied the shifting of the tile and he easily raised himself with his arms into the crawlspace above. Even after his exertions, his own weight now was little obstacle. Once inside, he replaced the tile and began a slow, silent crawl through his hidden evacuation route. The guardsman bees made it through the door, their buzzing overlapping as it echoed in the small room. Of their target no sign, only a torn white jacket draped across the office chair, which they stung several times for good measure, before retracing their route and beginning a patrol.


    Alexander was already long gone, having dropped down by the door and scrammed back to his laboratory. The home chosen for his new bee colony was halfway across the town, hopefully far too distant to be considered a threat.


    He closed the door into his haven behind himself and let go of a deep sigh of relief, breath leaving him while he slid to the floor. Post terror jitters finally set in after hours of intense stress.


    ¡°Alexander you better hope this hare brained idea was worth it.¡± He told the walls of his lab, semi regretting going through with what might go down as the dumbest thing he¡¯d done since his disastrous fight with the Yetis.


    No guarantees had he on this. Promising signs were had however, the techniques for reducing the aggressive habits of bees had not failed him, only the sheer distance and rough terrain that had been necessary to cross to deliver the prize to its new home. The smoke had worked! So had the lab coat, to a certain extent. He started giggling like a mad man when he recalled walking through the forest with a hive of Ultra bees harmlessly wondering around him. The tables had turned quickly once their sovereign had gotten its six-legged panties in a twist, but safe inside the shelter of the new ¡°hive¡± Alexander was more confident that his gambit would put him ahead.


    ¡°Managed risk.¡± He concluded from his seat on the floor, stifling the wild laughter.


    It wasn¡¯t until he¡¯d spent a few more minutes recovering from the mental toll of the day that he felt up to making a meal. Tonight, was a night for steak, the deep-frozen beef had been set out to thaw inside the quite warm refrigerator, only its airtight seal to trap the odor of fresh meat being useful now to him. Grilled meat, marinated in precious soy sauce, some early harvest produce from the hyper gardens, and potatoes from his stocks, which he seasoned generously with brown sugar and false maple syrup capped off the day.


    One of the weaknesses in his plans became obvious when Alexander awoke to find six Ultra-bees outside his home, not for him, that grudge had been left behind in distant past for insectoid brains, but for the flowers of his gardened plants. The bees lapped hungrily from the enlarged flowers blossoming from stalks flourishing in Entling enriched soil. He¡¯d forgotten that the pollinators would need far more nectar than normal bees and would fly far and wide to get it. He¡¯d also forgotten that whatever juiced up his crops would prove attractive to things that fed on them. Damn. It was with greatest caution that the youth snuck out from a window in a side room to begin rectifying his oversight.


    Alexander collected a flathead shovel and took a detour to the agricultural store, its broken windowpanes and the car crumpled against its walls a routine reminder of the reality of these days. Inside a storage room were the bags of wildflower seeds, purportedly pollinator breeds. The garishly oversaturated pictures on the bags proclaimed that they were ideal for hummingbirds, bees, and flower loving whatnots. He could only hope that a plan cooked up in a moment of shock at the sight of bees humming outside his windows would hold water.


    All through the morning and afternoon, laboring mightily with all his vitality, Alexander dug up yards by using the flat headed shovel to carve dense lawn grass into squares which he then flopped over in reverse, soil side up. Atop the turned sod he scattered his flower seeds generously. Water from the burbling creek soaked the seed into the dark soil.


    Patient stalking around his gardens rewarded him with a window in which he was able to retrieve a few scoops of precious Entling soil from each of his raised beds that evening, coming away with nearly a gallon of the stuff. He sprinkled the plant magic infused material miserly over nearly an acre of yard turned improvised wildflower garden. If this worked the way he theorized, the enhanced dirt would promote blossoming of plants that developed according to the new rules of this mad world. The last Gerifalte figured that fertilizing the seeds would create plants capable of drawing and sustaining his new swarm of bees, giving them a closer food source than his gardens.


    Return to his previous schedule of research into manufacturing and chemical refinement methods, tending the shitholes of the tannery, pounding out pieces of machinery on George and promptly ruining those pieces with unpracticed use of the lathe filled his days for two weeks. In that time, he¡¯d hunted the big panther spotted on his way through the forest, mostly because it tried to eat him. The big one, not the humongous one mind. Panther Rex he did not see and hoped never to.


    In an alarming encounter, he nearly killed himself pulling what looked like a particularly vibrant herb, silver glistening fronds promising potency for his growing cache of alchemical supplies. The roots of the plant, taking the shape of a horridly withered old man opened a yawning toothed maw and howled and his brains nearly scrambled. Bleeding from the ears, eyes, and nose, and quite deaf, Alexander beat the mandrake to death with his spade, missing half his strikes due to vertigo, and stuffed the pulped remains of the root-man into a liter flask he carried for his botanical adventures, the herbaceous top hanging to dry in his chemistry lab. Then he retired for the rest of that day, becoming half paralyzed as the damage to his brain took on the symptoms of a stroke. It wasn¡¯t until the healing light of the third dawn that he was restored fully. Another brutal lesson on the risks of facing the unknown.


    Mandrake properties were worth the effort, now that he knew what he faced in the harvesting. Industrial grade earmuffs were necessary to do it without being blasted by the sonic attack, but, with those and a swift knife, one could kill the shrieking root before it managed to curdle one¡¯s grey matter. He tasted the first one to reveal its secrets, taking the smallest sample possible to avoid reading about its toxicology while suffering it first-hand.


    <table style="width: 72.516%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Silver Mandrake Leaf: the leaves of the reclusive and dangerous forest dwelling plant serve as a bountifully nutritious, if tough, salad green. Heating, boiling, or charring induces the formation of toxic complexes characterized by inability to clot blood and rupture of blood vessel walls. Rapid cooling to freezing within a minute of forming the hemotoxin converts it into a powerful clotting agent that seals damaged blood vessels and promotes their rapid regeneration.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    The trick then was that Alexander needed a polar core or a way to generate dry ice to flash cool the leaves if he wanted to make a magical quick clot to enhance his trauma kit. With something like this, he would have come far less close to dying to the Yetis. On the other hand, the anticoagulation and hemorrhage inducing toxins had their own uses in his growing arsenal. Blow darts or glass vials inserted between the blades of his planned broadhead arrows would make those ranged options far better suited to tackling dangerous game.


    Even better than the leaves, was that bastard little homunculus of a root ball. As soon as the flavor of starch and almonds hit his tongue from a paper-thin shaving no larger than a fine point sharpie¡¯s tip, coursing pain rocked the young man like electricity, and he woke up in a puddle of his own fluids. He clambered sweaty and weak up the side of his lab bench and barely managed to get his legs to support him long enough to sit in the chair. It took real effort this time to call up the mystical scroll of knowledge, gained through traumatic experience.


    <table style="width: 73.6378%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Silver Mandrake Root: the disconcertingly shaped root of the reclusive and dangerous forest dwelling plant serves as a bountifully nutritious starchy food, if only it were not also lethally toxic when chewed. Bruising and mashing of the root frees a cocktail of neurotoxins and a potent mage bane that renders harnessing of the core¡¯s energy impossible for seconds to hours, depending on the dose. The root¡¯s liquids may be refined to purify poison.


    Insufficient skill to resolve further property, proceed with caution.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Proceed with caution. Thanks, chief, he thought, hanging onto the contents of his stomach just barely.


    It was a fitting chorus to the beating drums between his ears, accompanied by the unrelenting feel of a vice around his skull. Alexander needed to find a better way to test things without putting them into his mouth. Or, at the very least, he needed a way to shave much, much smaller pieces of things before doing so. His skill didn¡¯t seem to care how large the sample was, only that it was consumed.


    Two days he lost recovering from the weakness induced by Mandrake root, unwilling to leave his home in such vulnerable condition, which brought him up to a solid three in total thanks to the wicked little fern-topped onion man. When the third day¡¯s healing light restored his strength, Alexander went hunting for more and harvested a butcher¡¯s dozen of the bastards. His pain would be shared, in the form of Oil of Hemorrhage, as he called the purified heated extract from the leaves. Mindflayer Tears is what he called the neurotoxin cocktail, which he produced with half the root balls, crushed, strained, distilled, and crystallized into blue-silver hexagonal crystals, like a far more beautiful copper-sulfate, upon purification. Crystals that were as much more deadly as they were beautiful, compared to their mundane comparison.


    All the while that Alexander labored, his garden grew, his field of wildflowers sprouted into evolved counterparts loaded with gods knew what fantastic horseshit, and the Dire Bees made of the reframed house their hive, hexagonal cells loaded with eggs, and others, with the entrancing honey. Soon, after a few months, the novice beekeeper would come to collect his dues. If he was allowed to have any luck, unperforated. The thought of honey stopped the young man mid hammer swing in his shop, where he was making improvements to the great machines of industry he needed.


    After relocating his hive, he¡¯d returned to the cave, to collect what honey remained before the wildlife claimed it. Most was gone, eaten by the workers when the smoke had driven them out, as bees did when they were making ready to relocate the hive, so that it could be taken with them when they found a new location for their matriarch. What hadn¡¯t been taken by the hive filled six gallon sized milk jugs, spooned up from the floor of the cave and off the combs inside. Several hexagonal cells had been opened and the remains of the larva found. The bees had eaten the young, rather than leave them. Nothing of the hive was wasted, precious resources had to be retrieved. A heavy contractor¡¯s plastic bag Alexander had filled with wax, after eating a bit to examine its properties.


    <table style="width: 72.7564%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="634">


    Dire Bee Wax: processed by a mana infused honeybee, this amber colored material has similar properties to mundane cousins with a few notable exceptions. The solid wax has material strength similar to marble and possesses a high degree of flame resistance, despite its identical melting point of normal wax. Can be activated to achieve high volatility and flammability, making it ideal as a candle or lantern binding agent under the hands of a skilled alchemist. Impermeability to water and resistance to chemical attack make it relatively stable and hypoallergenic, and acts as a breathable film, permitting air to move through its structure but not water. Possesses unique property of instantaneous phase change, melting and freezing only once the entire continuous piece of material has reached the same temperature.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Many applications immediately sprung to mind for this wonder material, not the least of them long lasting light sources, a problem he had not yet resolved. As remarkable as the wax was, however, the true prize was that golden liquid. A taste, a spoonful and nothing more, and Alexander Gerifalte knew heaven was real.


    He savored a rich sweetness that possessed myriad flavors tied together to form a unity of experience. For a few moments, Alexander achieved Zen oneness and did not move. The head rush faded, taking the oneness with it, and it took all his will to not try another spoonful. Manic energy filled his limbs and auditory hallucinations of chimes gently ringing filled the air. Tireless, he made the trip back to his laboratory at a run and did not notice he¡¯d exhausted himself until the buzz from the mad honey version EX ran its course.


    When it did, he dropped like a sack of bricks and slept for hours on the floor of his study. Waking, he found scrawled notes on half a dozen sheets of paper from seven different texts on his table, with no logical connection between them. Later, after another tasting of the honey under more controlled circumstances, the young man woke to find that the variable transmission had been outlined and drawn up, along with matings for the other devices in his workshop. His refrigerator had also been raided and a huge portion of canned peaches and spinach eaten, along with an entire pack of bacon. Risks and rewards he had from this enchanting liquid. As much as tripping balls and working out advanced mechanical engineering projects was awesome, rising without a stitch of clothes, having gone who knows where, and cleaning out precious food supplies was dangerous. He needed to detox the honey or find a way to ameliorate the effects before he could truly rely on this sustenance.

 Chapter 12: Lost Boy No Longer

    One of the things nobody tells you about living in a world wild and, largely, alone, is that your mind goes weird. Shadows loom larger, the dark gets deeper, and the light of the sun more precious. When you tend crops, rain suddenly becomes a person, to be greeted, welcomed, and implored to return swiftly. Pests and animals that you wouldn¡¯t have thought of twice before, became foes to be vanquished. Like those raccoons, the masked little bastards. Or the wretched crows, waiting, jabbering, plotting on his crops.


    Alexander had not been a spiritual person, and neither had his parents. They were quite secular, which was a little unusual in this town. While the majority of the population spent Sunday mornings at the local churches, his family was making a big brunch and planning something outdoorsy, or he was helping the old man tinker with some project. Daily brushes with death or ruin put things into perspective a bit, mostly the lack of control you have in what goes on in the world.


    The end result of that, was that your mind approached things a little differently, you gained a certain fatalism blended with personification of the world around you, attributing to it an almost Shinto spirit held by all things. Or, at least, he had. None of it was real, of course, his brain knew that. His brain also knew, deep down, that nothing was real ever since his plane had fallen from the sky. So, when what was real or not got a little foggy, no harm in indulging a bit of the fantastic. That is to say, when he put the finishing touches on a variable speed transmission on George the power hammer, he thanked the hammer for its hard work, the metal of the gears fashioned from a golem¡¯s corpse, and the spirits of knowledge that had granted him the ability to craft the vital upgrade to one of his most important tools and was not ashamed to do so.


    The noise of the steam engine, muted by his ear plugs, served as a steady beat and he practiced shifting George from half beat, quarter beat, to full beat, the three settings he felt comfortable working with. Before, the great industrial machine had only had a single speed of about one stroke per second. Alexander had improved his skills handling metal with tongs and could keep up with a faster stroke. He even had the ability to control George¡¯s strength, with levers to produce reduced force. Modulating the output had been tricky, but Alexander had added pressure valves to vent steam and could do finer work without resorting to grabbing his smithing hammer. The same variable transmission could be copied to Ricky, the Lathe, Jerry, the band saw, and Tabitha, the drill press, to give him a bit more control. These tools, retrofitted for alternate power, opened the manufacturing playbook, and many of the schematics he¡¯d considered nonviable before the winter were now on the table.


    Agriculture was going well, and he was more or less assured of food for the winter, if only this winter. Beyond that and the expiration dates on his stocks added too many question marks for confidence. Alexander had needed a greenhouse, so he built one. Rice would grow poorly in this northern climate, so would peppers, and anything subtropical, which included lemon trees, oranges, and couldn¡¯t hurt for grapes. A 4b to 5b climate demanded warmth and higher humidity than Maine offered, so, for three days, the young survivor of the end times built a bombproof structure framed by two by fours and paneled with what were once astronomically priced double paned windows from the hardware store. The temperature, according to a mercury thermometer, stayed a nice, balmy, eighty-seven degrees, even on a sixty-degree late May morning.


    He needed an irrigation system for said greenhouse, so he rigged one up with PVC, fittings, and some drip tape. Screws he had aplenty, and brackets, and hosing, and a particularly wonderful tome describing the marvels of a ram pump gave him the ability to use head pressure from the creek to push water uphill and through his drip irrigation system.


    Things were going so well that when a huge, shaggy bear with foot long claws ambled from the mountain to tear into his Dire Bee hive, he wasn¡¯t even surprised. Just horrified. The sound of boards breaking, and a pained roar launched him to his feet and he was out of the drafting room in his smithy before he¡¯d stopped to register the source of the sound, spear in hand.


    Sight of the great animal, obviously a mana infused mutant variant, pulled him up short. The bear was halfway into the house, digging through an exterior wall, menacing growls rumbling Alexander¡¯s ribcage as it snapped at defending bees.


    It had roared because the Dire Bees were pissed, their queen had ordered the bear removed from the premises with prejudice, and they were complying with alacrity. Several had been swatted into insectoid pulp, but the hive¡¯s number had doubled with access to rich, Entling boosted nectars and a massive new home that agreed with the queen¡¯s tastes. More than two dozen were currently fighting through the thick fur, silvered, but in a metallic way, not a natural fur way, and when one managed to reach flesh, the bear roared its pain.


    Abruptly, the assault on its back and hindquarters became too much, and the great bear pulled its head and shoulders free of the hive to slaughter the belligerent defenders stinging it. When it turned, it immediately locked beady, vicious eyes on Alexander and dug claws in, muscles visibly tightening to charge.


    ¡°Oh, fuck you, Pooh-bear!¡± Alexander shouted, and he cut loose a volley of Chaos Strikes, just about the time the bear threw itself forward.


    Streaking orbs of entropic energy slammed into the bear¡¯s head and neck, and it slid to the ground, dragging its face against the concrete, trying to shave off the agonizing magic eating away at eyes, nose, and throat. Experience against the beasts and monsters had taught the young hunter well and he was leaping forward with the spear leading, seizing the opportunity to deliver a mortal blow while the great creature was distracted. He needed to get in and get out, the swarming Dire Bees hadn¡¯t turned their attention to him yet, but he wasn¡¯t counting on that for long.


    Whether the bees knew friend from foe wasn¡¯t something he wanted to test.


    A running leap took the young man high. His sailing arc, spear held ready, legs tucked, made him into a blade tipped bundle of deadly inertia. Alexander Gerifalte dove down on the bear¡¯s neck with all his momentum behind the sword bladed spear forged of golem High steel. Glittering razor edged metal slipped through fur that offered surprising resistance, resistance weakened by the infusion of chaos magic he was channeling strongly into the weapon. His full weight applied against the tip finished the contest. The spear entered the bear¡¯s spine, rending nerve tissue.


    Alexander felt a moment of elation when his attack slammed home, short-lived because the bear spasmed and threw him in flat trajectory through the window of a neighboring house across the street. His head clipped the window frame and he saw stars, taking an unknown number of seconds to realize he was hanging by his legs in the window frame, half his body inside the house, legs outside. Broken glass had delivered several nasty cuts to his shoulder and arm. Wetness in his eyes wiped away to reveal blood sheeting from a long cut along the top of his head. Unthinking from the violence of the crash, he pulled free a thin wedge of glass, a sickening sucking feeling from skin and meat clinging to the shard made him nauseous when he wrested the thing from his arm.


    For a moment longer his senses were dazed. When they returned, he had the awareness to roll back into the house, throwing legs back to keep them from being lacerated by the remaining glass in the portal through which he¡¯d entered. Darting eyes glancing over the sill saw the bear, his spear still inside it, and the bees were finishing what they¡¯d started. Weak twitches from crippled paws couldn¡¯t stop them from targeting the bear¡¯s face and head, especially those locations weakened by the last Gerifalte¡¯s chaos magic.


    Alexander took the opportunity to break out his trauma kit, pulling bandages free of the pouch, and opening a Ziplock bag containing the powder that was a combination of normal and enhanced mandrake leaf quick clot. Blood instantly stopped pouring from the shoulder and arm and he applied it to his head as well, grateful for the potent stinging that accompanied blood vessels sealing themselves off along the wounds. Miraculous stuff. Hands too practiced for his own liking applied bandaging and tied it off quickly. Thirty seconds after being thrown through the window, and Alexander was ready to rejoin the fight.


    Only, there was no fight. The bear¡¯s maw was yawning, and it shuddered once before stilling. Dire Bees made certain of the job in a gruesomely complete fashion. He smartly hid within the empty home to avoid their wrath. When the bees satisfied themselves that the bear would never rise to trespass again, they departed back inside the house containing their hive. Already, workers within had begun applying enhanced Dire Bee wax to seal the opening.


    ¡°Just another day in paradise.¡± Alexander Garifalte observed, brushing glass off his smithing clothes.


    ¡°Maybe I should start wearing the armor all the time? Or, I dunno, figure out how to make super clothes out of a monsterized flax or something, godsdamn.¡± He mused, not happy that he might have been killed by the glass on his way through that window.


    He exited the door and, slowly, approached the bear corpse. Slowly because he was afraid any quick motions might draw the bees¡¯ attention. They appeared fixated on repairing their hive though, so he walked slow, steady, and pulled his spear free without hurry.


    ¡°Okay, okay, first thing¡¯s first, I gotta get the core out.¡± The young man whispered, talking himself through the situation, as had become normal.


    Quick strokes with the knife in his hand opened only a thin line through incredibly tough bearskin, and he exerted strength to peel back the hide, sliding his knife along the meat as he did to make a larger hole. It was easier to cut his way through thick muscle, a path up through the bear¡¯s diaphragm. He reached his arm into the wound up to his shoulder and dug around until his hand brushed a hard, crystalline shape, which he pulled free from the gory channel. Blood dripped, still warm, from the limb holding the core, and he slipped it into a pouch, careless of the viscera still attached to it, or to him.


    Another tentative scan of the work on the damage inflicted by the bear showed impressive progress closing the hole in the building. If Alexander wanted beeswax, he had all he could ever ask for. Harvesting it might be a trick, however. Same story as the honey, solve that problem, solve both.


    A shiver crawled across his skin at the thought of honey and reminiscence unbidden claimed him.


    Alexander snapped himself free of the memory and the craving for honey and returned to his work on the bear. He cut free the claws and large canines from the bear¡¯s jaws. Next, Alexander began the laborious task of skinning this massive beast. Hide bound to meat by tough connective tissue proved incredibly tough to separate. Two hours of effort and even smith strengthened hands were stiff and weak from strain. The hide had been peeled from neck and one massive shoulder.


    ¡°Damn, this is going to be a whole ordeal.¡± the young hunter summarized.


    Dark was falling, this last day of May, and he retreated to his home, keeping watchful eyes on his surroundings while he stealthed. The bear was a pertinent reminder to stay vigilant. Nowhere was truly safe anymore, but he was adjusting to it.


    Morning came and he rose earlier than the sun, hurrying through breakfast to get a jump on skinning out that bear. He wore his motorcycle leathers turned scale armor this time, with the helmet secured by quick release knot on his belt just in case he had to fight off bees mistaking his scavenging for aggression. The smell of flowering garden plants and soil was thick as he headed to the site. Yards converted into wildflower fields were already sprouting, shoots of various kinds coming up, a few even forming buds already. Just another couple of weeks and there would be magically enhanced wilding areas to power feed his apiary.


    Humidity in the air was up, and the clouds overhead promised rain. A quick word of thanks to the clouds for their bounty was all he spared before diving back into the corpse of the bear. Helicopter droning of many large wings hummed in the hive-house, but none of the workers were out yet, what with the hour being just before sunrise, so Alexander plied his knife with gusto. Lessons learned about how to peel the hide from the tissue beneath accelerated his pace, as did a good night¡¯s sleep and no time spent handling tongs and heavy metal in the smithy.


    Day broke as he was peeling the fur back from the shoulders of the bear, both of its thick, powerful arms freed from the skin, muscles defined clearly. The bear meat, some thousand pounds or so of it, would go into his freezer and be good eating for a long time. He¡¯d bring a hacksaw with him to part it up and haul it to the polar cored freezers just as soon as he finished with the skin. Alexander didn¡¯t know what he was going to use this shaggy fur for yet, but it had resisted the attempts of the swarming hive to penetrate it and anything that could be made into a type of defensive layer he was all about acquiring.


    None of the bees approached, not even while he got vigorous about tugging and pulling on sections of fur. They had, to all appearances, decided that he was not a threat to the hive. Perhaps these super bees were possessed of intelligence and a critter carving on a former enemy was not considered a problem to be dealt with. He didn¡¯t know and didn¡¯t care, so long as it meant he went about his business unmolested. Maybe they¡¯d forgiven him for his rude treatment of their queen in exchange for the wonderful new hive? Nonsense, he got back to it.


    A strange sound, discordant, awkward to his ears roused him from his work and he raised his head to see what had disrupted the single-minded focus of delaminating the skin from the muscle it covered.


    After a few more seconds, a part of his brain long unused recognized the sound as human speech. It was people. He was hearing people talk!


    Alexander grinned wildly and nearly broke into a sprint, unthinking of the blood and gore on his body and clothes and the knife in his hand. He was only halted because the sources of the sound were before him, striding down the street as if unconcerned by the monsters that were prowling. The sight of humans made his heart jump into action, sheer excitement.


    If not for his habit of talking to himself, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to form proper words. As it was, the act of speaking aloud, projecting his voice for another to hear instead of muttering to himself, sounded awkward and rough.


    ¡°He- Hey! Heeey! Don¡¯t piss off the bees!¡± He called, nervously glancing to the hive and its, for now, docile swarm of workers.


    The last thing he needed was the for the first people he¡¯d met since falling out of the sky to get murdered by his honeybees.


    Five adults, of varying ages, took in the sight of a young man in black leather and metal armor, covered in blood, and with a long silver knife standing over the half-flayed carcass of a giant bear, grinning madly and yelling about bees and stopped, incredulous. The close proximity of a hive of murderous hornets he treated nearly as if they were a normal part of the scenery.


    A young woman, red of hair and tall of stature, called out to the unexpected sapient and said, ¡°Are you fucking crazy, or what? !¡±


    Alexander examined that question and gave it due consideration. Was he crazy? Events of recent months skittered through his thoughts rapidly.


    ¡°Yep! Crazy like a fox!¡± He replied with confidence.


    The group turned to each other and the woman who¡¯d asked shrugged.


    A man, younger than most of them but older than Alexander beckoned with an armored hand, and suggested ¡°C¡¯mon over, we¡¯re here on a scout, we don¡¯t want to get close to that swarm. I¡¯ve seen those things get nasty, even if they don¡¯t look like they¡¯re bothering you too much.¡±


    He was smaller than most of the group, shorter and thinner than any but one stout woman of African descent. That was when the excitement of seeing real people instead of statues wore away enough for him to notice that all of these people were armed and armored. Well, of course they were! Only a very quickly dead moron would be wondering around otherwise. It was the nature of their armor that surprised him though.


    They looked like something out of a Berserk cosplay. Very Medieval, maybe a little Iron age leaning. He saw chain mail and half plate, and they each had a big cross bow although only two carried it ready to deploy its wicked bolt. A large man carried a halberd, or a billhook, or something, anyway a big, long polearm with hooked blades and a spearpoint. The younger, smaller guy who waved at him had a short, wide, thirty-inch-long broadsword and a big kite shield that looked like wood laminated with aluminum. The redhead who questioned his sanity was holding a spear just longer than she was tall, some six and a half feet, with winged blades at the side of a two-foot spearhead.


    Smart folk, spears were where it was at for dealing with monsters.


    The third man was wearing heavier armor than the rest, a full great helm, and a big broad bladed axe on his back that looked like it was for splitting Entlings. He had to be a hoss to swing that thing, no wonder he was holding a cross bow until he needed to wield that monster. The short black lady in light chain hauberk and sturdy metal studded leather armor was also holding her crossbow, but a long straight sword, like a big rapier or something was on her hip, almost as long as she was tall, right around five and a half feet.


    Was this real life?


    Alexander approached the group slowly, wondering if he¡¯d drifted off into full on lunacy, despite his earlier reply to the woman¡¯s question. All things considered, with Fantasia to back it up, he definitely had a screw loose. But he wasn¡¯t insane, not just yet. Just to be sure, he used his Greater Analyze to see if he could bring up information about them, the way he did monsters. Lo¡¯ and Behold! It worked!


    Shimmering scrolls unfurled with information about the travelers, which he gave a cursory inspection. He was absorbed momentarily by the fact that he could even use the skill on people he had just met. Fascinating.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Brigitte O¡¯Conner


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Lithic Lancer


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Fresh, cautious


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 20%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 90%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯6¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    18/30 impact/crush resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    159lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Illyrian Helm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    22


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Metal Scale Mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Metal Scale Mail


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Boulder Opal, half rose


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    21/35 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winged Spear


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Metal Scale Mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    14(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Changeling)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Hybrid Metal/Leather Cuisses


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    18/30 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Hybrid Metal/Leather Cuisses


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Metal Scale Mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Earthen bulwark, Rage, Greater stamina, Gaia¡¯s child


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser full thrust, Leap, Lesser pole vault, Minor harden blade


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser stone spear, Minor shape stone


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Each of the travelers shivered slightly and the tall ginger lady whose scroll he was looking at scowled at him, ¡°It¡¯s rude to peek, jerk. What the hell kind of inspect is that anyway, it feels like I¡¯m down to my panties.¡±


    Alexander shrugged, ¡°Sorry, but you folk sort of just appeared, and the last time I saw people they were zombies. I didn¡¯t even know if the inspection skill would even work on anything that wasn¡¯t a monster.¡±


    The young man frowned back at the glaring stranger and bluntly decided he might as well tell her the truth of the matter in no nonsense tones, ¡°Besides, your privacy is always secondary to my not being eaten today.¡±


    She mulled that over and her eyebrows raised. Abruptly she calmed and shrugged, ¡°You know what? That¡¯s fair.¡±


    He wondered at the wrinkling nose of the axe carrier¡¯s face until he remembered that he was coated in a thin film of dead bear, and the temperature was rising.


    ¡°Ah, uh, you¡¯ll have to excuse me, I was just, umm, you know, busy. With all that, and stuff.¡± Alexander said waving generally toward the grizzly corpse.


    The big black dude with the polearm shook his head and smiled, amused at the situation.


    ¡°Did you kill that thing yourself?¡± He asked, skeptical, his voice rough, but not hostile in tone.


    ¡°Weeeell,¡± He hedged, ¡°Not entirely.¡±


    A leading glance at the repair work going on led by team ultra-bee accompanied his explanation.


    ¡°It was going after my beehive and they were complaining with stingers, but not having too much luck. When it turned around to swat them, I was checking to see the commotion, sort of felt like I needed to protect my bee products investment, and it made to charge me, so I stabbed it in the spine. Got tossed through that window over there while it spasmed and the hive got in there and finished it off for me while I did some first aid.¡± He babbled indicating his head, which he had stitched that night, and arm area, which was similarly stitched and bandaged beneath his armor.


    He was aware that he was babbling but he couldn¡¯t help it! People! He wasn¡¯t alone for the first time since everything had gone to hell.


    The dark-skinned lady, like, really dark, east African ancestry or something, must have picked up on something and said sadly, ¡°You¡¯ve been alone all this time, haven¡¯t you?¡±


    His eyes burned for no reason, and he rubbed a sleeve across them, not caring about the smear of bear stuff on his face. Allergies. It figured they¡¯d flair up with all the pollen.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± He said, his voice going shaky, ¡°Right from the beginning. I was flying. The plane died and I crashed, and everybody was statues.¡±


    The young man couldn¡¯t help a small, short laugh at the ridiculousness of those first days, bashed and broken by the wreck and then attacked by wolves, of all things.


    ¡°The animals were trying to kill me, stuff that shouldn¡¯t even be found around here, and then there were goblins or something. They ate everybody else, but I didn¡¯t know that until I found their cave and killed them all, and it was too late. I didn¡¯t know. All winter long it was Yetis and bears and trying not to freeze. Come spring, the zombies had killed off the next town I guess, because they came over to resident evil me up, so I had to go fuck up a reaper or wraith or something. Then it was time to grow food and I couldn¡¯t travel too far on foot, and just leave everyone like this, even after I got rid of all the zombies. It¡¯s my home. It was my home. My folks are here, all stone, and I didn¡¯t want to leave them like that.¡±


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    He was crying by the end of the story, and he couldn¡¯t stop. It was weird to feel tears without feeling sadness. Maybe sadness was just a part of him now. Whatever, it was super embarrassing, him breaking down in front of the bad asses.


    The group looked uncomfortable, but it wasn¡¯t like he could do anything about that. They found him, not the other way around, so they could just deal with it.


    ¡°Jesus Christ.¡± Muttered the guy with the axe.


    He was having a hard time with going back over those first days, they mostly lived as nightmares in his sleep. Same story for the goblins turning his friends and neighbors into stew and zombies lurching around in the dark waiting for him.


    Get your shit together, Little Falcon, he hissed to himself. It wasn¡¯t like he was the only one who had lost people, all these travelers probably lost loved ones, and they weren¡¯t sobbing like little girls over it. It took him a second to get himself under control and he remembered to put up his knife, which made everybody a little more comfortable.


    ¡°C¡¯mon. You guys must have been traveling a while.¡± He said, trying to pretend to be casual, ¡°The garden¡¯s making pretty good now, and bear might not sound like it, but it cooks up alright if you season it.¡±


    Alexander turned to lead these strange survivors to his laboratory, before their presence got his bees riled up, or something big decided to come investigate the noise and dead animal smell.


    They shrugged and followed, and he only stopped long enough to carve off a set of steaks from the bear and retrieve his still unenchanted naginata. Opportunists would be along shortly to start in on the creature.


    Hell with it, he commented to himself. His morning was shot what with the advent of the team of marauders, explorers or bounty hunters, or whatever these armed and armored travelers were.


    The redheaded woman, even taller than him, asked, ¡°So¡­you said goblins? And zombies. How did you, uh, you know, get them to stop coming?¡±


    Alexander wondered how they¡¯d been dealing with the monsters and the dungeons all this time if they didn¡¯t know something like that. Or, perhaps, they did know and wanted to see if he did. Briefly, he considered keeping back information and then decided against it. They were humans, and all the humans were in this together against whatever had happened to the world. If somebody died because he didn¡¯t tell them something vital, he might as well have knifed them in the back himself.


    ¡°Found their dungeon core.¡± He told the group, ¡°Some kind of big magic crystal deep inside the odd space called a ¡®contested zone¡¯. I don¡¯t know much except that it warps reality, and I¡¯m not sure the place is Earth inside there. One of the places was called Tirnanog and the other was Tech¡¯duinn. I Looked them up, they¡¯re like, domains of myths in Irish folklore. The goblins came from Tirnanog, land of the fairies, and the undead from Tech¡¯duinn, realm of the dead or slain or something close to it. You find the core, and, I dunno, I stabbed it. Anyway, it bled out its magic and I absorbed some of it and the planet spoke to me, did something weird to my body too, but you guys look like you have something similar, you all have the classes and stuff like I do.¡± The last Gerifalte rambled, having already scoped the travelers out before he approached and committed to truth telling.


    They had interesting blue scrolls, just like his, but he couldn¡¯t stop to study them in exacting detail, or he¡¯d look like a nutjob staring into nothing. That didn¡¯t mean he hadn¡¯t used his Greater Analyze to make certain they weren¡¯t hiding nefarious secrets or weren¡¯t what they appeared, although he¡¯d have to be careful with that because people could tell when you were snooping on them, which was a good thing. That meant he¡¯d know if someone were doing it back to him.


    He wasn¡¯t ashamed of his caution, he was excited, not stupid. Who knows whether some particularly smart necromancer would use fresh corpses only and pretend to be friends on the road. Trust but verify. That was the only reason he¡¯d come close to these people in the first place. If they¡¯d been zombies, he would have played dumb a little longer to suss out what their summoner was hoping to gain from deceit, or where it might be hiding.


    The youngish guy with the shield whispered, ¡°He raided the dungeons alone?¡± to his comrades, but Alexander¡¯s hearing was impeccable, and he could read lips easily with his cracked vision.


    He guessed most people hadn¡¯t been forced to do everything by themselves. Well, tough shit for him he supposed. Some people just got all the luck like that.


    ¡°I used guns when it started, you know.¡± Alexander explained, making sure they didn¡¯t get the idea he was a lunatic jumping monsters with a spear right off the bat, ¡°I¡¯m a decent shot, my parents were in the navy and my dad took me Upta, just like all the good old boys around here. Big calibers did okay on the small stuff, but whatever Soak is, it just eats up muzzle energy, so you gotta do something else if you want to kill the bigger things. Course, you all know that, seeing as how you¡¯re armed with magic laced gear that bypasses that crazy shit, at least a little.¡± He continued, while opening the door to his home away from home.


    The kitchen was impeccably clean, as always. He would not leave food scent to prompt a predator to investigate his sanctuary.


    ¡°Come on in. I¡¯ll get some tea going and you guys can tell me what¡¯s been going on since October. Then I¡¯ll show you the around the workshop, I guess, and the gardens. If anybody was a machinist, I¡¯d appreciate it if you don¡¯t laugh.¡± He nattered on, self-conscious about the crudeness of the life he¡¯d cobbled together, ¡°My set up is rough, barebones as all hell, but it¡¯s all I could get to work with what all got cooked by the Pulse.¡±


    Alexander couldn¡¯t help brightening up a little at the mention of his smithy.


    More cheerful now he went on, ¡°There¡¯s this really neat golem metal there. Don¡¯t know if this has happened to any of you, but it turns out magic can make piles of silver ore come to life to try to eat you. Their bodies make amazing mats for forging though, so long as you can manage to smelt them, so I¡¯m kind of hoping another one tries it. All kinds of neat shit out there if you don¡¯t get killed getting it. Like my sweet ass bees! Yetis have some crazy cool fur but they¡¯re sneaky fuckers, and you gotta keep your eyes peeled on those claws. Got ripped up pretty bad one time and had to lay in ice water to make it to that weird third sun rise, would not recommend. Just sit wherever and make yourselves comfortable.¡±


    For the first time since the world ended, Alexander Gerifalte gabbed, elated to at long last have company over, even if they were strangers. The group entered and the big axe carrying guy from before echoed his earlier statement, ¡°Jesus Christ.¡± as he wrapped up his rant. Nods of agreement and incredulous expressions were shared by the adventurers.


    ¡°It¡¯s, um, thank you for welcoming us, perhaps we should introduce ourselves.¡± The sword and board guy, Alexander recalled the blue scroll that had read Mark Ross, said, while the assembled party sat in the indicated chairs, except for the halberd dude that barely fit through the door.


    The large man slouched against the kitchen wall his eyes restless and alert. That was good, apparently at least one of them knew to keep their head on a swivel, even in ¡°safe¡± places. For his own part, Alexander had been ready for something to come investigate the noise of the armored troop since he laid eyes on them. It was a slight risk, bringing them here, but he couldn¡¯t very well entertain guests in the street.


    ¡°I know all your names, from when I checked you out earlier, but feel free to do it official.¡± Alexander told them, distracted by trying to figure out how much tea he needed to serve.


    He liked his dark and acid strong, but figured visitors probably would want something a little milder, so he multiplied his normal dose by six then cut it in half.


    The large man cradling his polearm weapon snorted at the blunt admission.


    ¡°At least he¡¯s honest. I¡¯m Benjamin, Steel Heavy Knight, main attacker, most veteran member, and monster hunter of this little party.¡± The big black guy declared, a note of good humor in a gravelly voice.


    ¡°Brig, Lithic Lancer, off tank and flex offence, and I whack monsters almost as good as Ben, just with better knockers.¡± Chirped the tall ginger lady from her chair, her spear propped up against her shoulder.


    Okay, well, Alexander would just mark that down in case it ever became handy.


    The small woman rolled her eyes at her crass companion and said with a mellow, warm tone, ¡°Melinda, Luminous Pathfinder, flanker and shot caller, our team¡¯s scout and navigator.¡±


    Next to her, the handsome square jawed blond blue-eyed guy on the short side with a neat looking sword and shield raised a gauntleted hand halfway and announced cool and calm, ¡°Mark, Burning Legionnaire, anchor tank, party leader, second most veteran monster hunter, I report to the brass so Ben doesn¡¯t put his feet in his mouth and get us exiled.¡±


    Axe guy, with light brown hair, built like an Abrams, with a jovial face and a deep tan, lounged and chuckled at their leader¡¯s reasoning for being in charge before adding in a deep baritone, ¡°Cliff, Kinetic Berserker, main attacker, not an official party member, I¡¯m pinch hitting for one of the big three Guilds ¡®cause they thought somebody needed to keep this lot on target and get intel on what was kicking off in the north.¡±


    Wow. That was an impressive list. Alexander finished getting the small charcoal fire lit for the tea, put the water on, and reciprocated, ¡°Alexander, Entropic Venator. Solo monster slayer, by default, I guess. Mostly I flank, scout, trap, snipe, and keep my head down until I can put things down for sure; I prefer not to get hit if I can help it, getting all ripped up sucks.¡±


    That last part was the real trick, getting a lethal stroke without receiving damage. Alexander was getting better at it, but, as with the bear, even dying monsters managed to be dangerous.


    Now that introductions were made, the experienced crew relaxed a bit and even removed their head gear. The youth had to admit, he was a little in awe of these professional looking fighter types. Like something out of a war collage from ancient history.


    Various styles of helmet were on display, mostly iron age looking things, with good visibility and less obstructed hearing. Losing your senses against monsters was a bad idea, even if you got a little more defense. No full great helms in this lot. Honestly? Alexander¡¯s reinforced motorcycle helmet was probably the most significant of the helmets out of the bunch. Mostly necessity and lack of options on his part.


    ¡°So,¡± opened the leader of the party, ¡°I guess I should tell our host what we¡¯re doing out in the middle of nowhere, showing up out of the blue after all this time.¡±


    Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, the sandy blond man met Alexander¡¯s eyes with his own deep blue ones, and he spoke solemnly, ¡°You must forgive the settlements for not sending help. Please, try to understand, nobody ever thought that there might be people alive up this far north. The magic, the transformation, the apocalypse, the wave of energy that changed it all, whatever you want to call it, it was strongest along the magnetic field lines of the Earth. Farther north or south you went, the more folk were petrified, or, as we came to call it enshrined. Only people with ridiculous magic resistance survived north of New York state and we never expected anybody this far up in Maine. We were here to scout the dispositions of monsters, dungeons, and to see if there was a hope to resettle, not to look for survivors.¡±


    Well. That explained a lot. As far as why he¡¯d seen so many statues and why there hadn¡¯t been hordes of tens of thousands of zombies in the city. There hadn¡¯t been enough people left to turn.


    ¡°So, down south,¡± He mused, ¡°There¡¯s a bunch of people?¡±


    Melinda shook her head, ¡°Not like what you¡¯re thinking. So far as we know, more than half of the people on Earth were enshrined straight away, and half of the ones left were killed by infused animals or monsters, more if there was a closed dungeon emerging nearby, they¡¯re more dangerous than the field dungeons. We¡¯re pretty certain those are magic hotspots, they tended to depopulate the area pretty fast, at least until survivors cleared the minor field dungeons and started to Matriculate, as we call it when you unlock the classes. Nobody knows how or why any of that happened either, so if you do, you¡¯re the only one. All we know is that you have to touch a dungeon core crystal to do it.¡±


    Ah. Then that was why he hadn¡¯t had any weird powers at first, even while the rest of the world was going crazy. You had to earn it. The mind filling words he heard when he stabbed the first crystal bloomed again in his mind. WORTHY.


    ¡°Yeah, right, that¡¯s what everybody hears the first time. Someone, or something, calls them worthy.¡± Mark said, and Alexander realized he¡¯d spoken the word aloud.


    He shook his head at the whole illogic of it.


    ¡°You must touch the crystal first? So, you are required to go up against, like, monsters with nothing, and beat them, and then you get to be enhanced? That makes no sense.¡±


    ¡°Life¡¯s a bitch, ain¡¯t it?¡± Remarked Benjamin.


    Mark smirked at his gruff comrade¡¯s observation, and Alexander couldn¡¯t help but notice a rather direct look being directed his way.


    ¡°Which leads us to you, and why you are either the luckiest guy alive, or absolutely batshit. How did you manage to solo not just a closed dungeon, but a major field dungeon?¡± Brigitte, or Brig, demanded, putting her party¡¯s cards on the table.


    He tried not to be taken aback by the skeptical nature of the question. Skepticism was good, it was reasonable, it kept you from assuming things that would probably get you killed.


    Alexander wished he had a good answer, but he only had the truth.


    ¡°I played dirty. When the goblins came through to sweep the city, I killed a bunch of their scouts. I don¡¯t think they expected to find somebody ready to fight, and I was sort of losing my grip. It all felt like a nightmare and nightmares can¡¯t hurt you when they¡¯re dead, right?¡± He reasoned, recalling the fury of seeing the creatures scrabbling over the statues of people he¡¯d known all his life, breaking some of them to pick through their belongings.


    ¡°After that, I shot them from a long way away with a big ass rifle, focusing on their leaders, these tallish hobgoblin things, and their spell casters. Watch out for the ugly females with the staff by the by, they throw fire and raise tough shields, and heal. Then, when they sent a coordinated assault group after me, including this massive Goblin King, I lured them to a Tannerite trap and lit up the entire square with shrapnel, firebombs, and poison gas. After that, I followed some scouts back to their hole in the old silver mine and killed this awful goddamned Goblin queen monster. That was how I got to the first crystal, they, basically, were starving and had to come out to find food. I don¡¯t think monsters that come across to our world have a way to go back, they¡¯re stuck.¡± Alexander narrated, telling all that he knew, as honestly as he could.


    ¡°We have found that to be the case also.¡± Melinda said, frowning at his story but glad that confirmation of something the scouts had been saying for a little while was coming from outside,


    ¡°The monsters that appear do not disappear, except for their corpses under the Phoenix sun. They exist like anything on this planet, and need to eat and drink, even where that doesn¡¯t look like what we expect, since some of them eat magic, or drink blood, or live on pure life force from drained victims.¡± She agreed.


    ¡°And what of the major field dungeon?¡± Mark asked, still deeply curious, ¡°Necropolis field dungeons have been found, and the boss, a Reaper, reported, but nobody has been able to kill them. They have no health, but an absolutely insane amount of Soak, normal weapons don¡¯t even touch them.¡±


    Alexander scratched his head, not certain how to explain that.


    ¡°Umm, I think it¡¯s probably my magic. I don¡¯t understand it completely, but my mana seems to disrupt other magic, and it more or less ignores Soak. I had another spear, with golem silver that hurts undead, and a frost enchantment, and I pushed all the chaos mana I could into it, completely ruined the naginata blade, but it killed the Reaper basically instantly.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ll be damned.¡± Benjamin whispered, thoughtfully.


    Even the red headed lady that seemed to enjoy giving people crap was impressed, and she leaned back in her chair looking at the ceiling and cried ¡°That¡¯s absolute bullshit! An anti-mage? !¡±


    Clifford the axe guy looked at the other adventurers and asked, ¡°Any of you ever heard of an Entropic class? The top three Guilds don¡¯t have one, I don¡¯t mind telling you.¡±


    None of them answered except for the crossbow and estoc bearing scout who answered, ¡°Not one in five thousand Matriculated. I¡¯ve been through the roster three times. It¡¯s a new resonance.¡±


    A what now?


    Now he was the one who needed some answers.


    ¡°So, anybody want to explain this resonance thing then? And why hasn¡¯t anybody else got the same type of magic, are there, like, infinite variations or something?¡±


    ¡°Mark? Ben? One of you nerds explain it to our jack pot lottery winner over here.¡± The ginger warrior suggested.


    Benjamin abandoned his slouch and came over to stand closer to Alexander, close enough to stare into his eyes. The amazingly buffed out, heavily armored tank of a man had greenish hazel eyes, and they were piercing into the last Gerifalte¡¯s soul.


    ¡°I need you to pay attention to this, because you are now going to be part of some shit.¡± The brusque voice intoned with gravity, ¡°Each person that touches a dungeon core crystal comes away changed. It¡¯s different for everyone, but what we all agree on is that, inside your mind, you hear the word ¡®Worthy¡¯ like God in Heaven is speaking directly into your skull. One word, once, ¡®Worthy¡¯, and then you become something new, with a class, a core inside your body that wasn¡¯t there before, and a resonance, an affinity for a specific kind of magic.¡±


    Once? Alexander¡¯s expression must have given away his confusion.


    ¡°You not following this?¡± Ben asked.


    ¡°No, sorry, I get it, it¡¯s just, when the voice spoke, it said it three times.¡± Alexander hurried to answer.


    Last thing he wanted was to make the giant soldier think he wasn¡¯t paying attention.


    ¡°What?¡± the warrior asked.


    ¡°The voice said ¡®worthy¡¯ three times. I thought it did that for everyone.¡± He said, uncertain.


    ¡°Like I says: Jack. Pot.¡± Exclaimed Brig from her chair.


    ¡°Mark?¡± Checked the front-line attacker.


    ¡°Just the once, from everybody I know. Probably related to Mr. Solo over here doing alone what everybody else did as a group. Everybody Matriculates these days in groups of at least six, the maximum that a minor field dungeon will allow. Any more and the dungeon core goes intangible and no one can touch it until a Phoenix sun rises. If anyone cleared a closed dungeon alone for their Matriculation, I haven¡¯t heard.¡± Mark speculated aloud, his fingers drumming over the top rim of his shield with metallic clicks.


    A heavy arm, made heavier for the thick armor covering it, draped over Alexander¡¯s shoulders like a squat bar going for max, and Benjamin grinned lopsided.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be. This here just makes it worse for you, Mr. Alexander. See, resonance takes a different form for each class, but there¡¯s mostly been plenty of repeats. Fire is fairly common, so is water, wind, earth, and light. Not as common but still plenty of them running around are resonances for things like plants, life or healing, shadows, I know a guy that does barriers or wards, and there are metal guys like myself aplenty. But what all of us have in common is that, against Soak, we have a significant part of the damage we do negated like that shit never happened. But not you, Chief. Your magic cuts straight to the bone.¡± Ben instructed, a small smile on his huge features.


    ¡°It¡¯s because the world hates us and wants us all gone.¡± Brig hypothesized, for once lacking a devil may care attitude.


    ¡°Ignore her, we all have Soak too. It¡¯s¡­the planet seems to be trying to keep everyone and everything alive, and it does it by applying a buffer to their life. Only by overcoming the buffer does harm befall anyone. That, or whatever magic is, it attempts to negate change to whatever living thing it imbues, like a form of life inertia.¡± Melinda corrected, conjecturing a philosophical and practical question that had occupied many a campfire for hours.


    That remark made Alexander do a double take. He escaped the warrior¡¯s clutches and poured tea; the water having come to a boil. While he bustled around with hot drinks, he ransacked his mind for context to the new information.


    These people all had Soak of at least twenty percent. So, at minimum, they negated a fifth of the damage that came to them, at minimum. Mark, leader of the party and anchor tank, as he¡¯d called himself, had a Soak of fifty percent. Half the damage taken negated! Alexander had a Soak of five percent. Almost nothing. And knowing what Soak was wasn¡¯t just a philosophical discussion, if they could figure out what this negation was, it could be bypassed, evening the playing field against the big nasties. Except for Alexander whose magic seemed not to tolerate Soak, either for himself or others, and pierced it almost like it wasn¡¯t there.


    ¡°Ah. Well. That maybe explains a few things.¡± He sheepishly admitted.


    ¡°I don¡¯t really have any Soak. It¡¯s five percent. Looks like the knife cuts both ways for my magic.¡± He revealed.


    Now the entire room went dead quiet, and the last Gerifalte knew he¡¯d said something insane to them. So much for trying to fit in with the awesome warrior people.


    ¡°You mean to tell me you been going out here raiding dungeons with next to nothing to mitigate damage except for some half assed homemade armor?¡± Benjamin demanded.


    Brigitte started giggling and soon broke into raucous laughter, clapping armored leather gloves. Alexander narrowed his eyes at the brash, sort of abrasive woman. Just exactly what the hell was so funny? He almost died out there, and not once, not twice, but at least a half dozen separate encounters that still gave him nightmares.


    ¡°I¡¯m glad you¡¯re having fun, but what the hell is rubbing your funny bone? !¡± He challenged, allowing his pique to show.


    Seeing that she was pushing her luck, the warrior woman raised her palms, and wiped a tear from her eye, before exclaiming ¡°Peace! No offense, meant, Serious Business, but if you had been around people since this bug fuck thing started, you¡¯d know how crazy having so little Soak really is. The crafter people don¡¯t have much, maybe ten percent, tops, and they don¡¯t leave the walls of the settlements without a full team for escort. It¡¯s too dangerous. You¡¯re over here playing Hard Mode, while the rest of us were patting ourselves on the back for being hard asses.¡±


    The rest of the group smirked at their tactless teammate and her reasoning.


    Mark, leader of the group, and dedicated people manager, spoke up, being diplomatic where his brash trooper was anything but, ¡°You have to ignore Brig sometimes, she was born with muscles inside her skull. But, meathead that she is, she isn¡¯t wrong here. Five percent¡­Christ, that¡¯s nothing. Everything is hitting you for almost full damage. I don¡¯t know how you made it this long.¡±


    Alexander let his irritation fade some, chalking a bit of it up to being unused to being around people with loud, boisterous personalities. He¡¯d never got on so well with that type back when. He was too serious, sometimes, and needed to chill out, not everyone has the same outlook. For some people, the whole world was a joke to be laughed at. Alexander never saw it that way, but that didn¡¯t mean they were wrong. Especially when everything that had happened in the last year turned his nice, neat picture of the world inside out.


    ¡°Yeah, okay, fine, but don¡¯t think it was some kind of picnic. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that your body gets healed every three days, I¡¯d have been a corpse the first week. It feels like something new tries to whack me every month out here, and it isn¡¯t so damn funny when a twelve-foot pile of metal ore puts itself together and starts chasing your ass around the town.¡± He huffed.


    ¡°Nobody saying it is, don¡¯t misunderstand.¡± Melinda said, her calm, gentle demeanor soothing any ruffled feathers, ¡°If Brig wasn¡¯t slow from getting hit in the head so many times, what she meant to say was, you either have got all the luck in the whole wide world, or none at all. What you might have is a spot in any monster culling party you want. Ignoring Soak, that¡¯s big time Alexander. Major League big time.¡±


    He looked around the group and sighed, dropping his eyes. Okay, maybe he was being oversensitive. It was a hard world; only hard people would be left in it. He had to accept that, adapt to it, and not get too hung up on the small stuff. There were real enemies out there. Whole worlds of them tucked away into expanding pocket realities or sprawling out across what had been human cities.


    ¡°Sorry. Maybe all this time by myself makes me bad at being around people, you all are a little much for me right now. I¡¯ll get over it.¡± He admitted, determined to try to reintegrate into human society.


    The big warrior, his rough voice in contrast to his words, offered comfort for the concern that Alexander had been nursing this entire time, since meeting these strange remnants of humanity, ¡°It¡¯s all good, little Brother. Anybody that made it this long alone, like you have, they¡¯re bound to have a few screws loose.¡±


    A wide gesture, taking them all in, accompanied the slow, rolling speech of a man who had seen terrible, terrible things, and lived to tell about it, ¡°We¡¯re all the same here, none of us really fit in with the Normals, the ones that haven¡¯t Matriculated, or the people that don¡¯t leave the settlements. It¡¯s hard to understand unless you¡¯ve been out in the dungeons and lived it. Death, insanity, and killing sort of seeps into you. Everybody cracks a little, just different ways. We¡¯re all a little sideways, so you¡¯re in good company.¡±


    Brigitte, taking her cue from her party mates, offered an olive branch.


    ¡°Yeah, so don¡¯t take it personal. If everyone is crazy, is crazy even crazy anymore? Tell you what, I¡¯ll take you somewhere quiet, and we¡¯ll fuck it out, you¡¯ll be peaches in no time.¡± The warrior woman said, like she was talking common sense.


    Mark and Melinda both spoke up, ¡°Bad idea!¡±


    And the axe wielding not quite a party member commented, ¡°You¡¯re a braver man than me if you do.¡±


    The red headed woman shot a betrayed look at her comrades, crying, ¡°What?! When do I try to ruin your fun?!¡±


    Benjamin shook his head a little sadly and said, ¡°We need our guy able to walk, put a lid on it until we get back to Homebase.¡±


    Thus warned, Alexander decided that it might be safer to sleep with the bees and avoided drawing attention to himself by scooping coals from the fire that had made tea into the oven. Then he very studiously did not look in the direction of the red-haired warrior while he built up a fire for roasting the bear.


    ¡°Um¡­does that mean you guys want me to come with you?¡± He asked, not certain about how he felt about being invited back to humanity, or about leaving his home.


    More than a little of him was incredibly uncomfortable leaving this tiny town. He¡¯d protected it from goblins. From the undead. From Yetis and monsterized pumas and whatever else tried to invade. Hells, he even had a bee colony that made magic honey and wax and the thought of losing those, after all his effort to get them didn¡¯t sit right.


    ¡°It does, if you¡¯re willing. Nobody¡¯s forcing you though, it¡¯s just, you know, there¡¯s an awful lot of mileage between here and what counts for civilization these days. You¡¯re exposed, you know?¡± Mark clarified.


    An open invitation was a different thing, Alexander didn¡¯t mind visiting town, if it wasn¡¯t a committed move.


    Nodding his agreement, he pointed to the oven, the pot full of roasting bear and vegetables from his garden, which included potatoes and carrots that had come out of an experimental bed to see if tubers could be regenerated by Entling potting mix, the answer being a resounding ¡°You bet your ass.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s going to be a minute, why don¡¯t I show you guys around, while I think it over. I don¡¯t know what kind of wild critters you ran into on your way here, but Entling blood enriched soil creates gardens that make like something you wouldn¡¯t friggin¡¯ believe. Then there¡¯s George and the gang, I have a feeling you guys will love meeting them.¡± He nattered, good naturedly.


    On their way out the door he led them past the gardens. They were properly impressed by the flourishing vines of tomato growing up trellises along with the wide array of grains, and other vegetables. One of the flowering stalks of corn, the second crop to put up flowers since he¡¯d planted them earlier this spring, was being visited by a pollen collector from the hive. Alexander duly informed his guests not to approach the bee unless they wanted to fight over a hundred workers and maybe a cadre of soldier bees. All heeded his words, and they made their way across town to the smithy.


    Along the way, the warrior troupe started hassling each other, with the camaraderie of long acquainted companions. The ribbing lot of adventurers teased each other. Soon enough, they started telling stories of their journey. He was reminded again of the hostility of the world when they mentioned the two members of their party that had not survived the trip, falling to monsters on the road.


    The way they talked about the loss of the two, with a resigned sort of casualness, it was the way veterans talked about war, the careful avoidance of feeling that combat necessitated. He forced himself similarly to not feel too much when the stories about their companions circulated around the group. One thing stood out about that: soldiers didn¡¯t speak of their fallen comrades around people that weren¡¯t soldiers. That meant that they had chosen to include him in their group. It was a subtle thing, but important.


    For the first time since the Pulse, Alexander Gerifalte was not alone.


    It wasn¡¯t long before Alexander pulled open the doors to the workshop and led the crew to his babies. Sterling, his pride and joy and the reason for half his success, stood tall, the great boiler ready to start pressurizing to drive the rest of the machines to glory.


    The last Gerifalte approached the engine and put a loving hand against its firebox, patting it fondly with a dull thud that echoed slightly, ¡°This here is Sterling. You wouldn¡¯t believe how hard it was to get him up and running, probably the reason I¡¯m still around. A hammer and tongs operation just wouldn¡¯t have been fast enough to do all I needed. He¡¯s got the moxie to push these other guys to do about anything I have the skill to do and beyond.¡±


    He then visited the power hammer pointing to the upgraded dies of golem High steel, ¡°And this one is George. I recently upgraded him with a variable transmission and p. s. i. adjuster to let me get a ton more versatility out of him. Before, it was just hammer hard, or hammer harder, and that made a lot more manual finish work for me. Had to replace the head and dies, golem metals are more than the original could handle. Now though? He¡¯ll pound whatever you want to feed him flat.¡±


    Moving on, Alexander introduced the adventurer team to meet Ricky, Jerry, and Tabitha, the lathe, bandsaw, and drill press, respectively. Each got a word of kindness and a brief explanation about the things they¡¯d helped him do.


    ¡°You can forge monster cores into your tools, armor, and weapons, and it infuses them with whatever nonsense magic the monster used. I haven¡¯t been able to experiment with that too much but my first successful naginata, the one I wrecked killing the Reaper, it had a bitching ice bite to it, really fucked up zombies pretty hard. Damn, I wish I¡¯d been able to hunt a few more of those white bears; they have the polar cores I need to do the enchant, but I can¡¯t sacrifice my refrigerators for it.¡± He finished, turning around to look at the dumbstruck visitors.


    ¡°What?¡± He questioned, when he finally noticed that the group had stopped talking.


    ¡°Mine! I call him! The Guild is going to want this kid, real, real bad. They¡¯ll assess all of you a finder¡¯s fee, and I can promise you it will not be small.¡± Clifford asserted to the group.


    A finder¡¯s fee? For him? The hell?


    ¡°Uhhh¡­I don¡¯t know what you¡¯re talking about, but I¡¯m not sure I like it.¡± Alexander told the group.


    ¡°Shush, doofus, you¡¯re getting a job offer! A good one!Guildies get perks, stipends, escorts through dungeons, and some cozy digs. It¡¯s like joining a primo union in the settlements.¡± Insisted Brig.


    That did not sound so bad. But wouldn¡¯t that mean he had to, sign up or offer up his loyalty, or something? Alexander wasn¡¯t willing to be restricted so readily.


    ¡°Who takes the first offer they get? And why would anybody want to hire me? You guys are all wearing crazy neat armor and have real weapons! I¡¯ve got shit cobbled together from whatever.¡± He argued, not certain why he was resisting, but sometimes your instincts tell you to dig deeper, and he listened to those instincts.


    Benjamin pointed to Sterling and responded without attempt to obfuscate, ¡°It isn¡¯t what you¡¯re using the machines for, it¡¯s the fact that you made them work. Our smiths and crafters, they¡¯re all using hand tools, iron age techniques for metallurgy, and no ability to scale production. It takes a good armorer a week to make even decent quality sets for a single person. With your set up here? A smith might triple that and be able to use better quality materials.¡±


    Melinda backed her normally reticent comrade up, ¡°I¡¯ve never seen anything like these ingots you¡¯ve made. Golem High Steel? Golem Argentum? That¡¯s new. Alexander, you¡¯re some kind of savant. A sort of weird one, but a savant.¡±


    For some reason, he had trouble registering those statements. He wasn¡¯t a genius, not like his dad. He had the old man¡¯s library and not much but time on his hands at night, so he read, studied, and worked himself to the bone to learn to use what those books told him. That wasn¡¯t so special. Was it?


    He didn¡¯t know what to say to any of that, so he didn¡¯t say anything.


    ¡°Ahh, you guys are making the Murder Tinker shy!¡± Brig called from the back of the group, a goofy grin on her face.


    For once, he was glad for the loud woman, she took the pressure of the gazes off him.


    ¡°Look, putting Guilds aside,¡± Mark enjoined, bringing everybody to order and settling the atmosphere down skillfully, ¡°I think everyone here agrees that you¡¯ve done a hell of a job here, Alex. A fine job indeed. Especially for being alone. Nobody is going to pressure you into anything though, not even a Guildie, Cliff, so don¡¯t start up.¡± The team leader intoned calmly.


    The shield bearer snorted lightly in exasperation looking at the axe wielding man, ¡°Besides, when he sees how the Guilds treat their all-stars, you won¡¯t have to say a thing. Let¡¯s just say, if our party gets tapped by even a top twenty guild, we¡¯ll be drunk as skunks and celebrating for a week. It¡¯s a life changing thing in the settlements.¡±


    ¡°Total panty dropper in the taverns. Or jock straps, it¡¯s whatever.¡± Brig volunteered, knowing the levers that moved young men.


    One of the parts of his life that was regretfully lacking was interaction with the opposite sex. He¡¯d put his aspirations of making record time getting through flight school and into the driver¡¯s seat of a fighter plane first and foremost. It didn¡¯t help that almost all the girls in Podunk High were boring as hell. There were a couple that caught his eye, and he¡¯d almost had a thing going with the Pharmacist¡¯s daughter, but once he¡¯d graduated school and started flying that budding interest died on the vine, traded for the cockpit of a trainer plane.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep an open mind.¡± Alexander decided aloud, ¡°But no promises. I have a whole thing going on here, and I¡¯m not throwing it all away to run off to the big city. Besides, if there aren¡¯t any settlements nearby, maybe my place is the place to be. Less competition and more opportunities for people that want to get out of the bigger places, if they can handle the challenges of the frontier.¡±


    His counter argument seemed to register in the expressions of the adventurer party. It was true that the settlements had grown somewhat confining. It hadn¡¯t happened yet, because just getting a relatively safe base of operations set up for the remainder of humanity in the area had been hard enough, but anytime now, people would start to gravitate toward the fringes, looking for their chance to make it big.


    ¡°An open mind is all anyone could ask. Of anyone.¡± Melinda said allowed, seeming to echo Alexander¡¯s thoughts to her team.


    ¡°Anyhow, the roast ought to be done and we need to eat before too much longer. It isn¡¯t smart to make food smells for too long, something always comes to check it out.¡± Alexander reasoned, chivvying his guests toward the door.


    ¡°Let me tell you about this colossal freakin¡¯ panther that I saw on the mountain this once. Big as a bus, heart crossed and hope to die.¡± He said, leading the way home.


    Life had just gotten a lot more complicated for the last Gerifalte. Now he had to figure out how to make this complication work for him. First things first, he was going to knock the socks off these warriors with some of the finest eating this side of a bowl of clam chowder on the coast. Then, he was going to go with them to see what one of these so called ¡°settlements¡± looked like. After that, who knows, maybe he¡¯d pack up and leave this place, as long as he could carry all his equipment and books with him.


    Or maybe not. Maybe he¡¯d get a bunch of people willing to scratch a life out in the wilderness. Whatever the case, what he wasn¡¯t going to do was ever stop trying to find a way to undo the curse that had felled his parents. There was a way out there, the voice had said so. It had said that he was already on the path. He didn¡¯t know exactly what that meant, but he took it as ¡°Do what you do¡± and so he would. Alexander Gerifalte was a hunter, a crafter, a scholar, and, above all, a survivor.


    The secret was hiding in the dungeons, inside those cores where powers resided to twist reality and connect worlds. Every time he¡¯d touched one, his own powers had amplified. The young man had no illusions about the dangers. There would be monsters. There would be hellish creatures that feasted on souls. There might be dragons. Alexander would take them all on and use the reality hacks from this crazy world against them, until he had his answers. Then, when his parents were whole again, he¡¯d find a nice place out of the way, and show them how to survive after a planetary apotheosis.

 Chapter 13: Homeward Bound

    Time has a way of getting away from you, Alexander Gerifalte thought, as his boots padded softly over the derelict, grass patched asphalt of the road. October had come with early cold spells. Already, a sharp wind blew through the low hills, carrying sea salt, and the cries of gulls. A train of large wagons, wheels depressing the ground under the weight of their loads, chattered across the crudely paved road, asphalt starting to show signs of wear from the passage of seasons and the lack of maintenance.


    Alexander, in form fitting leather and metal splint mail armor, was half a mile ahead of the wagons, and thankful to be upwind of the beasts hauling them. Massive mules, great flanked, long fetlocked brutes of a bunch of draft animals, pulled the train with unflagging strength and endless stamina. The wagons would tire before those animals did. They shat with the regularity of clocks and ate their weight in grains and hay if you let them though, so the smell that accompanied a wagon train was¡­memorable.


    From his place in front of the caravan, the young man kept careful watch, he and the rest of the scouts were the first line of defense from what roamed a once tame Maine countryside. Tame no longer. He had been seventeen when the world ended. It was two years and change since then. The young man, now firmly into adulthood, was lithe, a formerly lanky six feet and four inches tall that had filled out under the necessities of survival in an abrupt dark age, where the fleet of foot, and strong of arm were the only ones permitted to live. Alexander was in privileged company with those who had survived the Pulse, a sudden global flare of magic that had not only cooked every electronic device the world over but had also rendered approximately two-thirds of humanity into petrified statues, frozen in the moment of the Earth¡¯s awakening to consciousness.


    Nobody knew why, yet, that the planet had suddenly transformed, but many suspected that it a form of self-defense.


    For, simultaneously to the Pulse, there had appeared the dungeons. Dungeons had in common a core of crystal, a pristine jewel of faceted magic, roughly the size of a refrigerator, that warped the reality around it, bridging the space with a planet or reality of Elsewhere. Within these ¡°contested zones¡± as they were referred to by the mysterious messages delivered by analytical abilities, inhabitants of the foreign worlds could seep out and begin to claim swathes of the Earth. Sometimes the dungeons created their own spaces, twisting the geometry of the landscape into a closed region, isolated from the surrounding areas. Those were called, aptly, closed dungeons. Others simply washed over the landscape, spilling their influence across the surface, in what were known as field dungeons.


    What these dungeons all had in common, aside from the fact that they were riddled with monsters, strange magics, twisted variants of Earthen flora and fauna, and a guardian creature of great power, was that they had a name for the mirrored reality that was encroaching on Earth¡¯s own. Or Gaia¡¯s own, as it seemed the planet had adopted that ancient reference for itself. So far, nine realms had been formally identified. There were rumors, whispers, and drunken tales in seedy taverns of ill repute that there were thirteen realms, Alexander had a trait that suggested as many as one hundred eight, but the major Guilds did not recognize such stories, and what the Guilds didn¡¯t recognize didn¡¯t merit further consideration.


    Alexander did not hold that opinion. From his experience, everything was true, because nothing was true. For Alexander Gerifalte, last of the Gerifalte¡¯s, the world had gone insane two years ago, and everything after that followed rules that nobody knew for certain, even though, like a seventh day Adventist pounding on your door to tell you the Good Word, they would try to sell you a fable they swore was truth. If anybody asked him, and they didn¡¯t, the likelihood of there being only nine world destroying catastrophes slowly stealing across the planet was the same as what the mules were leaving behind the wagons being gold.


    Skepticism dominated the young man¡¯s attitude, skepticism, and the need to know more about what had happened that turned his mother and father, in the middle of their loving banter with one another, into stone inside their house one afternoon. It was Alexander¡¯s mission in life now to find a remedy for the curse. After falling from the sky in his plane and subsequently surviving in a hostile world full of magically enhanced, and often aggressive beasts, invading goblins, necromantically driven zombies of a neighboring town¡¯s dead, and the simple challenges of finding food and water when your entire civilization dies in a single instant, he had come far along his path.


    During those struggles he¡¯d faced the crystal hearts of invading fragments of different realms. In the act of striking them down, part of their aetheric power had become a part of him, according to rules only Gaia, newly wakened consciousness of this third planet orbiting Sol, could know for certain.


    Alexander was WORTHY, by the judgment of the mind filling voice that had vibrated his essence when he¡¯d killed the dungeon cores.


    Striding ahead of the wagons, guided by various gathering classes and craftsmen, along with their more martial escort, in a position of great trust, as none were more essential than the scouts to ensuring safe journey, Alexander didn¡¯t feel worthy. He had learned much in the year and a half since coming to the settlement known as ¡°Safe Harbor¡± a sprawling seaside former port town that had been called Searsport.


    Searsport had been home to a deep-water seaport and was proximal to a large collection of islands and a river that ran Upta into the Appalachian Mountains, from whose runoff it had its source. The port town was relatively sheltered from storms that could batter the coast, especially since the Pulse, which somehow infused the ocean with strength. The Nor¡¯easters that came in bore only vague resemblance to their lesser historical brethren. These pelted the coast with sleet, hail, and gale force winds, draping the coast and fifty miles inland in ice, where they did not scour the landscape with their fury. Against that, and against some of the massive guardian beasts he¡¯d witnessed, Alexander did not feel worthy at all.


    However, he wasn¡¯t the one that made that decision, nor had his opinion ever been sought on the matter. The planet itself had said as much when he conquered his first dungeon, by himself, and then his second, also by himself. Since that time, after joining a band of adventurers who had been paid to scout Upta and stumbled across what remained of his tiny town, he had joined with other groups to cull the monsters in three other dungeons, though their cores were left intact, standing orders from Guild leadership. Then, a few weeks ago, he had slain the crystal heart of another dungeon in a solo run while doing a patrol for some creatures that had been attacking fishermen, and the planet¡¯s voice had, again, declared him WORTHY, alongside some other cryptic nonsense.


    That action had gotten him into hot water with the Guilds, as they used the field dungeons near the city as hunting grounds and gold mines, providing the settlements with resources unique to that particular mirror of reality, and the training for up and coming warriors. After a short trial, which had found him guilty of nothing, per se, he¡¯d been summarily tossed from the Guild he was in. The inquisition of sorts had wanted to hold him liable for the loss of Guild income, resources necessary for the survival of Safe Harbor, and violation of his Contract with the Guild.


    It failed for lack of credible evidence that he¡¯d done anything wrong.


    If they didn¡¯t want people destroying the unnamed dungeons from which murdering monsters crept, they could have said something. At the least, they should have probably posted signs, because, as far as Alexander had known, there was a world eating crystal of alien magic sitting in the middle of a beach surrounded by Sahuagin, and nobody had bothered to do anything about it, so he figured he might as well while he was in the area.


    Once the dungeon crystal was killed, it did not regrow in that same location. New dungeons could coalesce in the regions where the Dragon Pulse, the leylines of magic that encircled the planet joined to create dense fields of mana. Or so folk said, he hadn¡¯t seen it.


    The Guilds permitted, and even encouraged, this to happen, also according to rumor. Beer sodden talk, that, or it had been until his ass was in the wind for killing one of the top ten Guild¡¯s cash cows. Now, he believed those rumors, since it would appear getting in the way of a Guild¡¯s profits was nearly a capital offense.


    Madness. The dungeons were alien, they were an infection that needed to be cleansed for the planet to heal. His working hypothesis was that the Pulse could not be undone until all of the dungeons were destroyed, their crystal hearts shattered, and the planet no longer had a need to defend itself. When that happened, the waves and washes of magic that poured from the interior of the world would cease and electronics would function again. In the meantime, humanity, as the dominant species of Gaia, was on the hook as her champions, and they were responsible for defending her from the spread of the ¡°contested zones¡± which rooted themselves on her surface.


    Alexander didn¡¯t know that the magical interference in digital technology would fade with the dungeons but didn¡¯t not know it either. Regardless, until that time, it was an analogue only world.


    Anything digital, no matter how you tried to shield it, no matter how robust the circuitry, no matter how redundant the operational code, fried within a few hours, the electrons inside compelled to mutiny by the variations in the fields of magic that pervaded Gaia. This fact rendered approximately half of his father¡¯s tinker¡¯s library fully null, but the other half, it was suddenly gold plated. Lore for the old skills, the manual crafts, the techniques for farming, smithing, smelting, analytical chemistry, preserving food, animal husbandry, it all lay inside those tomes collected by a man who had been a nuclear engineer and who coveted knowledge of all things, certain that man wasn¡¯t ready to know about the atom and would eventually use it to bring his civilization to an end.


    He had been wrong, old Papa Gerifalte, but Alexander figured that the Pulse had just beat humans to the punch.


    Anyhow, the last Gerifalte mused, at the end of the day, the comfortable life of a Guild contractor was snatched away from him barely a year after he¡¯d gotten it, and he was blacklisted.


    When the Guilds blacklist you, that means nobody sells to you, and nobody buys from you. Alexander Gerifalte was, effectively, dead in Safe Harbor. Which was why he was scouting for a caravan of wagons that was headed back out into the frontier, following the decaying roads that led north, back toward his homestead. Alexander had been gone from his home for a long time, almost eighteen months.


    He hadn¡¯t planned it that way.


    Originally, he¡¯d only intended to visit the town with the adventurer group, take the measure of the place, see about learning the lay of the land, and cabbaging onto whatever useful goodies he could take back to his hometown in the mountains. The Guildie who had been with the team that discovered him had made good his brag about the advantages of joining one of the big Guilds though, and Alexander Gerifalte discovered that he did, indeed, have a price. It was a damned high one. They had paid it anyway.


    For a year and more, he had been worth the money, and holy hell, he could not have imagined such a lavish lifestyle. In that time, with his morning hours, Alexander had built four steam engines, even bigger and more powerful than Sterling, the engine he¡¯d built back in his hometown. He¡¯d gone on to retrofit six Georges, and three accompanying Rickies, Jerries, and Tabithas. A powerhammer, lathe, bandsaw, and drill press, respectively. Each one of the sets of modified industrial equipment went to a master smith class, fed the best ingots and ores that could be found.


    Alexander, in one of his rare strokes of foresight, had not hoarded the ludicrous amounts of Guild credit, but had instead reinvested it. Two of the heavy wagons, and a handful of fourteen-foot modified trailer beds behind him were, in fact, his. So were the draft teams of mules and horses that pulled them. So were the men driving those carts and wagons, and the warriors escorting them. Alexander had had Contracts drawn up for two years, full wages, for all of them, in advance, with bonus incentives to settle in the village he was planning to found.


    After his little faux pas with the dungeon core, a plan buzzing in the back of his head for a few months was pushed to major priority. A few of the less hearty individuals hired before the inquisition had tried to wriggle out of their agreements, but those were magically binding. They had taken the payment and signed the dotted line and the Contract mages did not believe in ¡°take backsies¡±.


    He found an odd amount of comfort in the fact that Lawyers had survived the end of the world and become powerful from it. The presence of those kinds meant that laws had real meaning, rather than simply the rule of the mighty over the weak. One of the first things that had happened was that somebody had realized, upon seeing the results of matriculation, that without a code of conduct that was binding all the way to the bones, that the classed people would have the power to dominate the normal. Upon the first contract mage matriculating, a team of former lawyers drafted a constitution and every man, woman, and child who lived in Safe Harbor swore by it. All of them. The result was that there was law.


    <ul>


    <li>No harm or promise of action by a Matriculated to bring harm against a Normal, except in defense of one¡¯s life, under pain of death or exile.</li>


    <li>No lying or bearing false witness for the sake of personal gain or enrichment of one¡¯s allies or descendants under pain of death or exile.</li>


    <li>No theft of goods or services or breach of contract, with the exception that there is inevitable death as a result of inaction, under pain of death or exile.</li>


    <li>Manslaughter outside of sanctioned duels and without notification of town authorities is prohibited between Matriculated persons, except in defense of life, under pain of death or exile.</li>


    <li>No forms of slavery shall exist, either through contract or coercion. All forms of labor must be accompanied by an agreed upon exchange of wage, goods, or services, under pain of death or exile. All parties in the agreement have the right to challenge the value of their compensation, before the town authorities in judgement, and a jury of their peers.</li>


    <li>All Matriculated must respond to summons to the common defense of the populace against external threat, under pain of death or exile.</li>


    <li>All Matriculated must swear to these laws or be considered Outlaws intent on the destruction of civil society, enemies of the state, and predators of their fellow man, to be executed on sight by any Matriculated who knows of them, under pain of death or exile.</li>


    </ul>


    Those were the seven that every person swore to, and which were binding. It mostly prevented the formation of a two-tier caste system of society, although, not quite. Overt actions were off the table, but there were many forms of soft power that the Matriculated could gain that their mundane brethren simply could not, mostly in the form of wealth, power, and prestige. Over time, Alexander had faith that new laws would be required to amend the original six, crafted after hard experience as to what extent supernatural power could corrupt.


    Anyhow, that wasn¡¯t his problem, not any longer. Alexander wasn¡¯t exiled, just damned near it.


    In a way, it was useful to him in the long run. Running with the Guild parties had been a refreshing experience, in that it was relatively safe. But it had obvious downsides: it dulled the instincts. Most of the Guilds and even the private adventurer groups didn¡¯t challenge the larger dungeons, not even the relatively easier to handle field dungeons. They circled the edges, staying conservative, taking no risks. As a result, the parties were soft, were slow, were reliant on one another to a degree that made his teeth itch. When they ran into something truly dangerous, something that could dive into their formations and separate them, they would be picked off easily.


    The other reason being ostracized from that organization was to his good, was that he was now free to kill the dungeon hearts. No one could complain that he was in violation of Guild rules, since he wasn¡¯t a part of any Guild, and couldn¡¯t be. Which meant, very soon, that those fat cats suckling at the teats of the planet¡¯s corruption were going to have to start looking farther abroad. With the information he¡¯d gained in his brief stint doing practice raids, Alexander was going to clear those dungeons in a series raid, all within a few days if he could, on his way home. As many as he could, anyway. Not because he hated the idea of a safe Matriculation space for novices, or failed to appreciate the wonders that could be discovered inside the contested zones, but to force the Guilds and adventurers to grow a pair of balls and actually start using their resources to combat the spread more aggressively.


    A part of Alexander felt a clock ticking. It might be thousands of years down the line, but he was certain that there would be Consequences if the dungeons were not suppressed and eradicated. A gut feeling, which were the ones he trusted most.


    Green and golden-brown rimmed eyes scanned ahead, as he stalked quietly to the side of the road. He saw everything there was to see, in vivid color and with the precision to count leaves from a half mile away. Gifted impeccable vision from his birth, that natural talent had been amplified to nearly hawk precision since his Matriculation, after stabbing a dungeon core of Tirnanog, by the passive trait aptly dubbed Raptor gaze. Alexander Gerifalte, whose last name meant Gyrfalcon, a popular hunting bird for falconers, found the weird blue scrollwork that defined Matriculated people and their freakish abilities to indulge in a bit of whimsy, and no little irony.


    Gaia, it seemed, had a sense of humor. Which surprised no one who paid any attention at all, even before the Pulse signaled the planet¡¯s ascendance to true consciousness.


    Currently, Alexander was looking intently, but not expecting to see much. The caravan headed north had only left the walled city, its surroundings patrolled by teams of adventurers, the common lingo for Matriculated mercenaries or soldiers of fortune, yesterday. The city itself was still visible in the distance, with its walls constructed of concrete liquified, transported, and reinforced by the dedicated effort of Stone magic bearing Matriculated from abandoned or ruined buildings.


    Even for a town as small as Searport had been, they had plenty to work with. The town was, after six months of work by dozens of appropriately classed individuals led by a team of architects, a Lieutenant colonel formerly of the marine corps, and some nerd that was obsessed with castles, a fortress. It was also, to Alexander, a glorified prison.


    Check points to get in, scheduled passes to leave, very orderly. And chokingly claustrophobic after a while. It was understandable, even if he didn¡¯t agree. At some point, the massive field dungeon that had consumed the nearby neighboring city of Belfast had expelled a monster called a doppelganger.


    The creatures of that dungeon, whose terminus was the realm designated Akhet by Greater analysis, tended to be tricksome, stealthy, and cunning. Doppelgangers were smooth, maggot skinned, eyeless creatures of vaguely hominid proportion that assumed the exact physical features of any sentient creature they consumed. Then, using limited memories combed from the deceased whose identity they had stolen, they lured family members to their nests. Dozens of people in Safe Harbor had been consumed before someone caught on and a purge eradicated the nasties. After that, nobody in, nobody out without verification.


    Powers that be justified the lock down of the city with such events.


    ¡°Only they wouldn¡¯t have to go to those lengths if they¡¯d just destroy the damned thing.¡± He muttered to himself.


    It was an argument he¡¯d made many times. To mostly deaf ears in the Guild, even if a lot of the adventurers who had to patrol these lands quietly agreed. People who had lost friends to the creatures of the dungeon were not sympathetic to the promise of wealth by farming the dungeons, as nothing yet that had come out of one had ever brought a loved one or comrade back to life.


    Out of all the fantastic nonsense that Alexander had witnessed in Safe Harbor, and that seemed nearly infinite in variation, there had never been a spell, ability, alchemical concoction, or artifact that made resurrection possible. Dead was dead.


    Of importance to him personally, the Enshrined, or Memorialized, in other words, the petrified statues of most of the human population of Earth, alongside a similar ratio of cetaceans, corvids, parrots, primates, canines, felines, octopi, and even ants and other hive insects, were not, to the extent that could be determined by analysis abilities, considered dead. Which meant that there was almost certainly a way to reverse the condition. No one had found it yet, but then, it had only been two years since the Pulse and humanity was barely scratching the surface of what Gaia¡¯s evolved life could offer, or what could be found within the exotic realms of the dungeons.


    Alexander hefted his war bow at a flicker of motion, and drew back the thumb thick arrow, its spear tipped broadhead ready to fly to whatever might be skulking about. All kinds of critters liked to sniff around a caravan as it traveled, putting aside denizens of dungeons wandering free from their domains. A big mana infused grizzly bear was every bit capable of massacring the non-combat classes and draft animals as a monster.


    The powerfully enchanted stave, woven of Entling timber around a Golem High Steel core tempered to spring-like quality, made a humming sound when drawn, and sent arrows from its metal string with a tone like a plucked base string. Alexander called it Singer, and he was an artist with it. Cross bows could be more powerful, they cheated with hand cranks. The pulley system in Singer couldn¡¯t match that, but he could put three arrows into a target before a second bolt was readied for a cross bow, even for the classed adventurers who specialized in their use.


    A hand lifted from cover with fingers forming the ¡°okay¡± sign, putting him at relative ease. The dark color of the skin on the hand said it was Melinda, one of the dozen scouts on this escort.


    Melinda was one of the members of the adventurer party who had come north the first time and found Alexander in his cozy little flea speck out in the mountains. He had hired her team, or what had remained of it, to come out and run troubleshooting for his planned establishment of a new settlement. He had hired another two teams of six to help, each with their own specialties. Six more wagons, with three more parties of mercenary guards were part of the train, but not under Alexander¡¯s banner specifically. They were coming along to get away from the established powers of Safe Harbor and to try to make their own fortunes on the frontier.


    His town was about as far north as anybody had ever been found alive.


    For active field scouting, he relied on the group that had had the balls, and the skills, to survive the long road into the unknown before. Melinda, Benjamin, Mark, and Brigitte, plus two junior members to replace the members killed on the last mission Upta. Oleksiy Shevchenko, or Shiv, a dedicated Medic with talent, but lacking much field practice, and Dame Cecelia Sanchez, or just, ¡°The Dame¡±, a water mage whose eccentricities resulted in her being avoided by most parties.


    Alexander turned his attention to the wagon that led the caravan behind him, this one was one of his. It carried about two tons of goods and materials he foresaw as necessary to reconstruct his hometown, as well as to feed, arm, and equip the people and animals that would soon become permanent fixtures. Around it, ready to halt any monstrous attacks in their footsteps was the second party he had hired for their expertise in defense.


    Nathan Smythe, a plant magic-based anchor tank, with dark brown hair and chiseled good looks, who passively generated a significant increase in Soak for anybody within ten-foot radius around him was walking steadily, his tower shield of wood in hand, appearing not to notice its weight.


    Hilde Baumgartner, a stereotypical Swiss skier with blond hair, pale skin, and light blue eyes, was a light mage who had a flair for illusions and camouflage. She was currently using her magic to replay the Lord of the Rings extended edition above the middle wagon, to the entertainment of those not on guard duty. It wasn¡¯t a complete waste of mana, raising the morale of people on the road helped keep them ready, and sharp.


    At the back of the wagon, Van Richards, an earth mage poached from the fortification teams of Safe Harbor had his head together with Cervantes De La Cruz, the team¡¯s great sword wielder who specialized in sonic/vibration attacks and inflicting vertigo on creatures, which was why his sword looked like a sharpened tuning fork, and they appeared to be having a rousing conversation, to judge by their mannerisms.


    Julia ¡°Bonny¡± Richards, of no relation to the Earth mage, who could pacify and dominate beasts to use as familiars, was out away from the wagons, with a wolfhound at her heel keeping its nose to the wind, and a big red shouldered hawk that periodically came to land on a leather clad glove to give its aerial reports. The mousy woman was almost incommunicative with humans and only really opened up towards animals, or her fellows in Impervious. She was an old cat lady far, far before her time. Alexander liked her more for it, as she was unashamedly uninterested in the usual inane small talk between folks.


    Lastly, keeping to the right of the wagon, splitting the difference between Smythe at the front and Van and Cervantes at the rear, was Georgia Stephens, another anchor tank, but one who could create Time-based wards that, as long as she had the mana to keep them charged, repelled dungeon monsters and most core bearing beasts. Anything with a core that didn¡¯t have a specially keyed stone from her that touched her wards froze in place. Stasis lasted for five minutes, and nothing could harm or be harmed while the effect lasted. Her talents being mostly wasted locked away inside Safe Harbor¡¯s walls, she had come out almost for free, wanting the field experience and opportunity to grow by claiming dungeon cores as her main wage.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    The last party wasn¡¯t so much adventurers, as they were specialist craftsmen with side benefits. These were occupied closer to the heart of the convoy, mostly sitting in the drivers¡¯ seats of the wagons, or inside the tall wood arch supporting canvas covers covering them. They would be working on plans for the town atop the carefully nested and packed goods. Not inside or on the wagons though was the first of his hired technicians, Riley Potter.


    Potter was a former HVAC engineer with, aptly enough, wind magic, in addition to a competent saber fighter class, and he would be responsible for ensuring that the new homes were airtight, insulated, geothermally temperature regulated, plumbed, and, essentially, climate-controlled domiciles with running water. Currently, Potter, all five feet eleven inches of sturdy dark headed Scotsman of him, was marching along in defensive formation with the second of Alexander¡¯s hired techs, one Wynona Saki. Wynona, a slim, tiny woman of Japanese American descent, was a one-time chemical engineer and Pyroclastic Cannoneer, hired to take charge of the alchemy labs and point defenses. She was shouldering a big metal contraption that reminded him of a flintlock blunderbuss, only the barrel was as big around as the woman¡¯s thigh.


    Alexander did a quick circle of the caravan, intersecting with three of the other scouts to exchange brief, almost coded messages that conveyed the lay of the land ahead, the absence of beasts or monster sign, and general bearing, before heading to the rear. Being the forward scout demanded most of your attention and concentration, and it was best to keep fresh eyes to the front, so they rotated every ten miles or so.


    While he moved himself to the rear, his attention lingered a little on the costliest member of his crew. Jules Reynolds was a Bronx native, a lean, mean, brick laying machine in his former life, with the muscles rippling under his acorn brown skin to show for it. He had inherited a rather rare, and costly to Alexander¡¯s pocketbook, class revolving around phase changes of matter called a Quintessence Shaper. More or less, the man could turn a solid piece of iron into a soft putty, without changing its temperature, and then manipulate it freely. Or melt glass and shape it to whatever form you like, before re-solidifying it. He was no slouch on the fighting department either, while he couldn¡¯t manipulate living things, he could cause the bricks of chlorine in his belt pouch to become a vapor on demand, which meant he could generate clouds of toxic gas on demand. Or load his hollow crossbow bolts with solid piranha solutions made by a chemist, liquify them as he took the shot, and watch the devastation unfold on some unfortunate monster. Alexander had great expectations of Jules, and the man had been excited to get out of Safe Harbor, so both were looking forward to the work to come.


    Scott Kaczynski, not to be seen for being inside the covered wagon, was another costly investment, but similarly worthwhile. The pale, frumpy man was a licensed architect, and a not so bad cryomancer. He was drawing up the plans right now for some templates for homes, storage facilities, and replicating copies of the fortifications employed by Safe Harbor to be scaled for what Alexander was dubbing, Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    It was his town, dammnit! He got to call it whatever he wanted!


    Another project for Scott to handle was the vault for storing all the Enshrined for safe keeping, until Alexander could figure out how to reverse the petrification.


    Kim Summers, a tall man of strongly Korean descent, despite his surname, with fine black hair, and a poker face Daniel Negreanu would kill for, was a well-regarded smithing class called a Runic Artificer, and had picked up a fair degree of machining proficiency in college, which he had allowed to lapse when he went into finance. He was inside the covered wagon with Scott working on the designs Alexander had drawn for his machines and planned machines. Kim was going to be instrumental for not only infrastructure projects, but also become the de facto assistant armorer and weaponsmith alongside Alexander. They were going to do metallurgical art together; the young hunter was certain of it.


    As he walked, a figure sidled up next to him, with surprising agility and utterly absent of sound to give her away. He¡¯d seen her a few minutes ago, so he¡¯d known she was around, which was why he didn¡¯t flinch too badly when she crept up on him. The diminutive lady, looking like a former surfer turned would be Vietnamese babushka, was carrying a pack almost as large as she was, with pouches and bags tied to various loops of the mesh netting on its exterior.


    It was refreshing to see someone as in love with combing the terrain for useful reagents as he was. What wasn¡¯t so refreshing was the harvester classed woman¡¯s love of fucking with him, but you had to take the good with the bad.


    ¡°Hey there Alexander, what¡¯s good?¡± The silken voice from the solidly pretty, even cute face, her straight black hair pulled into a tight bun drawled at him.


    ¡°Nothing much Granny Nguyen. How¡¯s tricks?¡± He returned.


    ¡°Oh, nothing much new yet, we¡¯re still too close to the coast. But I can see we¡¯re starting to get away from all this sandy turf, we¡¯ll start finding the good stuff before long. Needs a proper loam, a little clay, and more leaf litter to foster the real aces shit.¡± Annita Nguyen said, her earthy language contrasting with the smooth voice.


    ¡°Ahuh.¡± Alexander Gerifalte agreed, having spent a good portion of his brief time with the Guild in Safe Harbor scouting and foraging to get away from the press of people, in between his engineering projects.


    ¡°Granny¡± was just what people called her, Annita was only twenty-three, but she had one of those effortless wisdom attitudes, laid back demeanors, and dressed in a manner that suggested she was actually about a thousand years old. The woman was going to be instrumental to helping his and Wynona¡¯s efforts to acquire reagents, as she was a specialized harvester class called a Verdant Forager. If it grew, Granny could find, and then later cultivate it.


    Hers was another set of talents unappreciated and permitted to languish inside the walls of Safe Harbor. Most of the adventurers with him had come, in part at least, because they wanted to get away from the city. It hadn¡¯t taken long, but already there was some have and have nots and political shit going on that made some people long to get away. Especially people like Brig, who couldn¡¯t keep from pissing off a dozen people if she walked by five of them. Or Ben, who said little, and preferred to say less, unless you wanted to know everything there was to know about fighting or killing monsters. Besides, Ben made the Guilds nervous, on account of he was widely regarded as one of the most directly powerful warriors alive and didn¡¯t dance to their fiddles.


    ¡°I see that the lack of anything new hasn¡¯t stopped you ransacking the countryside.¡± He observed, to judge by green fronds hanging from pouches, and bulging pack.


    A soft laugh from the obsessive-compulsive harvester confirmed her habit. Alexander brought up the blue scrollwork imparted by his analysis skill to confirm that Granny was putting in that good work.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Annita Nguyen


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Verdant Forager


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Fresh, active


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 24%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 76%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    5¡¯3¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/8 impact/crush resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    132lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    12/14 slash/bite resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Padded Hood


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    12/14 slash/bite resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    19


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    23


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Light Boar Overcoat


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Light Boar Overcoat


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Demantoid garnet, step


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Titanium Kukri


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    15/21 bonus to slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    24(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mild Steel Light Cuirass


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    14(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2nd Tier (Dryad)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/20


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/20


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    9(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Bear Bone Scale Tasset


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    12/10 bonus to slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Bear Bone Scale Tasset


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    9(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mild Steel Light Cuirass


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Seen it all, Salt of the Earth, Greater poison resistance, Horticulturist, Gaia¡¯s child


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Green thumb, Sense reagent, Lesser erase presence,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser growth, Minor photosynthesis, Lesser wither


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    For someone who hadn¡¯t done any dungeon crawling, her abilities were well honed. Ol¡¯ Granny wasn¡¯t afraid of work, that was for certain. It was one of the reasons they got on together, both of them tended toward being workaholics. They also partied hard and had become fast friends.


    All in all, the once upon a time lost boy, hunter of Wild Things, and devoted student of making shit, felt like his time in Safe Harbor hadn¡¯t been a waste. He¡¯d learned both about the state of the world and about his own abilities. He¡¯d gotten valuable time practicing his Warforger skills without the worry of providing for his necessities or being eaten. Very importantly he¡¯d gotten to practice fighting with the other adventurers, so that he wasn¡¯t as unpolished with weapons. He¡¯d also, for too short a span, gotten to live every young man¡¯s dream of sowing wild oats while being a rich superstar.


    Ahh, there were some good times for the unseasoned youth.


    That was another reason that he was glad to be leaving Safe Harbor behind: It weakened his will. There was a level of comfort that got in the way of his agenda. The young man wasn¡¯t a saint, and he had no illusions about himself, not once his head was cleared by the experience of standing in front of a room full of people who were making arguments about whether you might be shackled to a work bench to slave to replace the value of a horde spawning murder crystal to their income.


    Such things put his circumstances into the proper light.


    ¡°They made a mistake to blacklist you, you know?¡± Granny said, after a few minutes of silent companionship.


    Alexander¡¯s stalk skill was always active, and he made almost as little noise in the underbrush as the ninja gatherer of things green and growing.


    ¡°Do you really think?¡± he asked, drily.


    ¡°You bet that supple ass I do.¡± Granny jibed, and he rolled his eyes.


    He wasn¡¯t her type, from what he could gather from their many evenings pub crawling, but it didn¡¯t stop her from harassing him. Granny was his wingman and he hers; they¡¯d known each other in the young folk¡¯s scene long before he¡¯d ever needed somebody with a gift for scalping the landscape of useful herbs.


    ¡°Are you sure you don¡¯t want to see it again?¡± Alexander teased, shimmying a little, ¡°We¡¯ve got time. I might even let you touch it, but only if you¡¯re nice to me, and pay for dinner.¡±


    Now it was the woman¡¯s turn to shake her head in disappointment at him.


    ¡°No thanks, you¡¯re still too young, an innocent babe in the woods. I¡¯d ruin you. Sort of like how Brig ruined you.¡± She pulled out all the stops, launching the barb she¡¯d held onto for a special occasion, when the young talent got uppity.


    Alexander Gerifalte made a crunching sound as he made a misstep; his posture thrown off by the almost full body flinch at the mention of the tall redheaded carnivore.


    ¡°You would have to bring that up, wouldn¡¯t you.¡± He groaned at the softly cackling woman.


    Ahh, the mistakes of youth. Brig was an unrepentant sex beast. She took pride in it. Her comrades had warned him against letting her trick him into her den. A few weeks in Safe Harbor made him forget that warning and, after a few bottles of liquid courage, he¡¯d allowed her to take him back to her apartment. She¡¯d wrung him out to dry and hung him from her balcony, ragged, and empty.


    Not to misunderstand, it was the time of his life. But, when she declared, early the next morning, that Round Two was upon him, he found that he was no match for the Lithic Lancer¡¯s passion. He escaped the next morning, a wiser man, and had avoided being alone with her ever since. He wasn¡¯t ready for Brig. Maybe not ever. She smiled at him every time they crossed paths and waved when she spotted him on the streets. He shuddered a little, not certain his ego could survive her attentions for long.


    ¡°If you are anything like Brig, you should have red, yellow, and orange stripes to warn people not to come close.¡± He ribbed.


    ¡°Oh, don¡¯t be such a pansy. You needed your bones jumped so you¡¯d quit being so on edge all the time. Nobody knew if you were going to run off back into the wild for the first couple of weeks, the way you kept glancing around. Brig did you a favor.¡±


    He opened his mouth to object, until he realized that Granny was right. He had had what some might call post-traumatic stress syndrome. Or, at least, that¡¯s what it¡¯s called when you live in a peaceful society absent daily hardship and threat of death. It was, in these times, as in the times of old, when man had not ascended to the top of the food chain, now known as Green Sense. When you were out in the Green, the lands outside settlements, hypervigilance, a ready fight or flight response, and constant mental stimulation, was how you survived. PTSD was maladaptive in modern settings. In premodern settings, it was standard practice.


    Within the foreign setting of Safe Harbor, maybe a good bonking was what he¡¯d needed to calm down a little. Human intimacy and a few orgasms took the edge off him, which made him more functional in the city.


    ¡°Yeah, okay, I¡¯m not even going to argue that.¡± He admitted, sheepishly, ¡°But don¡¯t let her hear you say that she might take it as encouragement squeeze me like a used dish sponge.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re on your own with that. Speaking of the devil, here she comes. Good luck. I¡¯ll light candles for you.¡± Granny said, noiselessly shuffling away under the load of her pack.


    "You wouldn''t." He begged, more than anything else.


    A light cackling and a shake of her black hair was all he received in answer.


    A rapid turn of his head in slight panic revealed the truth of the situation, Brig was marching over, her spear held over her shoulder, with the clank of her armor growing louder as she approached. The off tank and flex attacker was basically the opposite of discrete. Where Brigitte O¡¯Conner went, sound and fury followed behind like a cat trying to slip out the door behind you.


    Face schooled to impassive curiosity, Alexander faced his one time bedfellow with what courage he could muster. The creaking rattle of wagons on the road seemed to play a funeral song.


    ¡°Hey, Brig, what¡¯s new?¡± He inquired, calm and cool.


    The more than pretty woman smirked at him, a raised eyebrow knowing his veneer of casualness was just that. Her instincts said there was a rabbit with a limp around.


    ¡°Not much. I saw you chatting with Granny Nguyen and, since you weren¡¯t busy, figured I¡¯d come see how our stray game hawk was getting along. I¡¯m getting bored following these wagons with nothing around that needs me to spear it, so why don¡¯t we catch up?¡± The warrior woman said, her indolent attitude carefree.


    He glanced around quickly to find a way out and found none. The other scouts were encircling, doing their rounds, the caravan was well guarded, and the still visible settlement behind them said that they were, as much as could be, out of harm¡¯s way.


    ¡°Sure, sure. I¡¯m glad you guys took the contract; I feel better about this with Getsome around to handle the field work.¡± He said, hoping that talking about work would keep her focused on her second favorite past time of battling monsters.


    He received a thumbs up from her leather gloved hand, armored plates along its back glistening under the bright October sky. Clouds were blowing in, promising rain by and by, but, just right now, it was about as peak an autumn day as you were going to get in these parts.


    ¡°Not a problem, Ben likes you, which is rarer than frog fur, and we were all getting a little restless. Last winter cooped up in Safe Harbor sucked. Other than the ice wraiths, there was nothing to do but sit around, drink, practice, and bump uglies. This job pays and gets us some action.¡± The tall woman reported, an understatement on those last two statements.


    ¡°Besides,¡± Brig chortled, ¡°We¡¯re basically guaranteed to get stronger when you go after those crystals this week.¡±


    Alexander¡¯s face froze. How did she know that? He hadn¡¯t said a word to anyone before leaving, hadn¡¯t even hinted at it. It was going to be his own little project to help clean up the coastline before they turned inland. The Guilds were wrong, that was all there was to it. Leaving the dungeons up to grow and generate even spookier horrors was asking for trouble. They didn¡¯t have enough humanity left to spare to lose them for greed¡¯s sake.


    ¡°I, uh, I¡¯m pretty sure I didn¡¯t say anything about the dungeons in the contract?¡± He replied feebly.


    She laughed at his attempt to dissemble. He¡¯d been staring with that intense hunting stare in the direction of the field dungeons for weeks. Just sitting up on the walls, chewing those full lips, that face shifting between a haunted look and murderous ferocity. Which she found fascinating. He might as well have been firing signal flares calling her over to ruin some sheets.


    ¡°Mark was so certain you¡¯d go after them after the blacklisting, he had Melinda go and mark campsites.¡± Brig told him her tone still holding humor, ¡°No need to hurry Alexander, we¡¯ll take our time, do it right, and purge those assholes real good like.¡±


    So much for discretion. He had to get Kim to show him how to go all dead in the face, the guy was completely unreadable.


    ¡°The Guilds are wrong.¡± He stated flatly, not afraid out here to say it again, even after the blacklisting.


    ¡°We talked it over,¡± The tall Red-haired Lancer commented, ¡°Ben says the dungeon farming is going to get Safe Harbor killed. Mark and Melinda agree. If they say so, then I¡¯m with them. The new guys don¡¯t have opinions that matter yet, but they listen to Ben so they¡¯re not hopeless.¡±


    People who knew the main attacker of Getsome knew to take his rarely offered opinions seriously. Benjamin Grisham, metal manipulating Heavy Knight, was as close to being a champion of humanity as there was. He¡¯d been the one to catch onto the Doppelganger infestation and was most of the reason that Getsome had been sent north in the first place. The two members of their party that had died on the way to eventually find Alexander had done so because they didn¡¯t listen to the gravel voiced black man when he warned them that something was watching them.


    They didn¡¯t have their weapons ready when the field dungeon boss, a huge stone scaled snake, erupted beneath their feet and swallowed them. If they¡¯d had their weapons out, they might have cut their way out from inside before they died of asphyxiation. When the field boss burrowed back into the ground, wounded badly by the remaining party¡¯s attacks, it took the two former members of Getsome with it.


    If not for the fact that he was completely disinterested in overseeing anybody and made no bones about telling people they were asinine fuck ups, he¡¯d have been in a Guild already, whether or not they were intimidated by his incredible gift for hacking monsters apart. But he rustled too many feathers and ¡°attracted the wrong sort¡±. Hence Getsome being composed of a core of highly competent Matriculated who, nevertheless, had not been able to garner the support of a Guild.


    Fortunate turn for Alexander, that was.


    ¡°Oh.¡± Alexander said, slightly surprised.


    When he said things like this in a tavern full of adventurers imbibing large quantities of spirits, it was mostly met with a general sort of approval. That was a completely different thing than actively partaking in the destruction of several Guilds¡¯ cash cows.


    He was leaving only one behind him, the absolute bunny of a field dungeon, literally, as it was full of Horned rabbits, beaver sized rats, and an Owl field boss that had the wingspan of a hang glider but next to no health and was vulnerable to being netted by a coordinated team. That one could be used to permit the willing to Matriculate in relative safety. The rest? He was putting an end to the danger posed by the contested zones.


    ¡°That¡¯s, well, it¡¯s more than I expected when I offered you guys the contract.¡± He admitted, sort of touched that his opinion would hold weight with these seasoned warriors.


    Oftentimes it never occurred to him that he was also one of the most seasoned warriors walking Gaia¡¯s surface.


    ¡°You sure you¡¯re willing to burn bridges with Safe Harbor like that?¡± He checked, sincerely worried about their prospects.


    Doing this meant not going back to Safe Harbor. Ever. It also might mean being persona non grata, with a possible death sentence over your head. Non-Matriculated could be hired to kill a classed person and there were not Contracts to stop it. A gun, for most, still represented a serious threat. Maybe not the Anchor tanks, with their ridiculous Soak, but certainly for Alexander, who had almost none, or the more offensively natured combatants like Brig and the mages.


    A shrug and a casual wave of her gauntleted hand answered, alongside a definitive ¡°Fuck¡¯em.¡±


    Well, there were other settlements, after all. Safe Harbor was just the closest one. Farther south, toward New York and Massachusetts, there were plenty of places that were akin to this far north town. Even better in many respects, except that they were closer to the massive field dungeons that had erupted, overlapped, then merged over what had been New York City and Boston.


    When the Pulse happened, the major population centers, thanks to the sheer concentration of lifeforce or something, all became hotspots for dungeons. Hyper dungeons, contested zones consisting of three or more different realities, were too hot to handle for newly classed. Eventually, as the smaller, more minor dungeons were cleared and classes grew in strength through experience, and the extra empowerment of being fed by dungeon cores, they would start working through those monstrosities. Not for a long, long time though. Maybe not within Alexander¡¯s life span, even if that proved to be full length and not preemptively cut short.


    ¡°Then, if you guys are certain, I look forward to working with you. Only problem, these are all capped at six people, max, and you guys are back to a full-strength party. Who stays behind?¡± he asked.


    He wasn¡¯t being left out, that was for certain. His parents depended on his continuing to ¡°walk the path¡± whatever the hell that meant, so Gaia¡¯s voice had told him.


    Brig shrugged, ¡°I guess that¡¯s up to Mark. Party leader makes his bread figuring stuff like that out. I¡¯m not here to second guess, just to beat asses and collect fat loots. Probably though, we¡¯ll switch off between Melinda and the two newbies.¡±


    Speaking of, he hadn¡¯t seen Melinda in a little while, not since cross paths on his rotation some half hour ago.


    ¡°She okay with losing the chance to boost her class?¡± He inquired.


    Party friction was to be avoided. Getsome was a well-oiled machine, and he didn¡¯t need sand in it.


    ¡°Sure. She¡¯s not like me and Ben, all hopped up on fucking up scary shit out of fairy tales. She¡¯s slightly more normal. Besides, she¡¯s got the least combat potential, and it doesn¡¯t hurt as much when she doesn¡¯t boost, compared to getting that nutter Dame Sanchez caught up, or Shiv, he¡¯s going to be important when things go to the dogs.¡± Assessed the Lancer.


    Alexander found himself coming to a similar conclusion. Especially because he and the Luminous Pathfinder fulfilled similar roles in a party, except he was head and shoulders, ehem, not a pun intended to slight the tiny statured woman, a better monster killer.


    They settled into a quiet walk under the October afternoon. His steps quiet, his presence somewhat faded by his Stalk, hers brash and obvious, made more so by the clink of armor and rub of leather.


    He was almost comfortable next to the Ginger warrior when she leaned over and said, ¡°You want to take another ride on the Brig Express tonight?¡±


    A choke on inhaled saliva broke his concentration, and he blushed to his hairline. On the point of an instant refusal, he recalled that he would soon be up to his neck in killing monsters trying to do the same to him and new weirdness associated with touching the crystal cores that, oh so briefly, connected you to the consciousness of the planet. Against that, what was the harm?


    Alexander sighed, hating his libido and lack of impulse control already, even as he offered a resigned, ¡°Be gentle.¡±


    Brig slung a rough arm over his shoulders, one of the only women in the entire caravan that could do that without him bending over, and chuckled, ¡°Oh, Sweet Summer Child, no. No, I¡¯m afraid not.¡±

 Chapter 14: Raiding Party

    The caravans rolled to a stop, with the sun barely halfway to its apex, only intermittently shining through a heavily overcast sky. Rain was imminent, by the smell of the air. The settlement of Safe Harbor was out of view now, hidden behind a low rise. At a stately speed, they¡¯d traveled almost due north to a tiny little offshoot of what had been Searsport, known as North Searsport. It was a ghost town now, having been consumed completely by the field dungeon, and the riders and mercenaries guarding the wagons took the opportunity to stretch tight muscles, and aching backsides as they dismounted. Armored feet shed their protective covers to liberate cramped toes and insteps.


    A casual observer might have mistaken the caravan for being relaxed, but the opposite was true. These were the actions of seasoned travelers translating from a state of relaxed transit through easy country to a band of hardened veterans preparing for war. In a few hours¡¯ time, the caravan was going to be moving at a rapid pace, leaving behind the only major settlement within a week¡¯s travel, the next being almost three times that in good road conditions.


    Getsome was doing some last-minute preparation for the side project of their contractor, which was dubbed by the party leader: Operation Clean House.


    Alexander had already gone through the plan with Mark earlier, while he recovered from being deliciously used the night before. The leader of his designated field team of monster slayers was making certain that all his members knew the drill. They had four minor field dungeons to clear today, and they were to do the do and be on the move toward Falcon¡¯s Rest, Alexander¡¯s new old home, before midafternoon. It was a tight timeline. Mark was explaining the plan for the third time.


    ¡°First dungeon, grassland derived from the realm Nemeta, it¡¯s on the tame side. Direwolves, Porcu-badgers, Grass Vipers, field boss Shieling Ceratops. Direwolves like to flank, remember that. Porcu-badgers can fling spines from the tail, I will be pulling aggro to keep them sending those spines into my shield, do not preempt my pulls or you get to pull spines out of your own meat. Grass Vipers are constrictors, no poison, not a serious threat unless one gets its mouth over your head or manages to throw coils around your neck.¡±


    Each of these statements was accompanied by Hilde using her Mirage Caster abilities to create an image of each creature. The briefing wasn¡¯t for the sake of the entire caravan, but most of them were in attendance when the light show started anyhow. Knowledge was power, and the humans that survived the Pulse coveted power, because those who hadn¡¯t, died for lack of it.


    Mark indicated the illusion mage to flip to the next ¡°slide¡± of the presentation. Cervantes was making a loud t¡¯chick sound when she changed images, mostly for the hell of it. Alexander found himself wishing he could have so few visible fucks to give. Alas, he was not blessed in this manner. His burden to carry was dissecting every single last thing, figuring out which parts he could influence, and then being able to approximate forgetting about the rest. Cervantes, the lucky devil, just skipped to that last part. Maybe it was the confidence. The Latin man with coal black eyes and a ready smile, was confident that he was immortal, so long as Hilde stood at his side. That he hadn¡¯t been proven wrong yet was just more reason to continue as he had.


    Alexander¡¯s distraction with the tuning fork sword carrying warrior caused him to miss the discussion about the field boss, but it was irrelevant. He was the one who had gathered the intel on the monster initially for Getsome, using his time with the Guild to its fullest. A profitable arrangement, his gifts for their resources.


    Alexander Gerifalte was an Entropic Venator. His chaos magic had the effect that it degraded almost anything it encountered, sort of like an acid, but acting on a more fundamental level than simple oxidation of atoms. Entropy magic eroded the organization of energy, which included the defensive resistance to damage innate to living things since the Pulse, known as Soak.


    Soak, typically represented to analysis skills as a percentage, represented a degree of damage nullification. Swing an axe into a log to split it without Soak, it split cleanly in two along the grain. Swing the same axe, with the same stroke, into a log with fifty percent Soak and you only managed to start a split in the log, the axe head biting but not splitting the wood. Swing a third time into a log with seventy percent Soak, and the axe head bounced off the log, leaving only a small cut to mar the surface of the wood.


    Many boss monsters were characterized by a high vitality, which gave them a large amount of health, typically observed as rapid healing, multiple hearts, redundant nervous systems, two sets of lungs, self-sealing blood vessels, poison resistance, that kind of thing. They also had Soak values of at least fifty percent. That meant that, unless you had some serious firepower, you had to chew the boss creatures down, giving them time to employ whatever tools they had in their arsenal of post Pulse foreign reality horseshit. Alexander¡¯s magic though, it essentially ignored Soak, and the damage it inflicted was virtually unhealable. His was a mana that was seemingly designed to destroy magical creatures.


    It was what he had asked for, all those months ago, when first he made contact with the mind of the planet.


    Gaia had rejected his request to turn it all back. Time could not be reversed. But his second demand was to know the rules and to be able to break them. To know the rules, he was granted Greater analyze, the vastly upgraded variant of the skill that permitted a being to view the properties and qualities of things in the world. He could examine the blue scrollwork indices that described monsters, people, beasts, plants, and materials, as long as he was concentrating on one thing in particular. He couldn¡¯t look at a solution of ocean water and get a detailed analysis of salt, for example, because he wasn¡¯t looking directly at the salt crystals. To break those rules, he was given a core resonant with Chaos magic, Entropy. An offensive magic that held no defensive properties, and only had the ability to destroy, especially things that relied upon magic and Soak to defend themselves.


    There was a price for this. Alexander had nearly zero Soak himself. Five percent, a measly, almost insignificant quantity. Brigitte had described him, in her own indelicate way, as ¡°playing on hard mode¡±, which was not altogether a wrong way to think of it. Alexander had nearly no buffer for things that tried to kill him. He fought against them as a more or less entirely mundane human, where most Matriculated had somewhere between twenty and thirty percent, with the particularly defensive classes raising that substantially, some into the sixties. Hard mode indeed.


    It was amusing to him at the moment, the upside, the detail that made him sought after by the Guilds, was that Alexander could kill boss monsters effectively solo. His skills made boss hunting relatively painless, the bigger, the better. That was his long-term value. The short term was that he built a working steam engine, based on designs in his father¡¯s library, which he then used to retrofit an industrial power hammer and a few other machine shop tools. That got him on board quickly, but once they had their craftsmen working with industrial equipment his usefulness was his chaos magic. A usefulness outweighed by one stupid, untended, unguarded, maybe trying to kill people dungeon heart.


    A disappointed shake of his head cleared the bitter thought.


    His attitude brightened with the reminder that, even though he¡¯d lost an incredible opportunity to work with the settlement big wigs for a chunk of the similarly big monies, the boss here wasn¡¯t going to be a problem.


    This dungeon¡¯s crystal guardian was a creature that looked like a triceratops made of woven grass. It could disassemble itself and hide amongst the tall grass of the dungeon, becoming nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding environment. A fire could force it to assume its shape so a Molotov was required equipment, if you didn¡¯t have a class that could start fires. When it wasn¡¯t hidden, it was a big target, not that fast, and, as long as you didn¡¯t let it ensnare you with woven grass vines to pull you inside it, where it would digest you in some gnarly acid, it wasn¡¯t a threat. Guilds harvested the monster once every three days, when the Phoenix sun restored the field bosses from dungeons whose cores were not destroyed.


    ¡°And that should about cover it.¡± Mark finished his debriefing, examining the faces of the attending adventurers to be sure they were attentive.


    The barely twenty-year old leader of Getsome launched immediately into the next item on the agenda.


    ¡°The second dungeon is a nice little volcanic island about a quarter mile off the coast, Muspelheim, of course, and it¡¯s mostly imps. A few salamanders when you get closer to the central cone. Every now and then the cone spits up lava elementals that can be dicey if you have to get close to them. Dame Sanchez, can your grace handle these, if you would be so good?¡± He asked, handling their water mage¡¯s eccentric demands of propriety with ease.


    A hand to the lace at her throat, as if offended that any would think her shirking, Dame Sanchez, purred, ¡°But of course! Noblesse oblige, my fair peasants.¡±


    If she hadn¡¯t been so violently frustrating to deal with, Dame Sanchez would have been one of the most sought-after members of any Guild around. She was, however, completely out of her gourd, cosplaying a Victorian era duchess of Cornwall or something similar.


    Mark Ross of Getsome was virtually the only person in Safe Harbor who could communicate effectively with her, courtesy of his background in classical theater. A well-read guy was Mark, with Shakespear¡¯s complete works, along with dozens of others packed away in his noodle. He could speak the lingo required to get the Dame on board. His status as an Anchor tank was well deserved, and Alexander brought up the information on the young party leader.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Mark Ross


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    Class:


    Burning Legionnaire


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="101">


    Status:


    Fresh, active


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Soak: 50%


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    16(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    5¡¯6¡±


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    23/25 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    168lbs


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    18/45 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Steel Corinthian Crested Helm


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    18/30 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    11(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    20


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Aluminum Plate Vambrace


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Aluminum Plate Manica


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    15


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    Ruby, ceylon


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Carbon Steel/Oak Kite Shield


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    30/35 slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Spring Steel Knight¡¯s Broadsword


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Tool Steel Lorica


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    13


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="101">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Jann)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    24/30


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    24/30


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Tool Steel Plate Armor


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    30/35 slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Tool Steel Plate Armor


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    25(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Tool Steel Lorica


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Centurion, Solid build, Unwavering, Gaia¡¯s child


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Lesser firebrand, Bolster, Lesser Shield rush


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Incendiary counter stance, Minor Heatsink


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Alright, that handles the main types of nasties. It¡¯s hot, there¡¯s sulfur fumes and a few toxic gas pools that¡¯ll kill you if you bend down and breathe in them, but, really, the terrain is the biggest danger related to the boss. It¡¯s a dragon, but a small one, barely a juvenile. Even so, the flame breath melted an anchor tanks¡¯ great shield a few months back, so don¡¯t let it corner you. Ben and Brig should be able to get through its hide and into its vitals. Alexander, you¡¯re good for softening it up, right?¡± the Burning Legionnaire inquired.


    Stirred from his own thoughts by his name, he back tracked the conversation happening in the background of his brain for a second before nodding.


    ¡°The little red dragon? Yeah, not a problem.¡± He confirmed, ¡°I was with a hunt team that took it down when it was discovered, while the Guild was testing my abilities. One, two Chaos strikes and your spears go right through the scales, they¡¯re not much tougher than alligator hide without the magic that infuses them.¡±


    The adventurers were visibly relieved at that. Dungeon intel was one thing, they had plenty of information about what to expect. What they lacked was first hand experience, given that these dungeons were sole property of the Guilds. Alexander decided to go ahead and poke that particular bear.


    ¡°Guilds are going to have guards posted to keep non Guildies off the premises. What¡¯s the plan for making sure they don¡¯t cause trouble?¡± the young hunter pumped the leader of the party.


    Mark indicated Hilde Mirage Caster and Cervantes Reverberation Highlander and they gave a mock salute as he outlined his plan, ¡°These two. You got them for their ability to confuse and distract the nasties, yeah? Well, Hilde is going to mask us and Cervantes is going to muffle us, and we¡¯re going to have Shiv knock them out. He says he can stop the blood flow in their carotids temporarily, should have them unconscious within a few seconds. Right Shiv?¡±


    ¡°Da.¡± Shiv answered simply, looking a little nervous, but not so bad for a guy who¡¯d never been out in the Green.


    From there, there was one last recap of the next two dungeons, but Alexander was checked out fully now, contemplating the response of the Guilds to having the most lucrative of their operations yanked out from under them.


    Short answer: They would be pissed.


    A lot of the Matriculated who had done real adventuring outside the city would be quietly relieved, so many active field dungeons meant there was always a chance, no matter how well patrolled the lands, that something nasty your way would come. Not as much anymore, not since the adventurer teams and Guilds had gotten organized this summer past, but there were always kinks to iron out, and kinks involving denizens of the contested zones, frequently, involved people being put in the ground, if you could find enough of them after the fact.


    That wouldn¡¯t matter not one damn to the men and women at the top ranks of the Guilds. They would be out for blood. If not for the Contract, Alexander had no doubt that they¡¯d draft immediate orders to have everyone in this convoy whacked. Even with the contract, they would probably quietly make arrangements for ¡°accidents¡± to befall anyone who came back around.


    The caravan was fully intending to be, if not a one-way trip, then to be making wide detours on its next journey south. Just as well, nobody wanted to risk the Belfast hyper dungeon hawking up some fresh horror. New Hampshire and Vermont overland routes were slower than sticking to the coast, but less riddled with monsters. Foreign ones, anyway. Gaia had plenty of tricks up her own sleeves.


    Ten minutes of wagon rattling later, the party made it to their first destination of the journey, the site of the Nemata Field dungeon, property of number three Guild, Harbor¡¯s Pillars, in what remained of the one stop sign ¡°town¡± of North Searsport. Not a town so much as a subdivision for the locals who lived on the East side of Swan Lake. Nothing of the intersection of roads and houses was left except for a large plain of chest high grass, rolling across the terrain between the small lake and a large pond called Halfmoon. Alexander had never even seen the area that had been erased by the contested zone, it was one of those types of places that Maine seemed to generate from nothing.


    Two Guildies, looking initially quite bored in their armor, watched with deceptive focus the wagon train that was passing by, headed for distant lands. They knew the score with these wagons, who rode them, and where they were headed. Darkening expressions and a few shifts almost seemed to indicate that they wanted to make trouble, except that they were outnumbered some three to one by seasoned adventurers that owed allegiance to no Guild.


    Mercenaries followed the Contract, and that was all they were obliged to follow. Making trouble was a good way to get your pretty face all dinged up.


    What these two didn¡¯t know was that the convoy of wagons had actually stopped a hundred feet ago, and that they were watching an illusion of the wagon train, while a small party crept up on them unnoticed. Hilde could only maintain the optical cloak and the image of the wagon train rolling, copied from riding ahead and watching from the same perspective that the dungeon¡¯s guards would have, for a short span. It was difficult work, and drained her mana. Cervantes was gently tapping his tuning fork sword against his armor, faint ringing tones magically deadening the sound the party created while they closed in.


    Ben had one in a full nelson strangle hold that locked in so tightly the man was unconscious before he knew what was happening. The second dropped as if clubbed, with Shiv applying the magical equivalent of a Vulcan nerve pinch with his long, delicate fingers. Both of the Guildies were then treated with a sleeping tonic that would have them out for a solid hour and a half and in no condition to chase thereafter. Benadryl, in high doses, was a sonofabitch.


    With that, Getsome was ready to begin their play.


    Alexander had Singer at the ready, an arrow already nocked, and tension on the string to be ready to draw. He was off to the left, about fifty feet apart from the cluster that was a triangle with Mark in the apex, Ben on one corner and Brig on the other, their long weapons ready to intercept whatever rushed to meet their Anchor tank and give it indigestion. Behind them, at a five-foot dispersion from the triangular vanguard, stood Shiv and Dame Sanchez. Shiv was trembling a little. The Dame looked lost, as if she¡¯d stepped off her carriage and taken a wrong turn. That was fine. Normal stuff for a fledgling on his first run of the Green, and a lady who¡¯d probably had a psychotic break from the stress of the Pulse.


    Mark and the rest would see them through.


    His job was to keep anything from sneaking up on them, and to bait any ambushers toward his position. A lone straggler always looked more tempting than the armed cluster to the hostile entities of the contested zones. The moment they crossed into the contested zone, he felt it, like mouthwash applied to your skin, even through the clothes. Once inside, he saw the flash of warning from the strange blue scrolls that communicated with his mind.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="269">


    Nemeta Contested Space Entered!


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    And, just like that, they were in a parallel slice of reality. Part their own native world of Gaia. Part wherever or whatever Nemeta was. The alien landscape was lush, the grass underfoot, interspersed with leafy ferns, bouncy sphagnum, and, in the distance, not to be seen from the outside, a vast forest that spread from horizon to horizon. No one had yet ventured into the boughs of that forest, not anyone that had lived to get word back to Safe Harbor. The thought of doing so sent instinctive shivers of dread down even a brave man. The dim wood distant terrified Alexander.


    Instantly, the postures of the veteran members became that odd catlike combination of tense and fluid. Ready to move, but not rigid. While not allowed to take part in the spoils of the Guilds, Getsome, the two newbies aside, was a team of professionals. Kite shield forward, Mark led the group, eyes scanning beneath his Corinthian helmet, its mohawk crest of iridescent blue monster feathers marking him for all to see.


    Onward marched the vanguard formation, and Alexander turned his attention to the surroundings, moving slightly ahead of the rest of the party, fulfilling his role as scout. Stalk, a skill to smooth his motions and produce a more low-profile movement through terrain, was well developed and Alexander cruised ahead of the group, mostly silently, and seeming to blur into the surrounding grass shadows a bit to outside observers. So long as he kept to a fast, sliding sort of sub jog, he would be difficult to notice for things with roughly human level vision. Against a potent sense of smell, heat sensitivity, or some alternate kind of sensory, the skill did nothing that good situational awareness and experience hunting wouldn¡¯t.


    The dense layers of grass and foliage, green on green, in different shades, made seeing too far ahead of the party impossible. Even for his eyes, the wall of layered grass blades was nearly solid. Without a rise in terrain from which to view the surroundings, he¡¯d have to work his way significantly ahead of the party to scout the presence of threats. In this aspect, Melinda¡¯s Luminous pathfinder class was more specifically tailored to be effective. The trade off for this deficiency was offense, which Alexander had in spades.


    Sound ahead stopped him; he¡¯d learned true caution with savage panthers jumping from the trees as his teachers. He raised a fist in the classical squad sign language for halt, before freezing completely. Soft whispers of rustled grass, scuffling of footfalls on the soft earth became louder for the lack of his party members¡¯ noise. Whatever it was, it was either large, or not particularly concerned with being heard.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Alexander listened for a count of ten, chewing his lip the entire time while he considered whether increasing the distance between himself and the vanguard was worth the additional information. If it was the Direwolf, which hunted anywhere between alone or up to groups of six or seven, then staying close to the group was better, less chance of his being isolated by a flanking canine monster. If it was the other most likely option, a Porcui-badger, then going ahead was advantageous, the better to direct any spines the little buggers might throw away from the party.


    Decisions, decisions, Little Falcon, he mused. Forward.


    Confirming the enemy was a scout¡¯s job, and he would not shirk his duty to the party.


    Careful, padding steps took him ahead, and he disappeared into the grass with a final finger raised to track a circle to let the rest of the team know he was making a loop to check the area out.


    Within fifty feet, he had his answer. Soft snuffling and a menacing growl said a Direwolf had picked up his scent against the foliage.


    Now for the fun part, the hunter remarked to himself, drily.


    Singer rose to ready and Alexander pulled the string back to his cheek, taking small comfort from the hum of the stave. One last adjustment to drift toward the sound of a growling wolf about three hundred pounds and as big as a black bear. Release.


    ¡°Doomph¡± sang the bowstring, a bass note that sent the arrow streaking into the grass ahead.


    A sound like meat being punched was superseded by angry yowls of monster dog pain that, blessedly, cut off briefly. Alexander¡¯s arrow had done its job. The chorus of three more canine voices rising up from his one, three, and five o¡¯clock said that he had done his as well. Mission accomplished; he¡¯d found the monsters.


    The youth turned on his heel and sprinted back toward the waiting party, with a clear call of ¡°Three Direwolves, bearing one and three and five! Hot pursuit!¡± as he ran.


    Rustling grass gave warning that the monstrous hounds were closing faster than he could sprint. With his vision blocked against longer shots against moving foes, he shouldered his bow and withdrew a scalpel bladed spear with a sword point, called a naginata, from his back harness. Steam poured off the instrument as the ice enchantment on it condensed the air that touched the naked metal of the blade.


    Alexander flushed with adrenaline at the sound of sudden steps behind and juked, chest low. A sailing lupine form flew overhead, jaws sweeping for where his neck had been, coming from his eight o¡¯clock. The bastard hadn¡¯t made a sound, cunningly letting its packmates distract the prey. Alexander¡¯s feet planted in the soft turf and he thrust the spear at the second wolf, the one he¡¯d known about, using the power of his rotation to lend momentum to the blade.


    A slavering form caught mid pounce pushed hard on the young man, and he lowered the butt end of the spear to the dirt, where it grounded to absorb the Direwolf¡¯s momentum without his being tackled. It was one of the fundamentals of spear fighting, receiving a charge with the ground, and Alexander was a devout believer in fundamentals. The impaled wolf clawed and gnawed at the haft of the polearm. Golem High steel held easily, barely scuffing from the predator¡¯s weapons.


    Behind him, Getsome arrived in time to take on the remaining beasts, Ben and Brig¡¯s long bladed weapons leading. A low rumbling of threat turned into a yelp when the Steel Heavy Knight plowed into the thicket ahead, surging in front of Mark¡¯s planted feet, his shielded position setting the fallback point. Only a second later, and the big man returned, quick stepping backward to keep his poleaxe at ready, his helmet and armor splashed with wolf blood, including the brown skin of his face. The man was smiling because killing monsters was his life¡¯s purpose.


    Brig took a bounding leap, boosted by a lift of the earth beneath her feet that spring boarded her upward. The remaining wolf that surged forward to hit Alexander¡¯s flank was met by Mark¡¯s shield, brought to a halt against the immovable kite shield. Futile biting and clawing abruptly ended as it was harpooned from above, the full weight of the lancer woman pinning it to the earth through its chest. Angry red flames rose like a torch as Mark lifted his sword and decapitated the immobile wolf, its thick neck cauterized by searing hot metal. Brig lowered herself to the ground and the triangular formation was fully reset to receive enemies.


    The dispatch of both Direwolves took only a handful of seconds.


    The first leaping wolf had barely had time to set its paws and turn, its packmates dispatched by the practiced warriors, before a beam of pressurized water hit it between the eyes and pulverized its brains, along with most of its skull.


    ¡°Oh, joy!¡± Cheered Dame Sanchez, ¡°How long has it been since my last fox hunt?! You peasants do have the loveliest jaunts for a lady.¡±


    She was batty, but Alexander couldn¡¯t doubt her raw firepower. As long as she was directing it at the monsters instead of ¡°keeping the peasants in line¡± he was grateful.


    With that, the first test of Getsome + 1¡¯s goal of cleansing the field dungeon was over. No injuries, ten seconds of combat, at most, and five dead Direwolves. Not bad.


    ¡°Do we harvest, or are we skipping?¡± Alexander called out his question to Mark.


    From his days before meeting any human soul for almost a year, Alexander was almost compulsive about cleaning kills and collecting anything that might be useful. Direwolves weren¡¯t particularly valued, but wolf pelts could be tanned, and the sturdy fur was warm. Their cores added a small bit of penetrating power to a blade point. Most wouldn¡¯t waste the effort of enchanting for a minor improvement to their main weapon, but Alexander didn¡¯t put them on his main arms. Since he could do the work himself, he used the wolf cores brought out of the dungeons, gotten for relatively cheap where he didn¡¯t harvest them himself, to give his arrows extra punch. His fingers inched toward his belt knife.


    ¡°Skipping, you hoarder,¡± Mark replied, sheathing his cooling sword as he did, ¡°Grab the cores, I know you put them into your arrows, but leave the rest. We¡¯re on a timetable, which you helped make, I might add.¡±


    A nod of acknowledgement was all he wasted before diving in to carve the cores free from the corpses. Five more arrows with deceivingly high penetration, coming up, he remarked to himself.


    They moved on swiftly from that point. A group of the spine bearing badgers, rushing out from a hidden den, met a similar fate as did the lupine monsters. For his enthusiasm applying a finishing thrust from his long fighting dagger, Shiv got four quills to the stomach from a tail he failed to secure under his boot.


    ¡°Augh! Stinging little bitch!¡± He cursed, staggering back, his hands grasping at his midsection.


    Brig and Mark took the cursing Slavic man by the arms and Ben drew the brown, black, and white whirled, boney spines, barbed like crochet needles, which produced more high-pitched screaming as each was pulled. At the end of it, the hard quills, three inches of them reddened by his blood, were out of nasty looking wounds in the guts of their new healer. Alexander and the Dame kept watch for hostiles that might be drawn by the sound or smell of human blood.


    Shiv, trembling from the pain and adrenaline, cupped his hands over the wounds and concentrated. From a distance, Alexander watched the meat below the hands shiver and writhe as the surgeon magically repaired the internal damage and stemmed the bleeding. In a few seconds, he was moving on to the next puckered hole, and then to the next, hands steadier with each application of his healing skills.


    ¡°At least we know our healer can.¡± Ben chirped, a criticism and praise wrapped up together in his sarcasm, and they released the man, who stood slightly pale, but no longer shaking so much.


    ¡°Da, and is not feeling so pleasant, so do not make habit of needing it.¡± Shiv responded with a grimace, his accent being a little thicker for discomfort.


    That byplay aside, the group moved smoothly through the dungeon. It was a bunny. Almost anticlimactic, all the way to the field boss. The boss itself fell with almost no trouble at all, Alexander chucked a volley of chaos strikes into the rhino sized bundle of grass tentacles and Mark, employing his class to its fullest, set the creature ablaze. Green though its body was, the Burning Legionnaire was its nemesis.


    Ben hacked away the stilled woven material that made up the whicker dinosaur and pulled free the glittering green core. It was a prize, available once every three days, and could be used to passively grow thick, lush grass. That might not sound like much, but flax was a type of grass, and linen was becoming the most common type of clothing, now that access to raw cotton, silk, and basically any textile manufacturing was off the table.


    As it turned out, Alexander wasn¡¯t the only nerd with a library. Some big brain folk in Safe Harbor realized the implications of the boss cores, when most deemed them useless, and set up their own linen mill. A cultivation class was hired on to further enhance the growth of strong flax, at a rapid turnover. Monster bone, ground fine, acted to supplement the soil under those uber farmer¡¯s traits, skills, and arcana, increasing the odds of the seeded plant itself adopting post Pulse properties. Around the time Alexander was being escorted back to civilization, they managed to create a super flax, which the weaver classed linen gurus used to corner the enhanced clothing market with an amazingly durable, breathable, die taking, and slightly armored fabric.


    It warmed the cockles of the young man¡¯s heart to see that principles of market economy were encouraging specialization and entrepreneurship in these troubled days.


    A heavy bribe of a warehouse guard may have permitted Alexander to acquire some of the enhanced grass seed for his own uses. He didn¡¯t have the skilled labor to raise that seed with the speed of the agricultural specialist classes, but he was confident that Entling blood enriched soil would do some heavy lifting on that front. Stalwart linen, processed under the machines that he and Victor would design, was going to become a staple of Falcon¡¯s rest.


    Mark, as party leader and field boss shit kicker for this dungeon, was granted the honor of putting his sword into the green, vine woven heart of this slice of perverted reality.


    Immediately, the world around Alexander faded and his mind was filled by a familiar voice.


    WORTHY! RETURNED! WALK THE PATH!


    No more did the resonant voice say, no questions did it answer. Notably, the voice did not ask his desire. Maybe it already knew his desires by this point. Or maybe, worthy he might be, but this feat did not merit a boon of choice.


    Surrounding sights returned to relevance, and he took in the glazed over expressions of his fellow dungeon conquerors. There was no pattern that he was aware of for what Gaia¡¯s voice said to those who struck down the crystal hearts of the dungeons. Touching them seemed to only barely unlock the transformation of being that distinguished classed, Matriculated humans, from the Normals. It was the difference between Tier I and Tier II humanity, each of whom acquired an aspect or lineage to go with their humanity. These, as well as personal inclinations, experiences, and talents, also played a major role in what class would emerge from the person. Killing a dungeon though, granted a much more significant enhancement.


    For Getsome, this was their first slaying of a crystal heart, the first victory over a contested zone.


    No doubt, they were experiencing some kind of major shift. That was another reason for rotating out members and slaying the cores. Going Upta meant being outside the frontier of humanity, limited as even that was. They would need all the strength they could muster if they wanted to survive it. Still more to prosper.


    He turned his enhanced perception of the nature of things, his little window into the truth of Gaia, on himself, bringing up the blue scrollwork that defined him.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    AlexanderGerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Entropic Venator


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    active


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 60%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯4¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    15/25 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    182lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/28 slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat helmet


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/28 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    18(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (re-forged)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    17/32 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (re-forged)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    18(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Shoggoth)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/22 slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/22 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    14(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/30 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    27(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Raptor gaze, Spatial adept, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Warforger, Scholarship, Singular prominence


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Greater entropic aura, Chaos strike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    His abilities had plateaued since the end of summer. Time spent rehashing the same inventions and techniques he employed before arriving in Safe Harbor had increased his familiarity, his polish, but had not led to true growth. Yet another reason to be well away from that place, it was stifling his potential.


    Here now, the first advancement since arriving in Safe Harbor, and one that was incredibly useful. His entropic field was enhanced, had risen to its next stage. The youth concentrated on this alteration to his scroll and received a description of the arcana.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="600">


    Greater entropic aura: intensify the dispersal of ongoing magical effects and disrupts the casting of new instances of magic. Mage burn added to aura in which manipulation of mana depletes health as the body experiences a back lash of organizing its mana forcefully.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Horizontal power gain was good. Instead of something new, which he had to learn to implement and train to employ in combat, under duress, or make into muscle memory, the qualitative improvement of his ability to create a field of disruption was far more immediately useful. Unfortunately, this ability held not a little bit of anti-synergy in group tactics. The aura did not permit targeting; thus, he could not use it while close to his teammates. Even so, Alexander Gerifalte welcomed the arcana. It would accelerate his role as an anti-mage and big game hunter, breaking down monsters¡¯ active magical defenses and Soak with even more rapidity. Mage burn would now also punish their attempts to employ the resonant magic of their core, hurting them directly for wielding their strange powers.


    A solid improvement.


    Not but a few seconds later, the far away stares of his companions faded. Trained senses heard the approach of wagons, as the disappearance of the dungeon cleared a shortcut from the roads leading around its influence.


    Granny was approaching at a steady jog, deceptively light on her feet for all that huge pack wobbling around as she ran. She outpaced the wagons easily and came to the former center of the contested zone.


    ¡°Heeyyooo!!¡± She called, waving unnecessarily on account of she was standing right in front of him.


    ¡°How¡¯d it go? No problems?¡± The woman asked, panting slightly from the long run.


    Her speed and dexterity were good, and her strength more than adequate, but she gassed out quickly. Gathering classes weren¡¯t made to exert themselves at full go for long periods of time. Slow and steady was their bent.


    Alexander answered, seeing that his fellows were still somewhat stupefied. Having the planet speak into your think meats directly was a little much to get used to. No doubt their classes had shifted significantly and the changes were absorbing their attention.


    ¡°We¡¯re all good, Granny. Minor wounds, but Shiv healed himself, so no problem. It went just like Mark said it would, like clockwork. I even got a set of hair needles for you!¡± He said, offering a cluster of a couple dozen Porcui-badger spines to the small, brown woman.


    She instantly shoved a pair of them into the complex rat nest of hair that she claimed was a bun, winking at him roguishly and exclaiming, ¡°Nice! Hypodermic Hairpins!¡±


    The spines were, in fact, hollow. Since the monsters that bore them did not have venom, that was an oddity. Whatever, apparently Granny had plans. Alexander saw the Asian woman grow thoughtful. Uh oh.


    ¡°I know that look!¡± He accused, pointing an accusing finger at the gatherer, he could feel it, she was about to make him do work for free.


    ¡°What?!¡± Granny Nguyen, lied, knowing her con was up before it started, ¡°I was just thinking that-¡±


    ¡°And here it is, more pro bono work!¡± Alexander complained, cutting her off and covering his face with a gloved hand, before looking at the relentless scrounger of free shit.


    Last time, it was the titanium kukri, because ¡°It¡¯s dangerous to go alone, your wingman needs to able to protect herself.¡± And he¡¯d spent three days melting down titanium cook ware from a tourist trap hiking shop and wearing out his machining tools to make it.


    ¡°But it¡¯s for a good cause! If I had a blow gun or something I could have poison darts, and your gatherer would be safe from all the mean whittle nasties, that want to feast on her sumptuous whittle-¡± the normally reserved and dignified woman started to writhe in an approximation of sexy, for the benefit of creatures related to Cthulhu, perhaps.


    ¡°Stop that wiggling, and never do it again, and I¡¯ll think about it.¡± Alexander bargained, eager to never witness such a sight in his life.


    Granny flashed a two fingered victory pose and cried ¡°Done! Fool! Granny Nguyen wins again!¡±


    The fact that that rhymed just aggravated him further, and he turned to escape, the distraction of the rest of Getsome coming out of their meet the planet funk covering for him. Now he had a damned blow gun to make. Phooey! The con artist resumed the guise of a world weary and wise sage, and he was certain that no one would believe him when he tried to reveal her true nature.


    ¡°Holy shit balls!¡± Brig exclaimed, pearly whites displayed in a childlike grin, ¡°What a rush!¡±


    ¡°You ain¡¯t lying.¡± Ben confirmed, shaking his head at the experience.


    Mark was quiet, considering. Probably worrying about what, if any, adjustments would have to be made to their tactics due to their upgrades.


    The wagons rolled on, their wheels crushing down tall grass as the caravan closed in. They¡¯d arrive in another four or five minutes. Some of the cargo was fragile, and the suspensions weren¡¯t ideal, best not to take chances all had agreed.


    Granny shamelessly pried, ¡°Sharing is caring, what have you learned from the song of Gaia.¡±


    She is so full of shit, Alexander commented internally, noting the subtle wink directed his way from the harvester classed woman.


    Their party leader led the conversation.


    ¡°Now we know why Gerifalte has such a filled out set of abilities.¡± Mark said, eyebrows raised toward Alexander.


    What? It wasn¡¯t his choice to be left alone sandwiched between two dungeons. Both had spat up monsters to murder him, he hadn¡¯t gone looking for trouble until it had already found him. Trouble had his GPS coordinates on weekly refresh it seemed like sometimes.


    ¡°I got an upgrade in tier of my flame brand skill from lesser to the real deal,¡± The Burning Legionnaire reported with suppressed excitement, ¡°Same with a couple of skills. Nothing new, but a serious increase in efficiency. I want a status update from everybody unless you want Alexander to give you the MRI treatment and he can do the honors.¡±


    Their party leader got some eye rolls for that last jab, which, unfairly, included Alexander. He couldn¡¯t help it that Greater analyze made you feel like you were getting strip searched. It had an almost physical pressure. He avoided using it on people without asking, doing so won you no friends. He had inspected everybody here at one point or another though, so he was familiar with them. Getsome had used him to interview for members, as he was the only one they¡¯d known with the ability that they¡¯d trusted enough to do it and tell them everything truthfully. Yet another reason that Alexander had put them at the top of his list for hired help. He knew what they could do, and what they couldn¡¯t. Better yet, they knew what they could do, and what they couldn¡¯t, which meant they wouldn¡¯t bite off more than they could chew and get everyone killed.


    Ben spoke up, deep voice rough from hurry to not be subjected to another deep scan, ¡°Got a new thing, can levitate metal objects. Don¡¯t know how strongly, don¡¯t know if I can use it to hold a shield or swing a weapon, or how much mana and attention it takes, and it won¡¯t be something to experiment with in the field. Probably holds potential for later though.¡±


    Brig, always open to new chances to indulge her crass sense of humor, turned to Alexander, and declared, ¡°Our contractor has already abused his authority to delve all my deeps, if you know what I mean. Go ahead, Alexander, get with the probing.¡±


    He sighed a little and inspected the japing lancer, cursing again his failure to resist her admittedly extensive charms.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Brigitte O¡¯Conner


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Lithic Lancer


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Fresh, cautious


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 20%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 90%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    15(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯6¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    18/30 impact/crush resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    166lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/24 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Carbon Steel Illyrian Helm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    14/24 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    25


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Aluminum Brigandine Harness and Spalder


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Aluminum Brigandine Harness and Spalder


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Boulder Opal, half rose


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    21/35 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winged Spear


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Carbon Steel Scale Mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    14(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-2<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Oread)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/20 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Hybrid Aluminum Leather Cuisses


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    18/30 slash/stab resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Hybrid Aluminum/Leather Cuisses


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Carbon Steel Scale Mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Earthen bulwark, Rage, Greater stamina, Gaia¡¯s child


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Full thrust, Leap, Lesser pole vault, Harden blade


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser stone spear, Lesser shape stone


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Compared to before her abilities had matured significantly, especially the ability that let her harden her weapons, imbuing them temporarily with the sturdiness of a matrix of earth magic. That one had jumped twice! Unlike a metal-based class, lithic magic couldn¡¯t rearrange the material of a weapon itself, but, instead, wrapped around the entire object, like a netting that made it more solid. Her ability to move stone and main attacking skill that amplified the momentum of her spear thrusts had also improved.


    He couldn¡¯t prevent the joke that was coming as a result of this. He could see the mischief in Brig¡¯s blue eyes, the eagerness to sully the air with her immaturity. So he beat her to it.


    ¡°It¡¯s not so much, but Brig gets hard and thrusts better.¡± He said, with a clinical tone.


    The ginger warrior put her armored hands on her armored hips and announced, ¡°You bet I do!¡± to the amusement of the party. Most were already used to her locker room humor and disregard for the vaguely puritan notions for women''s sexuality that sometimes pervaded folk''s attitudes. Some were not.


    Dame Sanchez sniffed and mumbled, ¡°Brazen harlot.¡± which no one disputed.


    Alexander worried that the sometimes-prissy attitude of the delusional Hydraulic mage and the free spirit that was their Lithic lancer would clash, but Brig took no offense. To nearly anything. She grinned smugly at the stuffy Duchess of Neverland and held her peace, unimpeachable in her confidence. Alexander hoped he some day learned her secrets to giving no fucks at all. While he was at it, he''d figure out the trick to Ben''s unflappable always readiness, Mark''s ability to pull people in under his umbrella, and Melinda''s effortless insight into people that bordered mind reading. They each had their quirks, but they were the best, and they stood taller than most amongst the surviving humanity, in his opinion. He had some work to do to catch up to that.


    ¡°I guess that¡¯s that.¡± Alexander summarized, moving things along.


    ¡°Hold on a second, what did our resident Chaos hunter get from that?¡± Melinda asked, and he forgot that he¡¯d not revealed his gain.


    A shrug, and he answered, ¡°Greater Entropic Field.¡± And received disgusted looks from the rest of the party.


    There was an exponential jump between the tier of abilities from their regular counterpart to the greater version. Simply killing monsters or going about your normal use of the ability or magic didn¡¯t cut it. There had to be a significant change to the application or understanding of the skill to provide the oomph to clear that hurdle. Or. You had to kill a dungeon and drink of its power. Not many adventurers had done so, which put Getsome, and himself if he were being honest, ahead of most of their peers. And they would only widen that gap this week.


    ¡°Time¡¯s a wasting,¡± Ben decreed, ¡°Now that we know we¡¯re getting our money¡¯s worth, let¡¯s go clean the coast.¡±


    The party agreed, vehemently, and they moved on with a bounce in their step as soon as the wagons caught up.

 Chapter 15: Smoldering Embers

    As chief executive of the field team, Mark offered the suggestion that Impervious be given the opportunity to clear the next dungeon, a Tirnanog offshoot. Alexander hated to lose the opportunity, but seeing the growth of the others altered his perspective a bit. Clearing the dungeons completely was too efficient a means to increase the overall power of the caravan. Three hours of travel later, after securing the guards the same way they had earlier, Impervious walked into the field dungeon of Tirnanog located near a place called Waldo, once upon a time.


    An appropriate name for the place because nobody knew where it was except the people that lived there. Had lived there. The contested zone saw to that, with a particularly cruel little brand of sentient monster from fairyland called the Redcap. Bushwhacking little murderers in ragged clothes, about the size of children, and with the instincts of sharks. They liked to pretend to be wounded children, drawing in concerned parties, surrounding them quietly, and then descending on them with short, sharp knives. Nobody questioned where the folk who had lived there that didn¡¯t end up petrified had gone.


    Early on, a few novice Guildies were disappeared that way, and weren¡¯t seen again until a camp of the monsters revealed that the missing humans had been flayed and their skins sewn into the side of a big tent, the rest of the body impaled on a spike. No more Adventurers or Guild members had been lost since; the lesson was learned about the Redcaps.


    Alexander watched, from the outside, for once, as a crackle of energy raised from the boundary between Gaia and the contested zone. Impervious had disappeared behind the shroud of the dungeon about a half an hour ago. Then, with a slight rush of air inward, as if from a mild vacuum, the barrier between the areas evaporated and there was only Gaia. Impervious appeared like a mirage in the distance, standing at the heart of the former field dungeon.


    Field Techs and Getsome eagerly awaited the good tidings, seeing as how none of the defensively outfitted classes bore sign of injury.


    ¡°How¡¯d it go?¡± Mark called, from a distance.


    Nathan Smythe, the Anchor tank, and party leader held up a sack of bloody redcap cores, yelling, ¡°Went through them like a hot knife through butter!¡±


    Van, the earth mage of the party, couldn¡¯t help cracking his usual reserve with a smug observation ¡°They didn¡¯t know what to do about stone brackets locking their feet to the ground.¡±


    It was a promising display of competence from the team.


    Alexander hadn¡¯t worked with them before, but the group had had a stellar reputation, and a premium price to contract to go with it. Without the ludicrous funds he¡¯d accrued bringing the Guild smithies up to industrial production standards, if not volume, he¡¯d never had afforded their services.


    It helped that Impervious wanted to power level their classes and the Guilds wanted nothing to do with Julia Smith, the Lunar Warden, thanks to her social anxiety and withdrawn attitudes. Especially not after ¡°The Incident¡± in which an over forward Guildie from one of the top three attempted to molest her in an alley and Georgia Stephens, Chronous Bulwark, and self-appointed guardian of the girl, castrated the man publicly in the street.


    As a result, Impervious wasn¡¯t blacklisted, but they also weren¡¯t getting invited to join any Guilds, not when they made it crystal clear that it was an all or nothing, take it or leave it deal with them. Alexander didn¡¯t know how they¡¯d met, or what they¡¯d experienced to knit them so tightly, but there was no doubt that the six were basically family.


    That whole blacklisting thing was about to get revisited; the young hunter had a feeling.


    After a brief recap of the tactics employed, details regarding the monsters¡¯ tendencies, and advancements of the party, the caravan was on the move again. They had a third crystal to terminate, this one two hours away, near a slightly more developed place called Munroe. Munroe was long gone, of course, eaten by the field dungeon of Rasatala, a realm that predominantly seemed to spawn demonic archetypes of minions from whatever hell it represented.


    The day was wearing on, the time closing in on late afternoon, with the sun falling rapidly. They didn¡¯t want to try fighting these monsters in the dark. Most creatures from the dungeon worlds had no better vision at night than did the humans, but the ones that did saw like owls and would prove considerably less dangerous in the daylight.


    Round three would consist of a mish mash, after much discussion between Mark, Ben, Impervious¡¯ veterans Smythe and Stephens, and the crew of Alexander¡¯s Field techs, along with himself. They reached a consensus that getting some of the key members of the field techs crew might be extremely useful. After more discussion, it was decided before the slow uphill approach to a vaguely disquieting empty elementary school that was known to mark the boundary to their destination, that Potter and Saki would be their first techs to get upgrades.


    Those two were the ones who had obvious combat potential, Potter a Vacuum Fencer, Saki a Pyroclastic Cannoneer. Both could handle themselves somewhat in addition to their technical skills, so giving them a boost now meant they could help carry their team later.


    ¡°I¡¯ll Anchor, keep the Soak Aura up, and make sure our guys stay healthy.¡± Volunteered Nathan Smythe.


    Not a bad idea, given the potent effects of Oakfather¡¯s Shadow to improve tankiness of everybody near him.


    Everybody except Alexander, that is.


    ¡°Main attacker.¡± Ben named himself, and none could really argue with the big man.


    Melinda volunteered herself for scouting, Luminous Pathfinder was a natural choice, the demons frequently did not enjoy exposure to light-based abilities. That left a flex position, it was an offense heavy composition, with Potter and Saki both bearing rather aggressive classes, in addition to Ben, with a good mix of melee and range.


    ¡°Last member?¡± Saki asked.


    Alexander was about to suggest the Dame, her firepower would help them overwhelm the low tier demons, reducing the chance of injury, but Scott Kaczynski volunteered himself.


    ¡°I¡¯ll go. If you two are going, then I should be along too.¡± He said, growing more determined as he spoke.


    The Cryomancer¡¯s abilities weren¡¯t particularly strong, and the man hadn¡¯t ever demonstrated himself to be useful in combat, but ice was known to counter some of the fire abilities some of the demons liked to use. Especially the chimera and the yaksha, the first which had a serpent tail that breathed fire, the second which formed small fireballs that it slung from some distance. While technically in charge, Alexander saw no reason to butt in, getting willing and eager participants in facing down the enemies that covered the land was a good thing.


    With the line up decided, they now had to go and deal with the sentries.


    Shiv went in and tried to apply the double Vulcan nerve pinch and accidently severed one of the men¡¯s carotids. The only clue that he¡¯d fucked up the ability was the seizures as the brain damage began. It was only after a desperate few minutes that the healer managed to restore the blood flow and end the internal hemorrhage. Even so, the man nearly died, his chest cavity had to be opened, one of the hollow quills inserted as a thoracostomy tube, and the blood drained off so his lungs could expand enough to breathe. By the end of it, Shiv was a nervous wreck for half an hour. They left one of the last bits of Safe Harbor currency behind in their possession as apology.


    Forty-five minutes passed glacially. The sun began to dip low to the horizon, casting long shadows into the rapidly cooling October air. Rain was threatening now, as the warm coastal air hit the cooling air over land, a Seabreeze driven evening shower. Adventurers not involved with the dungeon clear and the twenty or so colonials who had decided that they wanted to join the chance to found a new settlement were pretending insouciance. At the shimmer of the boundary between Gaia and the contested zone, the caravan came to attention.


    Mark was almost on his toes. He and Melinda had been a thing for a while now, and it was probably serious between the two of them. Love blossoms on a battlefield. Alexander had heard that once from a certain serpent of the solid variety, one of the few distractions he¡¯d allowed himself while pushing for flight school.


    When the shimmering field of energy departed, it took with it the veil that hid a minor disaster. A red flag of cloth was being waved, the prearranged signal for medical care. Instantly, the gathered folk around the caravan got their acts together and the animals moving. Swift the draft horses were not though, so Alexander was off at a sprint, Shiv in tow. Whether or not the physician¡¯s confidence was back, they were going to do whatever could be done.


    Alexander was fast when he wasn¡¯t trying his best to be invisible and completely silent. He reached Ben, who¡¯d been waving the signal bandana, inside two minutes.


    He wanted to sick up when he saw how badly things had gone.


    Ignoring the somewhat ragged appearance of the group, with only Ben bearing few visible signs of enemy action, Wynona Saki was half covered in a mix of second- and third-degree burns, half bald, and clothes mostly burned away. Her cannon had banana peeled, a sign of the destructive energy that had caused her injuries. Smythe and Melinda were already treating her, bandaging the wounds with gauze. The Phoenix sun would take care of that, Alexander had planned his raid of the dungeons with attention to the healing light that bathed Gaia¡¯s children every third day.


    The problem was that Kaczynski, their architect and cryomancer, was missing half his face, like something had bitten down on one ear and pulled he flesh from the skull all the way to his missing nose. It was horrific. It also wasn¡¯t the major problem, that being the fact that Benjamin was using the man¡¯s belt to tourniquet a leg missing from the knee down, and Potter was keeping the ice mage¡¯s lungs inflating and deflating with his magic in an effort to keep him breathing.


    ¡°Oh, fuck.¡± Alexander summarized.


    He didn¡¯t have the tools to fix this. But he could handle the bleeding.


    With deft fingers, the last Gerifalte pulled his trauma kit open and knelt next to the ruined appendage. A tin can with an aluminum clamp lid popped open and Alexander scattered white powder over the ragged stump. Instantly, wherever the powder touched, the blood flow stopped. A visible strand of artery shrank in on itself, as if clamped by hemostat. Mandrake Leaf Quick Clot was miraculous for bleeds. More powder applied to the poor man¡¯s face stopped the blood sheeting from his torn face.


    Shiv arrived on the scene with Mark only a moment behind, the rest of the Adventurer teams remaining with the wagons to protect the caravan from stray mobs that might be roaming free, or the mana infused beasts and creatures that now roamed Gaia freely.


    ¡°Shiv!¡± Alexander yelled unnecessarily, since the healer was right next to him, ¡°Our guy has massive bleeding, now controlled, from the leg and head. There look like punctures in his abdominal wall and he¡¯s not breathing on his own, Potter¡¯s probably the only thing keeping him alive. Ruptured diaphragm likely, maybe collapsed lungs. Can you stabilize him?¡±


    Their healer froze at the sight of all the blood and the terrible nature of the wounds but Ben, relieved of leg tourniquet duty, reached up and hauled the Flesh Weaver down to kneel next to their wounded architect and gave terse orders, ¡°Get to work Medic, this is why you¡¯re drawing pay.¡±


    The gruff no bullshit tone seemed to work, and Oleksiy laid hands. His eyes widened, presumably at the extent of the internal damage and he looked to his party mate and Alexander and shook his head despairing.


    ¡°Is fucking mess in there. I will try. How long until sunrise?¡± The former orthopedic surgeon asked.


    Alexander kept track of sunrises out of habit and answered ¡°Seven fifty-four A.M.¡±


    ¡°Fuck. We will see.¡± Responded their healer and he bent to his work, eyes closed, feeling the damage through his magic, repairing it as fast as he could without causing more.


    More of the Mandrake powder went into the deep punctures to help stem the bleeding through the abdominal wall and diaphragm.


    Ben got drafted to begin CPR compressions when Scott¡¯s heart stopped. Potter was working as efficiently as he knew how, but his mana was limited, and the concentration necessary to use exactly enough magic to inflate and deflate lungs without tearing them apart was taxing his limits. Melinda took over for him, withdrawing from Saki and pulling free a floppy bag of rubber that had hose connections.


    The wonderful woman carried a ventilation bag!


    Mark bent down and took over compression at Ben¡¯s direction and the Steel Heavy Knight surprised everyone when he quickly and efficiently relieved Melinda of the bag, got the tube lubricated and run down into the wounded man¡¯s lungs, and applied steady compressions of the bag to establish regular inflow and outflow of air. A few seconds later Mark got Scott¡¯s heart back and the team was able to relax, somewhat, watching Shiv do whatever his magic could to put Humpty-dumpty back together again.


    Five minutes later, Oleksiy flopped down to the dirt like a boned fish and gasped, ¡°In God¡¯s hands now.¡± before he lost consciousness.


    The wagons arrived not long after, and the travelers got a real good look, some of them for the first time, at the true stakes of life in the Green. A few were sick when they saw the wreckage of the Cryomancer¡¯s features. Bandages around his leg covered that mess, but there was no blocking all the face without getting in the way of the ventilation bag.


    Since the wounded couldn¡¯t be reasonably moved the wagons formed a circle and the colonials got to work making camp. The guards, dosed to sleep, were stripped, and bound. When they woke, they would be pissed, but there was no helping it.


    Not so long later, Saki woke up and joined the huddle of Adventurers around the fire, shying slightly from the heat of the campfire flames. Alexander hoped she didn¡¯t get gun shy, a pyromancy based class who was afraid of burns was going to be ineffective.


    He hated thinking about the woman in such terms, but he hadn¡¯t hired any one of these people out of charity. Founding Falcon¡¯s Rest, turning it into a base of operations to cleanse the area of dungeons, and finding the path to reverse the Enshrining were his goals. All of these people were a means to that end, and he refused to be a hypocrite and not acknowledge it. They deserved his honesty, for coming out here knowing that there were no guarantees they¡¯d live to enjoy the fruits of their contracts.


    Some had taken currency, the kind exchanged between settlements: good old fashioned metal coinage minted by the smith contracted to be a coinage artisan whose skills literally could not be used to make forgeries thanks to the ironclad terms of their contract. Others, most, in fact, had also taken payment in the form of citizenship in the settlement and a cut from the settlement¡¯s shared resource pool. They would have and make homes in Falcon¡¯s Rest. The prosperity of the town was their prosperity. That made them neighbors, and being raised in Mainer-land meant there were certain expectations for how you treated your neighbors.


    At least the slight, Japanese American lady wasn¡¯t in too much pain. Third degree burns tended to kill the nerves in the damaged tissue. The sunrise would return her to wholeness before the worst of the hurting could set in. Her hair would be a little gothic style for a bit, long on one side, clean to the scalp on the other, but Brig was already on it, patting a bench seat next to her and using her exquisitely sharp belt knife to even out the edges of things and clean up the remaining damaged hair. Who would have thought that the girl would know how to do hair?


    Everybody had a life before the Pulse. Almost none of them talked about it. It was a sort of unwritten rule that you didn¡¯t ask someone who or what they were before. Some took it further than others. Alexander would tell you whatever you wanted to know about anything and everything from his old life. Ben refused to acknowledge that anything before the Pulse existed. He was an odd duck was the big man, but the way Alexander saw it, he had simply committed harder to the new reality than everybody else, had accepted the way things were and was living eyes forward in all things. It helped that his only passion in life was slaying dungeon critters and the monsterized things Gaia spawned.


    The group was coming around to the point of their little pow-wow.


    ¡°What went wrong?¡± Alexander asked, ready to find out how a field dungeon that was supposed to hold low tier bat winged little imps, a few chimeras with lion heads, eagle talons on the front legs, and three tails, each with a serpent¡¯s fanged maw on the end, a dozen three-foot-tall stone statue looking things called yaksha that pitched fireballs, and were tough, if slow, had caused so much trouble.


    Ben answered immediately, not even looking up from where he squatted, poking the fire with a stick found for that purpose alone, ¡°Fucking greenhorns panicked.¡±


    Smythe grimaced and Melinda examined her hands studiously. Wynona turned her face away from the rest, tears silently falling to the ground. Potter was the only one who didn¡¯t shy away from the blunt assertion.


    He scratched a full dark beard and admitted, ¡°It could have been worse. Not much though.¡±


    Alexander didn¡¯t need to press, everybody knew the score here: Knowledge is power, mistakes that don¡¯t teach are wastes of life. It was another reason he had hired on who he had. He just hadn¡¯t expected the lack of experience in combat to bite them in the ass so quickly.


    As the Anchor tank, the lynchpin of the party, Nathan took responsibility, ¡°It was my fault. We were in a tight formation, keeping the techs close to me so they were protected by my aura. A chimera rushed, and Saki forgot she was holding a charge on her cannon for way, way too long. It blew, smoked her hard, even through my Soak, and the chimera came in vicious as hell.¡±


    Ben offered to take a share of the shit pie, ¡°I didn¡¯t say anything about the grouping either, we all should have known a class called Pyroclastic Cannoneer might have some collateral damage. Anyhow, when her cannon popped it knocked the piss out of everyone. Took a second to recover and get the chimera handled. It almost got Scott and I should have known right then we were fucked.¡±


    A click of the tongue from Potter and a low groaning, ¡°Yeeeaaahh. About that guy,¡± He started, looking around like a lifeline might be thrown.


    When none appeared he chucked the chewing tobacco from his lip into the fireplace and made no bones about it, ¡°Scott¡¯s a coward. Bonafide. Dude froze up when the chimera came in and Ben had to just about peel it off him.¡±


    Seeing no objections, the HVAC engineer gave the report with his twangy salt of the earth accent.


    ¡°We got our asses back in formation, Saki over there burned to shit but soldering on, even without her main weapon and useless as tits on a boar hog. Still, Ben is a motherfucker and Smythe kept us from getting another scratch. Made it to the boss, that big ¡®ol Sword demon or whatever it is. Well, Baraka, that fucker goes right for our ice man like he¡¯s wearing the dude¡¯s girlfriend¡¯s panties. Barrels right past Smythe over there, just ignores getting slashed, shoves me down like a bitch, even with my saber in its kidneys. Melinda, she popped off with a flare that blinded it, but it must have a great sense of smell, and our guy shit himself when the chimera jumped him, so it ran blind, and, wonder of wonders, he froze again. Mother fucker grabbed him, carried him out of Smyth¡¯s aura chewing on his head. It ripped his goddamn face off and hacked his leg off, then it started fishing those sword arms around in his guts while we stabbed the fuck out of it. It didn¡¯t care if we killed it, all it wanted was to kill the shit out of Scott, which it mostly did.¡±


    The gathered warriors and explorers of the unknown absorbed that tale in silence, with only the crackle of the flame for commentary. They stayed that way for a minute. Alexander, for his part, was suddenly questioning how many people who had been Matriculated would find themselves unable to operate when danger was roaring down their necks. How many Scotts would freeze up and get themselves or their teammates who tried to cover for them killed? How would they advance those people¡¯s classes if they couldn¡¯t be relied upon to clear even a low tier, vanilla as it comes dungeon?


    From the side, Granny offered a cool, collected, ¡°Three virgins in a single run was a mistake.¡±


    The harvester waited briefly for anybody to disagree, but the flat expression on her features made that more of a challenge than not. When no one deigned to object she continued.


    ¡°Smythe can¡¯t cover that much ground when they scatter like chickens in a stressful situation, Melinda doesn¡¯t have the firepower to fill in the gaps when two teammates are incapacitated in succession, and Ben is a solid main attacker, but he can¡¯t be everywhere.¡± She analyzed.


    ¡°This wasn¡¯t a party that was used to working together, not even Ben can keep so many rookies from tripping over their own feet. Two green party members, maximum, in a dungeon, from now on, and we combat train everyone to find out who flinches. The ones who can¡¯t fight get carried by a team of five veterans.¡± Granny Nguyen decreed, and the assembled group shared a nod of agreement.


    It was a start. A solid plan to prevent this disaster from repeating. Other disasters waited for them, but such was life in the Green. At least Shiv had rallied to get in there and probably save Scott¡¯s life. That man, if he was still with them at the dawn, was now benched for the foreseeable future. No way they¡¯d risk putting him in a dungeon of any kind.


    The fire died down; folk got ready for bed. Mark took Melinda off to go let her know how he felt about finding her safe and sound under a wagon. Everyone did them a favor and pretended to be deaf. Alexander let Brig take care of Saki, after he offered her encouragement by way of telling her how he¡¯d once gotten sashimi¡¯d by Yetis.


    Everyone made mistakes. As long as it didn¡¯t kill you, you had the chance to learn from it. After that, he sat with his back to a wagon wheel and watched the stars for an hour until Granny threatened to burlesque dance if he didn¡¯t go to bed so he rolled himself up into his blankets instantly and fell asleep faster than he would have thought.


    Predawn indigo painted the sky when next Alexander¡¯s eyes opened. Stars hung up there, but only the brightest still glimmered. Venus hung forty degrees up from the horizon over to the southeast, and a falling crescent moon made for a poignant sight. For him, a reminder of the ephemeral nature of lives. Not that they needed any such. Scott lived. Barely. In half an hour or so, Sol would rise up and bathe the caravan in its rebirth flame. All the aches, pains, sicknesses, wounds, everything would be restored to rights. The only thing the Phoenix dawn didn¡¯t touch was time. All else healed.


    Alexander thought it a marvelous thing to never be sick again. Worth the price of most of the human lives on Earth¡¯s surface? Probably not.


    He threw the oilcloth sewn to wool blanket off and unzipped the sleeping bag he lay in. A foam sleeping pad rolled up and he bundled it all together, tied the bed roll tight for travel. Around the hollow created by circled wagons, the rest of the camp, besides those who¡¯d drawn sixth shift sentry duty, begun to stir. Alexander liked his fourth shift. Around two in the morning, the whole world was quiet, and he could imagine that even the monsters took a break from menacing what was left of humanity.


    That part wasn¡¯t true, of course, which was why you had to post a sentry to begin with. But one could imagine.


    Granny was stirring the central campfire back to life from coals, shuffling the embers to give them air and laying fine tender down to start the smoking journey to fire.


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    A choked shriek announced that Wynona had awakened. The agony from her burns had set in overnight, and she was aflame again, or so it sounded. Brig held her like a small child, rocking the weeping chemist to comfort her. That sort of tenderness was unexpected from the big, brassy warrior, but he guessed he shouldn¡¯t have been surprised. For all the wildness, Brigitte had a heart to match her stature.


    Alexander moved to join Granny by the budding fire, with intent to prepare breakfast. Hunger was a minor motivator, the major being blocking out the pain of a woman suffering for accepting his offer. Granny¡¯s acknowledging nod wasn¡¯t accompanied by speech, it was still a little early for the Vietnamese girl to start her schizophrenic wise woman homesteader/ depraved gremlin routine.


    Food supplies were copious, and Alexander figured a hearty meal was in order, both to build morale from the shitshow of the third dungeon clear, and to get folk ready for a hard day of travel. Their course had been a kind of semicircle, arcing away from Safe Harbor north and east up the coast, then bearing harder west to hit the trio of field dungeons north of the settlement. They¡¯d planned to travel at least two hours northeast again, but the wounds of comrades had demanded a halt. That meant they were two hours, about ten or so miles, behind schedule. The wagons could go faster, the draft mules had no trouble pulling at a greater pace, but always the concern was damaging the cargo. No professional wainwrights had built these wagons, and they didn¡¯t ride smooth or with good enough suspension to risk the goods in them.


    Bacon hissed against the cast iron and immediately lifted spirits. Melinda wandered over and started biscuit dough, joined by Mark who had collected the eggs laid by some two dozen hens being housed in a big coop transported solely by one of the smaller carts. The birds must have been cozy to be laying on the move, a good sign. Livestock was among the more important of the goods coming along on this journey, and one of the reasons for so many Adventurers to guard. The caravan to Falcon¡¯s Rest was ringing a dinner bell to the big predators Gaia liked to spawn in the wild.


    By the time the wash of renewal bathed the pilgrims, breakfast was about ready to be served. Bacon, bacon gravy, biscuits, eggs done however you like, grits, oatmeal, corned beef, haddock hash, toast, they had all the fixin¡¯s.


    ¡°Oh God, thank you, please, thank you, I¡¯ll never break faith again, I promise!¡±


    It would appear that their architect had survived the night, he remarked to himself as he heaped plates with sustenance.


    The young hunter had been there before. Godsdamned Yetis. The creatures had come down the mountain last winter and he¡¯d gotten hacked open by one. That was back when he was using guns, whose firepower was largely muted by Soak. Even the big bore rifle hadn¡¯t managed to kill the monster before he¡¯d gotten slashed. If not for the ice-cold water slowing his body¡¯s rate of dying, he wouldn¡¯t have made it to the sunrise that saved him. Good times.


    Alexander hoped the man wouldn¡¯t be a total loss after the fact.


    Some people, they get one near death experience and, by all the gods above below and in between, they weren¡¯t good for a single thing after for fearing their shadows. Falcon¡¯s Rest was a long way north in the mountains, far, far, from what counted as civilization. Anybody skittish for there being monsters wouldn¡¯t even get past the bees Alexander was going to be keeping.


    Speaking of, he wondered how his hive was doing in his absence. Same for his gardens. He¡¯d left in such hurry that he hadn¡¯t been able to do much more than screen the crops off under some chicken wire caging to keep the crows and critters from packing it all away.


    ¡°Load me up brother, we¡¯re going after that little dragon today. I ain¡¯t eating before that shit, but I sure don¡¯t want to be dying hungry.¡± Ben announced himself, with a plate held for Alexander to weigh down with grub.


    Alexander obliged, noting the eagerness of the normally reserved man¡¯s tone. Ben had wanted to slay him a dragon ever since the island had been discovered, with its draconic field boss. Guild monopolies on the field dungeon prevented that before. No longer.


    For his part, Alexander was a touch antsy about the upcoming mission himself. He¡¯d skipped the last two dungeons, giving up his place to help maximize the growth of the parties. He wasn¡¯t missing the Muspelheim dungeon, though. That volcanic island was a treasure trove.


    The cores from the imps were fantastic little space heaters or convection oven heat sources, not needing replaced if you used them correctly. The salamanders, dog sized ¡°amphibians¡± if amphibians split time between lava pools and ash covered rocks and breathed fire like a napalm tank, had skin that was fireproof, flexible, soft as the finest suede, and their cores put a motherfucker of a flame tongue enchant into a weapon. You couldn¡¯t use them for ovens, they were set to broil. You could use them to replace fuel for a certain steam engine Alexander was thinking about. Sterling would run all day without a single brick of coal off just one of the things. Lava elementals were interesting in that they turned into obsidian when they died, huge masses of volcanic glass. The stuff was interesting to anybody who could do shit with glass and Jules Reynolds, shaper of all things inorganic said he wanted every last bit of it they could grab hold of, for some reason.


    Last, and of course, not least, was the dragon. A baby. Not much bigger than a pickup truck, with a tail about as long again, it had ruby red scales that were tougher and harder than superalloy tool steels. Better thermal properties than the heat shield ceramics on a shuttle, too. Not fireproof though, heat absorbent. Like Mark¡¯s ability but dialed way the hell up. The pint-sized dragon walked on lava, turning it hard beneath the creature¡¯s claws before it so much as sank into the molten rock. Organs, blood, all alchemical reagents of great value. The core was a bit of a mystery. No heat properties that Alexander had been able to discover from his stint in the Guild. Upper management, they were tight lipped about the things, and didn¡¯t let anyone even look at one once they¡¯d been harvested.


    There was one last reason to visit the island, and it had to do with Annita Nguyen. Granny¡¯s class let her harvest plants, put them in some kind of stasis, and then replant them, as long as not too much time passed. Losing the reagents of the dungeons was one reason that the Guilds hadn¡¯t been destroying them. But, what if certain classes could get the valuable herbs, trees, mosses, or whatnots to grow outside the contested zone, whose mishmash of realms permitted them to flourish? That was what they were going to find out. If it worked, Alexander would have a strong position from which to argue that the dungeons should be cleared completely, after specialist harvesters had acquired all the useful materials that the dungeon could, safely, offer. It might push public sentiment over the top and force the Guilds to act before disaster struck.


    Toward that end, their party would be The Dame, Brig, Alexander, Granny, Mark, and Ben. It was an assault team. Dame Sanchez was their hard counter to lava elementals and salamanders. Ben, Brig, and Alexander could kill effectively infinite imps. Mark could keep things under control, his defensive ability was even more effective in this environment than usual. Mark¡¯s heat soaking ability would let him pull the thermal energy from flame attacks into the ground, giving him the advantage of muting the flame attack of the imps, elementals, salamanders, and even the dragon¡¯s brand of area of effect nonsense. Granny was going to be batting cleanup, hacking crippled imps to death, carving cores from dead monsters as they went, skinning the salamanders, and collecting as many samples to preserve and repot with her Green Thumb ability as humanly possible.


    That was all in the future however, they had a long, long way to go to get there.


    Breakfast ended without fanfare. Pilgrims used water from a nearby stream, of which Maine had plenty to offer pretty much all over the place here in the lowlands by the coast, to rinse their utensils and crockery. The mules had eaten heartily and were already adding to the aroma of the campsite.


    Whistles from the wagon drivers to encourage the mules, shows of Gee and Haw got the massively strong animals headed in the right direction: due west. Despite the healing light of the sun, Scott rode atop a wagon, hands wrapped around his knees. It wasn¡¯t only Alexander that suspected the man¡¯s courage was gone, if it had ever existed. He¡¯d never be useful in battle. That was fine. There was room for a few POGs in this outfit, and the architect¡¯s brain was most of the reason he was along in the first place. Saki was, fortunately, in high spirits. She bore no scars and, aside from her wicked punk haircut, showed no sign she¡¯d been injured. Jules, using his material shaping abilities, even managed to completely repair the peeled barrel of her weapon, molding it, and shaping the metal like putty, though that took all his mana to do. The denser the material, the harder it was to work for the Quintessence Shaper.


    Kim Summers, the Runic Artificer, helped her out with a final touch, running his finger around the barrel in a tight spiral, using his precise metal manipulation to cut fine grooves of rifling into the bore of the cannon, which it had lacked before; a promising display of finesse from the crafting class. He was cracking a rare smile as he did so, glad that his gifts were finally useful.


    In good spirits were the pilgrims, and nothing deigned to rain on the hour-long parade to the Penobscot river, just past the tiny outpost once known as Frankfort. In the way of Mainers, there were a great many named towns, none of which had a great many people in them. Bucksport across the river was the population center back before the Pulse, and the wagons ambled down old highway one, grass already spotting here and there across the blacktop of the road, with the river and the empty buildings marking the path south. Most of Safe Harbor¡¯s residents had come from these rural villages, banding together for safety. The atmosphere grew somber as familiar places, made unfamiliar by neglect and the absence of kin and friends, came into sight and were left behind.


    Alexander was, mostly, immune to the downturn. His time alone had already thoroughly ingrained the loss of what was into his marrow. Every day he¡¯d wound his way through streets emptied of familiar faces, except for the statues that replaced them. His mind was on the beasties that roamed free.


    Animals were in abundance, deer, squirrel, big wolves, a few shy panthers, birds of endless variety, moose, and more of the elk that had attempted to murder Alexander in his early days, while he¡¯d trekked back home from the air strip.


    Many of the beasts had settled greatly since the first post Pulse days. Hypothesis varied, but, given that the Pulse had caused Gaia to literally birth many of these creatures from mana, as if bringing echoes of the creatures that had roamed its surface back to life, many saw the violent aggression of these animals as a fear response to being formed from magic. After a few months, the animals behaved again as animals, more or less. Even the obviously magical ones, like his Direbees, were essentially acting as one might expect. Good thing too, if the bees hadn¡¯t responded to herbal smoke and white clothes the way regular honeybees did, Alexander would have been swarmed by poodle sized bees with foot long stingers.


    Extremely aggressive variants appeared somewhat regularly for most species, Dire versions of about anything, really, but they shied away from an entire caravan. Numbers meant safety, for the most part, for the travelers. A few brave mana-fueled berserkers made attempts but were handled easily by the Adventurers and other Matriculated travelers.


    Being amongst the scouts the entire way, making their rounds, journeying through thickening brush to survey the road as they paralleled the river, he was among the first to see their next challenge. Just ahead, around a slight bend that led to the waterfront of Bucksport, he saw ahead the first major threat to this caravan¡¯s journey, especially following the dungeon clear operations: Fort Knox and Penobscot Narrows Observatory. An old fort, built too late to be useful against the British invaders that prompted its construction, stood proudly as a granite monument to the lack of foresight for an enemy sailing up your river and punching you in the face. It had been a favorite spot for ghost hunting and cheap picnicking with the kids. Now, it was a strongpoint for Safe Harbor, given that free walled fortifications were en vogue again. There was even talk of using the old quarry in Frankfort to reinforce, expand, and finish the fort, in case the population of Safe Harbor grew enough to warrant a sister settlement.


    The fort sat up against the river, with overwatch over the entire town of Bucksport, the Narrows, with their critical bridge crossing, and the surrounding territory. Only the fact that October hadn¡¯t yet dropped a hard frost to bring on leaf fall meant that the caravan had cover beneath the trees from the fort¡¯s observation tower.


    There would be trouble if word about the dungeon clears had got out.


    What made matters worse is that the Fort¡¯s real value lay in that it acted as a staging ground for Guild forays onto what had once been Verona Island, a chunky little plot of land between the Penobscot on the west and the Orland on the east, both of which still salty from the Atlantic not five miles away.


    Verona Island was now a cinder cone volcano, home of the premier Muspelheim field dungeon with its draconic champion. The top five Guilds had a time share on the place and it would be defended accordingly. All the more so if their guard was up. One of the Big Rules Alexander had made about this little adventure run to establish a new settlement was that there would be no killing of men that could be avoided. The thought of what precious little humanity turning on itself made him slightly sick. That meant that they had to get in, clear the dungeon, and get out without any casualties. A sharp timetable, to be certain.


    A flicker of motion caught his eye and Alexander had his bow half drawn before it resolved into one of the other scouts, a woman whose name eluded him. She wasn¡¯t one of the Adventurer parties he¡¯d hired, nor crew for the wagons he¡¯d personally bought so he wouldn¡¯t have spoken much to her. When word got around that someone was setting up a new hamlet, far, far from the growing hegemony of the Guilds, and even farther from the looming hyper dungeon around Belfast. He wasn¡¯t the only one nervous about leaving that thing around to vomit up horrors.


    Unlike the static, easily prepared for low tier dungeons, the Belfast hyper dungeon shifted, different realms waxing and waning in codominance over the area. The connection between realms was stronger there, more permissive. Ben had summed it up succinctly as ¡°Bad motherfucking news.¡±


    The scout he¡¯d spotted noticed him and raised her hand three fingers up, followed by two fingers to her eyes, a snake hand jabbing to the southeast, and the signs for four threats. One finger, no danger, safe zone. Two fingers, caution. Three fingers, imminent danger.


    So. She¡¯d spotted four hostiles to the southeast. Alexander gave the looping sign for checking it out, saw the scout confirm, and fade into the brush to return to relay the information to the assemblage that followed.


    Careful, slow steps, letting Stalk maximize the minimization of his imprint against the background, took Alexander forward. He crept from tree to tree, keeping his eyes fully focused on any fine details that might reveal an enemy. Two legged, or not.


    Diligence paid wages of gold.


    Two hundred feet away, in a tree stand obscured by brush, and occupied by a figure wearing the complex arrangement of fabric strips and plant material known as a Ghillie suit, armed with a high-power rifle, was the first sign of trouble.


    A Guildie, manning a watch on the north road out of town. There wasn¡¯t much reason to keep an eye on this route specifically, not unless you were hoping to catch someone back tracking from the north. There wouldn¡¯t be any other people traveling back south from this angle, meaning that this sentry was watching for Alexander and his expedition.


    The jig was up. Or was it?


    Hawkish vision inspected the sentry. Nothing unusual about the man stood out. Thirties or so, medium height, medium build, tanned skin painted in camouflage grease paint in places. The weapon was a bolt-action rifle, looked to be a .270, which was big enough to be a problem for most people. The bored expression on the man¡¯s face wasn¡¯t consistent with getting fresh orders for trouble. Why else would they be watching the road though?


    Because the Guilds are paranoid about poachers, idiot, Alexander finally realized.


    He realized he had been too concentrated on their own circumstances. The Guilds were trying to manage about thirty Matriculated individuals each, cull creatures from dungeons, harvest materials, establish economic footholds, and consolidate power from the wreckage of the old world, of course they¡¯d be paranoid that somebody might be edging in on their action.


    Now, convinced that the half aware sentry was just maintaining a posting that had lasted for indeterminate hours of boredom, he decided he needed to clear that guard tower. The wagons had to come through here, to pass over the Narrows bridge.


    Alexander circled to the south and ghosted along the approach to the tree in the thick brush. Near silent steps and practiced movements between lapses in attention got him within fifteen feet. He closed the final distance on his belly, coming up directly below the sentry. How to neutralize the guard without killing him though?


    It was an odd realization that he was capable of killing a person with ease, but not subduing them. Grabbing the ladder might not be a good idea, the vibration might tip the sentry off, and he might yell for help. But only if Alexander was slow. If he were fast, he could make the fifteen feet in a second or two and be on the man before he knew what was happening. Alexander mulled it over and decided that he¡¯d go for it. There weren¡¯t any fool proof options so he might as well just flip his spear around and whack the guy in the head with it. As long as the bop didn¡¯t kill the guy, he¡¯d be good as new in three days. Not a guarantee, but it was the best he could do on short notice. He made a note to learn ninja things the next time anybody was offering to teach. Ben probably knew how to put someone down without making a fuss or leaking their brains out. Even if the former soldier didn''t talk about the before, he was happy, or at least willing to go into profound detail, on the arts of war.


    The young hunter took a few limbering stretches from the blindspot of the stand and then gently laid hold of the ladder wrung. His whole body tensed, and he threw himself up the ladder at maximum velocity. The sentry looked around when he felt the stand sway but, when he turned his face toward Alexander, the metal of the spear haft met him across the temple and the meaty smack of the blow sent him sprawling over the rail, limp. The young man had to cradle his naginata in the crook of an elbow and grip the stand¡¯s frame with one hand and latch onto the unconscious man beginning to slide over the rail by the ghillie suit belt with the other.


    Gently, he reeled the unconscious guard in and began tying his wrists to his ankles behind his back. A scarf to cover the man¡¯s neck turned into a gag, securing the guardsman.


    A quick Greater analysis revealed what Alexander was hoping not to see: the sentry was not Matriculated, and, therefore, not under obligation of the Contract. These men could, and probably would, fire without warning at anyone they thought was poaching on Guild territory. He didn¡¯t know if it was a violation of the Contract to order someone to commit murder on your behalf, but he didn¡¯t want anybody arguing over his corpse on the matter. Alexander took the gun with him when he descended.


    Armed with that knowledge, he repeated the exercise in sentry neutralizing three more times, each time coming closer to the edge of the forest, where the old fort sat squatting on the river. Only one person gave him trouble, the last one who pulled a knife and tried to stab him in the neck before he could strike them. The blade ran across the metal plates of his armor and got hung up on the leather between them, and Alexander dropped his spear to catch the hand before it could try to murder him again. He brought his elbow across, hard, and rocked the man¡¯s head back, ignoring the blood that sluiced from a broken nose. He soaked the man again, and the knife fell from limp fingers.


    After a second fingering the faint blemish in the High steel strips of his splint mail, right across the collar, from the dagger, he tied the man up and tried not to be rougher than necessary, with mixed results. The bastard had tried to kill him!


    Anger normally reserved for the monsters kept his heart high as he stared down at the older Normal man hired to murder his own kind for money. Back when there were almost nine billion people living in almost complete safety, that wouldn¡¯t have been so egregious.


    But here? Now? It was mad.


    Mankind was well on its way to becoming endangered. Alexander was beginning to question how secure the future was in the hands of the Guilds.


    ¡°Hmmph! Heavy fucker, clearly the food¡¯s good for shooting the folk going out to face the wild for your sorry asses.¡± He remarked, rolling the sentry into a fireman¡¯s carry.


    Alexander was no saint, he shared many Matriculated¡¯s resentment for the folk who refused to be carried through a dungeon to realign their beings with Gaia¡¯s new order. In his humble opinion, they weren¡¯t simply cowards, which he understood, having spent most of the year prior to coming to Safe Harbor living in a perpetual state of background terror, they were slackers. They did less than they could, many of the Normals wouldn¡¯t even have possessed classes suitable for combat, but would have been incredibly helpful in rebuilding civilization according to the new rules. Their refusal meant they were just shy of being dependents, and his disdain for the lead-swingers was bone deep.


    He hauled his catch with careful steps, stalking back to where he¡¯d left the other three. These men were all Normals, they had no binding Contract from the city, they did not abide by the rules of Gaian civilization, which, by choice, applied to the Matriculated. As he made steady progress to the thicket of hogtied sentries, he mulled what he had learned of the Guilds and their leaders, imparted in taverns, and observed in his stint with one of the top three.


    They had come to power rapidly after the Pulse, when the insane scramble to survive the collapse of modern life, coupled with advent of creatures from fairytales and nightmares, spearheaded by aggressive men and women who had ambition and charisma. Like seed crystals in a precipitation reaction, they drew the survivors to them, coalescing into an organization. Power gained through touching the dungeon hearts only magnified that effect. Wealth obtained by acquisition of fantastic resources cemented the Guilds as the de facto leadership of Safe Harbor.


    Gently, the young hunter laid his last catch next to the others. A few were starting to come around, dazed, likely concussed, and not so thrilled about the current situation. He¡¯d completed his mission, however, and they could just lay there and enjoy his commitment to not killing humans, even ones hired by the Guilds to murder their rivals or any who would poach on the lands they unilaterally claimed.


    Alexander had decided early on that Safe Harbor was best described as a confederation of juntas: Militarized clans vying with each other for territory, with the population of the town playing a support role, but almost completely absent say in what went on. He could only hope that things normalized once the shock of the Pulse and necessities of life were secured.


    People made weird decisions out of fear. He knew all about that.


    Fantasia, a disorder so profound it impacted his status, was a dissociative condition in which people rejected the post Pulse reality or couldn¡¯t completely reconcile the facts of the new world with their previous experience. About one in ten survivors of the Pulse had it. They made questionable decisions, at times, thanks to the disjunction between past and present. His Fantasia hadn¡¯t faded until he¡¯d come to Safe Harbor, and, at last, was convinced by the presence of so many humans that he wasn¡¯t simply imagining everything from a padded room somewhere.


    With the guards handled, Alexander Gerifalte retraced his path through the woods to the waiting wagons a mile back. They would be collected and packed along for safe keeping until they could be deposited when the wagons left Guild territory.


    He warbled like a black-capped chickadee on his way back, signaling to the other scouts, with the idea of preventing anybody who might be a little too high strung from sending an arrow or crossbow bolt at him. Accidents happened when tensions ran high.


    ¡°The kid¡¯s back!¡± Announced Van Richards, from his position driving one of Alexander¡¯s wagons.


    Kid. He frowned at the appellation.


    It was annoying that the forty-year-old referred to him that way, he wasn¡¯t much younger than Granny, or Mark, who was leading Getsome. Most of the people in the caravan were in their mid-twenties to upper thirties. Matriculation had caused most people with set careers to take on classes that were of a nature with their deep-seated hobbies or well-established skillsets. The younger folk, absent those long-ingrained habits and full of vital energy, tended to lean more heavily into classes that favored combat roles. Gaia, it seemed, gave the young a fighting chance.


    ¡°That¡¯s Mr. Kid to you, Old Man Richards!¡± He called back to the Talus Mage, exchanging snark for snark.


    The oldest man of the expedition replied with a shake of his head at the reminder that his employer was half his age.


    Mark and Smythe, the leaders of their respective Adventurer parties, came over to get the lay of the land. They were joined by Potter, who had assumed the role of representing the field techs, especially since Scott Kaczynski was psychologically unfit for a whole lot at the moment.


    ¡°Good news and ba-- Aaaah!!¡± He squawked at the finger that ran across his left buttock.


    A turn revealed the serene features of Granny Nguyen, who gave no sign that she¡¯d snuck up on him for the sole purpose of goosing him.


    Smythe and Mark exchanged concerned looks between them.


    ¡°You, uh, you alright there?¡± Smythe eyed the young hunter who was leading this expedition, hoping tales of his eccentricities were exaggerated.


    ¡°Neither of you saw that?!¡± Alexander objected.


    ¡°Saw what?¡± Mark replied, stolidly ignorant, ¡°You jumping at your own shadow? Or do tiny little Vietnamese girls with oversized backpacks spook you?¡±


    Alexander gritted his teeth and ¡°woosawed¡± to himself a couple of times. Don¡¯t give them the satisfaction, Little Falcon, he whispered to himself. Clearly Granny and Mark were in on the game, with Smythe left out for plausible deniability.


    ¡°Never mind,¡± He sidestepped, ¡°Just a particularly vicious mosquito, probably.¡± He said, with a deliberate green-brown glare at Granny.


    His time was wasted trying to stare down the woman, she was born with a gift for harassing people while appearing innocent, so he turned his gaze back on the men.


    ¡°Ehem, as I was saying, we¡¯ve got a situation ahead.¡± Alexander told the assembled group, explaining the sentries and the likelihood that there might be armed Normals as a part of the group guarding the Muspelheim dungeon.


    None of the men and women looked happy at the prospect of having to escort the wagon train past a fortified position in easy shooting distance of high-powered rifles. Only a few of the expedition had classes that were durable enough to shake off that kind of damage.


    Potter offered a piece of earthy sarcasm, ¡°Sounds wicked fun, getting shot at from an actual fort. Any chance their cannons work?¡±


    Alexander knew the answer to that one, his parents had taken him to tour old Fort Knox as a child. The two naval retirees had thought the place was hilarious, given its time of construction and having never fired a cannon in anger. Still, the picnic and immaculate architecture had made for a fun outing.


    ¡°The cannons were decommissioned. Unless somebody with the Guilds is particularly good at metalwork and reinforcement of the tubes, they¡¯ll explode as likely as send cannonballs down range.¡± He summarized.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t solve the problem with the rifles.¡± Mark observed.


    Smythe changed gears completely and leveled a dour expression at him. The Anchor tank of Impervious wasn¡¯t looking so thrilled, by his judgment.


    ¡°By the way, why did you decide to clear all the snipers on your own again?¡± Accused the veteran adventurer.


    He mulled over the motivations that had driven him to handle the sentries without calling for help first. Honesty was the best policy he decided.


    ¡°Because I¡¯m better than all of you at ambushing things and I figured that if anyone else tried they¡¯d get spotted. A single gunshot would have turned this mission into a fiasco.¡± The Entropic Venator explained.


    It was true, so far as he was aware. For all that Granny had the uncanniest knack for creeping up on people, she wasn¡¯t as good as Alexander at it. He just didn¡¯t abuse his powers in the name of evil was all.


    For once, his nemesis and wingman supported him.


    ¡°I must concur,¡± confirmed Granny ¡°Alexander¡¯s class is dovetailed to clandestine murder. He moves better than any of the scouts. Even I have trouble keeping up with him, and I know most of his tricks.¡±


    Alexander didn¡¯t like his class being described as suited for assassination, but she wasn¡¯t exactly wrong. Especially since picking up marksmanship with a bow, which was quiet compared to guns, he excelled at killing from stealth, at most ranges. Just not people. He drew clear lines between dispatching monsters and mana infused beasts and taking a human life.


    Nathan turned to his fellow party leader and inquired, ¡°Mark?¡±


    Getsome¡¯s leader shrugged and replied, ¡°What can I say? We haven¡¯t worked together since the trip back from where we found the crazy bastard, but when he hits the bush, he same thing as vanishes. Most of the nasties go away not so long after when he does.¡±


    There, Alexander commented to himself, what more do you want?


    A resigned sigh escaped the older man, and Impervious¡¯ Oaken Rampart accepted what couldn¡¯t be changed.


    ¡°Fine,¡± the party leader agreed, clearly reluctant, ¡°But try not to make a habit of lone wolfing, please? Last thing we need is an uncontrolled variable turning everything it touches into chaos.¡±


    A curiously apt choice of words, Alexander thought. His class was defined by precisely applied chaos.


    ¡°Of course! Glad we¡¯re agreed then.¡± Alexander said, happy to have his judgment supported, even if he didn¡¯t much care for constantly being questioned.


    He was young, not stupid. Well, mostly not stupid, but nobody needed to know how close he¡¯d shaved it sometimes.


    Whatever, they were burning daylight. There was a dungeon that needed killing today, and he wanted a plan for how to do it without taking the entire damned fort. As if that were an option.

 Chapter 16: Dragon Slayers

    In the end, a strategy was devised that was agreed upon by all stakeholders. Ben was the one who came up with the heart of the plan.


    ¡°What we¡¯re needing, is a distraction.¡± The halberd bearing warrior ventured.


    ¡°We need the fort to see us coming, dismiss us as a threat, and watch us go. They¡¯ll drop their guard when they see what they expect to see.¡± Predicted Ben¡¯s graveled voice.


    ¡°And how certain are we that the Guild hasn¡¯t ordered us all killed on sight?¡± Brig checked.


    They¡¯d gone over this before, but she was making certain to dot the i¡¯s and cross the t¡¯s, before they were in too deep. She was fulfilling the role of the tenth man.


    Granny answered, her eyes staring as she recounted the events and timing of the previous day, and this one, ¡°Not enough time for word to travel.¡±


    A single dainty finger rose as the strangely acute harvester addressed the situation, ¡°We left yesterday morning. Two hours later we cleared North Searsport, three hours after that, Waldo, and two hours after that, Munroe. We stopped to treat the wounded instead of making it to Frankfort, which was the only hitch in the plan. Today, we¡¯re at the objective before mid-morning. The Guilds clear around noon, which means nobody has even arrived at the site of the dungeons, let alone gotten word back. We¡¯ve got another twelve hours before shit hits the fan.¡±


    ¡°Her voice is course, and her hands dirty, but the serf speaks rightly.¡± Dame Sanchez chimed in agreeably, although the substance of her words was a little off.


    Sometimes, Alexander wished the woman was mute.


    ¡°Just so, Dame, just so.¡± Mark agreed, eyeballing the assembled adventurers and pilgrims to make certain nobody offered dissent that might stir up the Dame¡¯s class warfare spiel.


    The last thing they needed was to lose time assuring the powerful water mage that she wasn¡¯t in danger of being hauled before the guillotine in a peasant¡¯s revolt. Such had happened in the past, with results that had required the Phoenix sun to make good. It was one of the reasons that Dame Sanchez was disinvited to Guild membership.


    ¡°Okay, so we¡¯ve got the time to work. How do we use the wagon train heading up north to Bangor by Orland to hide our wanna be dragon slayers?¡± Hilde asked, projecting an image of the dragon boss that spun in the air for emphasis.


    Ben almost smiled when he said, without emphasis, ¡°We won¡¯t take the bridge, we¡¯ll be swimming.¡±


    Well, ask a silly question, get a silly answer.


    Dame Sanchez objected immediately, crying, ¡°I shall not be seen floundering like a crippled swan in front of the rabble!¡±


    At that point, Benjamin Grisham let the Dame know that she was on thin ice by calmly walking over to loom over her, over six feet of hard muscle wrapped in plate armor with zero fucks to give.


    ¡°Lady, you signed on with this team. You agreed to follow orders. We have been accepting of your quirks and accommodating in the extreme. But if you think you will be allowed to put this team or its mission in jeopardy, I will bury you. Your crazy is not bigger than my crazy, just louder.¡± The Steel Heavy Knight warned.


    The Dame considered briefly whether the brute standing nearby was serious and adjudged him so. She demurred, offering only, ¡°Forgiveness, Knight. It would be gauche to obstruct an army in the field. I will endeavor to see the Dutchy represented faithfully.¡±


    Alexander didn¡¯t know if that was a yes sir or not, but Ben nodded and seemed to accept it, so he released the breath he held.


    Ben didn¡¯t bluff.


    Whatever his background had been, the thirty-two-year-old black man made of corded ropes of muscle told people exactly when he was about to take them apart, and followed through.


    Alexander had witnessed a moment of unwisdom from a low ranking Guildie, not even one of the top ten, who tried to lay some good old-fashioned racism on the mysterious warrior, after too many drinks in the tavern they were enjoying. After standing from his seat, he declared that the man had three seconds to leave before he regretted ¡°stirring the shit¡±. Three seconds later, the Guildie began regretting stirring the shit. It took less than a minute for the Guildie to have both of his arms broken and his face pulped against a table. Ben¡¯s expression hadn¡¯t changed the entire time he savaged the offender, he might as well have been drying dishes. People like that, you didn¡¯t play games with. They didn¡¯t have the same attitude about when the game was over that most folk did.


    ¡°I cannot swim.¡± Dame Sanchez admitted, somewhat sheepishly, which explained her dismay at their intended infiltration route.


    Now there was some irony, Alexander thought. A Hydromancer who couldn¡¯t swim.


    ¡°I can. You won¡¯t even get your spiffy hair wet, and anybody that thinks about insulting the Lady¡¯s dignity will get reasons not to.¡± Ben promised, relaxing now that he didn¡¯t have to fix a problem that risked the team¡¯s safety.


    It was times like this Alexander was glad he wasn¡¯t in charge of the Adventurer parties. He¡¯d never been much on team sports. This was why delegation was important: hire the people to do things at which you suck. He was a little surprised that the probably former soldier was so considerate of the outlandish woman. Maybe there was a gentle heart hidden beneath all the steel.


    With that byplay over, they got down to the nuts and bolts of the operation. Impervious would lead the group through the Narrows by the road, making it patently obvious that they were headed north with no intention of stopping. The bridge took travelers into the dungeon itself, given that the Narrows zigged east to Verona Island, then zagged north to Bucksport, all completely under escort of the Guilds manpower. Hilde would be throwing an illusion of Getsome and Alexander, to make the numbers add up, since his expedition was no secret. He had passed a variation of his route along to the Guilds before they left, to avoid undue attention. Everybody left Safe Harbor with an itinerary. It helped to determine if body snatchers had taken them when they returned.


    Now, they knew that this condition for leaving also let the apparently armed sentries know not to shoot. Or the opposite.


    While the wagon train headed north, the team consisting of Alexander, Brig, Granny, Mark, the Dame, and Ben would be headed south, through the forest paralleling highway one, where they¡¯d swim the river a mile down from the bridge, with the Dame in a canoe stolen from one of the tourist trap joints that lined the salty water that opened up to the bay area.


    That was where the trick lay, Alexander mused, wincing at the most obvious failure point of the whole endeavor.


    Field dungeons had limits on the number of Matriculated people inside them. It was how they were categorized. Minor dungeons only let six people inside at a time, which was why a party was set to six. Major dungeons permitted two parties, twelve Matriculated within their domains, and were exponentially more dangerous, with higher tier monsters and evolved versions of those in the minor dungeons. Colossal dungeons allowed twenty-four, four full parties to enter their domain. Only once had that been attempted, in a na?ve attempt on the Greater New England dungeon, which had consumed Boston, Providence, Hartfort, and New York City, consuming most of the Atlantic coast of the United States, and none had returned to share word of what they¡¯d found. It was a massive loss to humanity in those early days.


    Belfast was a hybrid major dungeon, scary enough to be only farmed by the elite of the Guildies.


    ¡°How in the hell are we going to get those Guildies out of the dungeon so they don¡¯t lock it?¡± Alexander asked.


    The trick, the problem, the reason for Matriculated guards, was too many classed people inside the dungeon and it shut itself, the crystal phased, becoming intangible, hiding just beyond the mortal realm of Gaia. No one could touch it then, which meant no one could have their classes unlocked, or strike the heart dead, which, of course, the Guild did not want. Worst case scenario, all the Guildies had to do was enter the dungeon to close it to intruders for three days. That was how they monopolized the access to Normals becoming Matriculated.


    Hilde and Cervantes came to the rescue.


    ¡°When they vacate to let the wagons through, because they¡¯re good lads who follow orders and won¡¯t jeopardize a fresh round of Normals accepting the carry to Matriculation,¡± The cavalier swordsman said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, ¡°Me and Hilde bop them on the noggin and pack them in the wagon, making it look like the guards are still guarding. Then we walk the caravan right on through, making sure not to go over limit inside the dungeon.¡±


    Cervantes, for all his casual attitude about it, might be onto something. Simplicity made execution far easier.


    ¡°Can you do it?¡± Alexander asked Hilde, their illusionist.


    She frowned, and chewed her lip, and her lack of immediate reply made him question the endeavor, but, after a minute she nodded.


    ¡°I can do it.¡± Hilde confirmed, with confidence now, ¡°An image of the guards, overlaid where they are on loop, to block the fort¡¯s view of what¡¯s actually happening, like a screen. As long as no one views it from the side, I can keep it up. If they come from multiple angles, they¡¯ll spot the ruse immediately, I can¡¯t do 3-D shots yet.¡± She explained.


    ¡°And the guards? Shiv?¡± the young Gerifalte checked, recalling the last time their physician had attempted his little carotid pinch.


    Vehement head shaking denied the surgeon¡¯s role in this play.


    ¡°No way. I got lucky those first couple of times.¡± Olevskiy admitted, his heavy brow drawn down from the memory of a near thing to homicide earlier, ¡°Getting more comfortable with my abilities worked against me, I¡¯m too sharp applying power now, making changes is too easy, and I lost wiggle room for mistakes.¡±


    ¡°I need to practice on some living things to get the method down before I try on humans again.¡± Their doctor told the crew without hesitation.


    Fair enough, plan bop them on the head it was.


    ¡°Melinda, your inspect skill is pretty solid, can you figure out how much Soak they¡¯ve got, or do I need to pull a quick scout?¡± the young Venator asked.


    High soak meant it would take a much harder hit to reliably down the men before they raised alarm, or started fighting back. Too hard a hit, and you might kill somebody on accident. The movies made it out like just bashing somebody in the back of the head was safe. It was not, a brain bleed killed swiftly. Hence the need to know exactly how much Soak they had to deal with to get the job done. If a struggle started, Cervantes could muffle things while Hilde obscured the takedowns, but taking risks unnecessarily due to sloppy planning was a rookie move.


    A thumbs up greeted him from the tiny scout of Getsome, who said without concern, ¡°I¡¯ve got this, you guys get started for the Narrows cemetery.¡±


    Alexander felt a little better knowing that the woman was there looking out for the caravan. He trusted the other scouts, but he¡¯d traveled with Melinda before, and knew her to be more than competent.


    Mark looked around, judging that there were no lingering misapprehensions about their plan of attack.


    ¡°Then let¡¯s get it done.¡± Getsome¡¯s Anchor tank declared.


    Which was how, about fifteen minutes later, he found himself in a tree overlooking the salty river, still cloaked in mist from the morning¡¯s chill.


    Maine was a beautiful thing, this time of year. Coastal Maine had that additional spice, missing from his hometown, of sea salt air, and the cries of gulls. He could see why so many people liked it enough to make their homes here, he decided from his squat on a high limb. The oak tree was old, old, one of those monsters that predated industry. Enhanced sight showed nothing but the usual run of squirrels, flit of birds, and stealthy pad of a lone panther. The usual, except for the volcano.


    Muspelheim dominated land was all harsh, rocky terrain, magma tubes, geysers, bubbling mud pots, lava fields, open pits of bubbling molten rock, and steaming pools of crystalline water clear all the way to the bottom and, oftentimes, iridescent with thermophilic algae. It was beautiful, in a way. Not anyway Alexander wanted to be closer to, that much was for certain.


    Even through the veil of the dungeon, the volcano could be seen, like a mirage across the desert. It was a hostile place, and that was without the dragon.


    Alexander dropped down from the branch, fell twenty feet to the forest floor, rolled gracefully to shed the impulse of the landing, and returned to give the team the word for which they were waiting. Ten eyes set in stoic, focused faces greeted him.


    ¡°Cervantes and Hilde need a raise, they pulled it off without a hitch.¡± He reported, and tension visibly left the party.


    Getting the wagon train on the road north, in the clear from the strong point of the fort, and dealing with the Guildies was considered to be the ¡°hard¡± part of the operation. The dungeon itself was a relatively known quantity, done to death. That was by Guild parties with relatively seasoned members who ran the dungeon every three days like clockwork. Information got around because the raiders and harvesters liked to brag in the taverns, and everybody was thrilled to let them. Humanity pushing back against the terrors of the invading realms was heap big dick energy, and a sign of hope.


    Of this party however, only Alexander had ever been on a run of the Muspelheim volcano, and that, only twice. He¡¯d gotten himself kicked out not a week later, thanks to an ill-fated patrol south of Belfast, doing what he¡¯d thought was a good deed killing the dungeon that was attacking some merchants from Rockland. As a result, they had limited first hand experience, and a whole lot of hearsay. Despite Alexander¡¯s misgivings, Getsome was ready. They had been training hard to break into the big leagues, before the truth of the Guilds¡¯ strategy of farming the dungeons had become clear. Afterward, they lost interest in becoming a cog in that machine.


    ¡°It¡¯s go time then.¡± Ben said, eagerness in his expression and voice.


    The Steel Heavy Knight helped the Dame into her little canoe, which was loaded with the armor of the party. They were all of them fit. The party members were conditioned by fighting monsters and patrolling the wilds, and full of the vigor of youth and Gaian magical infusion. Even so, swimming in full kit wasn¡¯t something that should ever be attempted. Especially not across a thousand feet of bitter cold October salt water, with a strong tide currently running out to the Atlantic. They¡¯d be dragged close to the southern end of the dungeon shrouded island in the best of circumstances.


    Dame Sanchez laid herself down, to avoid rocking the canoe and lower visibility. The canoe had branches, shrubs, and leaves tied off to it, to appear to be a drifting tree limb, which happened frequently. It was why the entire party wasn¡¯t in a boat, they would be far less visible in the water a mile or so distant to the Narrows observation post.


    Five forms in the buff entered the frigid river current and pushed the canoe along as they swam.


    Nobody concerned themselves with nudity. You didn¡¯t leave camp to do your business or bathe, that was asking for a panther or bear, or some Gaian spawned monster variant to come snatch you with your britches around your ankles. Brig for certain knew what everybody looked like naked anyhow, the ginger lancer having tried to corral most of them at least once. She succeeded more than she failed.


    After the initial shock of cold, Alexander¡¯s body warmed with the effort of the swim. They were pushing hard, making the crossing as swiftly as possible. Nobody really knew what things Gaia might have added to spice up the deeper waters, and this wasn¡¯t the day to find out. Just before he could really start getting paranoid, his feet touched the mud and sand mix of the bottom and he was pushing the canoe with all speed, Mark in front of him, Granny behind, with Brig, and Ben on the other side, because they were both specimens.


    As a team they dragged the boat up the sandy beach, nevertheless strewn with rocks, because this was Maine, which was almost entirely either rock, tree, or water. The Dame hopped out of the canoe and shivered slightly at the distance they had been pushed south in their short crossing. She¡¯d have been swept out to sea, if she didn¡¯t drown first.


    They had crossed into the boundary of the dungeon while beaching the canoe and the contrasting heat compared to the cold water was startling.


    ¡°Hooo, damn,¡± Observed Ben, ¡°It always this hot?¡±


    Alexander pulled his clothes on and thought back to his time on this island. He¡¯d remembered it being warm, but it was summer then, and the contrast wasn¡¯t so large.


    ¡°I think so, yeah. Definitely pushing nineties.¡± He recalled.


    He took a second to admire Brig¡¯s figure, noting that she was giving the party a hearty ogling, and turned around, so as not to encourage her antics. She enjoyed teasing him as much as anything else. That brought him face to face with Granny who he caught leering openly. At him. A reddening accompanied his about face toward the other men.


    ¡°Too easy, Gerifalte, you make it too easy.¡± Granny Nguyen complained behind him.


    He almost laughed aloud. It was strangely comforting that, even here on a volcanic island piece of an alien realm, Granny was taking the time to give him shit.


    ¡°Concentrate people.¡± Mark gently redirected, ¡°We¡¯re on the clock. I want game faces until we¡¯re back with the caravan.¡±


    And, because they were all professionals, they stopped being companions, friends, lovers, or occasional nemesis, and became Adventurers. Soldiers against the menace that threatened to consume the surface of Gaia. In many ways, they were like Gaia¡¯s immune system, fighting the infection that riddled the newly awakened planet.


    ¡°Let¡¯s do it by the book,¡± Ben advised, ¡°Me, Mark, Brig on the delta, Alexander wide ahead running scout, Dame holding flank and busting trouble, Annita keep overwatch and cull the downed mobs, do not engage otherwise.¡±


    They all knew the plan, but it was standard practice to reinforce the roles at the outset.


    Mark settled his helmet with a hard tap of the pommel of his sword and told the mule pack bearing harvester class, ¡°Do your thing, Granny, whenever you can. But use your head, and stay vigilant.¡±


    ¡°Go teach me to suck eggs.¡± Granny rebutted, with a serene expression of alert concentration.


    With that, they set off.


    Immediately, Alexander peeled off from the main body of the party to begin doing what he did best: used his eyes.


    Greater Analyze was a potent ability, coupled with Raptor Gaze. Few and far between were those who could canvas the terrain as thoroughly, and safely, as he could from a distance. Already, he had three packs of imps in his sights, throwing fireballs playfully at each other, a salamander sunning itself, and a suspiciously hominid boulder sitting in a lava pool that was definitely an elemental.


    It was the imps that first drew his attention, and he concentrated on their being, laser focused to acquire whatever fey knowledge Gaia could impart to him.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ashling Imp


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Impulsive, playful


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 18%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 82%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    5


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Length


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    3¡¯3¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arms


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    13/5


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arms


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    11


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    27lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    7/0


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Ash Demon Horn


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    7/0


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    9


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    1.5 years


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Wings


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Thorax


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Wings


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Smoke quartz, heart


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    5/0


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    8/5


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    5/0


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    3


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Muspelheim


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Legs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Legs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Monster Race:


    Ash Demon-1<sup>st</sup> Tier


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    8/0


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    8/0


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    7


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    9/0


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    2


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Barbed Tail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Cruel, Capricious, Greater Fire resistance, Lesser acidic blood


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser Tail whip, Minor ember throw, Minor ashen dislocation, Minor goring thrust


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Lesser ash manipulation, Ash form


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Tier one imps were no big deal. They were relatively squishy, not so strong, and only about as fast as a Normal. Other weaknesses of the creatures were their being too compulsive to strategize beyond what immediately was happening around them, and the fact that they tended to try to gang up on a single target to inflict as much viciousness as they could. A good party would let their Anchor tank move forward, draw their attention, and then pick them off when they rushed him, resulting in almost no damage ever being dealt. Their ability to sort of teleport in a puff of ash was only three or four feet, and they could only do it once every two or three minutes. The horns were sharp, but not any stronger than bull horns. The tail had a painfully recurved stinger, but no venom. Of all the characteristics of the Ashling imps, their most dangerous abilities were to stir up big clouds of ash as a group and to throw tiny fireballs at those inside. The ash cloud had a synergistic ability to trap the heat of the embers tossed into them, reaching broiling temperatures after a dozen or so. The creatures couldn¡¯t fly very quickly though, and the ash manipulation took focus, so they were easy to distract from this task, or to hit with a crossbow or longbow or anything else from range. All in all, nothing to worry about.


    Alexander figured this was a good warm up for the party, so he raised his hand and signaled the closest little mob of four to the party behind him. He received the go ahead from Mark and stalked ahead to invite the little monsters to play.


    Feet planted wide, with proper form, Alexander raised his bow. He drew the heavy pulling bow back, stave humming, pulleys silently magnifying the tension that would launch his broadhead arrow. Grey fletches indicated that this arrowhead was a simple trifold set of six-inch-long razors, not one of his special treats to feed monsters.


    Breathe. Hold. Release.


    One arrow streaked to the gang of imps, and transfixed the imp through its ribcage, beneath one armpit. That was a kill, the young Venator knew, and he was already drawing the bow again. As one, the Ashling imps screeched before taking a stumbling, chimpanzee run that ended with them launching themselves into clumsy flight toward him. They actually got easier to hit when they were in the air, flying too weakly to change their vertical position, or so Alexander thought. He didn¡¯t watch the second arrow kill its target. Instead, he fled back toward the delta formation, ash lifting up from under his boots in small clouds, and the light crunch of rock staccato as he ran.


    Two imps of the original four didn¡¯t even look aside when he sailed past Mark, locked onto their fleeing target as they were. Brig and Ben swatted them out of the air unceremoniously. Granny caved in both heads with a heavy chop of her kukri, like splitting kindling.


    ¡°More?¡± Alexander asked, and he received the affirmative gesture ¡°okay¡± from the party leader.


    Rinse and repeat, except that the next two mobs of three and four imps, Alexander didn¡¯t use an arrow, instead closing in a rapid run to stab into an imp with his frost cored spear, which had a devastating effect on the imps, ripping the heat that gave them life away. After a single, fatal thrust, employing his ability to increase lethality called Baleful strike, he retreated and let his team finish the pursuing imps.


    Ten minutes and seventeen imp cores later, and Alexander felt like they were ready to handle a salamander. Time to leave the bunny slopes and start hitting the real thing.


    He angled toward the volcano, following a small ridge that led to a low plateau. When they crested the rise, a plain dotted with several hydrothermal pools, their clarity and brilliant color belying the hazard they represented. Not only was the water in each easily scalding, but it was also chemically active, heavily concentrated with sulfuric acid. Central to the flat land was a slowly flowing river of lava, which meandered along a crusty path of cooled igneous rock. This field changed monthly, as a result of slow shifts in the lava flows. There was no defined way through the maze of old lava tubes, some which still held molten material, the main flow, and the numerous hydrothermal pools, themselves dangerous in that their banks could form a thin crust that deceived as to where the real shoreline might be.


    Of all the dungeon, this mile and a half long plateau leading to the cone was considered the most fraught. The salamanders had little to do with that, although they didn¡¯t make the route to the caldera any easier.


    ¡°Keep to my trail!¡± Alexander called to those who followed behind.


    ¡°If you have to split off, pay attention to your footing, there are hidden pitfalls scattered around.¡± He warned.


    A thousand careful feet of travel took them to a place where the river of lava, rolling with black crusts steadily floating atop boiling rock, passed close to a blue, yellow, and green pool that reeked of sulfur. On the banks of the lava flow lay a salamander, all four feet or so of it. A small one, they could be as long as ten feet and outweigh two full grown men. Their path went through this gap, which meant they had to take out the lizard thing blocking the way.


    It was time for the Dame to show her stuff. Salamanders had a scathing fire breath. Otherwise they weren¡¯t dangerous, unless you let one bite you, but then you deserved what you got. The Hydromancer¡¯s water beam was their kryptonite, however. Pressurized water would bore through the supple hide, punch into the flaming blood inside them, and flash to steam, virtually detonating the monsters from inside.


    Prim, proper, and dressed in what could only be described as an armored dress, the Dame took center stage in the party¡¯s familiar formation. The fine mega linen of the high necked, full armed, ball gown, was woven with titanium rings that interlocked. It was, arguably, a work of art. The dress was the brainchild of Kim Summers, Falcon¡¯s Rest¡¯s new artificer, and it was what caught Alexander¡¯s attention in Safe Harbor when he went looking for a metal worker to partner with. For all she was mad as a hatter, she did the battle princess look well with her Catalan features, proud nose, and a haughty demeanor.


    It was the main body of the party that led the way now, Alexander had done his part.


    ¡°Ready!¡± Whispered Mark from the van.


    ¡°Seven to ten, all clear.¡± Ben noted.


    Not even a second later, Brig echoed, ¡°Five to two, all clear.¡±


    The flanks were secured by Alexander, with Granny batting cleanup, and he gave a hushed, ¡°Five to Seven, all clear,¡± signaling that their rear was free from danger.


    ¡°On me!¡± Mark called, the Burning Legionnaire springing into a double time jog with his shield up.


    Salamanders, for those who need to know, are quick on the draw and trigger happy.


    A narrow stream of red-orange flame leapt from the small lizard¡¯s jaws, like a garden hose spitting napalm. Mark tanked the streaming fire, and Alexander saw the ground smoke beneath his armored feet. Simultaneously, the stream of fire flickered and guttered, as if in high wind. Getsome¡¯s Anchor tank was siphoning the heat from the flames into the ground, not completely neutralizing them, but diminishing the collateral to his teammates.


    The Dame raised a hand and water from a hydrothermal pool rose like a python of scalding acidic water rearing back to strike. With a gesture, she compelled her magic to streak forward, compressed liquid hitting like a battering ram. The salamander flew backward under the assault until it caught up against the lava flow¡¯s craggy banks and was pinched between frozen lava and a beam of pressurized water. Flesh gave way after only brief resistance, and a reptilian shriek was accompanied by a flash of steam, where water met molten blood.


    Scratch one salamander.


    The party advanced cautiously, but nothing jumped out to surprise them. Granny used her kukri to dissect the core of the Muspelheim beast. She then let Alexander, who had a practiced hand, skin the creature out while she scraped some sort of flamboyant red and orange moss, with a little blue pilot flame floating above its miniscule moss leaflets, into one of her sample bags, the soft green glow of her ability locking the virility of the alien plant in place so that it might be grown later, or remain fresh for use. One minute later, they had a salamander skin to go with the core and were continuing toward their destination.


    Not far did they make it, a hundred feet, perhaps, before another bend in the main lava flow splitting the plateau revealed three salamanders laying in wait. For what? No one knew for certain. It was almost unheard of for monsters from one of the contested zones to prey on one another. They exclusively hunted for Gaian prey, perhaps driven to it by the crystal heart of the dungeon that brought them through to this world. A mystery, and one Alexander did not care to solve. He had no interest in dungeon to monster communication, only in killing the crystal cores that spread their influence.


    ¡°Brig, stone spear the two o¡¯clock salamander and vault it if you have to, I¡¯ll tie up the eleven and ten o¡¯clock monsters so Ben and Alexander can go round and flank them. Dame, if you think you can take one out without spending too much of your strength then do it, otherwise, save yourself for the boss.¡± Mark ordered, cool and collected, broad sword pointing to the enemies, features blond and handsome like a story book hero.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Getsome followed the Anchor tank¡¯s charge.


    This time, there was not one stream of flame, but three, and even the sturdy kite shield, backed by the Burning Legionnaire¡¯s heat manipulation, wasn¡¯t enough to completely deflect the assault. Grunting from the rapid drain on his mana to dim the fire, Mark, somewhat breathless, ¡°Audible, shut those flames down or Granny and Dame are in trouble!¡±


    Alexander skated to the side, moving away from his team at a ground blurring clip and he grimaced away the broiler heat from the salamander breath proximity for a moment. A moment was all it took to summon the Entropic Field of his class, a sphere of chaos magic that twisted mana constructs, breaking them apart. Concentrated streams of fire sputtered and died, and Alexander put himself in harm¡¯s way to get close to the monsters, shutting off their ability to redouble their magical attack.


    Two fire born monitors nine feet long turned to attack him, mouths smoking and teeth like obsidian ready to rend his flesh while they dragged him into the lava flow. He readied Winter¡¯s Breath, his frost enchanted spear to repel them. It proved unnecessary, Ben had not been idle, and neither had Brig. Ben, poleaxe wound up, charged in from behind him and swung like a tightened spring. His full metal axe blade buried itself between slitted eyes, the force smashing the salamander¡¯s head to the ashen rock below. Flailing limbs spasmed without control and the Steel Heavy Knight transitioned his weapon smoothly and neatly caught a lunging form on the spear point, lifting the three-hundred-pound creature high as if it weighed nothing. A stone javelin buried itself into the monster¡¯s stomach, followed by three more that landed within a hand of the first.


    Ben¡¯s face, nearly hidden by the helmet he wore, never changed a whit, not even when stone spears whistled by his ear.


    The third salamander died like the first small one a heartbeat later, rent by compressed water that popped its abdomen open in a cloud of steam and mutant reptilian gore.


    Alexander released a held breath at the sudden change in circumstance. The salamanders had concentrated their fire, ahem, more effectively than he had ever seen, and it was more than Mark¡¯s ability to move thermal energy could handle, by far. His shield showed signs of warping and the center of it had taken on the appearance of blackened wax. The wood beneath the metal was charred, by the smell and wisps of smoke along its rim.


    ¡°Woah.¡± Granny commented, slightly aghast at how quickly things got squirrely.


    ¡°Good call on the audible, Mark.¡± Alexander praised.


    Their leader grinned and patted his helmet nervously, while Granny got to work cutting open their prey.


    ¡°Thanks, but you get the credit for the save on that one. Your antimagic field took the starch out of them pretty hard.¡± Getsome¡¯s leader returned, before addressing his team¡¯s attackers, ¡°What do you think? How much Soak did they have from inside Alexander¡¯s area of effect?¡±


    Brig squinted at the salamander her rock spears had transfixed and waved her hand in a so-so gesture. It was hard to tell since she couldn¡¯t feel the pressure of the creatures when she threw the javelins.


    ¡°Probably half or less,¡± She decided, turning to their most experienced hand, ¡°How about it, Ben? You got up close with them.¡±


    A hearty armored clap on Alexander¡¯s splint mail from the big man rocked him, and their main attacker chuckled, ¡°Went through¡¯em like a hot knife through butter. Twenty percent of their Soak left, tops. And he was only on them for a second. God almighty, I love this cheating little shit.¡±


    Alexander had to readjust his helmet from the warrior¡¯s seal of approval, but he was glad his instincts to turn off the salamander¡¯s breath and defenses were good. Granny stashed the last core and announced, ¡°Ready for skinning! Now, get over here and show me how to dehide these little beauties, Granny needs a new pair of shoes!¡±


    He glanced down at her feet and, indeed, the Verdant Forager was going to need new footwear. Hers were starting to char from the heat of the dungeon¡¯s stony ground.


    ¡°Damn, Annita, you should have said something sooner!¡± He exclaimed, hurrying over to start working on the monster corpses.


    Her feet would be burning soon.


    ¡°Eh, you young folk had bigger problems than my tootsies. I¡¯ll wrap them up in the little guy real quick, if you don¡¯t mind.¡± She said and started doing just that.


    Five minutes focused work, as fast as he could cut away the suede smooth hides, had the three salamanders, much larger than their first catch, packed away. Granny¡¯s soft leather boots were now reinforced against the heat by crudely folded salamander skin, with her boney quill hair pins, Alexander¡¯s gift from yesterday, there to hold the improvised moccasins in place.


    When he was done, Alexander rose, and wiped sweat from his brow. Suddenly, he realized that it was very, very hot around here. Even for Muspelheim.


    ¡°I think we might be on the clock guys.¡± He said, frowning, unable to hide his concern.


    It was definitely hotter than before. He¡¯d been twice to the caldera to help fight the field boss baby dragon and the atmosphere had never been so oppressively sweltering.


    ¡°Figures.¡± Brig snarked, her lopsided smile undaunted by the news.


    Okay, okay, okay, time to do your thing, Little Falcon, he whispered to himself, trying to rally some confidence. This next part was going to require him to not fuck anything up. The field dungeon was growing hotter, they needed the straightest path to the caldera as possible. He was the only one who could see well enough to chart a path through the maze of boiling pools, lava, and monsters, especially with all the thermal distortions in the air.


    For a methodical couple of minutes, Alexander exercised his Raptor¡¯s Gaze and Spatial Adept abilities to their fullest. He normally used Spatial Adept for its help getting a 3-D understanding of machine schematics, mechanical tasks, and the like, but it was useful in fights to precisely judge the positions of his enemies, their weapons, and his attack vectors. Now, it helped him determine the most likely position of lava tubes that might collapse, by the subtle roll of the terrain, hints almost hidden by ash and steam.


    At last, he was confident he had a new line to their objective. He was bypassing some of the monsters they¡¯d planned to hunt, but needs must when devil drives.


    ¡°Alright, I got it.¡± Alexander declared to the team, ¡°We can skip two packs of imps, and all of the salamanders, and I think I have us a route that lets us move faster. That¡¯s fewer resources, but safety and mission success take priority. There¡¯s two elementals in the way. I¡¯m going to Chaos strike them, and, if she is amenable, Dame Sanchez should put them down with all haste. Granny can haul the glass for Jules, and we make straight for the dragon after that. Solid plan?¡±


    ¡°Solid plan.¡± Chorused the party.


    ¡°Okay,¡± Mark breathed, anticipating a faster pace, ¡°On me, same formation, Alexander, hold the flank and keep watch for any bullshit. Let¡¯s fucking go, double time.¡±


    Getsome took off at a steady jog this time, making rapid egress along the route Alexander had determined.


    ¡°Elemental, get ready!¡± the Entropic Venator called, noticing the small telltale flakes of crusted igneous rock that cracked when a lava elemental started to move from its concealment.


    In the same breath as his warning, the creature lifted itself out from the pool of molten rock in which it had lay in ambush.


    A grey black bolt of distorted magic slapped across the elemental¡¯s chest, and it made a grating screech, like grinding rock mixed with a broken brass horn. Its keening was short lived. The Dame unloaded on the elemental with water from a nearby pool that blasted the infernal life from the creature. It died smoking and steaming, its vital heat bled away from the torrent of water that bathed it. Together, the team smashed the bipedal thing to small bits, secured the monster¡¯s core, and loaded Granny¡¯s pack with two hundred pounds of choicest obsidian. She took the additional weight stoically, having emptied the huge bag before embarking on this maiden voyage inside a dungeon.


    Off at a run, they slaughtered another gang of imps, not even bothering with the cores as they noticed a perceptible increase in temperature. Something was going wrong in Muspelheim.


    The last barrier to their path was another elemental. They barely even slowed, Alexander splashed its head with chaos magic and the Dame let it have the same lethal bath its brethren had faced.


    While they harvested the creature, the Dame gave them the warning however, breathless from the effort of using herself up so rapidly, ¡°My strength is taxed fully. It pains me to rely on the rabble, but so it must be.¡±


    Damn. He was really hoping that she would have had enough juice to squeeze to throw in on the dragon. Couldn¡¯t be helped, they couldn¡¯t afford the small breaks to rest and permit their stamina or magical reserves to recover. The good news was, Brig and Ben were still mostly fresh, not having expended much of their strength so far. Alexander was feeling the use of his powers, but he had plenty of gas in the tank for the miniature dragon, and Winter¡¯s Breath was well suited to deal with this boss, even without his antimagic.


    The cone loomed above them as they ran toward the heart of the contested zone. Clouds of smoke, ash, and the occasional flickers of lighting roiled high above. A rumble gave barely a warning before the mountain of fire trembled. It shook the ground wildly, and the party staggered and stumbled, trying to remain upright. Alexander felt dread climb his spine, watching a few streamers of cinders and lava bombs get hurled from the cone to the surroundings. The rate of ash belching from the volcano increased.


    ¡°Oh fuck. It¡¯s the volcano. Something¡¯s wrong with the fucking volcano, it¡¯s not supposed to do that.¡± He reported, not bothering to hide his apprehension.


    Brig laughed gaily and gave them encouragement, ¡°Then we¡¯d best hike up our knickers and kick the shit out of it then, shouldn¡¯t we?¡±


    What do you say to that? He wondered. Not much, just do it.


    So it was that the adventurers rounded the final bend in a dormant lava tube, the main channel that led into the heart of the dungeon, a wide high chamber inside the volcano that housed, in addition to the crystal heart of this slice of Muspelheim, its guardian: a juvenile red dragon, that wasn¡¯t so juvenile any longer.


    The juvenile red dragon had put on weight. Where it should have been around the size of a large horse, it was now elephantine. Wings with a fifteen-foot spread now splayed in threat and shadowed forty feet to either side of its powerful draconic body. Horns like pikes rose up from its spine and its tail carried a wicked set of them at angles from its spine, a flail of unthinkable power, twenty feet long to add to the twenty-foot-long body and head.


    ¡°That¡¯s a big ass baby, Alexander. You didn¡¯t say anything ¡®bout it being that fucking big!¡± Accused Ben.


    Alexander¡¯s mouth had fallen open at the sight of the impossible. The dragon was massive. He immediately concentrated on the fearful creature, trying to ignore baleful golden eyes that bored into the interlopers that had intruded onto its domain. He failed for the easy grace with which the field boss rose from its repose to stand, imperious, before the heart of the Muspelheim dungeon.


    ¡°We gotta go.¡± He whispered, shaken.


    ¡°What?! But we¡¯re already this far!¡± Hissed Brig, not understanding.


    Ben was shaking his head, even the indomitable man cared little for the idea of challenging the red scaled guardian of the volcano.


    ¡°It¡¯s too big. It¡¯s way bigger than before.¡± Alexander said, backing away slowly toward the tunnel that led out of the dungeon heart¡¯s chamber.


    When was the last time the Guildies had slayed the dragon? Had they abandoned the culling when they couldn¡¯t discern a use for a dragon¡¯s core? That was¡­madness! And without slaying the dragon, there had been no Matriculation from this dungeon, no siphoning off its powers.


    ¡°Those fucking Guildies just let it be.¡± Mark intoned, disbelief painting the pronouncement.


    ¡°We gotta go.¡± Alexander repeated.


    If they followed the route in, they should be able to get off the island before the volcano, seemingly about to burst, erupted. When that happened, who knows how the field dungeon would change. Maybe this was what it looked like when a dungeon tiered up, expanded its foothold on Gaia.


    A gentle hand on his arm pulled him away from his feeble attempts to control fear, and Granny, in her ageless faked, but not always, wisdom, laid bare the truth of things.


    ¡°It won¡¯t let us, Alexander.¡± She said, solemnly, a little scared.


    And she was right. The dragon was unfurling from its slumber, wings reflexively opening and closing, limbering up for flight. Claws raked the stone, leaving deep gouges and throwing sparks.


    Brig, at least, was up for the fight, and she exclaimed, ¡°Then if it wants some it can come get some.¡±


    Which finally solved for Alexander how this Adventurer party had acquired their name. No matter how he tried he couldn¡¯t convince anyone to tell him. He¡¯d thought it was Gatsam this whole time, which he¡¯d assumed was some kind of inside joke.


    It was. Just not the funny hah hah kind. They must have nearly died that day.


    ¡°Gonna have to stick to the plan now, soldiers. Our asses are in it.¡± Ben determined aloud.


    ¡°I have the strength for a single blow to lay upon the fell creature,¡± Dame Sanchez announced, haughty and proud, ¡°Let us slay the beast.¡±


    A resigned sigh escaped him, and he watched as the dragon bared sword length fangs, its maw long as Alexander was tall, and its horn crowned head dipping low as it gathered itself.


    ¡°Right. Same plan?¡± He checked, getting less rocky now that there were no options left.


    ¡°Same plan.¡± Mark confirmed, and that was a ballsy statement from the party¡¯s leader, because he was going to be drawing the monster¡¯s attention first and foremost.


    ¡°Fuck. Okay. Say when.¡± Alexander said.


    The dragon bellowed, a resonant roar of challenge and hostility. Good enough, he thought, and the last Gerifalte summoned chaos.


    Three Chaos strikes leapt from his raised hand, and he was pulling his bow off his back before they landed. While he did so, the Entropic Venator focused on the being of the draconic figure and pulled Gaia¡¯s impression on of it from the void.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Muspelheim Red Wyrmling


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    Wrathful, Defensive, Impatient


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 55%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    34


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Length


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    45¡¯7¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arms


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    32/50


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arms


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6.54tons


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    26/34 Claws


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Dragon Horn


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    26/34 Claws


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    21


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Six months


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Wings


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Thorax


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Wings


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    13


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Dragon heart, ovoid


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    20/10


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    45/45


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    20/10


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    12


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Muspelheim


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Legs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Legs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    8


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Monster Race:


    Dragon-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Red)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    28/34 Claws


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen-Tail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    28/34 Claws


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    82


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    34/20


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    ¡Þ


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Spiked Tail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Draconic pride, Greater fire resistance, Greater slash resistance, Greater pierce resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Tail whip, Lesser dragon fire, Fearful roar, Dragon dive, Raking claws


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Tier three.¡± Alexander reported grimly, informing the party what they faced.


    The guardian of the volcano had no arcana.


    That was the good news, he thought, pulling back his bow, one of the red feathered arrows nocked. Red fletched arrows carried a small, shaped charge, which detonated thanks to a vial of nitroglycerin that broke on impact.


    He released the arrow, taking some gratification that the boss had leaned away from the streaking entropic mana bolts, but was too large to avoid them. Black, grey, warping magic dulled and cracked scales across the neck, stomach, and a blocking wing. His arrow flew toward the dragon¡¯s neck, but a dip of horn covered head caused the bolt to shatter on unblemished ruby red scales. The explosive consequence snapped the draconic face to the side. Slowly, it leveled a hateful glare his way.


    The bad news was that the dragon did not need arcana to be tyrannical.


    Mark launched himself at the field boss, Ben and Brig at his side. Granny kept to Mark¡¯s shadow, as she had been instructed, and the Dame was angling slightly to one side, to find an angle for a decisive blow with her remaining magic. The acidic hydrothermal vent water in the small keg hanging at her hip would have to be used when the right moment came, or it would do nothing against the dragon¡¯s defenses.


    His pulling attack drew the boss¡¯s ire, and six tons of dragon lifted, far too gracefully, with an almost casual three beats of great wings.


    The downburst from those batlike membranes slung a wave of ash and smoke from the lava near the dungeon heart, which hung just a few hundred feet away, on a narrow bridge extending into the lake of lava inside the caldera. That lake had been a hundred yards farther down the throat of the volcano the last time he was here.


    Shield raised, Mark dashed into the blast of wing driven particulates, leading the charge toward the monster.


    From its disturbingly weightless hover, the wyrmling drew back its sinuous neck and the warriors heard the hissing intake of breath, accompanied by a dull glow in the dragon¡¯s chest.


    ¡°Don¡¯t tank it!¡± Alexander shouted, drawing a new arrow to send at the wing he¡¯d hit earlier with his magical attack, where its Soak and armor were compromised.


    An airborne dragon was an exponentially greater threat than one that was grounded.


    The jet of flame that poured from a wide, fanged maw was a fire hose compared to the salamander¡¯s. Fire concentrated into a nearly solid beam rocketed at Mark and the Burning Legionnaire didn¡¯t even attempt to put his shield in the way. Getsome scattered, diving aside. As unmercifully powerful as the dragon¡¯s breath was, it was not sustained, a burst of flame that left rock seared to molten glow, and then done.


    Alexander released the second arrow, trying to hold his focus instead of watching while his comrades made their evasion. Another arrow in the air, and, this time, pay dirt!


    Weakened scales at the ¡°elbow¡± of the wing joint shattered, becoming glistening crimson shrapnel, and the pained shriek of the boss, its graceful hover broken by the limply flapping left wing, barely preceded its return to the cavern floor. Sound from the roar caused every human to flinch, frozen for a deadly moment.


    Barely did the red wyrmling land, then did the claws gouge stone for traction and it hurled itself toward Alexander Gerifalte with fury in reptilian eyes.


    He fled as soon as his body unfroze from its instinctive paralysis, immediately and as fast as his legs could take him, with no thought of any attempt to fight the charging drake. Heart racing in his throat he sprinted desperately around the circumference of the chamber and prayed to all the gods above, below, and in between, that someone managed to hurt the monster before it caught him.


    Aid came in the form of Brig, who used a pillar of stone as a propulsive springboard and launched herself with amazing grace into the air. Earthen magic pulsed and her spear took on extra weight, became more solid, as she descended onto the boss¡¯s back. A war cry joined the stabbing lance that bit into the dragon¡¯s neck, where Alexander¡¯s Chaos strike had weakened its armor. Brilliant blood pulsed from the wound and the dragon stopped its pursuit with a stumbling roar, biting viciously over its shoulder at the Lithic Lancer that had stung it. Fearless, Brig ignored the snapping teeth half as long as she was tall, drew back, and burned her mana to stab again, harder, into the monster on whose shoulder she stood.


    Alexander turned and consumed the rest of his magic on impulse, knowing that no better chance to break the down the creature¡¯s defenses would come. A salvo of five bolts of entropic magic seared the dragon¡¯s chest and head, and its convulsive shriek filled the chamber, rattling the warriors again.


    One of the bolts had hit the monster in the eye, and the orb had gone milky white, with tears of draconic blood running from that socket.


    A wave of exhaustion hammered into the young hunter¡¯s mind, the price of tapping one¡¯s magic completely and he almost fell to the floor from vertigo.


    Brig took the chance to tear her spear free, one last time she stabbed again with a two-handed impaling blow charged by inhuman power. Full Thrust magnified the lance, and, committed as she was to the attack, the warrior almost got impaled by a back spike when the dragon rolled to crush her.


    She vaulted her from the beast¡¯s back, her class¡¯s enhanced jump carrying her away from the death roll. Too fast for a monster of its size, the field boss gained its feet and tried to bite the Lancer from the air like a lizard snatching a fly.


    Their veteran monster killer had not been idle, fearlessly closing on the single-minded monster. Using all the momentum he could muster, Benjamin didn¡¯t break stride before he uppercutted the dragon¡¯s chin with a spinning golf swing empowered by the Heavy Knight¡¯s abilities. A crack of scales and teeth echoed across the caldera chamber, the surging, fanged mouth slammed shut by his blow. Brig got hit by a darting scaled wall driven by a ton of muscle and sailed, landing in a crunching pile of armor and limbs, that skidded twenty feet across the dungeon chamber¡¯s stone floor.


    A shimmer across claws was the only warning Ben got before the dragon¡¯s retaliatory attack hooked across to eviscerate him. Mark pushed past, shield up, and both the men were sent flying by the sweeping rake of talons. The pair rolled and gained their feet, remarkably adroit for the hit they¡¯d taken and the armor they wore. There was damage, however,


    Mark¡¯s shield had been carved nearly in half. The arm holding the shield was deeply gouged, bone showing, even through his Soak, the shield, and armor below. His chest plate showed a similar gouge, blood flowing freely. The Burning Legionnaire grimaced in pain but stood his ground, determined to hold the line. Ben put a hand on his friend¡¯s shoulder in thanks for saving his life, and they faced down their enemy together.


    Predatory instincts sent the dragon, not toward the pair, but toward Brigitte, who was slowly rising from her rough landing. Granny Nguyen, who had been hanging back with the Dame searching for an opportunity to make the difference, rushed to the fallen woman when the dragon turned, lifted her up bodily with ox strength and fled. The boss¡¯s pounce took it to the space where its prey had been, but Annita Nguyen was running with her comrade slung over her slight shoulders, the harvester was fifty feet away before the field boss could gather itself to follow. It tried anyway, pouncing, leaping, and, once, with a slash of its twenty-foot tail, and failed to catch the darting woman with her, for once, light burden.


    Growling snarls from the frustrated monster sounded like all the alligators in Florida.


    For its distraction, the Dame made it pay with its sight, a concentrated beam of water digging deep through the softest tissue on the monster¡¯s head. Another bellow of wrath and pain resounded, and the monster swung its crown toward the woman, breathing deep to punish the creature that had pulverized its eye.


    Dame Sanchez faced her death with dignity, having fallen to her knees when she expended the last of her energies. Her noble sacrifice was averted by three hundred pounds of steel-clad knight that, for a second time, shut the dragon¡¯s mouth with a brutal sweep of poleaxe, this time so hard that the metal axe head shattered.


    Dragon fire spilled from the close mouth and rebounded, swelling cheeks and throat almost comically. Not so comically, the wound Brigitte made on its neck poured molten fire in a spurt that rapidly widened, bursting open from the pressure and power of its own furious breath. The creature gagged, and floundered on its side, knocking the knight that had smacked it to the rocks in its tortured flailing.


    Alexander was out of gas, Brigitte was on one leg, the other bent in a decidedly wrong direction, Granny didn¡¯t have any way to hurt a monster like the field boss, Mark¡¯s offensive powers were useless against the fire resistance of the Muspelheim native, even if he wasn¡¯t badly slashed, and the Dame could barely climb to her feet.


    There was only one hope left, and that man had just broken his weapon on the dragon¡¯s face. Alexander grabbed the frost enchanted naginata from his harness and yelled, ¡°Ben! Catch!¡± and he threw the spear, butt first, toward the champion of man.


    Benjamin Grisham caught the flying spear as if it were handed to him and pivoted, roaring a roar of his own to match the dragon when he pierced the chaos weakened scales of its breast and shoved Winter¡¯s breath its entire length through the dragon¡¯s chest. Frozen power ate hungrily at the Muspelheim born monster¡¯s life, stealing its heat, stilling the furnace inside it.


    A massive shudder, a kick of clawed feet, a futile flap of one wing, and the dragon died.


    Getsome¡¯s vanguard attacker pulled the steaming frost brand from the behemoth¡¯s body and gave it a considering smile, abnormal for the usual stoic features he maintained. That there, was a damned fine spear.


    Another quake sent the party staggering, most now too injured or tired to resist being upended. From his sprawl, Alexander saw that the boiling lava was up another two feet, perilously close to swallowing the bridge that led to the dungeon heart.


    ¡°Mark! You¡¯re going to have to do it! You¡¯re the only one who can survive long enough!¡± the young hunter shouted, certain anyone else would succumb to the shimmering heat enveloping the bridge.


    Using his half of a kite shield to prop himself up, Mark Ross, Burning Legionnaire and leader of the Adventurer party Getsome, Dragon Slayer, stumbled on legs made rubbery from blood loss across fifty feet of choking fumes and scalding heat. His clothes were smoking, and he was suffering burns from the reddening armor on his body when he drove his broadsword into the core of the Cinder cone dungeon of Muspelheim. Ripples of energy burst from the dying crystal, like gilded solar flares. Vibrant golden ribbons leashed the core to each of the men and women that had championed the world against the contested zone.


    The world fell away to darkness.


    Alexander¡¯s mind filled again.


    WORTHY! WORTHY! CATASTROPHE AVERTED! INCURSION DENIED!


    WORTHY! WHAT IS THY DESIRE?


    This again.


    His hypothesis was, at the least partially confirmed. Gaia rewarded her champions proportionally to their achievement. By rules that remained cryptic and beyond knowing, but, nevertheless, could be extrapolated as such: the more likely the dungeon would kill you, the greater Gaia¡¯s gift when it didn¡¯t.


    His desire?


    Alexander held carefully onto this one, he had considered it since the last time. He had wanted to know the rules and got Greater Analyze. He had wanted power to break the rules and got Entropic magic, which unraveled most magical shenanigans. He had wanted to bring his parents back, specifically, the second time and had been told he was already doing that. The gift then was a flat increase to his abilities, making him¡­more substantial. It was hard to notice when your entire being changed, but Alexander was far more capable than he had been before that, around the board.


    What did he desire this time? More than anything else, what he wanted, and needed, was sheer strength. There would be other dragons, maybe. There would be worse, eventually. They stood between him, and his goals and he would fall short if he couldn¡¯t overcome them.


    ¡°I am a hunter. Of monsters. Of knowledge. Of anything I need to be. Give me strength to pursue my quarry.¡± He asked of the planet¡¯s consciousness.


    BECOMING! A HUNTER SEEKS STRENGTH AFTER SLAYING GREATER FOES!


    A flare of heat inside his chest rolled outward through limbs in that strange timeless expanse within his mind. He was there, what felt like in body, but cutoff from the outside. When the heat faded, his exhaustion was taken with it.


    Surroundings faded back in, his senses shedding the overwhelming presence of Gaia¡¯s contact.


    ¡°Whoo boy! What a rush.¡± Alexander commented, slightly overwhelmed.


    Things had gone so very not according to plan. But they had worked out, somehow. He thanked all the gods above, below, and in between that he had had Getsome here to aid him. A tier three dragon. Holy fuck, what a disaster.


    He glanced around at slack faces and distant eyes. So, he gathered, everybody was still in neverland with the planet¡¯s mind.


    A quick scan of the surroundings revealed that the volcano was going dormant. Lava already a hundred feet lower than moments ago was cooling to form a black, igneous crust across the caldera. Already, the temperature was dropping.


    ¡°No time to savor it, Little Falcon.¡± Alexander told himself, and he approached the fallen dragon, slightly giddy at what fruits this fucked up day had born.


    Ben had whacked the absolute piss out of it, was his first observation.


    Scales on the lower jaw were impacted, shattered like a sledgehammer on thin concrete. A few of the teeth had broken off against one another in the boss¡¯s mouth. The Steel Heavy Knight had an ability called ¡°Lesser Reinforce¡± that borrowed the strength of the metal he wore, adding it to his natural strength and toughness. For five seconds, Ben Grisham was a man made of steel, and he¡¯d shattered an axe head against the armored skull. That wasn¡¯t even one of the areas hit by Alexander¡¯s Chaos strikes, it was raw damage, all the way through the boss¡¯s impressive Soak.


    ¡°What a fucking man, Ben.¡± He applauded, awestruck by the warrior¡¯s might.


    He drew his belt knife and got to work prying away the scales around the fatal thrust, pulling still cool to the touch armor up so that his blade could cut them free. A pile of crimson plates, surprisingly light for all their toughness and metallic sheen. Dragon scales were next level cheating bullshit, armor stronger than they had any right to be, courtesy of the magic that infused them from the dragon¡¯s heart. Alexander dug through three feet of muscle, then cut around a four-inch-thick sternum to find the mysterious core of the beast, whose use remained a mystery to all but the top three Guilds. No one else but the brass from those had ever even been allowed to touch one.


    He felt the hard, spherical shape against his hand and wrapped his fingers around it from inside, grimacing against the near scalding temperature within the dead creature¡¯s flesh, even after Winter¡¯s Breath had robbed its vital heat from it.


    Alexander withdrew his arm, covered in draconic blood up to the shoulder and beheld the prize: a spherical, perfectly smooth jewel that was lit by inner fires of red, gold, and hints of blue at the center. A dragon heart. It reeked of magical potency. He absolutely had to know its secrets.


    ¡°You ever look at me like that, I¡¯m going to run for the hills.¡± Granny Nguyen whispered into his ear.


    ¡°Ghaaah!¡± He yelled, and the precious heart flew from his hand, tossed by a reflexive full body flinch.


    The crystalline sphere hit the rocks with a glassy *clink* and rolled a few feet, while Alexander Gerifalte scowled as his tormenter sauntered over to pick the treasure up. The petite young woman in the hide armor and breastplate stared with dark eyes into the depths of the heart, with a look that was decidedly longing. Now he understood what she meant. Something about the core drew you in.


    ¡°Damn you, Granny Nguyen! Don¡¯t do that!¡± He yowled, high-pitched voice from the adrenaline rush of being scared shitless.


    Asian features, serene, broke to reveal a wide grin. She loved sneaking up on him. Absolutely loved it. Almost as much as she loved finding and cultivating strange herbs, the weirdest mushrooms anybody had ever seen, or every type of moss that ever existed.


    ¡°I will do that, Alexander, and you cannot stop me.¡± Retorted his nemesis, voice pitched low in her super villain persona.


    ¡°Granny Nguyen, wins again!¡± She crowed.


    Quick hands delivered the core of the Muspelheim field boss into a pouch on her belt, and it bulged comically with the coconut sized sphere straining against the leather when she tied closed the pouch and buckled the flap for extra security.


    Alexander shook his head against the harvester¡¯s nonsense and resumed cutting away scales, this time the ones off the monster¡¯s back, but only the ones his magic had not touched. Those were mostly worthless now, their innate magic dismantled, scrambled by entropic force. It was why he hadn¡¯t been brought along on more runs. Yes, his Soak penetrating and armor weakening abilities made slaying the monsters of the dungeons far easier. But at the cost of ruining whatever his mana touched. For the Guilds, this was a tradeoff they were not willing to make.


    Could Ben have thrust through the dragon¡¯s chest without his Chaos strikes repeated weakening of the flesh, bone, and scale? Maybe. Winter¡¯s Breath was a masterpiece, ridiculously strong, scalpel sharp, made of some of the most exotic and metallurgically sound material known, as nobody else had killed a Silver Ore Golem and refined its corpse into smelted metal ingots. But a tier three dragon was a tier three dragon. Nothing like it had ever been seen, so far as he knew.


    He made certain to note, while ripping away the long plates that covered the beast¡¯s spine, the damage caused by Brig¡¯s diving attack and follow up stroke. He¡¯d weakened the area, but her Full Thrust had turned a stab from a spear into something that looked like a cannonball hitting. No wonder the dragon flame caught within its throat had burst free, she¡¯d gone deep with that attack.


    ¡°Getsome might be the only party I¡¯ve ever seen that could have killed this monster.¡± Alexander told Granny, who had decided to stop heckling and join him dismantling the dragon.


    They were hard at work, he scaling the drake, her filling ceramic bottles with blood. A single drunken conversation with a Guildie who was censured harshly even for talking about it had revealed once, that dragon blood, even that of the infant wyrm, was powerfully catalytic, fire aspected, life aspected, time aspected, whatever the hell that implied, and would never spoil. He couldn¡¯t wait to use the analytic power of his Warforger trait to decipher properties of substance he ingested. That trait, an offering as a result of matriculating by soloing a closed dungeon, was an anomaly amongst the denizens of Safe Harbor. Most traits were not so extensive in their offerings. None, in fact, that he had seen when he analyzed people.


    Most Matriculated said his Warforger was a patently bullshit thing to happen, born of luck, a unique background, and black magic involving human sacrifice. He recommended they try to replicate it by killing a dungeon full of murderous goblins, alone.


    He was interrupted from saying more by a staccato rap against his helmet from an armored hand.


    ¡°You bet that sweet ass we are!¡± Brig cheered, having snapped out of her Gaia funk to see what the pair of incurable scroungers were getting into.


    Brig was being supported by Mark on one side. The endorphins must have been pulling double shifts because she was grinning goofily with her knee bent wrong. Mark was bandaged across his middle, his rent body armor hanging from his belt awkwardly, and one arm tied to his chest to keep it stable. The bone had been cloven, there was just meat holding it in one piece. Mark was out of combat until the Phoenix sun, and so too was Brig. That was both their tanks, effectively. Ben could take punishment, his Reinforce worked defensively too, but the short duration of the skill meant it was better used as he had used it against the dungeon¡¯s guardian: to blast some monstrosity out of existence with a hulk smash.


    ¡°You two okay?¡± He asked, not looking up from his work.


    They were on the clock here. It wouldn¡¯t be long at all before the Guildies keeping watch noticed that the barrier that separated the contested zone from the outside was dispersed.


    Field dungeons could blend almost seamlessly with the surroundings, being almost impossible to distinguish, which was what he¡¯d experienced from his trip through the realm of the undead, a Tech Duinn field dungeon. Or, they could be radically different inside, and veiled from the outside, which was how many of them appeared. There were theories that those types of field dungeons were beginning to become closed dungeons, biting off a piece of Gaia entirely. It was only a theory, no one could provide data. Humanity was working off wild assed guesses and breadcrumbs of hard data sprinkled by what could be gained from analysis type abilities, he mused to himself. In any case, the volcano was visible from outside, but as if through a veil of heat shimmered air, clouds of steam, or drifting ash.


    Alexander knew that the sudden absence of obstruction would be noted sooner rather than later.


    ¡°Not really.¡± Mark answered, ¡°But we¡¯re alive, which is better than I thought we¡¯d be doing about two minutes ago, so I¡¯ll take it.¡±


    ¡°Did you guys get three ¡®Worthy¡¯s from the planet this time?¡± Alexander checked, and hucked another slab of stacked scales into Granny¡¯s bag, determined to load the woman down like the dumb animal she was.


    ¡°Ayuh!¡± Brig replied immediately, ¡°And now I get why you¡¯re such a bullshit cheater!¡± She exclaimed.


    One of her common accusations regarding why he was still alive, and a running gag between them.


    ¡°My class evolved!¡± She shouted, definitely high on endorphins.


    There was going to be a lot of pain later, especially when they crossed the river again. Alexander¡¯s face fell when he recalled that they were going to have to either swim the river or cross the still volcanic island to go across the Narrows bridge to rejoin the caravan. Later, Alexander, he compartmentalized the problem away, save future problems for the future.


    Still, he started working even faster, knife flying to gain as much as he could from this first, last opportunity to harvest a dragon¡¯s corpse. Hopefully the last, he amended, praying to not have jinxed himself.


    ¡°Mine too, and it was a big deal.¡± The party leader revealed, much more solemn than his compatriot.


    His wounds already hurt, and the amazon woman¡¯s jubilatory motions made his ruined arm throb even worse, although he refrained from saying anything. A healthy dose of shock was setting in.


    Class evolutions. That truly was a big deal. It didn¡¯t happen often, normally only when several keystone improvements to skills and abilities had occurred. Alexander¡¯s trait Artisan of War had evolved when he¡¯d built Sterling, that steam engine having represented a fundamental shift in his place on Gaia, apparently. It was fantastic news! Getsome would be leaps and bounds stronger with the two of them advancing and Alexander tried not to get too excited when he considered that maybe everyone had undergone a sea change in their abilities.


    ¡°Hate to piss on the parade, but we gotta swim the river and bug out, without getting caught by the Guildy Normals.¡± Alexander reminded his teammates.


    ¡°I still can¡¯t believe they¡¯ve hired snipers to kill people!¡± Granny exhorted from a few feet away.


    Her titanium kukri was rising and falling as she chopped away at the meat and sinew holding an enormous spike to the draconic spine. She¡¯d already carved away one of the large horn crown spines and several of the biggest fangs. That was a lot of weight, Alexander noted, beginning to be concerned that their obsessive-compulsive hoarder of a harvester was digging too greedily, and too deep.


    Mark, a little more world weary than a guy who looked like he should be enjoying his undergrad years pledging for a fraternity and living the life of a handsome man in his prime should be, just shook his head. He¡¯d schmoozed with the Guilds while making inroads to secure Getsome a place in them. His natural feel for people had given him insight into the sorts of people that had managed to rally the survivors and ascend to power in such short time. Over spirits, the Burning Legionnaire of Getsome and the eccentric Entropic Venator had traded notes on the men guiding what was left of civilization.


    They were competent. Driven. And utterly ruthless, so long as their methods did not create a wedge in their members or standing in the community of Safe Harbor.


    Cliff, a top man with High Spirits, the Guild Alexander had ended up joining, was a strangely charming and charismatic man, the only nonmember of Getsome to be with the group that ¡°rescued¡± him. He had also executed a thief in the streets without batting an eye.


    Dangerous folk.


    High Spirits had been number six in terms of accumulated manpower and resources, mostly focusing on artisanal work, producing high grade reagents, replacements for pharmaceuticals, armor, weapons, and civilization comforts from its craftsmen when he¡¯d been astronomically bribed to bring their smithies and artisanal capabilities up to the industrial age. They were number three now and looking to out manufacture their way to number two.


    Ambition and smarts drove that kind of competitive success, especially in these wild times.


    Mark had wanted Alexander to be their in, and he would have done that gladly, given that, if anybody asked him, he probably owed the adventurers his sanity. It was hard to tell when you¡¯re all on your own, but he had been slowly going feral, Upta by himself for that long, with only the statues of his neighbors for company. It took a few weeks for him to stop being almost completely dissocialized.


    Alas, things didn¡¯t work out that way. Ben ruffled too many feathers, Brig was a wildcard for everyone but Mark and Melinda to handle, and they seemed too independently minded to be proper Guildies.


    It worked out, in the end. The Guilds had lost their way. In their greed, their fixation on Matriculating people, filtering through them for the most immediately useful, and consolidation of the fantastical things that could be found in the dungeons, they¡¯d forgotten that the contested zones were just that: contested.


    You can¡¯t have a contest without an adversary, something they¡¯d forgotten. Muspelheim volcano being on the edge of eruption was proof positive of this fact. If not for Alexander¡¯s interference, the near abandonment of the dungeon appeared to have grave consequences. What would the next team of Guildies done, when faced with a red wyrmling twenty feet longer, four tons heavier, and an entire tier higher than they were expecting?


    The young man was confident that the answer was that they would have died. There was only one Ben. His own gifts had been discounted as ¡°too destructive¡± for profit. Speaking of the devil, the large man, hero of the day without a doubt, came back from a short canvas of the immediate surroundings.


    ¡°We¡¯re done here.¡± The Steel Heavy Knight declared, as he marched to rejoin the huddle of adventurers, the Dame in tow.


    Alexander nodded, hands aching from the effort of carving as many scales as he could manage and removing the material of the wings from between the long boney fingers that spread them. The material had to be incredibly strong to generate so much lift. He had his own bit of greed, just the reasonable amount though.


    ¡°Ayuh. Granny! You can¡¯t take it all, let¡¯s get gone!¡± He sassed the tiny woman.


    ¡°Fine! I¡¯m going to slip a disc packing all this anyhow. Think the canoe will hold my bag?¡± the Verdant Forager asked, almost as an afterthought as she shrugged into the hulking bag and visibly strained to lift it.


    Mark smiled at the harvester¡¯s relentlessness.


    With that, the party left the caldera behind, back through the tunnel at the base of the now dormant cinder cone and retraced their steps to the canoe they¡¯d beached. The island was vastly changed. Verona island, after its months under the influence of Muspelheim, was now, and apparently always, volcanic. The hot springs and mud pots still bubbled. Steaming geysers still burst forth. Lava channels, reduced greatly in size, yet held molten rock that flowed and shifted, searing the air above them. The invading monsters were still there too, the ones that hadn¡¯t been killed.


    They would stay on the island, for the most part. While monsters did leave the dungeon, particularly if they were of the sentient variety, they didn¡¯t stray far unless easy food made itself available. Nobody liked to leave home too far behind, not even monsters.

 Chapter 17: And Away We Go

    It was nearly nightfall by the time the dragon slayers were in sight of the torches mounted to the sides of the wagons, pitch fueled beacons that led them back to their comrades. Risky of the caravan to have their torches lit, but they must have gotten worried when Alexander and company didn¡¯t return in the predicted time.


    There were delays. Not first of which was that both Brig and Mark had found themselves unable to swim. The former because her leg had been badly broken, along with other bones that only revealed themselves when she attempted a few strokes and promptly sank, unable to maintain buoyancy, which necessitated Alexander to fish her out of the water and onto the canoe. For the latter, Mark, his stamina taxed by blood loss and without the use of one arm, had decided he was unfit for the swim through a strong current and had joined the Dame on the canoe from the beginning.


    Benjamin, Alexander, and Annita ended up having to push the terribly overloaded canoe around the south edge of the island, now several miles longer for the new rock laid by lava flows. That detour took hours.


    The second source of their delay was Granny Nguyen¡¯s massively overloaded pack. She refused to part with ¡°Her precious¡± or to abandon their spoils. Not even Ben could cajole her into tossing some of the loot from the dragon¡¯s corpse. Alexander found himself unable to put any heart into the remonstrations against their Harvester¡¯s claims that a once in a lifetime opportunity being wasted would summon the wrath of the gods against the ungrateful. Leaving behind sealed jars of dragon¡¯s blood was like leaving a puppy on the side of the road. It simply wasn¡¯t to be done.


    Problem was, not even Granny¡¯s mule-like strength could carry the bulky mass of the thing for long without rest. Her frequent need to stop was slowing them substantially. After the third stop, Brig and Ben argued for lightening the load. Mark and the Dame abstained, and Alexander and Annita fought to keep their irreplaceable resources.


    Joining temporarily with the forces of evil, Alexander succinctly argued, ¡°I can¡¯t make dragon scale armor for you all, if I don¡¯t have any dragon scales.¡±


    Normally unflappable Ben grew somber at that notion. After having had the chance to use Alexander¡¯s self-crafted, and enchanted, naginata, he had a new respect for the talents of a Warforger.


    ¡°Alright, alright,¡± the now weaponless warrior conceded, after a few minutes debate on the edge of the banks of the Orland, the sister river that created Verona Island, ¡°But we still need to do better than this. Rendezvous is past due, and, even if they did what they were supposed to and continued north, there¡¯s a chance the folks guarding the dungeon we just iced might find their balls sooner rather than later and come looking. It¡¯s awful, damned suspect timing.¡±


    ¡°Agreed.¡± Alexander conceded.


    ¡°Which is why me and you and the Dame are going to hump as much as we can, to take the load off Granny. This area is patrolled, as safe as anywhere, and it was just traveled by the wagon train. Mark and Brig can support each other to keep up, and we should be able to catch the caravan that way.¡± He outlined for the team.


    ¡°My precious!¡± Objected Granny, holding tighter to the giant pack.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe anybody thinks you¡¯re a voice of reason, Annita.¡± He commented.


    She was trying not to laugh, so he knew she wasn¡¯t serious.


    An odd lady was the harvester classed woman. When the Pulse caught her, she was way Upta, in a cabin she¡¯d built herself, on a little cleared plot in the middle of the woods. Her pumpkin vines turned into an animate plant monster and tried to render her into compost, until she beat it to death with the shovel she had been using to dig potatoes. Her private homestead dreams had fallen to the wayside when a group of Adventurers scouting near Nickerson Mills pulled her out of the woods, against her will, and handed her off to the Guildies to be Matriculated at the Malone dungeon on their way by. She returned to civilization willingly after that, now understanding that she hadn¡¯t gone loony in the bush, and that surviving winter was unlikely with monsters about. Her odd sense of humor and fiercely independent attitudes made her an acquired taste.


    ¡°Fine,¡± Granny Nguyen said, after a moment, ¡°But I can handle most of it, I just need somebody to take the fangs, spines, and a few of these weirdly heavy containers of bone marrow. Oh, and the liver! One of you can have it, it reeks!¡±


    Surprisingly, the Dame didn¡¯t object to being drafted to hump gear, so maybe her delusions of grandeur were improving. Or, perhaps, she wasn¡¯t willing to test Ben again by being obstructionist. Whatever the case, once the goods had been more evenly distributed, the team covered ground more quickly and found the wagon train only ten miles ahead of the intended meeting point, by a long pond called, in Mainer humor, Long pond, on highway forty-six.


    It was closing in on nightfall when the tired legs of the party pushed through the tall grass, dew already thick, considering perhaps becoming frost, and saw the silhouette of the large pond just off the road, beyond an apple orchard. The wagon train was lit well by its torches, and the carriages themselves were circled, meaning that they were stopped for the day. Alexander¡¯s recall of the maps said they¡¯d made good time, which meant they hadn¡¯t been slowed or inconvenienced by trouble on the road. He whistled the tune of the chickadee and heard an answer back. A warble on the end said it was Melinda, so he shouted, ¡°We¡¯re back! We¡¯ve got wounded, and a hell of a story to tell. Bring Shiv to meet us!¡±


    Afterward, the ragged-out Adventurers were welcomed into the safety of the circled vehicles, and much was made about the story of what they had found within the Muspelheim dungeon. Mark was being tended by Shiv, with Melinda hovering nearby to assist, and Brig was laid out semi-conscious. She¡¯d had to be sedated to set her leg. Phoenix sunrise was still two days out, and they would be pushing hard to make distance from Safe Harbor now, which would be tortuous for the woman without her bones being splinted. It would be bad enough, even if they were.


    From around the central campfire, having explained the series of events to a rapt crowd, Alexander supposed that, technically, they were officially exiles. The Normals who had been guarding the outskirts of Fort Knox, alongside the four Guildie guards along the Narrows bridge, had been deposited in Orland. They had sworn that the Guilds would have them all killed, which struck the youth as incredibly short sighted, and, after what he¡¯d witnessed inside Muspelheim, ungrateful. There was no doubt in his mind that they had saved everyone in Fort Knox by stopping the eruption of that volcano. None of the Guildies had believed them though.


    Exiles they might be, but there were other pockets of humanity, other settlements, and other Guilds, not necessarily so single minded in their ambitions. Besides, sixty travelers of varying backgrounds were enough to found a sustainable village, however, especially with the available tools and materials in their big wide wheeled cargo wagons. He was not afraid for the future of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    For Safe Harbor though? He was now certain of its doom. If Muspelheim had been on the verge of something terrible, after months of abandonment, what would happen to the Belfast hyper dungeon when it stabilized?


    Future problems, Little Falcon, he gently prodded himself again. Don¡¯t worry about future problems, use the energy to solve now problems.


    ¡°So, you¡¯re saying,¡± Van Richards, earthen works fortification extraordinaire, summarized, ¡°That not only did you have to get past Normals armed with rifles to shoot poachers on Guild territory, you kids also went and killed a godamned tier three dragon?! Inside a volcano about to erupt? Because the folk who are in charge of keeping the dungeons around Safe Harbor under control are, on purpose, letting the dungeon go unchecked. That¡¯s what you¡¯re telling me.¡±


    His skepticism was, perhaps, warranted.


    Alexander was a known eccentric. Actually, now that he thought of it, pretty much all of Getsome were. Granny was no paragon of normalcy either.


    ¡°I mean, you can bite down on a couple of scales if you want to check if I¡¯m stretching the truth. Maybe go check out the high lava mark in the caldera, just to be sure.¡± Alexander offered, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.


    Van was a dick, in the best of times, but his skills were the real deal, and he was reliable once you¡¯d gotten through his thick skull. If the older man wasn¡¯t convinced, then maybe he¡¯d gone too fast in his hurry to explain the situation.


    ¡°I thought it was supposed to be a tier one baby, no bigger than one of our mules?¡± the Earth mage interrogated, needing answers from this precocious, but maybe not quite all there young man who had paid dearly for his skills, but had also promised a life away from the horseshit pecker waving starting up in Safe Harbor.


    That stinging reminder made Alexander wince. It was. It had. Both times he¡¯d seen the boss it had been a tiny thing, and not a difficult kill at all. Getting to it had been the hardest part of the entire run.


    ¡°It was!¡± he raised his voice getting angry, ¡°That was the entire point, killing off the dungeons before they could become serious problems. How were we supposed to know that the Guilds had, for some damned reason, completely abandoned clearing the thing?¡±


    ¡°Why though?¡± Chimed in Wynona Saki, her impressive mind working through the possible motivations for the seeming abdication.


    ¡°What could the Guild have gained by permitting the Muspelheim dungeon to grow? Could they have possibly thought that a higher tier dungeon would bring more and better materials and rewards from the dungeon heart? Maybe a tier up would permit more people at once to Matriculate or gain the reward?¡± The chemist mused aloud.


    All good points, and all unanswerable. Without being a fly on the wall in the top three of Safe Harbor, there was no real way to know for certain.


    ¡°Any or all of the above, or none, so far as we can know,¡± Riley Potter answered, mirroring Alexander¡¯s thoughts.


    Nathan Smythe spoke for a large number of the caravanners then saying simply, ¡°All the more reason to be gone from here as fast as we can get these mules to pull the train.¡±


    Georgia Stephens, all five foot eleven, one hundred sixty pounds of dirty blond, Iowa farmgirl of her, agreed readily with her party leader, ¡°If the Guilds have decided to keep anyone out from the managed dungeons, to grow them and reap the gain, then we don¡¯t want to be anywhere near when something goes south.¡±


    The stout, time manipulating tank threw Alexander a bone, adding her weight to the scales, ¡°I don¡¯t know about any of you, but I believe our contractor¡¯s tale about the goblin dungeon pouring out ogres and goblins to scour the surroundings. It¡¯s just a matter of time before one of those dungeons makes something that can¡¯t be dealt with that also has an appetite.¡±


    Vindication was good, but unanimity was better. They were on their own out here on the frontier of what could pass for civilization. Gaia was a fickle and fecund god, creating creatures long extinct, empowering species extant into various forms imbued with wyrd powers, without pattern. Like a child tottering around after having learned to walk, the planet was playing with its newly discovered potential.


    The Dame, surprisingly enough, was the one to call for consensus. Resplendent in her armored gown, she held to her sense of dignity as much as Mark did to his shield.


    ¡°The Dukedom demands leadership, and these yeomen, stout of heart as they are, cannot survive without it.¡± She said, clarion voice rich, as if addressing a gallery of the peerage, ¡°Some of us are here under contract, bound by magic to our oaths, in exchange for remuneration. Others are here by personal choice, following their own circumstances. What is not unique is that this expedition represents opportunity, a fiefdom of our own. But only if we are strong enough to be worthy of it, a strength found in unity, and faith in the future.¡±


    Alexander was almost decided that she was calling for a vote, but not quite. The Dame, historically, did not think much of democracy as a political decision-making process. To her credit, she also did not think herself the one to claim the seat of Kingship. But, in her not so humble opinion, someone she approved of should.


    Metal clattered, and leather creaked, as Benjamin came away from visiting his injured teammates to weigh in.


    ¡°It¡¯s too damned late to be getting cold feet. The facts are, the contested zones grow, why and how be damned, and if they aren¡¯t dealt with, they get harder to deal with, eventually. If we don¡¯t get harder with them, we¡¯ll all die, sooner or later. Everybody is going to have to join the effort, get their hands dirty, and, maybe, die in a dungeon for the cause. There ain¡¯t no bystanders anymore, you want to see what that gets you, take a look at where standing still got Scott.¡± The reticent warrior spoke, the rarity of it grabbing all ears.


    He looked around the temporary haven of the circled wagon train for anyone that wanted to play devil¡¯s advocate. Not even Van wanted to naysay. The architect Cryomancer being nearly shredded was a poignant reminder of the stakes of being found wanting.


    Absent any contest to his assertions the gravelly voice put their situation into context, ¡°The other settlements, as far as we know are taking a more aggressive approach, clearing the smaller dungeons as fast as they can. Safe Harbor¡¯s tack is a minority position, a dangerous one, and we don¡¯t want to be around when those chickens come home to roost. Anybody want to add to that?¡±


    Kim Summers, the artificer, smith, and generally regarded voice of reason raised his calloused hand, ¡°We¡¯re headed north with the presumptive mission of establishing a new settlement farther than anybody has been known to have survived the mana pulse, except for our resident Chaos agent. Said Chaos agent intends to build up a base of operation to create a bastion of civilization from which to branch out and engineer a way to either reverse the Pulse, or to restore the people Enshrined by it and reclaim Gaia. I think that¡¯s a good plan. It was the original plan in Safe Harbor, what convinced us all to pull together before Safe Harbor¡¯s top ten took a hard left to start carving the place up into their own little Countys.¡± The down to earth man said, laying out the situation cleanly.


    Gathered members of the expedition looked around and seemed satisfied. They were here because they had judged that things were amiss back in the little seaport town they had gathered to when the world turned upside down. Now that they had their feet under them, they had wanted free of what was turning into a decidedly authoritarian, and distinctly feudal, environment. Many of the men and women here wanted a quiet place to live out their lives, to have children.


    No one liked to speak of it, but there were no children after the Pulse. Nobody below the age of fifteen or so, or above the age of fifty-five had withstood the advent of mana. Gaia¡¯s apotheosis had overwhelmed them. The result, a world without the laughter of a child. It was inherently wrong. Not a few folks wanted to go about fixing that, but, first, they needed safety. And hope. Which was part of the reason Alexander wanted to get as many people to come with him as possible.


    Alexander was of the wholeheartedly sincere belief that his expedition north could offer these people the future they desired. He planned to do everything he could to make it so. Saving a fragment of humanity that might persist upon Gaia was plan B for being unable to reverse the Enshrining.


    Flutters of bats overhead taking their toll on the mosquitos that lingered until the cold got them made up the only sound for a moment. Evening had slipped away, leaving night behind, stars flickering above, rampant for the lack of light pollution. Alexander was admiring the view, on account of he had nothing to say. He¡¯d given his report on the happenings in Muspelheim, it was up to these people to figure things out for themselves. Personally, though, he figured Ben was right. They were pot committed, all the way to the river.


    ¡°We got z¡¯s to grab, let¡¯s figure this shit out now.¡± Announced Cervantes, who had stripped out of his Adventurer gear in favor of sturdy slacks and light vest, the undergarments meant more for working in the heat, rather than relaxing.


    Nathan Smythe, leader of Impervious, laid out the options, in his stentorian baritone, ¡°All in favor of holding course, say ¡®Aye¡¯, all in favor of hashing out a course correction, say ¡°Nay¡±.¡±


    ¡°Stay the course?¡± The Anchor tank offered, and a widely varied chorus of ¡®Aye¡¯ rang around the camp.


    ¡°Make a change?¡± He countered, a lesser by far number of ¡®Nay¡¯ votes rose up to meet him.


    Dame Sanchez announced formally, ¡°Then the rank and file have spoken. Let that matter be left behind. Now, who among us shall lead, shall hold the final say to guide this gathering of plebians and noble persons to prosperity?¡±


    In his mind, there was only one real choice: Mark Ross. The young man was charismatic, without being manipulative, selfless, but confident, with a good head on his shoulders, but he asked whenever he thought someone else might know better.


    He was in the act of saying so when Granny called out, ¡°We¡¯re obviously choosing Alexander, who got us all in this mess to begin with.¡±


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    That evil wench, he scoffed.


    ¡°That¡¯s a horrible idea.¡± He countered, vehement, ¡°I couldn¡¯t lead a shoe to tied strings, and you all kno--¡± He countered.


    ¡°Seconded.¡± Ben said simply, cutting him off with a clear, rough voice, the traitor.


    ¡°Ben?! Why?!¡± Alexander objected, strangled by this unexpected sandbagging.


    ¡°Because you¡¯re what we need: an idealist. You don¡¯t care that the Enshrined can¡¯t be returned, you¡¯re doing it anyway. It would have been easier for you to kill those Normals than to capture them, but you were ready to completely throw aside any chance for the treasures inside the dungeon to keep your fellow man alive. When we found the dragon, you wanted us to run, to avoid the risk, live to fight another day. You value human life, even when it costs you. And, better yet, you don¡¯t want it. You never wanted it. Which means you¡¯ll do your best to get us where we want to go so you don¡¯t have to do it anymore.¡±


    It was a long speech for Ben. Alexander resented the warrior intensely for it. He was trying to wrap his head around it when the nail in the coffin arrived, with a funeral bell clang.


    ¡°You¡¯ll take care of us, I know it.¡± Whispered Julia Richards, the sixteen-year-old, nearly mute Beast tamer girl, who everyone treated like a little sister.


    A general round of approving voices lifted after that, cementing the gross error that Alexander Gerifalte, who had no business leading anyone to anything, which was why he¡¯d contracted people with ludicrously generous expenditures of his Guildie fortune, would formally lead the expedition.


    ¡°Ohhh, this won¡¯t end well.¡± Alexander predicted aloud, hoping somebody saw reason and put Mark, or Nathan, or even Potter, anyone else in charge.


    His only avenue of escape would have to be their self-preservation, when they saw how wildly atrocious he was at handling other people.


    Brig shouted from her drugged stupor, ¡°Hah! I banged the President!¡± and he sighed deeply into the October night.


    Four days of steady travel followed the, in Alexander¡¯s view, grossly incorrect decision for the leadership of the expedition to be placed in his incredibly inadequate hands. There were many things at which Alexander could be said to be apt. He was not humble in this regard, and did, in fact, consider himself to be a resource for humanity going forward. Everyone was valuable now, everybody had a part to play. His was a critical role backstage, getting the lights on, setting the stage, the technical shit the main actors couldn¡¯t be bothered with.


    His parents had played no small part in that.


    It wasn¡¯t their intent, no one had foreseen the apocalypse that had transformed the third planet orbiting Sol into a sentient god planet, whose awakening through aetheric nova connected her to other realms in a manner that defied science as it had existed pre-Pulse. But whatever odd set of skills he¡¯d gained from his engineer father and that wonderful man¡¯s collection of books on all things making, combined with his mother¡¯s spirited insistence on learning to embrace the love of taking game, navigating the wilds, and turning the mountains around his home into an extension of his back yard, what he was not was a leader of men.


    Alexander was aware enough to understand that he was too young for such a role. By far. Forget that the Pulse had lopped off the top and bottom of the human population¡¯s age distribution, which had those who had the background to understand the implications for the risks of a suddenly senescent collapse, Alexander was still close to the bottom of the remaining age group. Eighteen tender years was not enough life experience. The second day running that he voiced his objection though, Julian Reynolds, the Quintessence Shaper and one time brick layer told him to shut his yap and enjoy the perks of being Duke of Neverland before he hurt morale enough that the group splintered from not having an agreed upon leader and they all died.


    After that, he stopped complaining where anyone could hear, but the burden of having to be the final say never left. His internal bitching kept him occupied while he scouted the way, although not much scouting was needed, honestly. Old interstate ninety-five was running wide and easy north. The wagons traversed this causeway, legacy of a world long gone, easily. It was worth noting though that there was plenty of sign that Gaia was accelerating her recovery from mankind¡¯s abuses, new and reinforced versions of plants starting to encroach upon the medians and edges of the roadways.


    Maine, being a heavily granitic region, quarried extensively for its robust stone, was perfect for a grand project Alexander had planned: an earth mage led effort to pave the old roads with solid granite block. One day, long, long from now, the action of tree roots, freeze-thaw cycles, and so on would render the asphalt paved roads of old Earth impassable. Before that happened, he wanted to guarantee that easy travel remained possible. Future generations would enjoy the freedom to move easily along these arteries of old humanity. When trees could up and grab a man, stuffing him down into their woody maws, like a horror show version of the trees, minus a Tom Bombadil to smack the people eating timbers back into compliance, folk would appreciate a nice wide road on which to travel.


    In any case, the relatively easy travel left him with not much else to do but brood. Melinda would walk beside him occasionally and her composed support helped him come to eventual terms with things. She also side eyed him and suggested that he not wander so far out of sight, when once he took a long forward scout to clear the way of bears or the vine laden Venus flytrap like plant monsters that spat noxious poison gas which everyone only partially tongue in cheek referred to as Marlboros, anything to get his mind clear through the focus of stalking the wilds. Damned reasonable so and so¡¯s.


    Day five of the journey, in which the wagon train made an average of twenty miles per day, brought them to the interchange from which they would leave the large roadway and cut onto the tiny state highway, which they would follow all the way back to his hometown, the site of what would become Falcon¡¯s Rest. Westward, the Appalachians reared up, this far north they were near the trailhead that marked the beginning of the Appalachian trail that would take a brave and determined spirit all the way to Georgia. Alexander suspected that a through hike these days would prove a far more ambitious undertaking than in the good old days, courtesy of Gaia¡¯s disposition regarding mana infused wildlife and flora.


    The caravan had seen no one, had traveled alone the entire time. Not one sign was seen that might indicate pockets of humanity living in isolation from Safe Harbor¡¯s settlement down south. It was a sign of the way of the new world. Humanity, once far flung, had been cut off at the stump. It would be a long, long time, if ever, that they returned to their former ranges.


    Alexander marveled that Getsome had come so far from civilization as they had.


    When he¡¯d asked how they¡¯d even thought to leave the interstate and journey to find him, they said it was because Melinda had smelled smoke and followed it to his town. He believed them. Without the pervasive burning of fuels, wood smoke, the sign of combustion of anything, was a relatively rare thing, easily picked out from the fresh atmosphere. It was an atmosphere fresher still for the frost that now crusted the fallen leaves of full autumn in Maine.


    Smooth though the journey was, there was not an absence of trials. Seven times the caravan had suffered close calls. Once, early on the third day from the clearing of Muspelheim¡¯s volcano, from a trio of Entlings. The great smooth skinned tree creatures, each towering nearly twenty feet tall, flew in a rage from a stand of the real trees in which they¡¯d lain in ambush. Alexander didn¡¯t know what prompted the aggression from these Gaian born monsters, but they attacked like bee stung wolverines. A stone flung like a cannonball from one hit a smaller trailer cart, and blasted it apart, killing the horse pulling it. The driver of the cart was not dead, the horse having absorbed enough of the impact to spare her life, but she was paralyzed from the neck down and only fast work by the caravanners kept her alive long enough to see the healing light of sunrise.


    Alexander made certain that every last drop of Entling blood was collected and they lost a day in one of the tiny towns along the way obtaining a new trailer to replace the destroyed one. The horse, unfortunately, could not be replaced immediately. Breeding the horses would eventually make up the lack, but for the rest of the journey the cart was hitched behind one of the wagons, its burden shifted to already earnestly pulling mules. Every so often the trailer¡¯s load would be switched to another wagon to spread out the extra work. The caravan lost significant time for this event, however, traveling only seventeen or so miles per day from the initially good going of better than twenty.


    Nightfall of the fifth day since departing the Guild controlled lands of Safe Harbor, the expedition celebrated with a small bender and relieved the stress of their travel. Brig, glad to be free of her crippling injuries, challenged Ben to a mud wrestling match. It was an unexpectedly close match, a struggle of titans. After fifteen seconds, with the ginger amazon pinned face first in the mud, Ben smiled and asked, ¡°Anybody else want a shot at the champ?¡±


    Every warrior in the caravan lined up to earn the honor of being vanquished by the heroic Adventurer. Alexander mocked Brigitte mercilessly for lasting twelve seconds longer than she had, ignoring her observations that it only took so long because he wouldn¡¯t stop rolling like a psychopath.


    ¡°Crazy like a fox.¡± He remarked, in a call back to their first meeting.


    It was a well-deserved break in the strain of the sixty odd travelers and they all slept better for knowing the morrow would bring them to their destination.


    This day, with a sense of expectant tension due to being at the near end of their journey, the expedition rose early. They set course according to the input of Getsome, who had traveled farthest outside the immediate vicinity of Safe Harbor and set scouts to patrolling for trouble. Except for Alexander, who, as of yesterday afternoon, was barred from scouting because, ¡°A Duke does not take risks, he has men at arms for that.¡±


    Dame Sanchez with that observation, of course.


    He¡¯d taken not a single scratch from the giant wasps that had descended from Hell¡¯s own hornet nest to impale and envenomate him. These hornets were smaller than the Dire bees he had ensconced within a specially remodeled house that was to have served as his apiary, back before Getsome pulled his half feral ass from the far north to Safe Harbor. Still, when Mark and Nathan both descended on him, removing his grinning trophy pose with a clutch of super hornets held by their stingers, dead of course, he was relegated to not leaving sight of the wagons.


    Boring bastards, the both of them, he muttered spitefully, even knowing they were right to do it.


    Barred from his usual role joining the scouts, for now, the Entropic Venator was now relegated to join the wagon train. It wasn¡¯t long before the regular offerings of mule dung made him dearly wish he were out amongst the trees, keeping watch in case a panther tried to jump him. The only solace he had was in going through the spoils of the volcanic realm brought back from Muspelheim, which he was poring over from inside the canopy of the lead wagon of the train. For mule odor related reasons.


    Elemental Obsidian, pure, black-violet volcanic glass, of which they had about three hundred pounds. Initially, he¡¯d been skeptical when Jules Reynolds insisted so keenly on getting as much of the lava glass as they could. After he¡¯d had time to look it over, though he understood.


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    Muspelheim Obsidian (elemental grade): Volcanic glass from the realm of fire, this material was harvested from an elemental and is utterly pure, drastically increasing its strength to near diamond ceramic. Muspelheim obsidian is absorbent to all light, except for a narrow band around violet and ultraviolet and the infrared, and severely dampens most vibrations, consuming the incoming thermal energy at a molecular level. Glass form uniquely perfectly reflects heat while absorbing other bands, but readily absorbs heat energy in liquid form. Thermal energy stored by the solid glass can be induced to radiate when its natural resonant frequency is sounded.


    Caution: regulating the heat exchanged from a material that contains the thermal energy of a volcano is of paramount concern.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Already, Alexander could see the applications. Firstly, he could replace his forges with this stuff. A thin layer, a film almost, would be sufficient to bring his forge to temperatures needed to melt tungsten, at incredibly efficient fuel consumption. That fuel consumption could be bypassed completely, if only he found the correct frequency to induce a short release of the molten energy inside the Muspelheim obsidian. Jules could turn the bottom of the planned forge liquid to reabsorb the energy, conserving the volcanic power, or ambient heat of a fuel source, charging the forge basically for free after use. Better yet, the obsidian ate light, meaning its internal energies could be replenished by sitting under the sun¡¯s light.


    Alexander sat back, green eyes glazed over thinking on the possibilities presented by the combination of the gifts of his settlers and the bizarre properties of matter from other realms.


    ¡°Ye gods, what a load of horseshit.¡± the young man remarked quietly, within the confines of the canvas wrapped wagon.


    The second application of the glass followed the same logic, he could create a smelter capable of processing essentially any ore they came across, so long as the metals involved had distinguishable melting points and the reduction was favored for one over the other under specific conditions.


    Hmm¡­ Alexander mused, maybe there were fluxes that would help. Or miscible metals that could be used, like the Parkes process, where the low concentrations of silver found in the ore around his hometown was separated from the lead rich ore by using molten zinc. The zinc was immiscible with lead, but silver dissolved into the zinc, meaning mixing molten lead/silver with zinc separated the small amounts of silver out into the zinc, which floated atop the denser lead. From there, the zinc and silver could be separated easily later. It was odd how that high school field chemistry lab based on the old silver mine actually paid dividends. He owed Ms. Bates an apology, the young man thought glumly. The last time he¡¯d seen her, she was petrified while cleaning glassware in one of the school chemistry labs, the one not torn apart by the Silver ore golem.


    Muspelheim obsidian was a good example of the impossible rules that governed the other planes, compared to Gaia. It absorbed light, but not heat, which it reflected. It also had an incredible specific heat. To get it to absorb heat, you had to liquify it first. Given that the frozen material was almost impossible to heat, that was something of a trick. Fortunately, Jules Reynolds¡¯ class let him alter the phase of materials, without changing their temperature, which meant he was one of the only people who could work the obsidian or charge its heat reservoir after use.


    Alexander set aside the chunk of obsidian he¡¯d been toying with absently while plotting and moved to the next bit of otherworldly wonder, the dragon.


    Scales of various sizes from a tier three red dragon, about eighty pounds worth, were shockingly light for the volume. Despite the low density, however, they were friggin¡¯ adamantium, harder than anything else he had, even the Golem High Steel. Those plates were going to become armor, without fail. If it was good enough to protect a dragon, it was good enough to keep soft, squishy humans free from harm. Alexander would first equip Getsome, then Impervious, and with whatever was left, he¡¯d work on getting the scouts and harvesters some upgrades to core parts of their protectives.


    Granny had pried three, three-foot-long dragon fangs from the boss¡¯s mouth. Each was slightly curved, and shaped like a tyrannosaurus¡¯ teeth, if a tyrannosaurus tooth was a foot across at its base. In addition to those impressive dentine sabers they had a half dozen smaller teeth, about eight inches long, roughly isosceles triangles, more akin to a gila monster. Those large fangs were meant to kill, the smaller teeth to hold the prey while the dragon savaged it. Alexander was appalled at the thought of something that was so colossal a forty plus foot long elephant sized fire dinosaur would need to fight to take down. He wasn¡¯t sure what could be done with the spines and teeth, but he was certain someone would come up with something.


    In addition to these solid materials, they had come away with substantial alchemical bounty. Alexander had tasted of each piece of the field boss, and his abilities catalogued the properties thereof, to the limit of his Warforger trait to analyze.


    A droplet of red so dark as to be nearly black hit his tongue, courtesy of the tightly resealed jar of draconian blood resting in a padded box. No sooner had he swallowed the acrid stuff than his skin seemed light from within, and Alexander felt like his bones were ringing a tuning fork tone. The transient rush of heat and vibration left behind a pervasive sense of alertness that extended to his body. Textures in the dim lighting of the wagon deepened. Hidden before by the muted light from the sun filtering through thick canvas, he easily saw the weaves of fabric in the canopy. Eyes darted between objects, each startling in their clarity, as if a picture¡¯s contrast had been adjusted to sharpen details. Alexander had switched from 1080p to 4k resolution, and the drastic difference left him briefly dazed.


    Immediately, the young man called the details imparted by ingestion of the obviously magic laden substance to his vision.


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    Muspelheim Red Wyrmling Blood: blood of a red wyrmling from the realm of flame, still bearing its source¡¯s warmth. Draconic blood is saturated by the mana of their home realm, ingesting a small measure of this vital liquid accelerates maturation of legacies within nascent blood lines. Unmatriculated entities, absent a core to house the mana of this beast¡¯s blood, find themselves consumed by its potency.


    Dragon blood has several properties of alchemical noteworthiness, including the unique property of acting as a metal solvent when cold, permitting alloying of otherwise immiscible elements, which are crystallized when the blood is heated back to its usual two-hundred-degree temperature. Other applications known are to vastly increase the potency of restorative reagents during synthesis although this is not catalytic and the blood is consumed in this process. It can also be used to infuse materials with Greater flame aspects, if the sudden flame mana introduction does not induce it to combust.


    Insufficient skill to resolve further property, proceed with caution.


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    Without delay, bolstered by the sheer immortal confidence of moment, the young man reopened the jar from which he¡¯d taken that droplet and downed a swig of blood before he could mentally bask in precisely what he was doing. At quick motion slammed the lid shut and twisted the cap to seal it, while the thick liquid found its way to his belly. Barely did he manage to replace the jar in its safe padding before that foreign heat within lit anew, this time with a fullness that found a peak, a limit, and the ringing in his bones reached crescendo, before fading to a background hum.


    ¡°Holy shit!!¡± Alexander yelled from his perch on the bench seat.


    ¡°Shut it weirdo! Some of us are trying to walk here!¡± Brig hollered at him from the next wagon down the line.


    Alexander snorted and refused to take that kind of sassing quietly, especially not with the vibrant energy of a dragon¡¯s blood in his body making him feel like he was full of triple shot espresso and a gallon of whup ass. Something weird was going on, but he wasn¡¯t thinking it was a bad thing.


    ¡°You shut your mouth when you¡¯re talking to me!¡± He yelled one of his favorite comebacks, before continuing, amped by magical nonsense, ¡°I¡¯m the goddamned President!¡±


    ¡°Just so! Tell that ill spoken ruffian what for!¡± Agreed Dame Sanchez enthusiastically from her place defending the lead wagon.


    The pair of them butted heads frequently, what with the Dame¡¯s semi-Victorian demeanor and Brig¡¯s Brigness. For once though, Alexander was glad for propriety¡¯s voice to be on his side.


    He heard a beginning tirade of profanity that transformed into a pained moan halfway, courtesy of a sturdy rap on her helmet before trailing off. Thusly satisfied that no more trouble was coming from that quarter he returned his attention to the bounty captured from the dungeon. Waves of energy kept surging, beating in time to his heart.


    There was something funky going on inside him due to the blood and he could guess from its description what that was all about.


    Musings were interrupted by that insistent mental pull that wrenched his attention inward, compelling his focus on his own being. Before he could even properly consider the blue scrollwork, it blurred in his third eye¡¯s sight, replaced by a string of what he could only describe as updates to his own being.


    <table width="660">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="660">


    Draconic catalysis complete, Hierarchy adjusted, Acceleration of blood line substantiation complete, first Tier III human acknowledged.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="264">


    Tier II Shoggoth ?Tier III Outsider


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander Gerifalte felt his insides warping under the press of draconic mana radiating through his body. Essence of a creature whose being was more magic than not was dissolving into him, transformative. The core crystal inside him was filling his body with a pressure that oscillated, peaking and troughing, saturating his thoughts with the ebb and flow of his own energies. The alien sensation blanked his brain¡¯s capacity to understand what was happening and Alexander¡¯s mind shut down.

 Chapter 18: Homo Novus

    Cognitive reboot completed, and Alexander returned to awareness. He poked his head out from the canvas covering to determine how much time he¡¯d lost, noting that the terrain outside the wagon was different. Familiar landmarks a few miles down the barren stretch of abandoned highway, including a now defunct autobody shop by the side of the narrow road, told him he¡¯d been out for half an hour. Internally, Alexander wasn¡¯t certain what changed, other than having a kind of mental freshness, as if waking from a sound sleep, and a sense of his movements being easier, somehow.


    Beads of sweat lined the youth¡¯s forehead. He tasted the faint tingle of electricity in his mouth, unrelated to the dragon blood. It seemed like even his sense of taste had reset.


    Concern for what he might have done to himself predominated so he called the impression of himself from Gaia¡¯s firmament. Relief came first when he saw that there were no immediately negative consequences. His eyes were giving him trouble, a quick glance at his fellow warriors made them a bit off, hard edged when he tried to concentrate on them, but he was too busy looking at the scroll to really pay attention. No, nothing stood out as bad, exactly. Class the same, stats mostly the same, maybe a bit, like, ten percent higher. He was heavier. Almost ten pounds heavier, though he didn¡¯t feel like he¡¯d gained weight, it was all in his bones or something. Tier three. The notation caught his attention and he gawped. Tier three human! Surely it meant something good. Something great! He was the same tier as the dragon! And with a different race. All throughout the page were signs of changes great and small.


    Another scan for his fellow travelers before his gaze darted back to the blue scrollwork and he just took it all in, in all its glory, grinning wildly. Between its blood and its lifeforce, Alexander¡¯s abilities were maturing rapidly.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Class:


    Entropic Venator


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="145">


    Status:


    active


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Soak: 5%


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Mana: 60%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    20(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    6¡¯4¡±


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    18/25 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    20(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    176lbs


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/28 slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel combat helmet


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    16/28 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    23(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    20


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    21(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (re-forged)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    20/32 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (re-forged)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="64">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="82">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    23(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="145">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Outsider)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    17/22 slash resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    17/22 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    19(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    17/30 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    27(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="115">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Outsider¡¯s perception, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Slayer, Warforger, Scholarship, Singular prominence, Fractal mindscape


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk, Greater Broken Silhouette


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="90">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="563">


    Greater entropic aura, Chaos strike volley


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Changes. Changes subtle but profound, he saw within the mysterious scrollwork. Whatever the hell those races were they were clearly not fixed or permanent. The shoggoth descriptor was gone, replaced by an even more sinister for lack of specificity term: Outsider.


    Curiosity forced his hand now. Papa Gerifalte wouldn¡¯t have let a little thing like maybe becoming some kind of extraplanar demi human of the unfathomable stop him from reading the instructions about it, and it wouldn¡¯t stop Alexander.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Outsider: vast webs of life extend throughout the cosmos, bathed in the energies of the void. Chaotic, unbound, and beyond comprehension, the creatures birthed in the vacuum between stars interact only rarely with their stellar brethren, content to sail the infinite seas, mostly beyond the regular interpretations of space and time. The entropic energies of such beings sometimes invest mortal kind with a simulacrum of the star farers, for better and worse.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Absent fingering of the stubble trying to cover his chin accompanied a blank stare. To anyone looking, Alexander Gerifalte was clearly completely lost in thought. Churning synapses filtered through whatever he knew from picking the brains of others this spring and summer past, as well as his own investigations back in his laboratory since the world had gone mad. Significant mental power was now devoted to processing the meaning of the evolution of his self.


    He''d noted themes in the few people he¡¯d been allowed to examine back in Safe Harbor. There were only a few variations, with little in the way of consistency that he could find in mythos or human lore, which sometimes proved insightful to describe Gaian nonsense. However, these limited forms were probably more profound than he gave them credit. Of the tier two humans he¡¯d employed his Greater Analysis on, there were these forms associated with humanity: Nymph, Changeling, Jann, and Shoggoth.


    Greek myth described the nymphs as descended from the gods, aspects of nature, mostly. Inaccuracy abounded from these myths as the nymphs were all female and, this wasn¡¯t a trend agreed upon with the human species, given that Benjamin Grisham was most definitely not a woman. Then there was the changeling, a term frequently used to describe a child of fey ancestry, a replacement being left behind by the trickster spirits, often times to lamentable end for everyone involved in that scenario. Jann, creatures of pre bronze age Arabian folklore bore similarity to the changeling, being that of a shapeshifter, a mischievous entity of little power that liked to insinuate itself into human society. Most disturbing was the last, and rarest of human forms: the shoggoth.


    Alexander had failed to find much to enlighten himself upon the Lovecraftian mythos back in his home, and had, mostly, written it off as more unfathomable gobbledygook from a world gone insane. Neither of his parents had possessed anything mentioning this brand of cultish nonsense, and the library in his tiny town little more. Safe Harbor had proven only slighter better. What Alexander had gathered from snippets of pop culture, mostly came from a lovely little exercise in masochism called Darkest Depths, a game of recursive improvement characterized, mostly, by minimalistic victories and looming gross failure. His research into the Eldritch was sparce, but there were tidbits here and there.


    Shoggoth were amorphous creatures subservient to the elder gods, analogous to changelings and their role with the fairy lords. His transition from shoggoth to that of outsider was slightly disturbing. Outsiders were often conflated in mythology and folk tale with the Great Old Ones, the Cthulhu, creatures so alien they induced madness in those touched by their unfathomable minds. The one-time pilot wannabe had to concede that Lovecraftian horror beasts did not feel like a great path to follow, not that he had much choice in the matter. Gaia¡¯s whims were mysterious, and, in the words of a well-loved John Varley, ¡°She says not why she spins.¡±


    There was a parallel to that fantasy in what Alexander observed in his new status, a trait, a passive characteristic of himself. Reading the annotation provided by the mysterious insight given Matriculated into their own beings gave him a surprise.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Fractal Mindscape: traces of the endless void are housed in the deep recesses of this mind, yet, reality is reflected utterly intact through its senses. Entities that attempt to read the thoughts therein, or to influence and change them find themselves lost within the affine geometries of thought possessed by such creatures. The creature itself possesses incredible stability and continuity of thought, thanks to the recursive nature of its mental topology. Illusion, enchantment, and magical veils are useless against creatures with this mental architecture.


    Immunity to consciously directed efforts at mental control, charm effects, fear effects, and psionic attacks. Sentient creatures that attempt to enter the mindscape are paralyzed until their wisdom guides their own minds out from the fractal mindscape.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Err¡­uh¡­so, he was, not crazy. More like¡­he was ultra sane? The young man, once convinced that he had gone loony, very nearly burst out laughing. Validation! His mind was stable, so stable that anything that tried to mess with it ended up mind-ganked for their troubles.


    It truly was the rest of you that were nuts! He crowed to himself, unable to restrain the wide grin that had grown.


    Buoyed by the unexpectedly good news in his new bloodline trait he examined the other major changes. Lethal was now Slayer, he¡¯d gained intuitive instinct for where vulnerable places in things were located and his speed and reaction time increased when he was attempting to strike vitals. Alexander was always trying to strike vitals, so that was a potent improvement to his being able to kill something without getting killed in return. It made him much more dangerous. Wild.


    Two of the traits he¡¯d grown accustomed to, his spatial perception and enhanced eyesight were merged now, synergized into a single incarnation called ¡°Outsider¡¯s perception¡±. Cursory inspection revealed his concentrated vision to have been somewhat enhanced to ¡°paint the echo of intent and possibility¡± onto what he observed.


    Whatever the hell that meant.


    Maybe it had something to do with all the hard edges on the outlines of things in his sight. The dialed-up contrast was sort of jarring. People who had had terrible vision and got glasses used to say there was a weird discomfort with the clarity of their corrected eyesight. Now he gained an inkling of their experience.


    There was some processing that was going to be required about this little twist in the great mystery of Gaian existence, but it would simply have to wait until he had catalogued the remaining goods from their excursion in Muspelheim. He was starting to nurse a headache from overthinking the entire situation and his brain worked best when it got to chew on something in the background for a bit.


    Besides, he was sidling in on a sneaking suspicion its origins deep in his cynical side that the dungeon hadn¡¯t been abandoned, so much as it had been encouraged to mature. What would the Guilds have done for all the tier three dragon blood in this wagon? He mused.


    Easier to try to figure what they wouldn¡¯t have done, the young man decided. Not much. Which was why it was even more important to ignore, for now, the weird bullshit going on with his scrollwork and to focus on the business at hand.


    The liver, as advertised by Annita Nguyen, stank like bottled ass marinated in used gym socks. It was the kind of pungent that stuck to whatever it touched. Alexander knew what he had to do, and he prayed to all the gods above, below, and in between for the strength to do it. He had to taste this unbelievably foul thing, to know it more fully. If not for surging vitality and the rush of drake blood within, he probably would have fallen to cowardice.


    ¡°It¡¯s just a surstr?mming challenge, Little Falcon, you can do it! Fucking get it down, you can puke later.¡± He coached himself into courage.


    ¡°Oh gods, here it comes.¡± Alexander Gerifalte narrated, dropping a small sliver of the mahogany brown organ onto his tongue, face locked into a rictus of grossness.


    An explosion of flavor, rich beef tenderloin mixed with ambrosia assaulted the young man¡¯s tongue while the wafting odor tried to stab his brains through his nose. The sharp divide between odor and taste was disorienting.


    Nothing that smelled like that should taste like this! He thought to himself, salivating hungrily for more, even as his olfactory system was punching every eject button it had to his stomach.


    The nose won the battle and Alexander stumbled his way to the tail gate of the wagon to hurl his guts up onto the road, for all the coming wagons to enjoy his leavings.


    ¡°Oh fuck! Gross!¡± Commented Scott the Cryomancer architect from his seat on the third wagon back from the front.


    ¡°What in the hell is that fucking smell?!¡± Kim Summers asked, shaken from his reveries while driving the wagon in which Alexander rode by the smell, his usual implacable features scrunched in horror.


    Granny Nguyen, just returned from scalping children, or whatever it was she did when she was left unattended, heckled him from somewhere nearby, ¡°Whatsamatter youngin¡¯? Can¡¯t hold yer liver?¡±


    Alexander¡¯s attempt at self-defense cut off when his stomach knotted in another heaving rebellion, leaving him hanging over the wagon¡¯s tail gate limply.


    ¡°You¡¯ll all pay for this later.¡± He vowed hoarsely, weak from suppressing another round of convulsions, ¡°I¡¯m gonna tax you bastards like you never heard of!¡±


    How did they always find time to give him shit? The unwillingly appointed leader of the caravan wondered quietly.


    A parting cackle from the tiny harvester was all he received for answer as she sauntered off to unload her scavenged plantables for another round. He wasn¡¯t certain, but he thought he saw her bundling cuttings from the various apple orchards that were going wild along the way. It was the end of apple harvest season, so the entire caravan was eating the dropped fruit whenever they crossed fruit laden trees. Most of the volume of Granny¡¯s pack was blue berry bushes, their root balls lovingly wrapped in wet burlap, the bushes laid gently into the already heavenly laden cart. Granny was, to all evidence, planning to take his orchard and graft an incredible diversity of apple phenotypes into them.


    Cool, he praised the peculiar woman, even as he hung limply and wondered how she managed to trick everyone into thinking she was a wise, rational person, instead of the rascal he knew her to be. At least her obsession with gathering and cultivating goods was too strong for the woman to be allowed to cook up trouble too often.


    It was reassuring to the one-time hermetic survivor of apocalypse to see someone who appreciated the importance of establishing yearly nutritional and calorie sources. Many of the survivors of the Pulse had, unfortunately, little to no understanding of how to guarantee food into the future. Granny Nguyen, for all her quirks, had her eye on the prize: sustainable cultivation of food and reagents.


    Eventually, the liver¡¯s punishment faded. Free from the noxious odor, Alexander was able to determine that draconic liver was a powerful decomposer of macromolecules. Its description included the phrase ¡°universal antidote¡± which the young student of everything took to mean that dragons were virtually impossible to poison, and the liver could be used to treat, effectively, any sort of toxin. That was good news, several dungeons were known to proliferate high numbers of poisonous or venomous monsters. They had a highly limited quantity of the organ, but a small dose inside medical kits carried by Adventurer teams should be mandatory.


    If even a single life was saved by the precaution, then it was a completely valid use. The cornucopia of medicinal benefits didn¡¯t end there, however, and, by the end of the litany of health conferring effects, which included rapid regeneration of damaged muscle, restoration of blood volume, bone knitting, and restoration of nervous function, Alexander declared the disgusting stuff to be a long-sought core ingredient for an elixir of healing. Shiv¡¯s abilities let him heal, but that took focus, application of skill, and was limited by the man¡¯s experience. Dragon liver, even in small doses, would let a wounded warrior effectively cheat death. Combined with other reagents the youth had come across in his time scouting and investigating the markets of Safe Harbor, he was certain that he and Saki could manufacture ¡®trauma potions¡¯ to save even mortally wounded warriors.


    Chewing his lip, he noted one single downside associated with the draconic liver. It shared the same weakness of the blood in that it would be directly lethal to a vanilla human. It also sent the imbiber into a state of indiscriminate wrath. He hadn¡¯t noticed the effect, but then, he¡¯d also vomited up the sample essentially as soon as he¡¯d swallowed it. His mind was also now oddly resilient to external influences, which might have muted the effect. They¡¯d have to introduce a sedative to counter effect the berserk status, or whoever healed themselves with it would simply throw themselves at their allies, or mindlessly attack whatever had given them the injury in the first place.


    Temporarily wary of any more experimentation, he rode quietly for a bit. All too soon though there was another draw on his curiosity.


    It took but a minute of digging through recent treasures to find the source of his interest. Both hands cradeling it like an egg of profound fragility, the newly christened Outsider turned his attention to the dragon core, its inner light gleaming from within the crystal facets. Muttering, he bent his Greater Analyze on the core, unwilling to risk nullifying any of its potential uses by damaging it to sample with his alchemical tasting gift.


    At first, nothing. Then, from within, a resistance, something he¡¯d never felt. He pushed, strained against it, trying to force his ability to find the truths of things. It failed, for the first time, but not before visions of volcanic mountains, a rush of air like falling from great heights, a soundless roar of unchained rage, and then only fire, a sea of fire breaking waves of flame rolling over him rattled his mindscape.


    Whatever secret slept inside the core rattled his newly adapted consciousness and faded, leaving the young man shaken. So brief had it been, he wondered if perhaps he¡¯d imagined it. But he thought better of taking another peek, and sighed. That was enough fucking around with magic stuff. Just what in the fuck had the Guilds been doing with them though? The secret would live on his brains had taken a beating.


    Alexander clambered down from his confinement within the wagon and strode out into the crisp morning breeze to find Mark, leader of Getsome.


    He¡¯d intended to go through the rest of the Muspelheim dungeon materials, but the liver experience, to say nothing of his tier up, and the dragon core had him too distracted. A quick inspection of his status confirmed that he wasn¡¯t daydreaming, that there was good reason for the excitement that had his nerves buzzing. He needed to talk to somebody with better sense for people than he had, which meant going to the guy who managed to integrate the odd mix of personalities that was Getsome.


    Mark was where he had been since late last night, propped up on a bench seat on one of the smaller satellite carts, most of whom were being pulled by a single horse and carrying foodstuffs. The smaller carts were two wheeled, single axle deals, many being refurbished trailers for hauling lawnmowers and the like. They topped out around twelve to fourteen feet long and could be pulled by a single horse.


    Alexander took a moment to thank all the gods above, below, and in between that there had been an equestrian and professional horse trainer amongst the survivors in Safe Harbor. The man and his wife had trained every single draft animal in the settlement and had twenty apprentices learning the craft. Absent engines, the humble horse and mule were back in fashion.


    The newly evolved Incandescent Trarii was keeping a vanguard position on the second wagon in the train. His wounds were totally healed, courtesy of the healing sunlight of the Phoenix dawn, although nothing could be done for the armor that had been ruined on his arm and chest. The dragon had carved the limb virtually in half, through Mark¡¯s raised shield, and very nearly opened the anchor tank¡¯s chest like a sardine can. Alexander grimaced thinking back on it. Mark had a fifty percent Soak, meaning that half of the damage of the dragon¡¯s strike had been nullified and it had still had more than enough power to treat steel like aluminum foil. Alexander would have been cut in half had he taken that blow, even though his Golem High Steel armor was more resilient by far.


    ¡°So, Mark, I think maybe we have a thing.¡± The young man said quizzically, slightly distracted by the simmering influence of dragon blood within him, alongside the implications thereof.


    His vague statement was met by a slightly aggrieved expression.


    ¡°Blessed Christ, what now?¡± was Mark¡¯s tired reply.


    Clearly the warrior wasn¡¯t ready for more problems. Good thing that what Alexander was about to lay on him was the opposite of problems. More like, if his suspicions about what was going on with the planet were valid, what he was going to present was the solution.


    Gaia had awakened, for reasons he would probably never understand. When it did, it unleashed a dormant force, something beyond the understanding of human philosophy or science. That force transformed the planet, turning it into something more than a passive environment, something with a will, an active presence. It wasn¡¯t strange to imagine that the life the planet had spawned might be required to adapt, to transform along with it. Alexander was coming to the perspective, backed by the evidence of workaday plants and animals being warped into new forms, monsters rumored throughout history spawning from congealed mana, and the insistence of that will that he himself become something new, that the planet wanted humanity to evolve. It was applying pressure, forcing the change, creating adaptive pressure by introducing predators where none had been. The only option left for mankind was to take the hint or go extinct.


    Why else would the cryptic Gaia gifted analysis skills reveal that each human had a particular set of descriptors?


    Many held the changeling modifier, which Alexander now viewed as a sort of nascent condition, just as nymph, jann, and shoggoth must have been. It seemed people before the Pulse, before the mana changed them, already displayed a kind of metaphysical phenotype and the Pulse simply pushed it to expression. Others were dormant, requiring more effort to bring their nature to the fore. His draconically induced transition to tier three had pushed him away from the juvenile setting, so to speak, toward a more mature heritage suggested by his entropic magic. But none of this made any real sense, and Alexander hated not understanding the rules to things.


    There had to be a way to get more data, more concrete knowledge. A hypothesis was useless without a test, and Alexander only knew one way to get conclusive evidence. This experiment would serve two purposes. First, he would get more information about what the fuck was going on with humans these days. Second, the people who had joined him would gain functionality that might help them survive.


    What he was going to suggest to the closest person he had to a gaffer on whose advice to lean on was that the entire caravan should partake of the dragon¡¯s blood, to push them to evolve as rapidly as possible. The dungeons were only one of the problems that they would face in the future. Gaia¡¯s new ecosystem would prove easily as dangerous if things stayed as they were.


    Grinning, the first of a long line of newly evolved humans explained his plan to have the members of the caravan have a snort of dragon blood, thereby fast forwarding what he guessed was the new natural order of their awakened world.


    The young leader of an Adventurer band made him go back through the entire experience and detail the changes three times before he agreed to send word for an all hands meeting of the men and women contracted with Alexander for a period not shorter than two years. Word traveled fast in the small convoy and, after a brief wait for Melinda to return from her patrol route, the twelve contractors were joined by the six tradesmen to form the complete complement of eighteen folk he¡¯d hired.


    Mark gave a brief summary of the situation, and the proposition being laid before them. He finished this and directed a skeptical gaze on the anomalous young man who made him, sometimes, regret leading his party so far north.


    ¡°Leaving aside what would compel you to actually take a slug of a monster¡¯s blood, are you even certain this is going to work?¡± Mark Ross, Burning Legionnaire become Incandescent Triarii, and leader of the warrior troupe Getsome asked.


    He sat in a circle with the rest of the people Alexander trusted completely. They were an eclectic bunch, the gathering of the two Adventurer teams and a team of artisans hired by the young man discovered farther North than any human known.


    Alexander shrugged, truthfully.


    ¡°I dunno, who has all the answers these days?¡± He enjoined, gladly entertaining doubts regarding his new plan.


    ¡°What I do know is you all willingly walked away from the closest thing to a life resembling the old world to come with me. I know I paid you for it, both financially and with prospects for the future, but I still feel responsible for giving you the incentive. To say nothing of the burning of bridges with Safe Harbor that we did by killing the farmed dungeons.¡± Alexander Gerifalte confided.


    ¡°When I tasted the dragon blood, to activate my Warforger trait¡¯s analytic propert-¡± He began again, before being interrupted by a loud, drawn out, declaration of ¡°Buuuuuuull Shiiiiiitt¡± from Brig.


    ¡°Stuff it lady, there¡¯s more meat than brains in there. I love your spunk, but you¡¯re not here to offer useful commentary.¡± Benjamin groused, covering the recently injured woman¡¯s mouth with an armored hand firmly, but gently.


    ¡°Ehem.¡± Alexander cleared his throat and looked at the gathering somewhat out of countenance.


    Men and women in armor, travel cloaks, belts holding pouches which contained medical kits, survival kit such as fishing gear, snares, fire starting materials, and, generally, looking like something out of a renaissance fair cosplaying a Fromsoft game looked at him with full attention.


    It was a little overwhelming, Alexander wasn¡¯t someone who had ever overseen people.


    His old life¡¯s ambitions of flying, of getting to sit behind the stick of the most advanced fighter jets mankind could produce, had precluded it. His parents had fostered his dream with their own brand of support, which had mostly involved his old man teaching him engineering while his saltier meat head of a mom handled the more militaristic side of things. Adolescence after graduating early from high school for Alexander Gerifalte had looked more like West Point than the typical young adult homeschool experience.


    It served him well when the Pulse knocked him out of the sky and forced him to survive Gaia¡¯s apotheosis. It just didn¡¯t serve him so well here.


    ¡°Anyway, and thanks, Ben, that¡¯s why I wanted to start with you all. The answer to Mark¡¯s question is that there¡¯s no way to tell. It worked for me, that¡¯s the only hard data I have. The analytic documentation doesn¡¯t have any caveats except that it¡¯ll kill people without a core. There¡¯s nothing that says it won¡¯t work though, which is good enough in my book. We improve our odds of surviving if we¡¯re stronger than the horseshit running around out there, and I got stronger by tiering up, just like the dragon was exponentially more dangerous at tier three.¡± He explained, putting his cards on the table.


    ¡°You guys are all the best of Safe Harbor that I could get who weren¡¯t already tied to the guilds. You¡¯ve all been inside the dungeons and seen what it¡¯s like in there. Most of you were already out there dealing with the spooky stuff Gaia has to offer, even without me asking. I figure, if anyone is likely to repeat what happened with me, it has to be one of you, if not all of you.¡± Alexander finished, and pointed to the trio of jars, a fifth of the total supply of dragon¡¯s blood harvested by Annita, gods bless that compulsive hoarder of anything useful.


    ¡°I¡¯m in.¡± Ben responded, first in line to anything that gave him the chance to butcher monsters both foreign and domestic.


    ¡°Same.¡± Mark replied, somewhat surprisingly, since he had been the voice raising many questions so far.


    ¡°As unseemly as it may be, I have a duty to the less empowered to join this noble experiment.¡± The Dame concurred.


    Brig¡¯s muffled agreement could be assumed without Ben removing his hand from her mouth, and Alexander had always figured she would be full steam ahead no matter what the others decided.


    Their resident doctor Shiv was more ambivalent, but his ¡°What could go wrong?¡± wasn¡¯t so helpful.


    The members of Impervious looked around and each of the tight knit Adventurer group nodded to their leader. Nathan Smythe represented the interests of his team, saying simply, ¡°Impervious is on board. All the way.¡±


    From there, the artisans gathered also voiced their affirmation of the experiment. Wynona Saki, former chemical engineer and budding alchemist, despite her decidedly martial class, put the reservations of the group to final rest.


    ¡°Ever since last October, we¡¯ve been forced to guess, forced to leap into the unknown. But it¡¯s always felt like we¡¯re behind the curve, like whatever happening is still too far in front of us to make headway. If we have a chance to catch up, it only makes sense to do so, even if we don¡¯t understand the exact mechanism. No one knew why gravity held the planets in orbit, but that didn¡¯t stop us from building vessels to reach the moon. One small step for man, is what this feels like.¡±


    That was a sentiment shared by all. Even the more cynical and grounded of their number, like earth mage Van Richards and metal bending, rune scribing artificer Kim Summers was unified in the consensus. For Alexander, huddled next to a wagon, their train stopped at his request for a lunch and a refilling of water barrels from the freshwater ponds that frequented Maine¡¯s topography, it seemed an almost too inconspicuous moment, for the value this experiment might have to humanity.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Suddenly, the young man¡¯s mind wondered to a niggling question from within. Could the Guild have predicted or, somehow, known about this property of the Muspelheim field boss¡¯s blood and made the intentional decision to let the beast mature, to increase the potency of the material and the volume of its procurement? Alexander shelved that line of inquiry before he got too paranoid. Assuming malice where simple incompetence would suffice was a common misconception.


    Back in the moment, Alexander lifted the first thirty-two ounce jar from the small crate where they had been stashed, twisting off the lid as he did so. Strongly did the odor of the vital fluid waft from the jar. A little rummaging through a crate had procured him a shot glass, crystal throwing fragmented light, as if encouraging this step toward the future. Alexander passed the first container to Ben with the shot glass, saying only ¡°It takes a single swallow, imagine a double shot of vodka, with a finish like you won¡¯t believe.¡±


    The young man was handling the second jar when he heard the large warrior¡¯s coughing, ¡°Sweet Fuck, what a rush!¡±


    A passive scan of his eyes showed each of the Adventurers of Getsome pouring off a double, and knocking it back like lumber jacks fresh from the logging crews, taking a drink of thick, crimson so deep it neared black, blood. Each of them visibly shuddered when the transformative substance took hold of their being, working its magic inside. A second jar he passed to Nathan with the glass to pass around to his team and the third was snatched from his hands unceremoniously by Annita Nguyen, who raised an eyebrow at him and declared, ¡°Here¡¯s looking at you kid!¡± before she took a swig unmeasured.


    The revolted look on her face said she was not enjoying the reality of what she did, and she handed the jar off to Potter, nearly shoving it into his chest in her hurry to rid herself of the stuff. Alexander insisted on the shotglass after, they had to stretch this out if the experiment yielded hoped for results.


    ¡°Blegh! Tastes like buttered assho--Wowee that¡¯s a spicy meat ball!¡± the tiny woman proclaimed, her slanted eyes widening in astonishment as the flood of draconic magic flushed through her body.


    One by one, similar expressions of disgust transformed into amazement, which gave way to the energetic euphoria of feeling one¡¯s entire body become itself and more. The transition to tier three did not change you into something else, it changed you into a greater version of yourself. That was the only way Alexander could describe the result.


    Watching a slow shy smile radiate from the lips of Julia Richards, whose experiences during the Pulse rendered her withdrawn to the point of being nearly mute, was evidence enough that this tier three transition was one of the best results for which he could have asked.


    Alexander bent his Greater Analysis upon each person in turn, pulling the shard of Gaia¡¯s knowledge of each of them for his perusal. According to those investigated, it gave one the sensation of getting an x-ray while someone rifled through your pockets and spied on your journal, more than a bit invasive. They had all agreed to this, for the purpose of cataloguing potentially critical data into understanding Gaia¡¯s new rules regarding humanity.


    Blue scroll after blue scroll unfurled in his mind¡¯s eye. If he touched the other person, he could share his sight, so that they could themselves see the result of his analysis. It was easier, and better for archival purposes to just write it down. In a leather-bound notebook in Alexander¡¯s hands, with rapidly moving pen, he recorded for posterity the first bulk evolution of humans upon Gaia¡¯s surface. Whatever was happening on the rest of the planet, whatever the other survivors were doing to make their way in this world, it was here that history was being made, that was the feeling he got while scribbling an efficient set of notes.


    After a few minutes, he looked to the assembled men and women who had thrown their lot in with him, letting his green and brown rimmed eyes glaze absorb the impression of each in turn, before returning his attention the crisp notes jotted on his notebook.


    ATTENTION! October 19 2027 Human Assisted Evolution Notes


    <u>Background</u>: author ingested a single droplet of blood from a tier three dragon of origin from Muspelheim (Red Wyrmling classification). Inspection of analytic errata revealed the potential of noncatalytic function to ¡°accelerates maturation of legacies within nascent blood lines¡±. This author then ingested approximately a quarter cup (or three ounces closer to) of draconic blood and experienced rapid metamorphosis resulting in transition from tier two (Shoggoth classification) to tier three (Outsider classification). No desire to impregnate virgin sacrifices with Eldritch tadpoles yet.


    <u>NOTE: Do not let Granny touch your notebook!</u>


    Presumptive rapid maturation of latent potential of Matriculated humans demands verification.


    Method: each of 18 contracted Matriculated, 11 male, 9 female of average age 26, rounded, (voluntarily) ingests three ounces draconic blood under scrutiny of Greater Analyze to interpret results. Results Tabulated by name


    Benjamin Grisham/Steel Heavy Knight: tier II Nymph ?tier III Oread


    Bridgett O¡¯Conner/ Gravity Spire: tier II Nymph ?tier III Oread


    Mark Ross/ Incandescent Triarii: tier II Jann ?tier III Ifrit


    Melinda Berry/ Luminous Pathfinder: tier II Jann ?tier III Ifrit


    Oleksiy Shevchenko ¡°Shiv¡±/Flesh Weaver: tier II Changeling ?tier III Brigid


    Dame Cecelia Sanchez/Hydraulic Mage: tier II Jann ?tier III Marid


    Nathan Smythe/Oaken Rampart: tier II Nymph ?tier III Dryad


    Hilde Baumgartner/Mirage Caster: tier II Jann ?tier III Djinn


    Van Richards/Talus Mage: tier II Nymph ?tier III Oread


    Cervantes De La Cruz/Reverberation Highlander: tier II Jann ?tier III Djinn


    Julia Richards/Lunar Warden: tier II Nymph ?tier III Dryad


    Georgia Stephens/Chronous Bulwark: tier II Changeling ?tier III Morrigan


    Riley Potter/Vacuum Fencer: tier II Jann ?tier III Marid


    Wynona Saki/Pyroclastic Cannoneer: tier II Jann ?tier III Ifrit


    Jules Reynolds/Quintessence Shaper: tier II Shaggoth ?tier III Outsider


    Scott Kaczynski/Cryomancer: tier II Jann ?tier III Marid


    Kim Summers/Runic Artificer: tier II Changeling ?tier III Oread


    Annita Nguyen/Verdant Forager: tier II Changeling ?tier III Dryad


    Conclusions?? Experimental acceleration of humanity plausible! Share with Settlements ASAP!


    Alexander Gerifalte sat to one side, his notes held like treasure, staring at the empty jars whose contents had perhaps just changed the course of mankind¡¯s destiny upon Gaia. The assembled crew of Adventurers, knights in service to the cause of protecting humanity and beating back the threats held by the contested zones, and carefully selected professionals of various kinds were, without exception basking in the glow of tier up.


    Rare were the occasions when the young man would say that expending a precious, nonrenewable resource should be done without further consideration, but here they were. The tangible benefits of using most of their supply of blood to facilitate development of the personal abilities of the folk of the caravan far outstripped hypothetical gains of hoarding it. Dead was forever, there was a chance that they¡¯d find a second dragon somewhere, maybe one that had wandered free of the dungeon that spawned it. A single loss of a man or woman here, who could have lived had they had access to the abilities that manifested during tier up was unconscionable.


    ¡°By all the gods above, below, and in between, I think we finally managed to get to par.¡± The young Outsider whispered.


    There were signs, anatomic ones, of each blood line¡¯s maturation in the forms of the evolved humans before him. Subtle sometimes, rather blatant other times physical changes that bore no particular pattern that he could discern favored the newly tiered humans. Ben¡¯s already dark skin gained a slight luster when the sunlight hit uncovered skin at the right angle. Brig¡¯s hair was shimmery, more like fine copper wire than human hair. Scott¡¯s skin had turned a light blue, as if the man were hypoxic. Georgia Stephens, had feather patterns along her cheeks and neck, almost like precisely drawn birthmarks rather than tattoos. Wynona, once pale of skin was a rather jarring crimson of skin. With her jet-black hair it was a striking look. Her and Scott together were giving Alexander red oni, blue oni vibes, like something out of a cartoon. Annita Nguyen had not appeared to change so much, but her once dark eyes were now a golden brown that distinctly appeared to glow in the shade behind the tall, covered wagon. It went on like that, each person now carrying a hint of their awakened heritage.


    Wild, he giggled to himself. This was news good enough almost to make him forget about the weird way the hard-edged outlines of the small crowd seemed to wobble and diverge from their real location when he concentrated on them particularly hard. He figured it was a byproduct of Outsider perception taking some time to acclimate to his brain.


    Ignoring the ghostly shifts in people¡¯s forms, he was ecstatic. They¡¯d discovered the ooze, only, instead of turning turtles into teenagers, they¡¯d given humanity hope of surviving the planetary apotheosis in the long run. Not only because of the emergent abilities born by each person, but in something more profound: the ability to bear children.


    One of the things no one talked about, because they didn¡¯t want to acknowledge it, was that not a single woman had ovulated since the Pulse. For all intents and purposes, there was no evidence that humanity could conceive children. As important as correcting the imbalanced age distribution was, it was impossible. Until now. Each of the women he¡¯d analyzed carried an indication that she was capable of bearing a child. Apparently, according to the new rules of Gaia, a female at tier two was still too immature to reproduce, regardless of age. Alexander didn¡¯t know how to take that particular nugget of information, so he filed it away with the other things that simply were, without requiring a why.


    It was a miracle of sorts. It was hope. And Alexander realized now that there was a moral dilemma now that placed an obligation on him to share the information with Safe Harbor. With any and all settlements that he could manage. Travel between settlements was a tall ask these days. The major reason anyone knew there even were other settlements was thanks to Adventurer teams taking on deep scouting missions, mostly along the interstate systems, but with significant detours around the major population centers, which, mostly, were too dangerous to approach for their infestation of dungeons or attraction for super predators that preyed on the remnants of humanity.


    Two settlements were known in New England, one in Vermont, and another on Lake Ontario, north of Syracuse. There were indications of others in increasing abundance farther south, particularly amongst the small towns along the Ohio river valley and Appalachian chain, where population densities were low and self-sufficient cultures had produced humans resilient to the sudden loss of electricity and infrastructure. Some of those people hadn¡¯t had so much of that, even before the Pulse destroyed it.


    Wherever they were, they needed to get the word. Matriculation was a necessity and getting to tier three a mandatory part of continuing the species. Not just for the womenfolk. Examination of the scrollwork revealed that tier two men were also sterile, neutered until they had crossed the threshold to a mature blood line.


    Gods, what if the Guilds already knew about this? Unbidden, the idea that someone had decided to monopolize the potential for mankind to regain its reproductive ability gave him pause. Surely not. Alexander was on a short list of people with Analyze at the Greater level and the only Warforger, period. They had limited harvesting of the dragon for different reasons, ignorant of the true value of the monster. They needed to know, not because that particular dungeon would return, it wouldn¡¯t, but in case other dragons were found.


    It very well may be that hunting dragons was the most certain method of securing their future.


    His mediations were broken by the approach of his assembled crew, their expectant eyes weighing down on him from his cross-legged seat in the grass. Alexander raised himself to stand before them, a slightly askew smile of wonderment plastered across his face unconsciously.


    Suddenly, with the full gamut of familiar faces and forms now bearing the stigmata of their evolution he found himself wondering how he himself had been altered. He wasn¡¯t a vain young man, but he still cared about his appearance. Especially since he¡¯d found his way back to civilization and was able to join in the reindeer games of the adults.


    ¡°So,¡± He broke the silence, ¡°Are there any tentacles I ought to know about?¡± He asked lightly, devoutly praying that there were no tentacles.


    ¡°Eh.¡± Granny replied, waving a hand back and forth in ambivalence, her usual not quite smirk in place upon her features.


    Van Richards saved him, snorting, and saying bluntly, ¡°Your hair kind of looks like downy feathers, kid, and, not to put too fine a point on it, but the whites of your eyes turned black and it¡¯s fucking spooky.¡±


    Alexander¡¯s regard for Mark¡¯s sheer unflappability rose several notches.


    The man had said not a word. None of them had. Did they really trust him so? The young man felt suddenly a little tight in the throat at such regard from these assembled folk. No one had so much as taken a second glance, even though they¡¯d probably been given a heads up from Getsome¡¯s leader before meeting with him. A fire lit in his belly to prove himself worth that kind of faith.


    First, however, he was going to need to invest in some dark tinted sunglasses.


    ¡°Is it really that creepy?¡± Alexander asked.


    He looked to Julian Reynolds, the only other Outsider in the gathering. Julian looked¡­completely normal. Even his supernatural vision couldn¡¯t distinguish anything untoward. Nothing.


    The older man smirked, and a second set of eyes opened below the usual set and Alexander jumped. He wasn¡¯t the only one.


    Then the Quintessence Shaper held up his hands demonstratively, like a magician revealing nothing up his sleeves, and, with a flourish of the wrists, each hand now had fingers two inches longer, with seven fingers per hand.


    Mouth agape, Alexander couldn¡¯t believe it. His eyes were incredibly hard to fool, especially now. How had the man done it? He must have asked the question aloud in his bafflement.


    Grinning, completely unconcerned by the two duplicate eyes just above his cheekbones and the spiderish fingers that could be hidden, somehow, he answered, ¡°I¡¯m cheating. My Adaptive physiology trait now also includes creating new organs and body parts, in addition to just fiddling with little things like blood type. I¡¯m basically immune to poisons, by the way, my body just shifts slightly to prevent things mucking up the works.¡±


    Alexander found himself smiling along with the man. It was even better than he¡¯d imagined! His brief worry about looking freakish was gone, replaced by relief. Fuck yeah! The young man cheered for his fellow settlers. That bold acceptance of the new made everyone¡¯s reservations, Alexander not being the only one, of course, fall away. Like dew in the morning sun, the old evaporated. The Adventurers embraced a paradigm shift in what was considered normal on Gaia.


    ¡°So, this needs to be shared with everybody in the caravan, first, and then, we have to get word to Safe Harbor about tier three.¡± Alexander said aloud, gently.


    Nods of agreement went around the circle of Homo Novus, the new race of man born from Gaia¡¯s magic infused physiology, somehow spurred by a dragon¡¯s life blood to better accommodate the transformation their planet was striving to push them toward.


    ¡°Agreed,¡± Nathan Smythe said, and he turned to the shy beast tamer, ¡°Bonny, you think you can send your hawk with a bag of leaflets that far?¡±


    The reticent girl frowned, deep in thought, before she nodded soundly to affirm her ability to make that request a reality. She didn¡¯t explain hows or whys, but if she agreed to it, it meant she would come through. The two of them set off to copy a set of identical messages to distribute the message and Alexander trusted them both enough to not be worried. Smythe would know how to get the message across, in terms that everyone who picked up a leaflet in Safe Harbor would understand.


    That left the rest of the group standing somewhat awkwardly around. Each was weighing the new reality within themselves with their own feelings.


    Potter, Vacuum fencer and new Marid bloodline, coughed shortly to get everyone¡¯s attention, which he got.


    ¡°We need to get this show on the road. I know everybody¡¯s pumped, but we¡¯re almost there, no sense not to park this circus in town and handle things from there.¡± The down to earth man advised pragmatically.


    ¡°The plumber speaks truly. Peace of mind for the commoners will behoove us, and nowhere moreso than our destination will grant this noble venture that.¡± Dame Sanchez agreed, in her round about way.


    ¡°Ahh, her fancy pants is just tired of sleeping on the ground with the rest of the plebs.¡± Brig noted teasingly.


    Alexander was tired of sleeping on the ground too, if he were being totally honest. He would bet that they all were. One thing that hadn¡¯t been lost in the end of the world was nice, cozy mattresses. This bedroll bullshit wore thin in a hurry. He wouldn¡¯t say that out loud though, not and risk drawing Brig¡¯s attention for teasing. Knowing her she¡¯d suggest he use her as a mattress. His heart wasn¡¯t ready for that yet, so soon but he didn¡¯t know that his will power was strong enough to not cave to the admittedly lovely girl¡¯s charms.


    Devil may care that he was, Cervantes de la Cruz held no such reservations, and he rallied behind the Dame, loudly proclaiming, ¡°Well fuck me, I¡¯m tired of bedding down under a cart too. How¡¯s about we get our asses Upta and hash things out under a roof?¡±


    General agreement sounded this time. Without delay, they scattered to their positions while calls for an end to the break spread the word that the train was on the move again.


    Alexander nearly made it to the trees before a serene-faced Granny laid a hand on his shoulder and asked sharply, ¡°And where do you think you¡¯re going, Mayor Feather Duster?¡±


    Damn you Granny Nguyen! He cursed internally.


    ¡°Just, you know¡­I was only taking a look around. Seeing the familiar sights. And things.¡± He fibbed lamely, running a hand sheepishly through his ¡°hair¡±.


    It didn¡¯t feel so much different, not really. Slightly softer maybe? Like down or something. It even seemed like the profile of his haircut had been preserved, to some extent.


    ¡°Hey guys! I caught him!¡± She called aloud, ignoring his bullshittery, and thus dooming his attempt to break free of confinement, ¡°Somebody tie this rascal to a wagon or something, so I don¡¯t have to mother hen. My mushroom radar¡¯s going off and I don¡¯t want to miss anything watching him.¡±


    A crook of Ben¡¯s finger and not subtle point toward the lead wagon was enough for him to know the jig was up.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to make certain the only house you get is a potato cellar.¡± Alexander warned impotently.


    ¡°Don¡¯t threaten me with a good time, youngster.¡± She rebutted, looking forward eagerly her chance to soon be growing a garden.


    She¡¯d heard about the greenhouse, and it held her thoughts often.


    ¡°And don¡¯t you dare say it!¡± He demanded, knowing what was coming.


    Unimpeded by his scowl, the smug Asian woman looked up at him and declared, savoring it, ¡°Granny Nguyen wins again!¡±


    He bowed his head in defeat and turned to sluggishly migrate back to the covered wagon.


    There were still some odds and ends to be investigated, he supposed, so he could spend his time cataloguing the remaining spoils of Muspelheim, the other dungeons too, and theory crafting how best to utilize these things in Falcon¡¯s Rest. He only barely felt a twinge of chagrin at being effectively grounded when he lost himself in thought solving problems surrounding establishing a haven for sixty-three settlers in the ruins of his old hometown.


    Gentle bouncing of wagon blurred into the background, and he was in the act of setting aside the updated inventory and or catalogue of caravan goods when the screaming started.


    Panicked shrieks of terror rose up and the Entropic Venator, Ruthless honing his mind to a razor¡¯s edge, was outside the wagon, having vaulted the tail gate to the road below before consciously registering what was happening. His mouth dried when he saw, and his worst fears were confirmed.


    It was Panther Rex, the giant cougar monster that he¡¯d once witnessed stalking the hills. It had a mule in its jaws, looking like a German shepherd that caught a squirrel, a wagon still connected to the animal by its harness hanging almost upright. Blood was running freely from the punctured draft animal to the ground below, forming a small pool in the few short moments the beast had paused, savoring its kill.


    How to kill a cat that made a tiger look like a miniature poodle?


    As usual, Ben was the first to respond effectively. Strong hands pulled free from its harness the silver haft of Winter¡¯s Breath, given by Alexander after the destruction of his old halberd to ensure that their strongest fighter had a main arm that could withstand his might. Faint luster on his brown skin silvered and the young venator classed man watched as Benjamin drew the strength of Golem High Steel into himself. The Steel Heavy Knight did not immediately charge the panther, though, instead he freed a heavy hickory handled pilum from a trio of identical projectiles held in his back harness.


    Ben crow hopped a throw and sent the barbed point sailing in a flat trajectory toward the attacking panther. Catlike reflexes wasn¡¯t hyperbole though, and it avoided the dart with liquid agility horrifying in an animal so large.


    Renewed cries of fear awakened the giant cat¡¯s predatory instincts. The monstrous thing dropped its catch to swivel slitted eyes toward a cart bearing a quartet of settlers, all agricultural or husbandry classed persons who were almost completely devoid of self defense ability. Easy pickings. A casual leap of forty feet took the cat to the farmers and a batting paw was intercepted by a rising wall of stone, which barely managed to deflect the murderous claws over the heads of the cowering settlers.


    A thirtyish year-old horse trainer¡¯s long hair blew upward from the rush of air off Panther Rex¡¯s light swipe. Van Richards had just saved those people¡¯s life, his stone manipulation magics a tenth of a second fast enough to prevent tragedy.


    Fangs bared and ears laid back, the giant panther hissed loudly enough for the evil sound to echo off the nearby hills.


    Gods what a sound, Alexander noted inanely. He shook himself out of the brief shock of the catastrophe to fit an arrow to his bow.


    ¡°Civvies, get space! Impervious, to me!¡± Nathan Smythe roared, calling his team to action.


    Conditioned by over half a year of drilling and fighting together, the Adventurer party answered immediately from their positions guarding the caravan.


    A piercing ringing without warning made Alexander¡¯s eardrums feel like they were being electrocuted without warning and he almost dropped the arrow he¡¯d nocked. Whatever pain he felt, the panther felt it in spades, its head jerked away from the sound instinctively, yowling. Cervantes was sprinting full tilt toward the monsterized cougar, running his tuning fork shaped great sword over a notch in his forearm guard designed to make the sword sing to his class¡¯s powers.


    The great cat launched itself toward the Reverberation Highlander and buried its fangs into the dirt ten feet to the left of the charging fighter. Hildegard stood on top of a tarped cart, her face screwed in concentration. Hildegard was not a light manipulator, like everyone had thought. Her bloodline was that of the Djinn and her Mirage Caster class was psionic in nature. More than anyone, the illusionist¡¯s abilities had most fundamentally changed when she gained access to her innate powers.


    Thanks to Hildegard¡¯s mental intrusion, the panther was attacking an image only it could see, its hyperfocus being used by the woman against it.


    Cervantes capitalized on his party mate¡¯s opening immediately. A two-handed backswing brought the sharp edge of the split bladed great sword around in a wide arc that terminated with the monster¡¯s cheekbone. A blast of sonic vibration radiated through the creature¡¯s bones, and it fell on its side, kicking limbs randomly from the assault of its inner ear and balance center.


    A second pilum entered the cat¡¯s side, projected by Ben the moment he recognized that it couldn¡¯t dodge. Three feet of barbed steel lodged between ribs midway down, skewering a lung. Large as the monstrous beast was, it wasn¡¯t anything close to a fatal wound. The cat rolled, knocking Cervantes away incidentally with its sheer bulk, and it staggered to a low crouch on its paws.


    Alexander thought the armored man would be crushed or mauled by the mass of the monster, but Impervious¡¯ leader was spreading the aura that augmented the Soak of anyone nearby, absorbing the impact so that it did no lasting harm. Even so, the great sword wielder was off his feet and slightly dazed. A huge, fanged maw opened wide to snap up the fallen warrior.


    Fire blossomed to his four o¡¯clock, and Alexander heard the whistle of Wynona Saki¡¯s cannonball as it parted the air to impact the panther¡¯s shoulder. The iron ball projected by the Ifrit woman¡¯s bolstered explosive energies blasted apart meat through the monster¡¯s Soak, shattering into shrapnel on the creature¡¯s bones, and delivered fantastic damage to its exposed side. One limb suddenly useless compromised the panther¡¯s grace, caused it to stumble, but it rallied quickly, forced to abandon its bite on an already withdrawing Cervantes, who raised another ringing blast of sound to disorient the creature as he retreated.


    Stone pillars rose up around a rear leg and arched toward the ground, Van again manipulating the granite substrate of Maine. The cat, distracted by the newest biteme stinging it, tried to leap on Saki, but was pulled up short by the tough rock binding its limb, making clumsy motions most un-catlike thanks to the rapidly accruing injuries inflicted on it by the humans attacking in synchrony.


    Alexander Gerifalte pulled his war bow back and concentrated entropy into his arrow, infusing it with Soak piercing magic. He would have taken a shot sooner, but he was currently having some kind of full-fledged visual stroke, hallucinations of the panther¡¯s outline flailing before it moved, and the double vision was incredibly distracting.


    With the panther on its side, it didn¡¯t matter, he put his arrow center mass into the creature¡¯s chest. The Entropic Venator pretended he was on the archery range, and he started cycling his bow as fast as he could, nock, draw, release, only pausing to push the chaos magic from his core into his arrows. Precision didn¡¯t matter, he just needed to create as many holes in the creature¡¯s defenses as possible, to erode its Soak so that the others could maximize their abilities.


    Panther Rex, whipped around, flexible despite its wounds, able to nearly 180 even with a leg caught in a stone trap, and a paw with extended claws the size of his arm raked toward him. Alexander didn¡¯t know how it managed to get around that fast, but he threw himself to the side anyway, knowing he¡¯d be hit. A dive, a roll, and the panther¡¯s strike was easily six feet short, he¡¯d dodged away well before the blow struck. But how? It was swinging at him before he¡¯d moved, and it was fast, scary fast.


    Monstrous body twisting again against its stone imprisonment the cougar wasn¡¯t attacking but dodging another booming cannonball from Saki, her cannon now faintly glowing red around the firing chamber from the residual heat of her explosive magic. Blurs of outlines, limbs where they shouldn¡¯t be, were fucking with his brain as he hyper focused on the giant predator.


    Concentrate dip shit, he screamed at himself, pushing past the disjointed fuckery going on with his senses. Alexander threw his bow aside and did the only thing he could think of that didn¡¯t need aim or reflexes, he pulled his magic around himself like a cloak and poured his strength into Greater Entropic Aura, and then he threw himself onto the panther¡¯s tail, halfway up the base, and hung on for dear life.


    Teeth snapped just short of his body, dug into the fur like a tick, and it was trying again when another pilum, Ben¡¯s last, buried into the beast¡¯s flank to the shaft. The fierce man took up Winter¡¯s Breath in both hands now, and he launched himself toward the massive animal, fearless, roaring his challenge.


    Hildegard used her trump card and forced her projection into the monster¡¯s mind, past its bestial instincts, and inverted its vision, turning down to up, and right to left. Instantly, the creature collapsed into a pile, with its perceptions mirrored to its actions in a manner that dazzled it. Alexander¡¯s aura stripped the last of the mountain king¡¯s Soak, and the fur in his hands went crisp and brittle. A flailing twist of the creature dislodged him, and he was thrown into a tumbling roll that ended with his breathless stop next to a wagon wheel, armor absorbing the hard impact, and Nathan¡¯s Soak aura absorbing the rest of the hit.


    ¡°Have at thee, hell cat!¡± Dame Sanchez screamed, and she ripped most of tiny creek from its normal flow and channeled its meagre volume into a drill of pressurized water.


    Once, the young man had watched a wood cutter debark a tree with a pressure washer. Dame Sanchez did much the same to the Panther¡¯s face, to gruesome effect, her outstretched hand guiding a narrow stream to strip flesh from the creature¡¯s head and neck. Vicious pain broke the psionic suggestion of its senses twisting, the beast struggled to its paws, one front limb nearly useless, half blind, mostly deaf, mangled, and with enemies closing in despite their small size, like badgers rounding on a bear.


    It was too much for the predator, a powerful jerk of the leg broke the stone holding its foot trapped, and the monster turned to flee with as much haste as it could manage. Which ended up being the wrong move, because it was still where it had been a few seconds prior, when Brigitte O¡¯Connor had jumped.


    The Oread lancer fell from the sky like a meteor, her spear leading, and she piledrived the monster cat on the back of the neck, instead of hitting its abdomen as she¡¯d planned when she¡¯d soared into the sky.


    Steel driven by almost two hundred pounds of warrior, boosted by earth magic to hold a weight more like a ton of solid rock, shattered vertebrae without Soak to disperse the energy. Brig smashed Panther Rex to the earth and her spear snapped cleanly in two while the woman herself rebounded off the giant cat¡¯s body like an aluminum foil wrapped ping pong ball, landing roughly some ten feet distant, just outside the range of Impervious¡¯ anchor tank¡¯s Soak enhancing ing field. A loud crack sounded concurrently to the warrior¡¯s fall. Cursing in a pained feminine voice fit to make a sailor blush soon followed.


    Behind him, hiding behind the wagon where he¡¯d been tossed, he heard Shiv announce, ¡°She has broken her leg again, or I am a rat¡¯s ass.¡±


    With the sight of a giant panther¡¯s limbs spasming randomly, its great form prostrate, a spear jutting prominent from its spine, Alexander wheezed an incredulous laugh at the medic¡¯s dry observation, so out of place with the scene before him.


    Ben arrived at melee range with the monster with nothing to do, the beast was very dead, its reflexive movements stilling.


    Grim faced, the veteran slayer of Getsome looked almost disappointed that he hadn¡¯t gotten a chance to whack the oversized varmint.


    ¡°All clear!¡± the black man called, and, on the knight¡¯s word, the caravanners rose from their hiding places.


    Scouts were closing in now. They would have some explaining to do here. How the hell had the monstrous creature managed to surprise the wagon train without tripping the perimeter of their normal caution?


    Later, Little Falcon, he breathed out, relaxing somewhat.


    Shiv took Alexander by the arm and helped him to his feet. He was more than a little rocky, the adrenaline doing its thing on him, helped along by having expended the greater part of his mana infusing arrows and wrapping the cat in his entropic field. Alexander¡¯s eyeballs hurt, like he had snow blindness. Sharp pains twinging when he tried to focus on anything. There was some heinous fuckery going on with his vision. Probably something related to the Outsider trait. Shiv led him along to join in getting Brig straightened out. Literally. As prophesied by the medic, the Gravity Spire had broken her tibia in her ill-fated touchdown. A compound fracture, bone slightly breaking the skin beneath her leg armor. She hadn¡¯t mastered the sheer impulse of her accelerated dives.


    ¡°Brig, you gotta figure out this landing thing.¡± He observed, after having set the leg, and splinted it as best they could.


    He could see her gritted teeth behind her helmet, but she merely raised a middle finger in reply.


    It wasn¡¯t her fault, which was why it was funny to give her hell over it. In this, their sense of humor was aligned.


    ¡°Wicked nice jump though, you really hammered that critter.¡± He praised, and the flying bird turned into a thumbs up.


    Behind him, the rest of Getsome arrived to check on their once again crippled member.


    Mark, in particular, was concerned, not having been there during the attack. Getsome¡¯s anchor tank was with Melinda the party¡¯s scout, who had gone ahead to Alexander¡¯s hometown and wanted some muscle with her before checking it over. They were cautious, what with the town having had a relatively dense presence of monsters back before, when they¡¯d picked their now employer up. Ensuring nothing nasty was waiting for the main expedition had occupied them.


    Kneeling next to the reckless warrior woman, Getsome¡¯s party leader was more than slightly conciliatory, when he asked, ¡°You doing okay Brig? I¡¯m sorry I wasn¡¯t here to get you a better angle.¡±


    ¡°Nothing to it short stuff, me and Ben had the oversized pussy cat on the ropes. These other losers barely even did anything.¡± Brig bragged, grinning underneath her helmet from the knowledge that her jest would ruffle a few feathers.


    Saki, not understanding the red headed woman¡¯s devotion to fucking with people, gave her the satisfaction she craved. The serious-minded chemist turned to Potter, who had just returned with several other scouts and Georgia Stephens, all red faced and panting from a hard run, and said loudly, ¡°That psycho bitch should land on her head next time.¡±, before stalking off.


    Alexander hid his smile at the overly uptight woman¡¯s discomfit. Sometimes you needed to not take the world so serious. Especially nowadays.


    ¡°You¡¯re such a douche Brig.¡± Melinda informed the injured amazon, but she too was smiling, being more immune to the ragging of her teammate.


    ¡°You all worship me.¡± Was the easy reply from the copper haired Oread.


    Ben¡¯s snort of ridicule summed up the opinions of the clustered party well enough.


    Mark started listing all of Brig¡¯s failures as a human while the patient kept studiously trying to ignore Shiv beginning his repeated warnings about bone splinters, blood clots, and deep vein thrombosis.


    Alexander decided he wasn¡¯t needed here and left the party to bond over the close call of the monster attack. Sometimes you needed to know when you were a third wheel, so he wandered off to start cutting up the panther. He also needed to figure out what exactly the flying fuck was happening to his eyes. Now that things had calmed down, the blurring was gone, everyone appeared to be exactly as where and as they were. It hadn¡¯t been a total hallucination, however, he''d seen the cat¡¯s killing swipe at him and evaded. The actual movement had been half a second behind the image though, which made no sense.


    Tired inside and out, he pulled his High steel Messer and got to work butchering. He was joined by several of the settlers after a minute. Together, they peeled the hide from the flesh, having to work together to move the mass of the creature¡¯s corpse. Chaos greyed pieces of hide were cut away, rendered useless by Alexander¡¯s weirdly potent magic, and the good stuff laid to one side. At worst, the fine black fur would make a kick ass rug for basically everybody in the expedition.


    A sample taste of cat blood revealed nothing potent about it, it was just blood. Gaia had no rhyme or reason, so far as anyone knew, which creatures would have magical or elemental mana rich components, and which wouldn¡¯t. It was, essentially, a process of trial and error, hence Alexander¡¯s growing catalogue of notes on Gaian material specimens. The same could be said of the inorganic things, now that he thought of it, cutting deeply into the panther corpse¡¯s chest to get to its core.


    Processed metals were almost entirely mundane, nothing special. Ores tended to hold at least some magical potential, however, similar to that of the silver ore that had come to life to create a golem that had attacked him. A golem made of granite had walked out of one of the quarries near Safe Harbor and rampaged until a team of Adventurers put it down, indicating that the very earth had been affected by the aetheric influence of the Pulse.


    ¡°Pay dirt!¡± Alexander declared, when he¡¯d pulled the gem free of its place behind the monster¡¯s heart.


    Most cores were fist sized things, with well defined geometry and facets. It was a mystery as to why the crystalline gems should be faceted, as if a jeweler had meticulously cut them. They were though, and this one was no exception. Greater analysis extracted details of the thing from seemingly nowhere, conjured from the mind of Gaia, for all Alexander knew.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Katahdin Sovereign Panther Core: born from Gaia¡¯s awakening, the dragon pulse flowed strongly to create this paragon of feline predation. A hunter of great stealth, despite its size, it moves without sound and can fade from view for limited periods of time, becoming nearly impossible to trace. Sensitive senses allow it to hunt in total darkness and its majestic form gives it a hunger for prey rich in mana.


    The core of this creature creates a veil of invisibility and soundlessness for brief duration when mana is channeled into it. Residues of both light and sound magic strongly resonate with the core.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Mystery solved.¡± He muttered, not even able to be upset anymore that a monster the size of a bus could slip past experienced scouts by being both invisible and completely silent.


    Cheating bullshit worked both ways. It was a small miracle no one had been killed, the mules having been the only permanent casualty.


    ¡°If this keeps up, we¡¯re going to run out of draft animals. Agriculture with manual labor alone will not be funny.¡± The young man remarked aloud, more to himself than to any of the milling settlers.


    No one had died though, and that was what mattered.


    Alexander¡¯s anti predator instincts, honed in the months he¡¯d spent alone, battling Yetis, wild Dire wolf packs, and smaller cousins of the colossal cat whose core he cradled made him step to the side, just as a pinching hand closed in on his buttocks.


    ¡°Oh my! The fledgling is learning, my sweets.¡± Granny commented to an imagined coven from his flank, her attempt to goose him evaded, ¡°We shall have to begin trying if it is golden goose we wish to pluck.¡±


    He should have known.


    ¡°Annita Nguyen, I can¡¯t wait for everyone to catch onto your game. It will be with great joy that you become the pariah I know you should be.¡± Alexander prophesied.


    A fake hurt pout and a hand over her heart aped real emotion from the Vietnamese woman, her newly golden eyes shining with mirth.


    ¡°Nonsense, Alexander.¡± Was her confident reply as she stood by his side to observe the remains of the giant cat.


    ¡°You¡¯re the only one crazy enough to see through the fog of my deceptions. It is why I bother, you know, the others, they just wouldn¡¯t be sporting prey.¡± She informed him, in an approximation of sincerity.


    ¡°But, dear me, the Game aside, what have you got there?¡± the harvester class asked, genuine in her curiosity for odd trinkets and gathered trophies of Gaia¡¯s bounty.


    He handed her the blood covered core, which she took without so much as a moment¡¯s hesitation. At any given moment, Granny Nguyen was elbow deep in the detritus of the forest, digging through swamp water for cat tails, water hemlock or some such, and processing monsters when necessary, and, generally, being filthy to the shoulders. Her complete lack of squeamishness was a mark in her favor, by his estimation. The settlers in Safe Harbor who refused to get their hands dirty, favoring the protection of the city aggravated him with their passivity.


    A proud, self-proclaimed witch of the earth, Granny held no such reservations.


    ¡°It snuck up on the entire caravan, slipped by the scouts, without eating any of them, thank all the gods above, below, and in between, and killed a mule team. Most of Getsome and Impervious was on hand though, so they managed to prevent it from doing any real harm. Except for Brig, she broke her leg again.¡± Alexander told the slight framed Dryad, smirking a little at the Oread lancer¡¯s bad luck with heights.


    ¡°Oh?¡± Granny intoned, with her gaze locked onto the core in her hands, ¡°And what was our tall dark and feathered doing while all this went on under his nose?¡±


    Alexander rolled his eyes at her, knowing it was futile. She was mostly immune to his sarcasm.


    ¡°I mostly just stripped its Soak off. Something¡¯s weird with my eyes, watching everything go all double vision nearly made me puke.¡± He remarked, not afraid to share his problem with the woman.


    She hmphed at him and said, ¡°Tell me about it.¡±


    So he did. The weird edges on things, the shadow gestures, people echoing themselves slightly, the swiping paw he swore he saw half a second before it actually moved, all of it.


    For all her oddity and love of messing with him, Granny did have a way of approaching situations in a manner that got positive outcomes. Her wisdom stat was freakishly high, and it was reflected by sound judgement. He wondered if that was a component of Dryad heritage or just the woman herself. Bloodline fuckery associated with tier three was making him question all sorts of things.


    ¡°Freaky, but then, that¡¯s pretty much your lot in life. What else did you do in the battle with Uber Bagheera over here?¡± the small woman asked.


    ¡°Shot some arrows at it while it was knocked down, but that¡¯s about it.¡± He replied, not really seeing how he¡¯d contributed otherwise.


    ¡°Really? Is that all?¡± She asked, a thin eyebrow raised now in his direction, ¡°Because you look like you tried to dig a ditch with your armor. I could plant a bush in the clump stuck between your shoulder plates. What it looks like, is that you went and got up close and personal with some critter you shouldn¡¯t have.¡±


    Alexander narrowed his eyes at her. What was she getting at?


    ¡°What are you getting at, Granny?¡± He demanded, slightly peeved, because he was pretty sure he knew where this was headed, and he didn¡¯t like it.


    ¡°You¡¯re the leader of the expedition and the city. You have the most long-term potential for getting the settlement¡¯s infrastructure up and running. Nobody else has the insane suite of crafting and artisan abilities you do, which aren¡¯t unique, necessarily, but are so comprehensive as to be irreplaceable. You are irreplaceable, Alexander, and you keep throwing yourself at monsters when, to be frank, that¡¯s what Ben¡¯s job is.¡± Annita Nguyen answered, her no nonsense tone telling him that she wasn¡¯t playing at all.


    That was nonsense! The giant panther was one of the scariest things he¡¯d seen other than the dragon, and, without his ability to peel off its soak it¡­would have died slightly slower, he realized suddenly.


    Ben had only been ten feet away from laying into the creature with Winter¡¯s Breath, his Heavy Knight abilities empowering him with the strength to harpoon a dragon. And most of two Adventurer parties he¡¯d hired for this exact reason, in addition to combat capable artisans like Wynona Saki, who¡¯d blasted one arm of the monster into uselessness, had been on hand to suppress the threat, just as he¡¯d intended.


    Did he have to latch onto the monster¡¯s tail to use his skills to greatest effect? No, probably not, he judged, after a few seconds chewing his lip. Maybe Granny had a point.


    But what if someone had died because he¡¯d held back? What if restraint got one of these people who had followed him from security killed? The thought burned like acid in his guts. Alexander Gerifalte didn¡¯t know that he could live with himself if his cowardice was what cost someone else their life.


    ¡°I have to Granny.¡± He decided, the bleeding form of the monster before them making clear the stakes, the scale of the challenge.


    ¡°We¡¯re all taking risks, all of us. You take risks every time you leave the caravan to go knit poison ivy onesies, or whatever it is you do out there. I can¡¯t sit back and leave it all to Getsome and Impervious. I hired them to help me do what needs doing, not to do it for me. For some things, I¡¯m the only one who can do what needs done, and killing shit like this is part of that.¡± Alexander instructed the woman at his side, without a single doubt in his decision.


    ¡°I¡¯m not saying you aren¡¯t right; my skills are necessary. But so are yours. So are Saki¡¯s. So are everyone¡¯s. We all matter now, no one is extraneous. Gaia saw to that. Maybe I take risks I don¡¯t have to though.¡± He conceded, knowing that the wise woman beside him had a point.


    A softly muttered ¡°Fucking meat between the ears men.¡± Under her breath revealed her opinions on that and he couldn¡¯t help smiling at her mockery.


    ¡°Besides, who else is going to keep all you delicate flowers safe? Women need to be protected, at home, preferably in the kitchen, or maybe just in the nurseries. Probably barefoot, can¡¯t have you baby factories wondering around or getting lost without a man to keep tabs on you.¡± He added without any change of tone.


    Incredulous, open mouthed horror from Granny made him grin with superiority.


    A scowling, ¡°I changed my mind, go die, Bird butt. And take this back, it stinks like chauvinism, and I feel dirty being in the same postal code.¡± Preceded a casual toss of the beast core, in the wrong direction, before she stalked away.


    He knew she knew he wasn¡¯t serious, and her retreat was the only way he wouldn¡¯t catch her laughing at the absurdity of his joke. Chalk one up for Alexander, he thought cheerfully.


    A parting call of ¡°And you might be seeing the future a little bit, or a Schrodinger¡¯s cat super state of what things are doing and what they¡¯re about to do. Or some shit.¡± caught him flat footed and made him stare at the retreating figure of Granny Nguyen.


    How did she always get the last word like that? Probably witchcraft, he decided, as he picked up the Panther Rex core to add to the storage wagon.

 Chapter 19: Falcons Rest

    Homecoming was, somehow, more poignant than Alexander expected. He¡¯d been gone more than a year. Somehow it felt like much longer, and the ache of familiar sights being swallowed by weeds and time did nothing to help that. The road leading into town was largely the same, but his keen eyes noted pavement that spiderwebbed with cracks, most of them new. Wild things grew a little thicker, saplings a bit taller, the edges of civilization fuzzing beneath the influence of Gaia¡¯s encroaching wilderness. But, overall, things were mostly as he¡¯d left them when he¡¯d followed the Adventurers from his home. Been rescued, if he had to admit it.


    The silhouette of familiar buildings, minus a few that had burned do to stoves left on, or cars suddenly without guidance crashing into them, greeted him.


    ¡°Good to be home, ain¡¯t it?¡± Ben offered, breaking his usual silence.


    Alexander took comfort in the solid presence of the warrior and nodded, not quite trusting words at the moment. The longer he looked at it, the more he was buried by the weight of memories he¡¯d thought left behind.


    Petrified forms here and there, visible in windows, seated in trucks where they¡¯d been caught by the Pulse, drove home the reality of his return. These statues had been his friends, neighbors, and peers. Just down the street, inside a cozy two-story house too familiar to him, were two particular statues that he wasn¡¯t ready to face yet.


    ¡°Yeah. Hurts more than I thought it would though.¡± He admitted to the veteran monster slayer.


    A solid clap of armored mitt on his own armored shoulder, shifted his balance.


    ¡°Good. Pain reminds us of what was lost. And of what we¡¯re going to do about it.¡± The Oread Steel Heavy Knight said.


    A very Ben thing to say. He was surprised to note that the gruff man¡¯s reassurance helped take the edge off. Alexander knew exactly what he was doing here, and why. Best to get to it. Winter came early this far north, and the days would grow short indeed. This time, however, many hands could make light work.


    ¡°Thanks. Let¡¯s get to then, eh?¡± Alexander said and started forward to lead the caravan down the streets of his childhood.


    Unremarkable. That was most of what could be said of this humble assemblage of houses, shops, and what would have passed as typical Americana about thirty years behind most of the country. The logging, mining, quarry, and mill towns that characterized middle upper Maine were nothing if not provincial. A combination of low population, heavy snowfall, and being mostly hilly wilderness interspersed with dottings of small glacial lakes and ponds made for a place that was wilder than most of the country, and a people that were close knit.


    Folk in rural Maine weren¡¯t preppers, although the Flatlanders could be forgiven for thinking so. They just had to contend with the fact that winter was a real thing, rather than all that pretend stuff that happened when summer cooled off and stayed autumn the way it did down south.


    Alexander¡¯s small sad smile at the snow shovels behind sheds, the plow attachments for trucks, firm belief in root cellars, and wood stoves, made him glad that he¡¯d grown up out here. Mom and Pop Gerifalte had craved the simple, slow life of the wild boonies after years packed into claustrophobic births aboard nuclear carriers, destroyers, and the like when they¡¯d gone on their tours out of port. Life off the boats hadn¡¯t been much better, naval bases tended to be in touristy, ¡°overzealously populated¡± areas, as his old man had put it once.


    Faded paint on wood sided houses, empty porches, and almost ubiquitous flags waving in a gusty October wind greeted the expedition that planned to resurrect life in Falcon¡¯s Rest. The numerous triangular sheds would be ransacked for anything useful now that there were hands to put the tools within to work.


    Antique crosscut saws especially would be needed, the only changes to the burg that mattered were a couple of old pines that had come down across the streets in a few places. A wet climate guaranteed that, inevitably, the roots of some old wind catcher would finally give up and send the tree toppling over. Fortunately, those kinds of saws weren¡¯t so hard to find in lumber country. Not a few hung as decorations of one¡¯s grandpappy¡¯s grandpappy, or something similar. There were even new examples of lumberjacking heritage hanging in the hardware store, which Alexander hadn¡¯t bothered scavenging back when, on account of they were a two-man job.


    A willing heart and young back could only go so far.


    Alexander guided the wagons through four way stop signs and turned down a side street before freezing in the middle of the narrow strip of asphalt.


    Whistling unconsciously in amazement, he took in the sight of the neighborhood that housed the building that was his second home and laboratory, a renovated old farmhouse. It wasn¡¯t the house that had his attention, however, it was the garden in front of it. A front yard turned by his hand into a large garden, an assemblage of raised beds in a grid, based on the different vegetables and fruits he¡¯d been attempting to proliferate and raise for sustenance had exploded from their humble beginnings.


    ¡°Oh, holy shit, the super soil!¡± the young man exclaimed, recalling the experiment in which Entling blood had proven to be supernaturally potent fertilizer, exponentially increasing the rate of growth of virtually anything planted in soil enriched with it.


    His tomatoes had climbed their trellises, then reached out tendrils to the porch support beams, and grew like a second roof over the house, dotting red, yellow, and green across the shingles. Wheat and corn stood with stalks proud and kernels golden, tufts of silk on the ears declaring themselves ready for plucking. Empty stalks told the tale of donations to the local wildlife. And not just in the beds from which he¡¯d put them. The action of birds and other critters, probably the incorrigible crows and racoons, had scattered seeds packed with Entling vitality to neighboring yards, where they had sprouted into mixed fields, broken up by patches of green beans, pumpkin, squash, and cucumber, all similarly having escaped their bounds within his test beds.


    All down the street, grass had been replaced by a panoply of crops, some that only vaguely bore resemblance to the plants that had spawned them, courtesy of the mana rivers that bled magic into the land above them, and from the potent effects of Entling blood enrichment.


    Shaking his head, he couldn¡¯t believe the difference a year had made. He¡¯d have to cut a path to his doorway!


    Granny Nguyen made a sound closed to climax and darted into the various patches of fruiting crops and bulging vegetables. Careful, swift hands cut and picked, and grazed from the bounty grown wild.


    ¡°Umm¡­Granny, you want to be careful, some of these are probably monsterized by--¡± He started.


    ¡°My precious!¡± Was the strange lady¡¯s frenetic reply, yelled without looking up from the task that consumed her.


    Ben and Mark traded looks and shrugged before guiding the wagons to parking places to the sides of the street. Brig commanded from on high, giving instructions to get folk sorted out, her splinted leg propped up to pain her less when a jostle or pitting of the road made the wagon rattle. Impervious was helping the teams of draft beasts to get unhitched and tied off so that they wouldn¡¯t wander far and turn into monster food. They¡¯d have to build corrals soon. Most of the houses in this neighborhood were intact, the settlers could start unpacking the wagons into whatever residence took their fancy. Rock, paper, scissors broke out in best two out of three, witnessed by a member of Getsome or Impervious to arbitrate disputes.


    Alexander, deciding that his hired crew had things well in hand, found himself drawn to his home, its profile calling him with a siren song of remembered study full of his father¡¯s books, wood chests full of the booty looted from monsters and hunted critters, and journals holding his recorded notes from the winter and spring spent alone trying to solo speed run civilization.


    He did, in fact, have to cut dense foliage away from the door to open it. That musty smell of a house empty for too long greeted his nose.


    The kitchen was just as he¡¯d left it, the cleaned dishes of the last breakfast cooked sitting on the counter where he¡¯d left them to dry.


    Was it odd to feel like a stranger in his own home?


    ¡°You¡¯re being wicked goofy, Little Falcon.¡± Alexander told himself, as he walked through the dining room and turned the corner to go upstairs, where his study awaited.


    Through the door left cracked he strode and stood before his chalk board, the projects outstanding still there, many of them semi-irrelevant now. He laughed a little at the simplicity of things back then. His tannery project, in particular, was almost comical to observe, in the face of the superflax that his artisans would soon be turning into linen of unparalleled quality. Gods all that stink he¡¯d suffered, just to end up walking away and forgetting about it for nigh on two years. The rains had probably diluted the pits before they destroyed the material, that was his only consolation. With a wry chuckle, he shook it off. It didn¡¯t much matter.


    How rapidly paradigms can shift. Alexander erased the board, obtaining for himself a spiritual clean slate, in addition to a real one, and he left his lab to get to work.


    For the rest of the afternoon, sixty odd settlers strove to unload wagons and carts, moving their necessities indoors within the houses that they¡¯d claimed. Alexander had made a request of the settlers before they¡¯d left on the journey and none did less than he asked: the statues of the townsfolk frozen during the pulse were, gently, placed on the empty wagons and carts for transport.


    One of the first projects for Scott had been the design of a bunker in which to safely store the first residents of Falcon¡¯s Rest, so that they could be preserved in case he discovered a way to save them. If no way could be found, then they would have a mausoleum worthy of the men and women he¡¯d grown up with. It was the least he could do for them.


    Emptied of the previous occupants, the houses were aired out, that little doing assisted greatly by Riley Potter, the Vacuum Fencer. Occupational expertise now coupled to magic that permitted him to displace large volumes of air when he wanted to, the stale, sometimes vaguely moldy air within the structures was vacated rapidly, replaced by cool moist air of a probably going to rain soon October afternoon.


    Alexander didn¡¯t do much to aid in this process. He was glad to welcome these folk to their new lives in Falcon¡¯s Rest, but he couldn¡¯t quite bring himself to displace the nick-nacks and personal things of the families who had resided here alongside him his whole life. It was still too close to him, the sudden loss of everyone he¡¯d ever known, especially now that he had returned. Instead, he busied himself unloading the wagons laden with building materials and the haul from the dungeons they¡¯d slain on their departure from Safe Harbor. Altogether, under a tarp to shield everything from the frequent Main autumn rains, this formed a mighty pile.


    Looking at the goods dispelled a bit of the nostalgia and gloom that had begun to invade him since crossing the threshold into the town. Thinking of all the good that could be done, all the comforts that could be created for the settlers made him a little happy. His workshop awaited him, Sterling, George, and the rest of the gang would soon be raising the racket of progress once again. His Warforger skills would get pushed to their limits, hopefully beyond them, with the help of the artisans such as Reynolds, Saki, and Summers. Professional machinists, builders, engineers of hearth and home, these men and women were going to be pivotal in turning this empty village into a thriving beacon of humanity.


    Coupled with the expertise of Getsome and Impervious, to say nothing of the other Adventurer classed folk that had tagged along, Falcon¡¯s Rest might one day soon even become something close to safe. Considering that he¡¯d nearly bled out in a ditch thanks to Yetis roaming the town from down out of the hills, he considered that akin to rediscovering Eden on earth.


    They¡¯d even killed the giant panther that stalked the mountain! If they could take on dungeon born monstrosities, dragons, and Gaian spawned giga predators, then a settlement secure from danger might not be a mere pipe dream. Alexander was basking in the thought of his tiny town becoming a fortress for humanity when his distraction caused him to fail to detect evil creeping up behind him.


    A hand cupped his rump and squeezed, drawing a high pitched, ¡°Haaiyaaah!!¡± and a rapid egress toward the safety of a nearby tree. It wouldn¡¯t have been the first time he¡¯d climbed one to escape danger.


    Granny Nguyen stood laughing, tears gathering in the corners of her almond eyes, one fist held to her mouth to keep from choking on her mirth. The bags of her pack bulged with corn ears, beans, wheat stalks, and whatever else she could get her claws on.


    ¡°Gods blood, why?! Why does your black heart find joy in scaring the ever-living shit out of me?!¡± Alexander ranted, knowing while he did that nothing he said would penetrate the impassive mask she¡¯d adopted a few moments after nearly suffocating from laughing.


    ¡°Because it pleases me.¡± Was her easy reply, and, without another word, Granny Nguyen departed to unload her haul, the massive load carried easily by the deceitful strength of the Dryad harvester.


    He shook his head at his sometimes friend and frequent tormenter and resumed his work. Now that the goods were unloaded, stacked, and covered, he would go to the cess pits to see what a year of oversoaking in the tanning bath, a solution of the worst smelling filth imaginable had done to the pieces of hide.


    Pits abandoned to the elements for a year and more had, as he¡¯d hoped, diluted, and the chemical reactivity of the things had faded over time. What he found, in the formerly disgusting baths, was leaf covered pieces of tanned leather ready to oil. The haired hides had suffered a bit from their overlong bath, but, other than some loss of fur on the ones most exposed to the solution, they were fine.


    Alexander was slightly amazed by the result, deep, darkly tanned leather, supple in his hands. He wasn¡¯t certain if this was thanks to his process, or due to the properties of the largely supernatural beasts from which he¡¯d claimed the skin. It didn¡¯t matter. As a result of the project, he was in possession of about ten square yards of the finest leather since the Pulse had wrecked the cow industry. Sharp eyes surveyed the yield. Some was thicker, with dense fur, as from the Yeti, some thinner, as from the wolves and panthers he¡¯d hunted. Still others from elk and bear that occupied a middle ground of workability and toughness.


    One of the men who¡¯d come along on this not quite fool¡¯s errand was an old-fashioned saddler, who¡¯d made a living selling custom saddles to everybody from the ultra-rich owners of show horses in the bluegrass, to poor as dirt rodeo riders forking up their life¡¯s savings to make a splash on their debut, and all the way to cheaper looks only gear sold for use on Hollywood sets. Alexander wasn¡¯t a guy who knew much about working with it, but he¡¯d done enough research during the tanning process to suspect the man would be happy to make use of this material.


    It was funny the things you needed frequently dealing with livestock. Saddles, bridles, traces for plow teams and stump pulling, and all kinds of things. Most of them were good old fashioned preserved animal skin, and Alexander bundled the still sopping hides off to find some vegetable oil in his stashes with which to get them oiled up before drying them. Once the material was dry he¡¯d have to work it again, to make sure it stayed flexible and soft. Perfectly ready for Dave¡¯s steady handed craftsmanship.


    He''d just finished brushing the preserved pelts and staking them out for the somewhat anemic autumn sun to dry when he heard his name being called. It sounded like Melinda, and she wasn¡¯t screaming, even if her low pitched voice sounded worried, so he made no attempt to race back to the neighborhood. Two blocks down toward where the others had been handling the wagons, however, a pervasive low register buzzing sound made him break out into a panicked sprint. Only one thing, or rather, the collective of many things acting as one thing, made that kind of sound.


    Boots scuffing across pavement, Alexander broke through a side alley and skidded to a halt, wishing devoutly that he hadn¡¯t inadvertently compromised the razor thin balance of the situation. What he found was a Mexican standoff, Adventurers and Matriculated settlers on one side, and about forty Dire bees on the other. Behind the dachshund sized workers, were German shepherd sized warrior bees, twelve of them, and they were surrounding a single, glorious eight-winged queen, who stood on two legs while her four sets of wings whirred to hold her upright, the other four limbs weaving in some sort of complex threat display.


    Sweet fuck! The bees! How had he forgotten the bees?! He moaned within the confines of his head.


    But¡­after the brief ice water rush of absolute terror faded, he was left to take in the scene. No one was dead. No bees were stinging. The helicopter drone of wings was present, but, other than to hover in place, clearly holding their ground, none of the bees was in motion. Alexander knew that these monsterized honeybees could kill, and would do so with incredible violence. Yet here they were. And what exactly the fuck was going on with the queen? Why was she even out here, away from the hive-house he¡¯d built for her?


    Alexander Gerifalte had many questions now, and answers slipped like water from between his fingers.


    ¡°Okay, I¡¯m fucked if I know what¡¯s going on here.¡± He declared aloud, drawing the attention of man and insect alike.


    Getsome, Impervious, and another dozen combat classed unaffiliated with any structure, and a stationary swarm all turned toward him. Waving insectoid arms pointed at him, glittering complex eyes somehow still implying absolute attention on Alexander Gerifalte.


    The young man pinched himself hard on the arm to verify that he wasn¡¯t trapped in some kind of nightmare. The bruised flesh between his fingers hurt like hell, and he accepted that this was some fresh Gaian platter of bullshit.


    Alexander raised his arms slowly, as if under arrest, and asked semi desperately, ¡°Guys? Any idea how we can get out of this without it turning into a horror show? Also, why does this kind of stuff happen to me?¡±


    Even the indomitable Benjamin was off kilter and the warrior traded looks with Mark before he said, ¡°They¡¯re your bees! Go talk to them or something, shit.¡±


    Which was nonsense. He¡¯d captured a wild hive queen and brought her to the town, from the mountainside, but that was May before last, and bees didn¡¯t work that way. They didn¡¯t have that kind of intelligence. Bees also didn¡¯t grow to the size of dogs, break down doors, and hunt for interlopers that had insulted their queen. But these had. So¡­maybe?


    ¡°Ohh this is not going to end well.¡± He whispered, before taking gradual, slow steps toward the hovering swarm.


    ¡°Can you guys sort of lower your weapons? I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any point talking to them if you¡¯re all, you know, menacing over there.¡± Alexander suggested, certain that he¡¯d lost his goddamned mind sometime this afternoon.


    Brig made her position clear, even as the assembled soldiers reluctantly adopted more relaxed postures, ¡°Alexander, if your bees kill us, I will haunt you, curse you to chiggers on your balls for all time.¡±


    Incredibly though, when the warrior people abandoned their defensive stances, so did the swarm. Stingers pointed aggressively toward the invading humans dropped, and many of the bees lowered themselves to land on the ground. The queen dire bee began again the wild gesturing, slower this time, and the droning of wings took on a varying pattern.


    A lightbulb went off in his head, and he shook his head slightly at the ridiculous conclusion he¡¯d reached: the bees were talking to him. Or, rather, the bee. Honeybees were a hive mind; the queen was talking to him. Petrified wasps and bee hives had been found, suggesting that they had been treated similarly to humans, alongside dogs, cats, and other suspected sapient creatures.


    There were many eventualities Alexander Gerifalte had considered during lonely months wondering what madness had taken over the world. Later, when he¡¯d ransacked every source of information he could find, talked to anyone who would tell him anything about the monsterized creatures and dungeons since the Pulse, he¡¯d spent many a night trying to figure out how the rules of magically enhanced life worked. Somehow, this situation had never come up.


    What if an intelligence bearing monster wants to talk to you? Absurd! The only monster that had ever spoken was an undead thing called a Reaper and it wanted to kill him because it thought it was doing him a solid or something by shuffling off his mortal coil. So, not great grounds for discussion there.


    Feeling more than a little moronic, he told the swarm the first thing that popped into his addled brain ¡°We come in peace?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re doomed.¡± Brig observed with resignation.


    ¡°Super doomed.¡± Melinda confirmed.


    ¡°Shut it you lot, you said go talk to them, so I¡¯m talking to them!¡± Alexander hissed over his shoulder, before returning his attention to the¡­situation.


    More waving. More tonal buzzing. He shook his head, how the fuck was he supposed to speak bee?


    ¡°I don¡¯t, umm, I don¡¯t understand bee. So, I¡¯m, we¡¯re, back. For good, sort of. These people are with me, we¡¯re going to live here now and turn this place into a home for people.¡± He said haltingly, before adding hurriedly, ¡°And bees, bees too, you guys can stay just like always!¡±


    He heard whispers behind him, what sounded like Cervantes, observed ¡°We gotta get this kid some public speaking lessons, or he¡¯s going to get us into wars with the bug people.¡±


    Alexander groaned softly, today was just the dumbest day, the very stupidest of days of all time.


    But he wasn¡¯t dead yet and the bees weren¡¯t making any aggressive moves. More gesturing. He had a feeling by the lidless stare of insectoid eyes, that all the buzzing and waving was supposed to convey something, but he wasn¡¯t even close to having a clue what.


    Suddenly, a worker bee that hadn¡¯t been with the original group flew in from the direction of the hive house, the A frame apiary he¡¯d remodeled. The bee¡¯s trajectory took it to the queen, where more buzzing and gesturing took place.


    ¡°She¡¯s definitely talking to us.¡± Alexander, with far more serenity than he felt, stated the obvious.


    He had to say something, if for no reason than to take comfort in one single thing that might have made sense. Besides, if he stayed calm, the giant potentially murderous bees would probably stay calm, right?


    After several moments, things got even weirder. The worker bee that had been summoned turned and drifted slowly in Alexander¡¯s direction. Halfway to the ever more nervous young man, the dire bee lifted its stinger to its tiny jaws and crunched through the barbed chitin, dropping the stinger to the cracked asphalt below, before it approached further.


    ¡°Okay, these things are definitely intelligent, I¡¯m pretty sure that was the bees telling us they come in peace.¡± He called in a strained voice to the Adventurers behind him.


    He didn¡¯t see Nathan Smythe close his eyes and grimace at the statement, nor catch Van Richards sliding a finger across his own throat, for concentrating on the approaching stingless honeybee.


    Bonny, with her wolf familiar, smiled shyly and gave him a thumbs up. Her class came with empathic connection and communication abilities with the critters and that meant she was probably a better candidate for this than he was. But they were his bees. Sort of.


    Close up, Alexander observed that these monsterized insects bore only superficial resemblance to their natural counter parts. The wings of the creatures were more angular, the jaws slightly more predatory, and the tongue that occasionally flicked behind them had barbs on it. Legs were thicker and the body more akin to a hornet than the last time he¡¯d seen them, indicated that these creatures had changed since he¡¯d left. Temptation to call up his Greater Analyze and scan the monster rose, and he stuffed that impulse down, for now. Sentient creatures, people at least, could feel the ability and it made them nervous. He didn¡¯t want to make the Dire bee swarm nervous.


    Faceted eyes reflected the late evening light of the sun in a dazzle of color. Then, the bee stopped within a foot of the young man and vomited at his feet, spilling thick golden goop transported fresh from the hive. Dire bee honey.


    That auric jelly, its smell sending his brain¡¯s scent memory into overdrive, was the source of this mischief. Its siren song had convinced him to bring a dire bee queen into his home, to build her a mansion. All for the allure of a free source of never spoiling nutrition that could be harvested by the gallon.


    There, in the dirt before him, was something close to tribute, or a gesture of good will, or something. But he had to eat it. Let¡¯s not, ehem, sugar coat it, it was bee puke. Nossir, Alexander sighed, it was one thing to know honey was bee vomit, and it was another altogether to see the insectoid monster yak the stuff up in front of you.


    ¡°I saw this once at a frat party.¡± Came the unhelpful announcement from Georgea Stephens, and Alexander wished the time manipulating anchor tank could wind the clock back and save him from such commentary.


    The stolid and uptight lady didn¡¯t even look like the type to rush a frat. She must have gone as a plus one. Inane meandering was his passionate avoidance for what he knew in his heart had to be done.


    ¡°I hate this life.¡± Alexander declared solidly, before he slowly bent down to take a handful of the sticky goop and, like the liver earlier, got it down before his frontal lobes could launch too much in the way of rejection.


    Tier two dire bee honey, as it happens, doesn¡¯t hold a torch to tier three dire bee product and Alexander went away for a while, while the sunset melted into neon washes of color.


    Thirty seconds to five minutes passed without his awareness. Whenever it was that the initial rush of Dire bee honey ingestion finished rewiring his synapses, Alexander felt fine. Great even. The vague anxieties regarding the future of humanity were gone, replaced by appreciation for what a fine afternoon it was. Even the imminent threat of rain was just a part of the natural order. It was Maine. It was October. It would rain. These were things that simply were. Kind of like how the beautiful people who had followed him into the north were wicked awesome!


    They really were, to have walked away from the looming pseudo feudal society that was slowly creeping up on Safe Harbor¡¯s citizens. Those Contract mages were about to have their hands full. Pretty soon attempts would be made to bribe, threaten, or otherwise subvert their independence to gain control of Matriculated through the binding oaths sworn via those individuals. Problems for other lads and ladies, Alexander mused. Oh! His friend, the queen was waving him over for a chat.


    Alexander moseyed on over, glad to see what his six-legged pal needed. They had so much to catch up on, he hadn¡¯t given the hive so much as a ¡°See you later¡± when he¡¯d left town to follow Getsome to civilization. The queen looked good. Healthy. Clearly a tier up had occurred at some point. Her minions, extensions of her will, similarly were in show condition, the fuzz on their bodies resplendent, if not quite so rich as the matriarch herself.


    A slight bow of his head, as was proper when greeting the royalty, preceded the young man¡¯s polite greeting, ¡°Greetings, Oh mother of the Falcon¡¯s Rest hive. I hope you¡¯ve been enjoying all the lovely flowers I left for you.¡±


    A cheerful buzzing returned his greetings, ¡°Hive builder! The fields sowed by Our patron were much appreciated by Us. We have grown, strengthened, and guarded well the borders of the home bequeathed to Us. Why have you given your silver stinger away, does your not-drone wield it in your stead?¡± said the Queen.


    He glanced toward Ben and gave the awesome dude a double thumbs up to show him he appreciated the warrior, who was way better off with the frost brand than he ever would be.


    ¡°Indeed, he does, Highness. You gaze with multitudes of eyes upon the men and women who I lead to prosperity. Ben, the man who bears the weapon with which I defended the hive, is a fighter of great pride and prowess. He, alongside the other warriors in my service, will assist in the defense and expansion of my territory. Your hive resides in Falcon¡¯s Rest, Highness, my bastion for humanity¡¯s precious remnants.¡± Alexander told the Queen.


    With a sly wink at the insectoid monarch he didn¡¯t mind telling his old friend his secret, ¡°They¡¯re going to help me purge Gaia of her infections, those pesky crystal hearts of foreign realms that suckle from the dragon pulse to feed themselves and expand their domains.¡±


    ¡°Together though, and with the alliance I would hope with her Highness, we can secure our borders and drive them back. One day, perhaps we can even restore the Enshrined to life. I hope I¡¯m not being presumptuous, assuming your wonderful brood¡¯s aid?¡± Alexander asked, confident that a ruler so wise as the Queen would know a good deal when presented one.


    ¡°Of course! We are indebted to the Hive Builder and slayer of the Hive Ruiner.¡± the Queen replied, her intent clearly friendly by the gesture of forelimbs and the high-low shifts in octave of her wings.


    ¡°The hive built by your hands for our use, the lovely fields of flowers so succulent, fed by the blood of a Barked Oakherd, and your defense of Our hive against the honey thief demands no less. Without the richness of the nectar you provided, the shelter so cleverly crafted for our young, and the cleansing of the honey thieves nearby, we would have been sorely tested. Better this place than Our cave. But now! We are strong, Our brood many, and We welcome our patron gladly. It is good that none of your drones showed Us insult or we would have been forced to feed on them.¡± The Queen explained, her noble bearing leaving no doubt as to how the hive had flourished.


    That would have been awful. Workers fighting each other fruitlessly, for a simple misunderstanding. It was much harder for him to replace his too, so he wanted to avoid such waste, if at all possible. The Queen held a natural advantage in that her brood expanded in number at her will, commensurate with the amount of pollen rich flora available. A wise and most prudent matriarch was the Falcon¡¯s Rest matriarch, she would not expand her hive¡¯s numbers without the ability to feed them adequately, thus eliminating inefficiency.


    ¡°Well!¡± Alexander clapped his hands lightly, ¡°I am so glad this meeting of old friends has gone so swimmingly. But, I am afraid that our travel has left us tired, and in need of food. My workers will, of course, not infringe upon any of her Highness¡¯ hives. Please, make easy the recognition of any such, I cannot give those who follow me instruction through pheromone and vibration as you do so swiftly. We are slow, we humans, and sometimes things must be made obvious, even though it troubles your royal self.¡±


    ¡°Your limitations are known to us Patron of the Hive,¡± the Queen acknowledged gracefully, with only a hint of pity at the human condition, ¡°We will mark our rooves with the bones of those who sought to intrude upon Our domain. Go with Our blessings, peace, and prosperity to your brood.¡±


    Alexander was simply thrilled at how fortunate he had been to have been of service to the hive all those months ago. One good turn deserves another, and all that. He made his way slowly to the waiting folk soon to settle Falcon¡¯s Rest. Slow because his feet weren¡¯t quite landing where he wanted them too. He would blame his body, the pesky thing seemed to want to float away. Time was also seeming to slow and speed without warning, which was making it difficult to walk. More honey might fix this situation, but he had no more and wasn¡¯t going to be so rude as to intrude upon the Queen any further.


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Still, determined effort brought him back to the wary members of the Adventurer teams.


    ¡°Great news!¡± He extolled, ¡°Her Highness remembers me! We¡¯ll get along smashingly, just nobody try to break into any houses that have bones waxed to their rooves, that¡¯s the sign we agreed upon. Now. I believe I must be going. The moon has told me that we have things to discuss, and I shouldn¡¯t keep the old girl waiting.¡±


    Concerned looks went around the gathered people, for some reason. Alexander didn¡¯t pay it much attention; he was curling up on the cozy ground a profound sleepiness calling him to speak with the moon in his dreams.


    Julia Richards, Bonny to her friends, took a far smaller nibble of the mana laden material, which did greatly enhance her communication abilities with the dire bee queen, and managed to salvage the situation. Sapient monsterized bees went away content that their domain was safe, their hive protected, and these other variants of their first best drone would similarly serve the interests of the queen by taking up residence.


    ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± Brigitte O¡¯Connor asked, voicing the question that was foremost on the minds of the witnessing peoples.


    Their presumptive leader had, upon ingesting the almost iridescent smelling honey, begun gesticulating and garbling nonsense, and had walked right into the midst of the swarming monster bees absent care, grinning like a madman the entire time. Then, for an uncomfortably long span of time, he¡¯d communed with the bees before stumbling his way back toward them and passing out.


    ¡°I think that honey has some kind of fucked up bee telepathy going on with it.¡± Granny Nguyen hazarded a guess.


    Bonny waved a hand back and forth ambivalently, ¡°Eh. Sort of.¡± The shy girl offered in explanation, now that the bees had retired, ¡°But more like an empathic link than true telepathy and language. Normal people shouldn¡¯t eat that though, it¡¯s meant for servants of the hive, wicked potent. It¡¯s almost like a mushroom high, real nice. I think Alexander probably took too much.¡±


    ¡°Oh, he took too much alright, the kid was somewhere on Mars.¡± Ben observed to the general agreement of the gathered warriors.


    ¡°Okay, first thing¡¯s first,¡± Mark Ross announced, hoping to prevent disasters in the future, ¡°Nobody ever eats the honey from those bees unattended by responsible supervision.¡±


    ¡°I would kill to have a mass spectrometer to figure out what compounds are that psycho active,¡± Wynona Saki remarked, ¡°I¡¯ve heard of salvia trips less intense. LSD doesn¡¯t have shit on whatever that stuff is packing.¡±


    She¡¯d played with lysergic acid diethylamide and mushrooms in a wilder youth, but nothing so completely involved as thinking you could talk to monsterized bees. What was worse, the bees had looked like they were talking back! Annita Nguyen was perceptive, but who ever heard of telepathy? Then again¡­who had ever heard of racoon sized bees that had evidenced intelligence?


    ¡°How about we get the young man a better pillow than the pavement? He might have just saved us from certain death by swarm.¡± Nathan Smythe inquired on behalf of their elected leader.


    ¡°Shotgun!¡± Brig called.


    ¡°No!¡± the rest of Getsome opposed.


    Dame Sanchez elaborated with an arch, ¡°Our Count requires rest, not your bestial pawing.¡±


    ¡°Stuff it, sister, just because you have your flaps sewn together doesn¡¯t mean we all have to.¡± Brig fired back.


    ¡°I¡¯ll keep watch over him. My hawk is in the air, I¡¯ll shout if anything threatens the settlers.¡± Volunteered Julia Richards, the shy beast master, and no one would say otherwise when the girl wanted to do something enough to speak up for it.


    This was how, not very many hours later, Alexander Gerifalte woke with a dominated dire wolf next to him in his bed and nearly voided himself in terror. After many apologies and some quiet-voiced convincing to get him down from the dresser, the young man drank a glass of much needed water and returned to his bed to sleep a normal sleep, absent the dreams of bees and fields of glittering flowers.


    Days blurred following the rather eventful reclaiming of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Amongst the first objectives was the communal ingestion of most of their captured store of dragon blood, in order to lever the settlers into tier three, which process had the same level of success as for the ¡°pilot study¡± carried out on the Adventurers under contract with him. A wide array of bloodlines was ushered to prominence. Only a half dozen of the forty-six remaining villagers, the number not involved with his eighteen, ended up joining Georgia Stephens with her particularly infrequent Morrigan bloodline. Only a single other Outsider emerged to join Alexander and Jules Reynolds in the rarest subtype of Homo Novus, the new humanity. Conversations were had regarding the mystery of how these magically enhanced new regimes would be passed on through lineages, but it was all conjecture at this point.


    Speaking of, the news of reproductive potential was met with cheers and not a few tears. Many of these people had dreamed of starting families. It hadn¡¯t been long enough for any of the tiered-up women to experience an ovulation cycle, so the colony was still rather in the dark as to timetables. For that matter, they didn¡¯t even know if there were ovulation cycles as tier one humans knew them. That wasn¡¯t important compared to the reassurance of simply knowing that humanity wasn¡¯t doomed to slow extinction. That day proved to mark a significant boost to morale.


    Julia, true to her word, sat cross legged for nearly an entire day, guiding the red shouldered hawk carrying a small messenger bag of copied leaflets revealing the truth of tier three to Safe Harbor and back. It was a grueling exercise, but the introverted girl smiled briefly and quietly assured Smythe that the messages had been delivered. Two hundred miles and more of flying exhausted her hawk familiar, however, and she retired with her ¡°pets¡± to recuperate. Unlike many of the abilities exhibited by classed individuals, the magic of Julia Richards¡¯ Lunar Warden was in her connection to her familiars, with very little in the way of personal strength.


    She could share senses, bolster their physical abilities, initiate rapid healing, take over direct control of them, and, now, maintain an additional beast courtesy of her Dryad trait, One and the Same, which allowed her to choose one of the familiars to duplicate with magic. The mana golem version of the copied beast had all of its abilities and even a simulacrum of its mind. Alexander considered Julia to have one of the highest ceilings to her abilities. When she acquired a more potent set of familiars, her class would become truly powerful. The downside was that exerting greater levels of control exhausted her, and strained her mind, so she withdrew to privacy to keep from overloading her psyche. It was understandable.


    Progress fortifying Falcon¡¯s Rest proceeded rapidly, under the careful guidance of Scott¡¯s balding gaze, seeing to it projects followed his architectural planning and Van¡¯s sculpting of the granite of the foothills to create a walled town along the same lines as that of Safe Harbor. Alexander thought the results were rather Gothic, with flying buttresses, ribbed vaults, and pointed arches to achieve strength with a minimum of material, and a host of more modern architectural techniques designed to maximize the robustness of the wall.


    Panther Rex had served as a dour reminder that the scale of some threats was rather more substantial than anything old humanity had ever seen. Then anything seen since the Cretaceous, for that matter.


    Gaia had many tricks up her mana-soaked sleeves, so Scott, Van, and Jules had their heads together, alongside another man with a mason class, whose major utility was in the ability to seal gaps in different pieces of stone to make a single, unified piece.


    Scott had nearly creamed himself when he found out about that back in Safe Harbor. It meant that the structures could be done piecemeal and then the whole thing consolidated into a single mass. According to the pudgy, balding man, the removal of any and all faults or seams between pieces exponentially improved load distribution, relieved thrust, and a litany of other advantages that he¡¯d gushed over to anyone who would listen. The mason classed man had not been a man of formal training, he¡¯d made hobby patios, mosaics, tiling, and the like. Scott was teaching him the fundamentals of statics and force distribution, but it would be a couple of years, at least, before he could be allowed design input. Until then, everything went through Scott to sign off on, which made the Cryomancer a busy, busy man.


    It was just as well he was passionate about his role in rebuilding Falcon¡¯s Rest. Scott Kaczynski, for all his talent in architecture, would never see combat again. His will to fight had been completely shattered by the close call in the dungeon, he froze, ironically enough, when adrenaline hit his system. Alexander did not blame the man. Nor did anyone else. Most of the folk here weren¡¯t soldiers, even where their classes implied that they could have been.


    Riley Potter and Wynona Saki were outliers in their willingness to get in there and fuck up monsters. Potter compared fighting to football, which he¡¯d played at collegiate level, telling Alexander once, ¡°You shake like a leaf and want to puke, right up until the first sonofabitch hits you, and, after that, you got your dance shoes on.¡±


    Saki didn¡¯t have that kind of background; however, she was a born arsonist. The now red skinned woman had a more than speculative gift for detonation. When Alexander showed her his lab, the one he hadn¡¯t destroyed with a failed RDX synthesis, but which had gotten torn up some by Silverstone, the silver ore golem that had chased him all over town, she had lit up like a Christmas tree. The little shaped charges he¡¯d left behind in storage had been taken by her for her own purposes, and Alexander wished her the best. Those lines of research had been born out of necessity, not desire, a result of an army of goblins and ogres prancing around nearly immune to his guns in those early days. Explosives still scared the shit out of him, and rightfully so.


    Aside from those two, the majority of the settlers were not willingly going to be combatants, though they could be counted on to pitch in if things went tits up. Granny Nguyen wasn¡¯t a fighter either. She had an assassin¡¯s heart though, and a sense of timing for when and where to lay a killing blow to finish something off. The Dryad harvester also cared not a lick to get up to the elbows in gore to make certain anything of value from a kill was collected. As such, she was regularly queued up when anyone went on a hunting trip or when the scouts were doing clears of monsters. For monsters there were.


    The Dragon Pulse, the networks of magic that ran deep underground, Alexander had read books that referred to such myths as leylines, ran strongly near Falcon¡¯s Rest. Apparently, the mountain that loomed over the town, whose ridges and foothills surrounded it in a semi-circle and whose watershed spawned the myriad creeks and ponds in this area, was a mana spring. Magic erupted from the earth at the apex of the mountain and ran down hill, filling the valleys around like a fog of potential. This aetheric geography was why so many mutated variants of regular plants and animals existed near his hometown. It was also why semi mythological creatures like Yetis spawned sometimes, born of Gaia for reasons no one knew.


    Alexander¡¯s tinfoil hat theory about humanity being the god-planet equivalent of activated leukocytes refused to leave him when the topic arose. His even more tinfoil hat, bordering paranoid personality disorder hypothesis was that Gaia created monsters to train her white blood cells, giving them something to chew on to hone themselves for the real test against the monsters of the contested zones.


    A former advanced placement biology teacher who acted as a psychologist for the citizens of the town had gone thoughtful when he¡¯d outlined his reasoning in Safe Harbor, so he knew he wasn¡¯t completely off base. In fact, she¡¯d taken it to heart enough to join this band of misfits as an educator and therapist, her Djinn bloodline and class combining now to allow her to efficiently clarify memories, weed out self-delusions, and coach people out of their neurosis. For a few months, she¡¯d helped him greatly to process what had happened to him in that half year combination of isolated desperate survival. It had been a formative time for the young man, had shaped him into who he was today. That it had also been an incredibly cruel way to come of age had also been driven home to him, under the patient therapy of Dr. Sandra Patel.


    The steel enjoys not the quench, but those extremes strengthened it. Or destroyed it. Sometimes both. That he had survived the experience tended to mean to him that he¡¯d come through those days true. Most people would have said there was a slight warp in the steel, and he could live with that.


    One of the distinct downsides to his awakened Outsider blood line was the nasty trait, Fractal Mind, which would have caused Dr. Patel extreme duress if she were to attempt to use her powers on him to aid their therapy sessions now. From here on, Alexander¡¯s mind was a black box, and any shrink work would have to be done the old-fashioned way: long, awkward discussions on a couch.


    He wasn¡¯t the only one in need of counseling though, and the good doctor¡¯s time was filled helping normal folk in abnormal times cope with the situation. A situation that steadily improved as the expedition¡¯s members threw themselves into the founding effort.


    When he considered the rapid progress fortifying and restoring the town, the almost Amish work ethic of the settlers and their drive to face a long Maine winter head on, he was proud of his fellow man. A two man, one woman team of classed individuals who had synergy in carpentry, wood manipulation, and the ability to saturate or desaturate water from substances were doing miracles on the old houses of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Alexander only remembered the one was named Dan Price, the other two¡¯s names escaped him.


    Unknown their names might have been, but their handiwork was everywhere. Together with Potter, they furnished many of the existing structures with double walled exteriors using, not just dead air spaces, but completely evacuated spaces between the layers of the walls. The resulting homes had incredibly low thermal transfer between rooms or with the outside.


    Jules Reynolds then played the trick he¡¯d kept in his hip pocket and the entire expedition was ready to worship him: the Quintessence Shaper Outsider figured out how to create solar heating panels with Muspelheim obsidian.


    Like all strokes of genius, it was so mind bogglingly simple when explained, nobody could figure out how it hadn¡¯t already been thought of. The trick was to sandwich a very thin layer of liquid obsidian, which absorbed heat, between an external pane of clear glass, and an internal pane of solid obsidian, each layer of the pure elemental corpse-based glass about a millimeter thick. Light entered the clear glass, was absorbed by the liquid obsidian, because it had the property of being almost a perfect photon absorber, and then transmitted that energy to the thin layer of solid obsidian which when directly in contact with its liquid state, for reasons that defied material science, acted like a perfect blackbody, radiating the trapped energy as heat. Only when it interfaced along a solid to liquid boundary, however. How Jules had figured it out would remain a mystery, he said it came to him in a dream.


    The set up produced tinted ¡°windows¡± that absorbed the sun¡¯s light and released heat into the building, which, thanks to the efforts of the carpenters and Potter, barely lost any of that heat. By flipping these windows, achieved by installing them with a swivel, the reverse could be done, pulling heat out of the structure efficiently. Jules had figured out how to climate control and passively heat any building, using about two pounds of the otherworldly volcanic glass. They had over eighty pounds of the stuff, courtesy of Granny¡¯s determined will to leave nothing of the lava elementals¡¯ corpses behind when they¡¯d cleared the dungeon.


    Speaking of Granny Nguyen, she, alongside the scouts, combed the mountainside and surrounding terrain to bring samples of every weed, sapling, berry, and green or growing thing back to the town for cataloguing and cultivating, where they were even suspected of proving useful. As such, recording notes, testing, sampling, and researching uses for the hauls the Dryad woman brought in routinely, kept Alexander nearly imprisoned within his study. Over and over his chalkboard filled with notes, and investigative queries before being wiped clean and then refilled.


    After two and a half weeks confinement after their arrival, Alexander escaped the almost claustrophobic feeling study to find that Falcon¡¯s Rest was entirely enclosed by a one hundred eighty-foot-high wall, fifteen feet wide at the top, widening to nearly forty at the base. It looked like Notre Dame had had a bastard child with the Colosseum, especially because it was still incomplete, with scaffolding and evidence of work yet to be done. Despite the inchoate status of this defensive monument, its lofty buttresses of stone held up a seamless mass of material, mostly made up of the granite that lay beneath the thin soil of Maine¡¯s interior. Pointed arch recesses carved into the stone at ground level provided storage spaces. Around the perimeter, roughly every thirty feet of height, there would be a covered shelf, a wall walk, more like, whose crenellation would permit defenders at multiple levels to attack down onto anything that tried to move against the town. Scott had truly outdone himself.


    Gawping shamelessly, he had trouble marrying his memories of the small footnote on a map that had been his home with the majesty of that wall, even in its incomplete form, and the incredible overhaul of most of the homes along this neighborhood. Most obviously, curved stone tile, courtesy of Van Richards, had replaced nearly every occupied house¡¯s roof. Like a light grey Italian motif, married to quaint Maine sensibilities. Van must have been pulling twenty-hour days to move that much stone, in addition to that of the wall. There must have been some other stone mages in the settlers, Alexander couldn¡¯t imagine the man was potent enough to do all of that himself.


    His gardens, overgrown, long free of the bonds of their starting beds, had been cleaned up. Almost all the food stuffs had been harvested. Most for winter stocks of food, but a not inconsequential amount for seed. Over a dozen agriculturally based classes, each with their own specialties or general synergistic abilities had created a plan to grow food enough in the valley in the shadow of Mt. Katahdin to support a thousand humans, and five times that many animals of various kinds.


    And there were animals of various kinds.


    Julia Richards, at the behest of Granny Nguyen¡¯s sage advice, was domesticating wolves. By placing the beast under her control, she could dominate the animal. Control it. Share her senses with it. Alexander¡¯s bees had revealed that the mana infused variants of earth creatures still obeyed certain principles of animal behavior. They had the same needs, drives, and instincts, in many cases, although you had to work harder to convince them that you were higher on the food chain than they were and be aware that these creatures often were possessed of higher intelligence than their predecessors.


    Her method was relatively straight forward: The Lunar Warden girl would go out, find a pack of Dire Wolves, and dominate their leaders. Through her abilities, she was able to use her insights into the minds of her wolf familiars to communicate with the wild ones. In her case, it was especially efficient since she didn¡¯t have to get high as a kite on dire bee honey.


    To the astonishment of nearly everyone, except for Impervious¡¯ members, it worked. In a fortnight of steady effort, there were about sixteen dire wolves, shaggy monsters big as black bears, that had been convinced that humans were a better source of food alive than in their bellies. They acted like puppies when Julia was around, groveling on bellies, whining for attention, and rolling around in the grass playfully. For anyone else there was a curt growl and a warning show of teeth. Julia took a house near the edge of the planned wall and western gate, to create a sort of beast clinic and kennel.


    Alexander stayed well away from the shaggy beasts. He still had nightmares of one of them throwing itself through a car window to chew on his leg, back when the Pulse had first happened. Dire wolves were all a product of Gaia¡¯s mind, whomped up from mana. That they now bred and behaved more or less like normal wolves had nothing to do with it in his mind, he couldn¡¯t bring himself to trust them. Julia¡¯s taming had packs of four in roaming well outside of town, where they would hunt or alert for anything that might try to slip into their tamer¡¯s territory. Their shared territory.


    Other than a kind of stunningly big racoon with two tails, nothing had.


    The young Outsider shook off the sight of a quartet of wolves patrolling around the south side of town, scarcely believing the changes, and continued to bask in the combined labor of the settlers, his aimless walk taking him downside streets toward the main avenue.


    Each house occupied by a settler could be distinguished by new siding, stone tile roofs, and the big black-violet panels on said roofs, the Jules Heaters, as folk referred to them, very much tongue in cheek. Smoke wisps trailed from several chimneys, many of which had been recently installed, retrofitting the homes from central air to forced air from fireplaces. A small fireplace, combined with the Jules heater and the bombproofing that the carpenters and Potter did on the houses guaranteed that even minimal use of burned wood could keep things cozy, no matter how hard the winter got.


    He felt like a tourist in his own home, the longer he walked. The wildly fantastic silhouette of a giant wall aside, Falcon¡¯s Rest was transforming before his eyes, settlers working like ants to break down and rebuild. Or, rather, like bees.


    Following a royal jelly communion with the hive mind, the bees effectively ignored the folk of the town as they went about their business. The queen in her generous carapace, permitted some of the dryad bloodline folk to gather wax from empty larva cells, the cleaning being much the same work the bees themselves would have had to do. In many ways, it almost felt like the colonists in Falcon¡¯s Rest had been adopted by the hive, not the other way around.


    They also permitted Alexander to harvest honey from the hive, once a month. With the boom in flowering plants, most of them Entling blood enhanced, and therefore with arcane properties desirable to the bees, the honey swelled in hexagonal pods, near to bursting. He didn¡¯t know why the queen desired it, but her will was made known to him. A worker bee showed up at his front door, did a bee dance meant to give the poor wingless drone instructions, before leading him to the section of the hive that had been designated for the patron of the Falcon¡¯s Rest bee colony. Twenty gallons of rich, slightly mind-altering honey a month solved many carbohydrate related problems.


    When the maple syrup processing station got completed, the village would have one of the first true luxuries of the old world: sweets. The town¡¯s two brewers wasted no time cabbaging onto ten gallons for a foray into mead. That was still fermenting, so it had a few months to sit before it was ready for consumption. Alexander was positive that the first human to drink that product would be taking a trip to neverland and wanted no part of it.


    Most of the dilapidated or damaged structures, including the house nearly collapsed that Alexander had run through while fighting an ogre, had been demolished. Those still standing had their necks upon the chopping blocks. Poor wasn¡¯t so uncommon in tiny towns like this, and some of the less reputable members of his pre-Pulse community hadn¡¯t taken care of their houses. The vacant gaps didn¡¯t hit him so hard, as the combined changes elsewhere built a layer of separation between his fond memories and the new reality of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    A small smile played over his face when he saw that the ugly as sin chain link fences around the school had been taken down. Alexander had hated that fencing, making the school look like a minimum-security jail.


    Soon, he would hit the square where he¡¯d once slaughtered a goblin war party using Tannerite and shrapnel bombs. The bank¡¯s roof had made for a nice vantage point. The sight of the square stopped him again, as he had the answer to a question rattling around in his noggin not long after the Pulse: what to do with all the dead cars?


    Answer: stack them in the bank¡¯s massive parking lot and build a blast furnace in the bank itself, with which to melt them down to make ingots of pure metals, with whatever flammable burning off.


    Kim Summers and three others were, even as he walked by, using chain lifts scavenged from an auto shop to pull the engines out of one of the big diesel trucks, given that those could be repurposed when a sustainable ignition and fuel source could be provided to them. The kind of precision machining in those motors was not to be had again for a long, long while yet. If Alexander had to put his finger on it, he judged the average technological level of Safe Harbor and the other settlements to be around 1800¡¯s era, preindustrial revolution. Premedical revolution too, but that was less a concern with the magic of the sun healing folk to perfection every three days.


    On down from the square, the general store and hardware store were cleaned out. Rotting food had been buried in a set of large pits, a compost project by one of the farmers. Plastic trash, waste, anything that couldn¡¯t be used had been burned or tossed into the metal recycling plant at the old bank.


    The Quintessence Shaper had put their plan into action: Muspelheim obsidian smelters using the power of the volcano trapped within that magical black glass to power them. Steelworks were dangerous places. A leak, a sudden degassing, a broken chain on a multi-ton crucible, anything that caused the molten material to splash, spill, or suddenly run free from the smelter would kill whoever was caught in its path. Still, Kim was putting his assistants to work, one of whom had welded on shipyards and knew at least a little about working with dangerous conditions.


    Alexander was in awe of how criminally underutilized, no, how wasted Jules Reynolds had been in Safe Harbor. The one-time brick layer was a promethean accelerator of civilization.


    Eventually, his astounded wandering caught the attention of Georgia, who had been coordinating some effort or another, and she strolled over to, very nonchalantly, bird dog him.


    Dirty blonde hair cut short into a pixie, to keep free of her eyes in combat, and because she was officially through dicking with fashion in the post apocalypse, tanned east European skin, and a blue-eyed school principal¡¯s stare pulled him up short. The broad bladed arming sword at her belt, a great helm hanging next to it, appeared right on her, as did the scale armor. The big ass great shield on her right arm didn¡¯t, so far as she evidenced it, bother her in the slightest. Impervious¡¯ second anchor tank was a solid lady, all the way around.


    ¡°What has our wizard out from his tower? Hmm?¡± Ms. Stephens opened, her casually dry humor greeting him.


    He chuckled a little at that, he really had been locked up in there for a while.


    ¡°The chalkboard was starting to drive me a little nuts, I needed to get some fresh air.¡± He admitted freely.


    Spinning a three hundred sixty-degree wave of hands, indicating the all aroundness, he gushed, ¡°But this! Georgia, look at all of this! It¡¯s fucking amazing!¡±


    The Morrigan blooded time knight gained a look of pride on her stern features.


    ¡°It is, isn¡¯t it?¡± She agreed, sharing a little of his enthusiasm.


    ¡°Amazing what getting jumped by a cougar the size of a bus does for folks¡¯ motivation.¡± Georgia observed.


    He couldn¡¯t argue with that. Most of the people in the expedition hadn¡¯t faced a monster since being run through a minor field dungeon to matriculate. None of them had seen anything like Panther Rex. Being shown firsthand just what might be stalking around out Upta put the fire in their bellies, that was for certain.


    ¡°They know the stakes now, out here in the Green.¡± Alexander confirmed.


    The Entropic Venator had spent six months alone in these hills, had battled monsters virtually from day one of the pulse. A lot of that time had been spent using guns, knives, just whatever he had to hand, absent any of the fantastic nonsense that matriculation provided. It wasn¡¯t until he¡¯d killed the Tirnanog dungeon heart that he¡¯d discovered the entirely new supernatural layer to life upon Gaia. Even after coming to Safe Harbor, he¡¯d gone on raids with the Guilds, he¡¯d scouted and hunted the surroundings around old Searsport, clearing out the monsters that trickled from the small hyper dungeon of Belfast. Alexander Gerifalte was intimate with life in the Green.


    ¡°I still have a hard time believing you were living all the way out here alone. Good job hanging in there, tiger.¡± Georgia applauded, imagining for herself waking up with not a single person around, being forced to struggle against the new world alone.


    ¡°Jesus christ, it had to have been brutal. I was shook up enough when my fianc¨¦ went to stone while I was showering with him. At least I had neighbors to scream hysterically at, and, later, shoulders to cry on.¡± She recounted.


    Alexander struck a hero pose, ¡°I¡¯m just that damned good, Ms. Stephens. All talent.¡± He rejoined, permitting the cockiness of youth to shine through and to deflect through comedy the tragedy of standing next to your planned life partner when they ¡°died¡±.


    ¡°Ayuh. Sure thing. Well, All Talent, I¡¯m going to just hang out here with you and make sure you don¡¯t trip over a rock and break that pretty face. It would be a shame if our mascot were all mashed up.¡± Georgia scoffed, although she smiled a little at his shenanigans.


    He wouldn¡¯t say no to some company, so off they went. After a few minutes of marveling at how quickly folk remembered how to get things done by hand, using simple machines and tricks learned from the old ways, Alexander asked after the Adventurer parties.


    ¡°How are you guys in Impervious and Getsome doing? Gotta be at least a little boring strolling around inside a walled town again, with not much in the way of dungeons shitting out monsters nearby.¡± He inquired.


    The Chronous Bulwark refuted that easily, ¡°Boring is good. Boring means nobody died or got mangled by some creeper. If you didn¡¯t have a few screws loose, going out there looking for monsters to kill, you¡¯d still be in Safe Harbor, making steam engines and living like a superstar of the Guild. Me? I¡¯ll take bored.¡±


    Fair enough. But he knew a few others that shared his particular brand of insanity.


    ¡°That¡¯s fine and fair too. But I bet Ben isn¡¯t sitting around polishing his spear.¡± Alexander led.


    Pixie cut hair waved as she shook her head, her expression slightly wondering, ¡°Ben and his merry band of superheroes are made of something different. I don¡¯t know how Mark does it, keeping them all pointed in one direction. Even Melinda, sweet, wholesome thing that she is, gets this wild look in her eyes when she hasn¡¯t been outside the walls in a couple of days.¡±


    He grinned at that description of Getsome. They really were like something out of a comic book. But he was grateful for them every day.


    ¡°They¡¯re the heroes we need, Georgia. The heroes we deserve are sitting back in Safe Harbor, cultivating disaster. Mark my words, Belfast is going to go *pop* soon and I don¡¯t know if they¡¯ll survive it.¡± Alexander said, hoping, wishing that the Guilds saw reason before it was too late.


    A dejected breath and sad look from his companion, because he would not call her a babysitter no matter what, told him her thoughts on the matter. Impervious hadn¡¯t had much love for the Guilds, but nobody wished harm on Safe Harbor. Humans were too few for that kind of infighting. The rifle bearing marksmen posted by the Guildies to protect their claims from poaching said that feeling was not mutual.


    Alexander was under no illusions in that regard. Had he fucked up, been spotted, or been less than perfect in his ambushes of the sentries, he knew they would have opened fire on their brother man. He knew better than most just how well the Guilds paid, the influence they traded.


    ¡°Yeah, well, speaking of heroes, you¡¯re about to need one, I thought I saw Annita prowling around a few houses back, angling to get behind us.¡± Georgia revealed, a slight twist of her lips letting slip her good humor.


    He couldn¡¯t help a reflexive glance over his shoulder. Nothing. Sneaky little ninja.


    ¡°It keeps her entertained, I guess.¡± Alexander hypothesized aloud, but a little surprised she was inside the walls.


    It wasn¡¯t quite midday, from what he understood, Granny spent most of each day until midafternoon outside the walls, scouring the mountainside. After that, it was the green houses until dark, the industrious harvester class tending lovingly the assortment of cultivars her green thumb abilities allowed to flourish.


    ¡°I¡¯m still surprised you got her to stop sleeping in your greenhouse.¡± Georgia admitted.


    He couldn¡¯t help reminiscing over that minor circus. Not because he was trying to lose a potential tail or anything, he took them through the empty grocery building and out, headed for his workshop. The smithy was a place of relative safety, since Granny hated the sounds of George, the power hammer, and his crew of machine tools. Metal work was loud work, and nothing to be done about it.


    ¡°Only because she realized that she could manage all of the greenhouses in the town, and couldn¡¯t sleep in them simultaneously. She¡¯ll be fine.¡± He explained.


    ¡°You know, she really had us all fooled with that medicine woman routine.¡± Georgia informed him.


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± Alexander nodded sagely.


    It hadn¡¯t taken long for the mask to come off. Small things being misplaced, subtle hints, a shack going up outside the walls in a damp little grotto between hills in which various nightshades, sinister toadstools, volcanic flowers, flames burning eerily blue, creepy mosses, Alexander¡¯s mandrakes, and herbs with warning labels ¡°Go and ahead and touch it, just don¡¯t complain to me later trespasser.¡± all told the tale of Granny Nguyen being less a wise woman, and more a witch at heart. You could go to her for answers, and she would give them. For the low, low price of your first born. Or, rather, mostly just any leads you might have to a place that looked like it grew mushrooms.


    ¡°It couldn¡¯t last.¡± He waxed philosophical, ¡°Evil so great couldn¡¯t be contained in that tiny body.¡±


    Georgia¡¯s smirked at his comment, wondering at how easily they¡¯d been deceived.


    They walked into the smithy, currently empty because Kim was still dismantling cars for raw materials. Familiar faces of Sterling the steam engine, George the power hammer, Ricky the lathe, Jerry the bandsaw, and Tabitha the drill press all greeted him, eager for the projects they would complete together.


    ¡°You know, it¡¯s weird that you talk about them like they¡¯re people.¡± The Morrigan woman told him, the feathered markings on her face and neck lending her a mysterious air.


    Alexander shushed her before she could make his friends feel awkward.


    ¡°Hush now! They¡¯ll hear you! She didn¡¯t mean it guys; her kind just don¡¯t understand you is all.¡± He consoled the machines.


    Next to the stack of silver golem sourced ingots of metals whose properties reflected their infusion with magic were the dragon¡¯s scales. Quite a sight they made together, the glittering red next to the slightly aquamarine shimmer of golem argentum, and the near titanium white sheen of golem high steel. It was from these that he would soon be rearming Getsome and Impervious, making for them protectives and arms of value matched with their role protecting this offshoot of humanity. In short, priceless.


    One of the journals he¡¯d brought back from Safe Harbor held sketches and schematics of some of the Guild¡¯s best armorers. One-time cosplayers, prop makers between jobs, and a historian on vacation, they had got their heads together and, instead of working in brass, aluminum, and thin stainless, had begun developing gear to protect men from monsters. Those men and women had sold him designs for a pretty penny, paid for because he enjoyed tinkering with such things between his projects making steam engines or retrofitting industrial machines to interface with a nonelectrical power source. No one had sold him anything after his blacklisting, no matter the offer he made, so it was just as well his eyes were as good as they were. He¡¯d done some of the schematics by free hand sketching Adventurers and Guildies as they walked through town. Schematic, one of the blessings of Warforger, let him more precisely manufacture anything he had produced a detailed set of plans for. It was cheating and he was proud of it.


    The designs would be his, whether or not they wanted to sell them, he cackled to himself, remembering the injustice of it all.


    ¡°Oookay, I think I can leave you to it then.¡± Geogia said, confident that the reluctant leader of Falcon¡¯s Rest wouldn¡¯t be able to find too much trouble in his own workshop.


    ¡°By the way,¡± Ms. Stephens said as an afterthought, standing outlined by daylight in the shop¡¯s doorway, ¡°If you would just take her, wine and dine her a little first, maybe, Annita wouldn¡¯t need to stalk you like that.¡±


    Absently, not looking up from his hand tools and the system he¡¯d have to redesign to implement imp and salamander core technology to utilize them as heat sources, rather than wood or coal fuel, he replied, ¡°It¡¯s just a game the little witch plays for points, she¡¯s not interested.¡±


    She wasn¡¯t. They¡¯d bar hopped, hung out, scouted, and done all sorts of things together over the last year. Not once had any spark of tension or attraction, other than Granny shopping around for tactical gooses to hear him squawk, arisen. Half a dozen times he¡¯d helped her corral her targets amongst the other young men, approaching under guise of a friendly chat with fellow Adventurers and roamers of the Green. Never a once had he seen sign that the lady wanted anything more than a partner in crime.


    Alexander had not exactly played hard to get, when he realized that basically all the humans left were relatively young and at least kind of fit, and that he was, as his mother had once informed him, going to grow into his legs and start dropping panties, her words verbatim. Just about everyone played loose these days, except for the dedicated couples, there was no reason not to. With the destruction of human society and the absence of any way to procreate, sexuality was about mutual attraction and experimentation, not socioeconomic cost benefit analysis or vague religiosity. As far as the die-hard religious folk were concerned, Rapture had occurred and anybody not petrified had been left behind, a world of sinners already doomed to Judgment.


    These days, he would swing at about any pitch in his strike zone. Except for Brig, that fastball was a little aggressive. He had to admit she''d grown on him though. For a moment he wondered if the copper haired battle maniac was free, you must lift the heavy weights to gain muscle¡­no! Wait! You need the use of your legs!


    Now that Georgia had him thinking about it, the days of promiscuity, for lads and ladies alike, when std¡¯s were a thing of the past and nobody could have children at all, might be over. Or, well, not over, just redirected into a productive angle. Nobody knew when it would happen, the womenfolk still hadn''t cycled. Kids would be pretty neat, but half the town delivering on top of each other would be sort of wild. Shiv would lose his mind, he wasn''t an OBGYN, but he''d try. As long as nobody died outright, they''d all survive childbirth the old fashioned way, the women and the babes.


    "Did you just die standing up?" Georgia called from the portal into the shop


    Abruptly he realized the solid blonde warrior was still there in the doorway, waiting for a response, and that he had committed, once again, the social sin of forgetting people were there while his degenerate brain went round and round in its hamster wheel.


    "Sorry," He apologized, as he always did, "Got caught up wondering how things will change when half the town''s got a bun in the oven. It''ll be nice to have kids running around again, but so many out of action for a trimester plus is going to pinch."


    She shook her short cropped head at him like a disapproving school teacher and remarked "Typical. You''re worried over nothing Alexander, we of the fairer sex have been carrying civilization on our backs, and in our bellies, at the same time, while you hairy apes breath farts in your hunting blinds for millennia. So? Granny? Dinner when?"


    After a bit of contemplation, Alexander came back to his original conclusion that what Annita Nguyen was, was a good friend who complimented his brand of eccentricity with her own. Besides, she could be seen from time to time with Benjamin, their heads together in deep discussion. Given that they occupied wildly different circles of function in this post-apocalyptic society, they weren¡¯t talking business, in all likelihood. Honestly? He thought they made a strangely fitting couple. One liked raising and cultivating various things, and the other liked uncultivating various things with prejudice. Yin and Yang.


    ¡°I think she has a thing for Ben. I wish her the best with that too, the guy needs to unwind a little every now and then. Coming from me? That¡¯s saying something.¡± Alexander said, already turned to the project in front of him, distracted by the modifications he was going to have to make to control heat and engine output.


    A low laugh and a muttered, ¡°Sure, sure. Whatever you say.¡± Accompanied the Anchor tank¡¯s departure.

 Chapter 20: Amidst Falling Snow

    Another two weeks passed by in a flash for the settlers of Falcon¡¯s Rest. October had transformed into mid-November, bringing sharp cold this far from the ocean. Almost unseasonable cold. Shared looks amongst the townsfolk confirmed what all suspected: winter would arrive early. Aggressive schedules and generous use of lanterns permitted the carpenters and Potter to finish the outstanding construction tasks and renovations of the houses that needed them, and Scott and Van, with Jules to back them up completed the wall, with one final push just as December landed on the calendar. December was barely two days old when the first of the snows fell. A Nor¡¯easter pounded the Atlantic coast, blasted the village, winds hurtling against the walls with tremendous force.


    Alexander had recently spent most of a day sitting in his kitchen, grieving over a lovely clam chowder, recipe courtesy of Mama Gerifalte, a meal that never failed to make him at least a little somber. The wailing winds, courtesy of their interactions with the buttress architecture of the walls, enhanced his sentiment.


    So did the communal labor of the week past.


    Scott and Van finished the Vault, the repository for the Enshrined of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Into individualized cubbies went the former occupants of the town, all of them that hadn¡¯t been destroyed in the chaos of losing control of numerous vehicles, ransacked by goblins, or knocked over by some scavenging critter or another.


    His parents were amongst those entombed within the Vault. It had been hard, facing them again after two years, not much closer to a cure for the petrification than he had been when he left for Safe Harbor.


    Hence spending a day in quiet reflection in his house. Guilt rode the young man hard that night, so, the next morning, he threw himself into his smithy to work it out. One day of penance did not suffice, so he tried again. And again.


    Four eighteen-hour days running concluded the project which had occupied most of his shop time: the outfitting of Getsome and Impervious with their new combat kit. Based on their individual preferences, with input from each on dissatisfactions with their current armor, and with Kim Summers to help him with the detail work, he¡¯d completely overhauled the arms and armor of the best warriors Falcon¡¯s Rest could muster.


    The young man, having put forth his absolute best effort, looked at the sets of medieval meshed with modern and beamed with pride, this last helmet his best work. If Mark had had this gear, the wyrmling wouldn¡¯t have been able to hack through his shield and almost bisect him. Dragon scale, high steel, and a combination of Yeti and dire wolf leather made for tremendous protectives.


    Before him, hanging in the air in blue scrollwork, was the intangible evidence of his mastery, a complement to the tangible arrayed on the floor of his shop. He¡¯d just laid down the peening hammer for one last rivet.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="264">


    Blacksmith + Silversmith ?Armourer


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Armourer: meticulous craft, diligence, and experience fashioning arms and armors of various kinds has expanded your capabilities. Utilization of otherworldly components, alloys of uncommon heritage, and self-fashioned materials tailored to purpose characterizes your workmanship. The armourer has an intuitive sense for the locations along which forces tend to concentrate and where gaps or faults in protection might be located, to cover those for the armors you design, and to highlight them for the armors you must defeat in combat.


    Prior skills in blacksmithing are retained and apply to the forging of weapons and protective kit.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    It had been a rather long time since any distinct improvement in Warforger sub traits had occurred, but this was a big one. A fusion of the skills to fashion rough metal into fine shapes, to engrave, fit, and precisely finish delicate projects had tipped him over the edge. He¡¯d pushed himself to his limits and beyond to make ultimate use of the precious supply of dragon scale and golem sourced ingots. He was now out of the golem high steel, had only a couple of two-pound argentum ingots left, and about a dozen dragon scales, most of them slightly larger, which made them harder to use without cutting material away. Or, rather, asking Jules to come and mold them to shape with his wonderous abilities.


    He looked over and saw the slightly vacant look of someone reading something invisible. It would seem that he wasn¡¯t alone in his advancement!


    A joyful fist pump, a declaration of ¡°Fuck yeah, Kim!¡±, and the two men responsible for this artistry of martial equipment traded firm handshakes.


    The normally unreadable Kim Summers was clearly over the moon, Korean features as joyful as anyone had ever seen him.


    The Oread man had taken a couple of weeks to figure out the tooling available, and to get back into the groove of fine machining. Afterward, he quickly left Alexander behind in some regards, having had much more formal training in the precision end of things metal shaping. Ricky the lathe, in particular, benefitted from a more educated hand. A few other tricks of the trade came not precisely from machining, but from tangential fields with which Kim had become familiar during his training. Techniques including one Alexander hadn¡¯t thought of: the use of wood carving tools to sculpt dire bee wax molds formed on the bodies of the would-be wearers, into which liquified metal or, thanks again to Jules Reynolds, red wyrmling scales, could be poured to form precisely matched shapes perfectly fitted.


    Strenuous application of vocational skills paid dividends for all, as Alexander was made aware currently.


    ¡°I have obtained the trait Armor smith!¡± Kim announced aloud, radiant, his thick work gloves clenched into fists raised overhead.


    ¡°I can finally see the traits of these novel metals, identify the more suitable ones for different applications, and intuit stress-strain relations to better understand the gauges of plates or fasteners needed to efficiently match design parameters. This is what it¡¯s been like for you this whole time? Seeing all of this? You beautiful cheating bastard!¡± Summers ranted, with more emotion in his features and voice than Alexander had ever seen.


    It felt good. Progress felt good. Making with his hands the things that would keep his hired champions safe, which would make the enemies of this settlement unsafe, felt good.


    Summers had been as much of a game changer as Alexander had hoped, his machining skills and willingness to trade tricks and techniques made them both grow.


    The cherry on top was Kim¡¯s class abilities. Rune artificer allowed him to carve magical circuits made of magic into an object and imbue it with very specific functions. The language of the runes he carved looked like no specific written codex Alexander knew of, but had similarities to Arabic, Norse, and a bit of Kanji. Kim himself had no real idea what the letters were until he had set them into the material, it was as if Gaia had implanted within the man¡¯s mind his own personal language of magic.


    The results were fantastic, however. Carving the runes to ward fire, filling them with his magic, let him add lesser fire resistance onto the object. The same could be done with most of the known elemental forms. Acid resistance? Check. Cold? Ayuh. Lightning? No problem.


    Experimentation revealed that, at his current level of competence, the artificer could only layer three enchantments, and only of the lesser variety. He could scribe the same one three times to elevate its level to the next tier of proficiency, thereby locking out other enchantments. Mostly, that wasn¡¯t worth it, compared to making the Adventurers resistant to a wider scope of potential threats, but when it was good, it would be great, with the sky as the ceiling, as his skills advanced.


    For a couple of the projects, the pair of craftsmen had gone all out, had created something quite special indeed.


    Mark Ross, party leader of Getsome, Anchor tank, and widely agreed upon by the residents of Falcon¡¯s Rest to be one of the most effective leaders of men alive, was recipient of one of the special projects. It had come to be named, Wyrmcinder


    Mark¡¯s offensive abilities were lacking, by his own admission.


    His role wasn¡¯t an offensive one, he was an Anchor tank, a frontliner whose job was to be a rock, with some upside in his fire manipulation. After hearing the young captain¡¯s worries, Alexander had decided that needed to change, every member of Getsome needed to be lethal, even Shiv.


    Toward that end, he and Kim had put their heads together to work a dragon fang into a type twenty-two, by the Oakeschott typology, arming sword. Wide base, strong point, moderately tapered with a foot long fuller, the weapon possessed a short hilt with heavy round pommel. The wyrmling fang was almost exactly as long as the blade and tang required, meaning no waste of material, and it had exquisite strength, even while holding heat. Alexander liked to think of the dragon fang as Tungsten, if Tungsten had been raised by osteoblasts.


    On its own, that suited the Incandescent Triarii¡¯s abilities nicely. Then came the sauce. Kim layered runes for lesser sharpness, lesser durability, and lesser restore onto the blade, which combined to make the edge keener, last longer, and to self-sharpen over the course of a few minutes to an couple of hours, depending on the abuse. Alexander sacrificed a salamander core, one of the few they had, to turn the blade into one that would reach white heat when infused with a bit of fire magic. Mark¡¯s heat manipulation abilities would let him keep the firebrand hot enough to slice a glowing trail through concrete with only minimal draw of his own mana.


    The short, heavy bladed sword, in Mark¡¯s able hands, would devastate anything not immune to fire magic. In other words, if it wasn¡¯t from Muspelheim, it was going to suffer greatly closing with the legionnaire.


    Benjamin¡¯s main arm had already been replaced, with Alexander giving him the naginata he¡¯d made for himself, imbued with a potent cold generation. Winter¡¯s Breath, between the golem High steel, the golem silver, and being pure metal from top to bottom it was already a mighty weapon. Three applications of the runes for lesser durability kicked it up to standard durability. That didn¡¯t sound like much to the uninitiated, but Ben¡¯s powers let him borrow the strength of the metal he touched. By making the naginata stronger, they made Ben stronger. Making Ben stronger amplified his effectiveness exponentially. He didn¡¯t need help keeping his instruments sharp, he could simply will the metal to a razor edge as part of his Steel Heavy Knight class.


    Every warrior would be outfitted similarly. The next time a dragon raised its ugly mug to cause trouble, it was in for a world of hurt, whether it was Getsome or Impervious to face it. He was making real moves toward the goal of fighting back against the insanity of this new world, which meant he was closer to finding a way to reverse the Enshrining, maybe. Maybe was better than not, so he cruised on cloud nine.


    ¡°Kim, you absolute genius you, I think this calls for a trip to the waterhole!¡± Alexander declared, basking in the shared accomplishment.


    A rare grin across Kim¡¯s face showed his agreement.


    ¡°To the Survivor¡¯s Well, Mayor-General!¡± the Runic Artificer answered with gusto, using one of many titles the townsfolk liked to make up on the spot for whatever occasion demanded it.


    He was Mayor. Comrade. General. Emperor. Count. Landlord. Kaiser. Admiral. Hostess. And many, many others, in combinations that had not yet found any sign of running dry. Alexander tolerated it because there was nothing he could do about it, and because it was hilarious.


    With that, they cleaned up meticulously, locked the shop door, and moseyed down the main avenue of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    Snow already piling seven feet deep had been cleared by mule pulled plows from the road, but more was falling. The Nor¡¯easter was still howling up the coastline, and the two jubilant men marched leaving three-inch deep footprints in fresh powder the whole way to the single tavern of the settlement. Once a big old church, one of those passion projects of a congregation that had been bigger by far in those days than it was today, it was now a cozy bar and grill, run by a husband and wife and husband throuple. The two men both had classes that befitted an establishment for entertaining guests.


    One, Alvin Bishop, was a Brigid bloodline with a class devoted to food preparation and brewing, with a side of significant and fairly long-lasting buffs of stamina, mana regeneration, and exhaustion prevention. He was dicing meat mixed with wild onions, harvested greens, and pickled peppers on a five foot long cast iron griddle with a wide smile that said there was nowhere else he¡¯d rather be. Alvin was born to run a bar and grill. He was a mid-thirties black man of middling five-foot seven-inches height, thickly built stature, a Mr. Clean style shaved head, and exuded the kind of warm hospitality that made him everybody¡¯s friend.


    His partner in crime, Tom Clevinger, was a Brigid bloodline as well. Tom was pouring a round of home brew, its foamy head atop a blonde liquid that was watched with rapt attention from the patrons at the bar as Alexander and Kim doffed their coats in the doorway.


    Tom was possessed of a class that came with traits that gave him a potent ability to preserve food in a kind of near stasis, to age foods to accelerate greatly processes such as fermentation, and to sterilize pathogens passively that came within a ten-foot bubble of space around him. As a result, nearly daily of the mornings, his six foot two inches of Nordic figure, a face chiseled enough to make it in Hollywood, with a long blond braided ponytail down the middle of his back, could be seen doing the rounds through town to ¡°bless¡± the well and water reservoirs, and, generally, was welcomed in everybody¡¯s home for a quick visit and a lunch on the regular.


    It wasn¡¯t completely necessary, people who full restored every three days didn¡¯t have much to fear from common bacteria, but sterile environments helped keep food from spoiling and wood from decaying. As a result of the brewmaster¡¯s daily commute around town, he kept a fresh supply of the juicy gossip with which to entertain the regulars of the bar, namely, everyone in Falcon¡¯s Rest, and did such with gusto.


    The woman of the trio, and unchallenged Domina of the Survivor¡¯s Well, was the sole other Outsider bloodline, other than Alexander himself and Jules Reynolds, and a spectacular example: she had sprouted large angelic wings, their bronze pinions spanning twenty feet and bloodline trait that granted her limited flight. A onetime high school volleyball ace, Lucretia, ¡°Lucy¡±, Durnham was six feet of girl next door beauty, her blonde hair done up in a fancy bun to keep it out of the platters of repast she was serving around the church floor with the grace of a ballet dancer, even with the bulk of her wings tucked inside a plush robe worn over her old fashioned skirt and blouse attire.


    Lucy¡¯s class allowed her to declare a specific region three hundred feet in every direction from where she stood to be effectively sacrosanct, wherein no guest invited could suffer harm and across the threshold of which injuries fell away, as potently as the Phoenix sun itself. Her class, Interregnum Steward, was another of those that, at first glance didn¡¯t seem so powerful. At second glance, she was, in her own narrow sense, a god.


    The space she controlled was hers, indefinitely. She did not age within it, nor did anyone inside. Her domain was cut off from reality in some quantum physics breaking way. None could enter without being invited. The only real catch to her powers was that she could only reset her domain once every six months. More specifically, only after witnessing a solstice sunrise, either summer or winter.


    She also could not leave the space without it collapsing. So, on the one hand, she became a god. On the other, a prisoner of her own power. A three hundred foot radius isn¡¯t so much when you couldn¡¯t leave it. As soon as the settlers had come, after discussing where they wanted to set up, she had made the Survivor¡¯s Well her territory. She bore the cost of her confinement with a kind of serene pride because, if worst came to worst, the settlers of Falcon¡¯s Rest could flee to safety within her domain. It was a hell of a last resort, and everyone was grateful to the forty-five-year-old former bartender for her sacrifice during the first months of the village¡¯s construction.


    When the wall around the city had finished, by popular vote of the denizens of the town, she allowed herself to drop her ability, thereby regaining her freedom. It was that kind of spirit of community and sacrifice that made for strong ties amongst the settlers. The Winter solstice approached, which meant, before too much longer, if an existential threat emerged that required it, Lucy could shelter the townsfolk within her domain for as long as that was necessary.


    Into the warmth of the church turned alehouse the pair of metal smiths strode, and patrons turned to eyeball whoever had let the bitter breath of the Nor¡¯easter into the cozy bar. Such was a tradition amongst Mainers.


    ¡°You plan on letting all of winter in?¡± Called one.


    ¡°For Pete¡¯s sake, just hold a party in the dooryard while you¡¯re at it!¡± jeered another.


    ¡°For real, it¡¯s wicked cold out there, my beer was almost warm enough to drink.¡± Observed a third.


    The two men, who had closed the door immediately behind them but nevertheless had to take their medicine, approached the bar. Tom had emptied a keg and dipped into the adjoining room to the right of the bar, in which a stair led to the old masonry basement where they conducted their alcoholic miracles. Alvin, his bald, dark scalp shining under the glow of a score of flickering flames clutched by a fanciful candelabra, mundane bee¡¯s wax these as dire bee wax candles eluded Alexander currently, stepped up to fill the gap while his griddle reclaimed its heat for another round of vittles.


    ¡°Ignore the jokers, you guys look like you¡¯re all stove up.¡± the congenial man told them, already grabbing pint glasses from under the bar top.


    ¡°Kim, you still like the Irish red, right? And Mayor, I got a new IPA just finished today, Tom put the final touch on it not two hours ago. You wanna give her the grand opening?¡± Alvin asked, already knowing the answers to all of his questions.


    He was topping Summers¡¯ glass off at the same time he¡¯d finished speaking to Alexander, not even bothering to wait for a reply. That was the kind of man who knew his business behind the counter, Alexander noted gratefully, for not the first time.


    ¡°Yeah, please, Alvin, and I got Kim¡¯s tab tonight.¡± He said, with a thumbs up for the fellow craftsman.


    It was a kind of inside joke, there wasn¡¯t any real economy in Falcon¡¯s Rest yet. At best, you had a loose system of barter and favor trading, no money could trade hands, because nobody had any money. In a town of sixty some people, debt was a matter of neighbors needing help, not something for holding against a guy. Alexander knew this kind of system couldn¡¯t scale up, but he would dearly miss a time when nobody paid because everybody had paid in full through the loose network of community.


    ¡°Sure, sure. So, what¡¯s got the two of you all giddy? I haven¡¯t seen Kim smile three times in a month, but here he is, all teeth and no cheeks.¡± Alvin remarked, his tone purely jovial teasing.


    Alexander directed a meaningful look to his fellow.


    ¡°You wanna tell him, or shall I?¡± He asked, putting the ball of who gets to dish the good gossip in the other man¡¯s court.


    Kim sipped minimal head off his brew and then took a third of it in a single deep swallow before answering, ¡°I got this one.¡±


    ¡°As of today, you are looking at the village¡¯s official senior Armor-smith, trait and all, that is moi,¡± Summers pointed toward himself, ¡°And,¡± he now finger gunned Alexander, ¡°Our Blacksmith has ascended to Armourer.¡±


    ¡°All official and recorded in the Scroll.¡± Alexander noted aloud.


    The Scroll was what they called the blue scrollwork people with analysis skills saw or when they examined themselves. You could always view yourself, but your wisdom stats and current knowledge limited what could be seen without an analysis skill of some kind to sort of peel back the mystery. Relatively few individuals possessed an analysis skill by default. He himself had Greater Analysis, a great prize amongst the Matriculated. Melinda had the lesser version of it, and she had, around the turn of November, trained it to the regular Analysis version, a marked achievement.


    You didn¡¯t, technically, have to touch or kill dungeon cores to strengthen your supernatural abilities and class features. Dedicated training would do it too. But it took a lot of application and real jumps in skill to do it. Melinda had been studying everything she came across, and had learned to sketch. She started keeping a field journal updated while she scouted that, as she filled in the details of the surrounding territory, enhanced her understanding about where certain plants or animals could be found, which habitats, elevations, and coordinator plants and animals they tended to be found with. That was when the upgraded tier of the Analysis skill popped. That was the kind of fundamental gain in understanding to go from the lesser to the regular version of a skill.


    No one Alexander knew of had naturally obtained the Greater, however. It must have been a thing that took years to develop. Greater abilities had exclusively come as a result of touching the dungeon cores during matriculation, or slaying them, in his case.


    Scroll official was how you knew you¡¯d made a transformative improvement in your skills these days.


    Two people getting upgraded traits in a day was cause for celebration, and Alvin knew it.


    ¡°Well then! How¡¯s about we get serious?¡± He said, leaning over the bar to rest on his forearms.


    Overhead candlelight glimmered on the polished crown of the bartender as he scanned the room, as if about to share nuclear codes.


    ¡°We¡¯ve been working on a vodka. The real stuff, based on the potatoes that started walking around when you dug them up.¡± The black vest and white apron clad man whispered.


    He wasn¡¯t exaggerating. Entling blood caused the plants grown in soil enriched with it to assume Gaia awakened forms with high frequency. A planter of potatoes he¡¯d left unattended for the time he¡¯d been gone had gone and become mobile. The brown, cantaloupe sized tubers, when pulled, would wait until you turned your back and sprout little viny tendrils so they could run away and burrow themselves somewhere. They were rich in minerals, calorie dense starches, and absolutely delicious fried or mashed. Falcon¡¯s Rest would make Walking Potatoes a staple of their agriculture going forward.


    Better yet, on account of the sneaky little things were good at finding an opportunity to flee from capture, they were starting to grow wild before the snows buried them for the winter. Next spring ought to be interesting with the great potato hunts.


    A vodka based on the monsterized potatoes sounded more than a little interesting. He hadn¡¯t had proper liquor since hitting tier three.


    ¡°I¡¯m in.¡± He said, echoed by Kim, and also Brig, who¡¯d sauntered over in casual wear, loose grey slacks and a dark purple turtleneck.


    ¡°What am I in on?¡± the tall red head asked, all smiles because she didn¡¯t really care what it was, she just wanted some excitement.


    Alexander shot Alvin an inquiring look. This was he and Tom¡¯s brainchild; they had the right to limit exposure until they had a recipe they were willing to share. These were the ages old rules of brewers.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine, Brig¡¯s almost on retainer for sampling our experiments.¡± He told them.


    Given the okay, Alexander took a hard swallow on his crisp, slightly citrusy, and excellently bitter beer before answering, ¡°Those spuds that sneak away when you dig them? These madlads have distilled spirits from them¡­they¡¯ve got a Tom Clevinger special fast aging into--¡±


    He was cut off by Brig¡¯s awe-struck whisper of ¡°Vodka!¡±


    The three men nodded in affirmation.


    Old stuff, pre-Pulse booze, generally didn¡¯t play nicely with post Pulse Matriculated at tier three. The enhanced physiques of magically infused humans treated the alcoholic beverages of days bygone like a low-grade poison, which, Alexander supposed, it was. But, instead of getting properly drunk, you tended to process it out, meaning a lot of piss, a headache, and not much fun. Tier three humans required something more, a drink with a touch of the aether in it to enjoy it. Since the entire town was tier three, all the booze from before was only useful as a disinfectant, at best.


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± Alvin confirmed, ¡°The mash we threw out got racooned, we still don¡¯t know where those ninja bastards are hiding in town, by the way, but a couple of them were so soused they didn¡¯t know what realm they were in. Tom felt too guilty to bash them, so we dropped them off outside town to sleep it off.¡±


    ¡°It was a test batch, enough for a single barrel, you know Tom still doesn¡¯t know for certain when things will age right or, just, sorta¡­¡± Alvin led leaving the statement hanging.


    ¡°Turn into liquid mold and organic solvents?¡± Kim finished.


    Alvin nodded, ¡°Yeah, that. So, anyhow, this one might be a winner. Since you two gents got a Scroll Official upgrade, you want to be the first to try it? And Brig can grab a snort on account of we need to know how it effects apes.¡±


    Chuckles and a discrete bump of knuckles went all around from the men and a vigorous up and down from Brig¡¯s closed fist in the ages old sign for a handy accompanied the well-timed joke.


    ¡°Alright. I¡¯ll go grab a sample. We have to be wicked careful; I¡¯m not joking about those racoons my boys and girls, they didn¡¯t know what hit them.¡± The trying too hard to appear casual bartender sauntered downstairs into the church¡¯s basement brewery, his mad science lab of all things alcohol. Tom, smirking with an almost childlike glee in their direction sat down the new keg and checked the tap.


    Alexander woke up, with the suddenness that makes you question if you had ever slept at all. He was in his workshop. Naked. A sound drew his attention, and he turned his head to see Brig sleeping next to him. Also naked, except for the helmet he¡¯d made to fit her, its chin strap hanging loose.


    An easy flex of muscles and confused examination of the smithy from a sitting position slowly returned memories up to the small tumbler of clear liquid. He¡¯d put his hand around the crystal-clear glass, and then, nothing.


    Wow! Alvin Bishop, you king! Tom Clevinger, you devil! What a hootch! Alexander praised, amazed at the combined efforts of the brewers.


    No hangover, either he noted, you went from sipping the oblivion to straight awake. That stuff was dangerous.


    A soft murmur of feminine waking announced Brig was again amongst the living.


    ¡°Wowee!¡± She proclaimed from her back.


    ¡°How did I get here? And why am I wearing this?¡± Came the follow up questions.


    He took in the long limbs, smooth muscles, and very well-placed curves of the Oread woman and considered again his reluctance to let her have her way with him. He was coming around. She sat up, and gravity did extraordinarily little work on her form, and he decided that hesitation was unmanly and unworthy, and he would strive to be bolder in the future.


    ¡°We got sandbagged by Alvin and Tom¡¯s little experiment.¡± He answered wryly.


    Blue eyes drank him in and took on a predatory glint.


    ¡°We did, didn¡¯t we?¡± She said and removed the helmet, giving it an approving glance before setting it aside.


    ¡°I can¡¯t remember anything after the burn going down, how about you?¡± Brig asked.


    With deliberate care to make certain she was positioned for him to see anything he wanted to, Brigitte O¡¯Connor leaned over toward him.


    He very studiously did not ogle the fruits of Eden. Even though he really wanted to. Okay, maybe he managed to use his better than human eyesight to burn the image into his brain for all of time. But just for a moment!


    ¡°Nada.¡± He answered, ¡°Alvin did try to warn us though, can¡¯t blame him. I don¡¯t see our clothes anywhere. As in, not in this building. Do you think someone dropped us off here, or what?¡±


    Surely, they wouldn¡¯t have run around in the snow naked. Surely.


    He wasn¡¯t left long to ponder, the lady next to him was very straight lines and A to B oriented when she knew what she wanted. There was little doubt, by the way she somehow managed to scoot closer, without seeming to move, what she wanted. If they had been dropped off then maybe help was coming soon? If not, then he was alone. Isolated. Just the way predators liked their prey.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but I¡¯ve got little bits of iron filings in my knees, so I can¡¯t imagine we didn¡¯t spend at least a little time humping anyone that might have been present. Speaking of which, Brigadier Mastersmith Gerifalte, since I don¡¯t remember last night, it doesn¡¯t count.¡± Brig told him, in no uncertain terms.


    ¡°Do I get a safe word?¡± He asked, smiling, knowing where this was going, and unable to be able to be sad about it.


    The shimmery copper of her post tier three hair sent lustrous waves when she shook her unbraided hair in denial.


    ¡°Damn. Didn¡¯t think so. George, lads, close your eyes!¡± He implored of his friends in the shop, grinning when Brig rolled her eyes at him.


    ¡°Alright you sex beast, do your worst!¡± Alexander Gerifalte summoned his courage and challenged; Mama Gerifalte had raised no coward!


    The Oread pounced and he fought vainly, but valiantly.


    ¡°You¡¯re getting better.¡± Brig offered by way of apology, wishing she had a post coital cigarette, the only time she indulged in that habit.


    Alexander lay back, boneless on the shop floor, a heap of welding jackets strewn about as a barrier between soft flesh and the concrete of the smithy. The tall woman¡¯s skin pressed to his warmly and he was glad for the rigor of the athletic bonking. Without the engines running, the heat of the forge, and whatnot, the shop was rather cold in winter.


    ¡°Thanks. I¡¯m trying. When I grow up, do you think I can be like you?¡± He asked.


    She giggled into his neck and stroked the soft, downy black feather/hair on his head. It was a minor change, compared to some other folks¡¯ bloodline influences at tier three. Far less obvious than his eyes, whose black sclera were, as Van Richards had described them, creepy. The Outsider tended to produce somewhat drastic changes, however, compared to the other three human lineages. His hair and eyes. Jules could alter the shape of his entire body, forming multiple limbs, rearranging bones, a second set of eyes. It cost him a heavy metabolic price, he ate like three men, but watching him use four arms to deftly manipulate steel girders like clay was awesome to behold. Lucy had her angelic wings underneath the big overcoat she wore, bronze and black like an owl though, instead of stereotypical white.


    ¡°It¡¯d be better for Annita if you didn¡¯t, you¡¯ll terrorize the poor little witch.¡± Brig replied.


    ¡°That¡¯s the second time¡­Annita has a thing for Ben, you know. We¡¯re pals, and she spends inordinate amounts of time laying in wait to trip my Green jump reflexes, but that¡¯s about it.¡± Alexander explained again.


    ¡°Are you serious?¡± Brig asked him, propping herself up to stare at him, big blue eyes searching his.


    He shrugged, ¡°What do you mean? Yeah, I get why you might get that impression, we used to hit the town up kind of regularly back in Safe Harbor. We set each other up and stuff though, Granny never even hinted at anything else. Georgia said the same thing, so I know what it looks like, but nothing¡¯s going on.¡±


    Brig thought that over and asked a sharp question, ¡°Did you ever see her talking to the same person twice after these ¡®set ups¡¯?¡±


    That was a weird question. He frowned and thought about it. You know? Now that he tried to recall, he didn¡¯t think so. There weren¡¯t that many humans left, and everybody had their favorite places to mingle so it wasn¡¯t like there wasn¡¯t any opportunity.


    ¡°Brig, you know I can¡¯t into people very well, but I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re going somewhere with this. I don¡¯t remember Granny ever going back for seconds, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re asking. I figured she was very particular. Kind of like you, but with less destruction of egos and tears.¡± He told the red-haired lady currently gazing intently at him.


    She cursed under her breath, ¡°God protects idiot savants.¡±


    Brig sat up and then delivered a flick of judgment against his left nipple, stinging him into covering it with his hand.


    ¡°Ouch! What the hell did Lefty ever do to you?¡± He demanded.


    ¡°Hold that thought.¡± Brig instructed and flicked Righty.


    Hard.


    ¡°Yeaow!!¡± He complained and rubbed both, rolling over to protect his chest from any more attacks.


    ¡°You¡¯re a doofus Alexander. Ben and the Dame have been a thing ever since the Dragon.¡± Brig told him, as if explaining that the sky was blue.


    What? No shot. He was slow on the uptake, sometimes, but that was something he would have known. Right?


    ¡°You¡¯re making that up! Ben? And the Dame? Dame Sanchez, who won¡¯t be seen eating with the peasants? That Dame Sanchez?¡± He grilled his assailant.


    ¡°Do you ever see Ben in the Survivor¡¯s Well after eight-thirty?¡± Brig answered his question with one of her own.


    He didn¡¯t. But then, Benjamin had never been a hard drinker or a gadfly either. He went out, had a meal, drank some beer, and talked shop with the other Adventurers who lived mostly outside in the Green, which often included Alexander, and then went to bed to get fresh for more monster slaying the next day.


    ¡°That¡¯s not anything new,¡± Alexander countered, standing and wishing he had some clothes, ¡°I love the guy, but he¡¯s worse at people than I am. Besides, he likes to stay combat ready.¡±


    Brig stood and stretched languorously, enjoying the post conquest limberness before she took his proverbial feet out from under him, saying lightly, ¡°Ben is staying all up in that crazy cootch. He¡¯s plowing royal fields. He¡¯s got that wanna be Rapunzel bent over the dining room table ripping and tearing-¡±


    ¡°Gods, okay, I get it!¡± Alexander interrupted, waving hands to ward off the description before his mind¡¯s eye could be contaminated any further.


    He still wasn¡¯t certain he believed it. Not that Benjamin Grisham lacked the will, but that Dame Sanchez would have shown any interest. She was real dead set on Nobles not mixing with the riff raff. Nobody really knew who got counted as Nobility or not in her internal hierarchy though, and the Dame claimed it was rude to discuss one¡¯s place in court. Very gauche.


    ¡°But, and I can¡¯t believe after all that¡¯s gone on that I¡¯m even bothering to want to know about my coworkers¡¯ sex lives, how on earth did Ben get her on board with interclass dalliance?¡± He asked, corrupted by the red-haired succubus who was evidently getting slightly chilly, by the way her arms wrapped around herself, hands tucked into armpits.


    He didn¡¯t blame her, the chill was really starting to be something, now that the sweat was cooling. In a second, he¡¯d have to turn on Sterling to get some heat in this joint. But first, he had to know.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s because he¡¯s a knight. You know, the Scroll says it in his class. So, it¡¯s fine, maybe a little bit of slumming on her part, but okay in whatever delusion she¡¯s got going on for a lady to have an affair with a big, burly knight in literal shining armor, who also slayed a dragon for her hand.¡± Brig explained, as if reading off sports scores.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Slayed a dragon for her hand? Alexander thought he was going to laugh until he passed out.


    When he came up for air, he was a convert.


    It was something the Dame would come up with. Just enough fairy tale to turn the powerful as hell but Fantasia laden Hydromancer¡¯s crank. Alexander had possessed the mental trait Fantasia, which boosted your magic potential, but was a byproduct of slight insanity, which, for some reason, made a person a bit more in tune with the mana flowing through the world. His had come in the form of being certain that the world was a dream, a long, slow unwaking fantasy of the mind. The Dame was a step further, she was in a fairy tale for real, like one of those Japanese comic books or whatever. Her commitment to the delusion was part of what made her so ridiculously strong at magic.


    ¡°Wow.¡± He finished.


    Brig returned the amused expression with one of her own, adding ¡°I know, right? Wicked funny. But that big ¡®ol, dour faced, tough as nails sonofabitch, is right up her alley. And he actually did smack the piss out of that dragon when it tried to eat her, so that was pretty awesome. I totally tried to thanks bang him after, cause he did the same for me, if you remember, but by the time my legs were uncrippled, the Dame was already taking our guy to pound town and I don¡¯t get in the way of couple shit.¡±


    Alexander had learned today. He¡¯d learned a couple of things. First, when Alvin tells you he¡¯s got something bomber in the bottle, he¡¯s not lying. Second, Brig was less meathead than she let on. Third¡­he might have been ignoring and/or been completely oblivious to a crush from Annita Nguyen for a long time.


    So, that was his bad. Now he had a real dilemma: how to proceed without making his friend sad? Worse, did he reciprocate romantic notions? He could immediately check the box that read ¡°Would you smash?¡±


    He¡¯d seen Granny Nguyen naked, yes, instantly he would agree to rub body parts until they made an awful mess. But could he do that knowing she wanted maybe something more, if he didn¡¯t as well? Probably not, Alexander decided quickly. He had more respect for her than that. That left the question unanswered, did he like Annita in a non-platonic way? And what about the woman next to him? Friends? Definitely. More? He had trouble even imagining the Oread settled down. Brigitte O¡¯Connor, while she¡¯d gone on an Alexander only diet since their arrival in Falcon¡¯s Rest, hadn¡¯t given any sign of being interested in ¡°couples shit¡±. This probably wasn¡¯t the time to hash that out with himself, because he had another pressing issue: he was starting to freeze his jimmies off.


    ¡°Brig, as much fun as this has been, and, whooo boy! I think we need to find some clothes before hypothermia sets in. Also, that¡¯s your armor over there, you¡¯re welcome. That big cavalry lance over there is yours too, you smashed your old one up giving that panther a spear elbow off the top rope, super cool, by the way. Kim put a triple piercing rune onto it to make it punch through armor and Soak, somehow.¡± Alexander rambled.


    Brig¡¯s ice blue eyes widened at the enormity of the gift and ran over to hug him, lifting him up and shaking him back and forth, squealing, ¡°Oh thank you, thank you, you feathery sweet fucker you!¡±


    When the Oread released him, so he could pull air into his lungs again, he coughed, ¡°No problem!¡± and they opened the door to the smithy, bound for their next adventure: to find their clothes.


    Midday sun greeted them, a gorgeous white coat of fresh powder that turned Falcon¡¯s Rest into a wintery post card of a town. The wall, with its flying buttresses and arches, and battlements, stood out majestically around the periphery of the settlement.


    Winter was a slow season. Unlike pre-Pulse, there was no television, no internet, no digital games, or entertainment of any kind. Lighting was also a nontrivial issue, so when dark fell, people tended to congregate in communal places like the tavern or to retire to bed. The daylight hours, especially when snow was on, were when folk took care of the many chores that preindustrial life demanded. Wood to be split, harness to be repaired, tools to be serviced and maintained, clothes mended, the critical minutia most people had forgotten about before magic arrived.


    The people who stayed busy were the ones like Alexander, the craftsmen, the weavers and tailors, the people who made stuff. The carpenters making handles and frames. And the Adventurers, the warrior classed citizens who drilled and sparred and patrolled the region beyond the wall to cull anything that might present a threat to the settlers.


    Most bored were the farmers, their skills were virtually unneeded for the next three months, at least, the direct application of them. A dozen agriculturally classed and husbandry oriented Matriculated settlers had their heads together in the Survivor¡¯s Well, planning food plots, rotations, supply chains, and fertilization regimes. Those twelve men and women were figuring out how to turn Falcon¡¯s Rest into a self-sufficient beacon of civilization.


    Alexander and Getsome¡¯s red haired front liner stood briefly, squinting against aggressively bright light reflected off of snow, going slightly blue in a fifteen-degree wind chill, wearing their skins and a smile. Less a smile every second, it was friggin cold!


    Fortunately, the small side street that led to his workshop was empty, there not being much on this side of town other than now vacant lots and, on down the road, the empty market. Most people would be inside, unless¡­


    Just as the thought occurred to him, a mule bearing a cart with a plow affixed to it turned down the street, powerful hooved legs throwing clouds of snow as the mule high stepped, enjoying the light work of snow plowing. The driver of the plow-cart was the resident horse trainer, and she threw a thumbs up at them as she passed by, with a double for the red-haired Oread.


    ¡°Figures.¡± Alexander stated.


    ¡°Yeah, my booty is too fine. You keep doing those squats and lunges Alexander, you¡¯ll catch up to my greatness.¡± Brig encouraged, shameless.


    ¡°So, you really think Granny¡¯s got a case?¡± He asked, ignoring Brig¡¯s Brigness, sort of hoping it wasn¡¯t true, mostly to spare him having to acknowledge that he might have brain damage to have missed it.


    Brig dipped her chin, sad that a woman with an otherwise good head on her shoulders should have the ill fortune to catch feelings for the tall, dark, and handsome doofus next to her.


    ¡°Ayuh, El Presidente, I¡¯m afraid so. She probably didn¡¯t want to spook you, given how much of a workaholic, half feral ding-dong you are. Like trying to tame a stray cat, if you get clingy on them too fast, they just run back into the weeds.¡± Brig judged sagely.


    Alexander did not care to be compared to a feral tomcat, but he wasn¡¯t prepared to debate it standing in the snow.


    ¡°Whatever, I¡¯ll try to do right by her later. We gotta get some clothes though, I think I¡¯m losing feeling in critical anatomy.¡± He complained.


    They took off at a trot, the run helping with the cold, and only a few minutes later stood before the doors of the old church. Both of them came to the sudden realization that they had forgotten someone. Simultaneously, sharing a worried stare, they cried, ¡°What about Kim!?¡±


    What about Kim indeed. A knock on the door, a few moments hopping foot to foot with freezing feet, revealed Lucy, who ushered them in with an understanding pat on the shoulder and a chair, with blankets over their shoulders to stave off the chill.


    ¡°Poor dears,¡± the tavern owner commented, ¡°My Alvin and Tom set you up proper. I told them to dilute it, but they insisted that the first tasting had to be at maximum power. Well, they both got a spanking, don¡¯t you worry.¡±


    The lascivious grin she bore was toothy enough to make that statement more than metaphorical, and he really did not need that kind of information.


    ¡°So, we uh, we lost Kim.¡± Alexander admitted, ashamed.


    Lucy shook her head, her blond bangs waving gently, ¡°No you didn¡¯t. He passed out over in the corner and left on his own this morning. The three of you got a game of strip poker going with the regular crowd. You two lost early and walked out, saying you¡¯d find your own way home and told us all to suck on your toes when we offered to at least deliver your clothes and check on you.¡±


    Oh. Well, small miracles, he decided, relieved.


    ¡°Does that mean our clothes are still here?¡± Brig checked, for once sounding relieved, just when he wasn¡¯t certain anything at all could bother her.


    ¡°Ayuh, right here on the table where you left them.¡± Lucy gestured to a neat stack of folded items.


    Damn. Honestly? Not the worst that could have happened to them.


    ¡°Man, that is a relief.¡± Brig sighed and started to don her casual wear slacks and turtleneck.


    Alexander joined her, his own sturdy pants covering up the boys giving him some much-needed decency.


    ¡°Sorry for, you know, flapping about.¡± He said, sheepish.


    Lucy let a slow smirk play over her lips, ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know, there wasn¡¯t so much flapping as the rumors made out.¡±


    Zing! He¡¯d set her up for that one, and bowed slightly with a salute to acknowledge the point, before resuming his dress.


    ¡°It was the pool!¡± He pretended alarm, quoting a meandering, pointless bit of television about nothing at all, and the Outsider woman chuckled at the reference.


    ¡°Thanks, Lucy, and, pass my regards to Alvin and Tom for me, they have outdone themselves. But that Vodka? Maybe wait until tier four to serve it neat, that shit should probably go over half its volume of ice, at least. And with, like, a big basket of tater wedges or something to help soak it up.¡± Brig told the tavernkeeper, giving her feedback, as she always did when she tested one of their brews.


    ¡°It¡¯s fine dears, just don¡¯t make a habit of it. I¡¯ll make sure to protect the unsuspecting from any future incidents.¡± Lucretia promised, slightly contrite over the mess of her husbands¡¯ making.


    Alexander noticed that, in the strange yet familiar scene outside a window, flakes of snow had begun joining their brethren on the ground.


    ¡°Damn, it¡¯s coming on again. That Atlantic sure isn¡¯t giving up.¡± He noted.


    ¡°Nope.¡± Brig agreed, her eyes going distant at some effort to find predictive power in the gusts scattering the fine flakes.


    ¡°Going to do this another two days, you mark my words.¡± Lucy foretold.


    Forecasting the weather over a countertop was a time-honored tradition amongst Mainerlanders. However, as much as he would have liked to sit around, he¡¯d used half the day already and accomplished very little, except for making protein donations to the indomitable vixen next to him. The general sense of well-being that followed proper bonking hadn¡¯t yet left him, so he figured he needed to go to the lab and work on the plans for utilizing imp cores, a water treatment plant, and a way to get the plumbing of Falcon¡¯s Rest back in operation.


    ¡°Welp!¡± He slapped his leg and launched himself off his stool, ¡°I need to get to it. Now that my favorite monster hunters are outfitted, I need to get cracking on indoor toilets and showers. It¡¯s going to take Potter, Scott, Van, and probably that one lady, the one with the curls, she was an inspector for the EPA on gas stations, to get the old water lines up and running.¡± Alexander told the two women, and he departed with a jolly wave and a bounce in his step.


    ¡°Did you tell him about Annita?¡± Lucy asked as soon as the departing figure had closed the door.


    ¡°Yeah, he didn¡¯t have a clue.¡± Brigitte confirmed.


    ¡°And you think riding him goofy was going to help him figure things out how?¡± The tavernkeeper asked, with a skeptical lift of an eyebrow.


    ¡°Just spreading joy, Lucy, as is my wont. Besides, I don¡¯t think that one¡¯s ready to go monogamous. Good thing too, Granny might die.¡± The tall woman commented.


    Now they were getting to the good gossip!


    ¡°Oh girl, now I have to get some details. Here, coffee or hair of the dog?¡± Offered Lucy Durhamm.


    Brig thought about it, but she was going to the sparring grounds after she indulged the matronly woman¡¯s curiosity, ¡°Just coffee, and thanks. Now, what do you want to know?¡±


    Black coffee, poured precisely from a metal pot, cast steam up from its cup, wisps trailing as it was passed to its imbiber.


    ¡°Everything. Are the feathers really soft? Cause they look like they¡¯re lovely to run fingers through. Oh! If he¡¯s got the aptitude, I could tell Alvin and Tom to teach him some tricks. I¡¯ve just about got them trained.¡± The tavernkeeper gabbed.


    ¡°Yes, and no. Alexander¡¯s firmly on team vagina, but only mano y mano, and, no butt stuff. Not for him anyway, me I gotta get my fix every now and then. You¡¯d think that tush were made of glass, won¡¯t even let me try to show him the joys of the backdoor, a prostate¡¯s totally wasted on him. However¡­¡± And Brig began to regale her friend in the exploits of the morning.


    Unaware of the appalling rumors that would begin circulating in the coming months, quite baseless he would assure anyone, Alexander returned to his laboratory. He stopped by his kitchen for a granola bar. A real one, and made with rolled oats, crushed pecans, and vanilla extract brought from Safe Harbor, held together by hazelnut butter and dire bee honey.


    Granny, the woman now circling around in his brain for reasons other than her critical role in agriculture, had used the Entling blood from those monsters slain along the way to Falcon¡¯s Rest to get vanilla, coffee, pecan, almond, peanuts, and cocoa orchards to start within long greenhouses in a few vacant lots, along with dedicated houses for medicinals and more exotic stuff, like the Muspelheim dungeon plants, which needed a whole other sort of care.


    Vanilla vines were already starting to cover the long trellises rearing seven feet high, according to the bragging of the golden eyed Dryad. Arabica and Robusta coffee plant beans were, so far, successfully growing sprouting into saplings, but the white stuff coming down outside and bitter cold a little early were conditions not conducive to that native climate. They might require substantial horticulture to get a Maine hardy variant, but, for the foreseeable future, the greenhouses were the only way to provide the subtropical climate needed. Same for the cocoa.


    Annita relished the challenge.


    Alexander chewed the soft, tasty bar, thoughtful. What to do about Granny Nguyen?


    Well, first, he¡¯d have to be mature and talk to her, adult to adult. A snort sounded, echoing across the bookshelves, which proclaimed how he estimated that was going to go.


    Anyhow, these were problems for later, right now, he was going to ride the, thankfully, much diluted, and far less overt, wave of dire bee honey. Unlike the last time he¡¯d tried it, which had turned out to be royal jelly very distinct in its effects on humans from the regular honey, he now enjoyed the stuff responsibly. In small amounts, it tended to open your mind to more flexible thinking, which is what he needed to figure out how to get running water back in Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    They had the water tower. They had the pipes, which probably were rife with busts from the harder post Pulse winters.


    Nobody knew why Gaia¡¯s climate was shifting, but it seemed to be consistent, not that two winters was anything like long enough to know for certain. That meant probably replumbing most of the town to accommodate colder winters. PVC was right out, it couldn¡¯t be replaced. Same thing with PEX, cross lined polyethylene pipe. Copper was a better option, but he didn¡¯t know if they had enough. They could send out parties to scavenge up from the nearby town hardware stores, but then you had to brave the environment. Every trip outside the wall carried at least some amount of risk.


    Long term, copper would be a problem. There were no active copper mines in Maine, not since the 1970¡¯s. There was ore though, some chalcopyrite over in Hancock County, by his survey maps. Too close to Safe Harbor, that was. That lead sent him down a rabbit hole whereupon he discovered some other geological surveys in his old man¡¯s book shelf, which documented plenty of available sites that had been drilled, with estimates on tonnage. The silver mine behind town, surprisingly, had a fair-sized copper component, it had just never been utilized, because it wasn¡¯t efficient to extract. However, there was plenty of lead. He grimaced at that thought. The last thing they needed was lead pipes, so he struck that thought. Could tin work? No tin ore in Maine, he discovered, but a bunch of zinc.


    The volcanic belts on the coast and slightly inland were the main sources of metal ore¡­Wait, the new volcano generated by Muspelheim might have kicked up some new ores with its emergence! But, again, that was Guild territory for sure. On and on, he went through ideas, checked references in the library, and annotated his chalkboard.


    Sunset caught him still working through solutions to the task.


    When he realized that he was writing rather easily in the dark, having been too caught up to remember to light a candle, it drove home that things had truly changed for him.


    In ways other than growing into adulthood, he was a different man than the youth who had stood in this room previously. He scrubbed fingers through the downy hair feathers on his scalp, and, briefly relished the softness. On casual inspection, he looked like he bore a slightly shaggy haircut. He¡¯d grown used to it. Unless someone else mentioned he didn¡¯t even think about the change.


    His eyes still bothered him occasionally, mostly when he watched the Adventurer¡¯s spar. The double vision was hard to get used to. Granny might have been onto something, concentrating intensely on someone made their outlines darken, like they were thrown into high contrast mode, and he started to see the changes in their outline slightly ahead of the movement. It was the reverse of an echo.


    Time space shenanigans were nothing unheard of, and, really, it was only a matter of time before he grew used to the optical hallucination and could make use of it. Half a second of warning before a monster tried to jam a hidden stinger into your guts was actually really helpful. Like any tool, he needed practice. Tomorrow he¡¯d go join the Adventurers to spar and get a handle on it, he¡¯d been skipping recently to focus on the workshop tasks. Now that those were finished, he had some time on his hands to work on close combat drills.


    A small, satisfied smile found its way to his features thinking on the Armourer upgrade. Get stronger, Little Falcon, he whispered to himself in his study, get strong enough to fix everything, to turn it all back. That had been a goal set in profound ignorance. It pleased him to chase it still though, so Alexander retired that day content that he was walking the path.


    It was an early rise for Alexander that morning, he beat sunrise by at least an hour and a half. The familiar routines of stoking the stove, less than he had needed to the last winter he¡¯d endured, thanks to the incredible work Potter and his boys had done on the place. The Jules Heaters on his roof emitted a gentle heat on the second floor, but the ground floor still got chilly overnight. Besides, he needed the hot coals to boil his water for oats porridge and coffee.


    An eggs, bacon, porridge, and hot coffee breakfast got the ball rolling mentally, and, by the time he¡¯d finished doing the dishes, stacking them neatly in a rack to dry, he was thoroughly ready for the day. A rag bath with hot water and soap got him clean, and a straight razor took the stubble off his chin. He did not much care for shaving, but it was necessary since he hated hair on his face. Especially when it might come in feathered.


    Following the self-maintenance tasks, Alexander dressed in sturdy canvas cargo pants, the pockets on his thighs carrying nothing, at the moment. If he were going outside the wall that would be different, of course. For now, the dark grey and tan pants were empty, although his heavy leather belt held several pouches, as did most peoples¡¯. Standard kit for leaving the house was a belt knife, a small survival kit, and a first aid kit. His belt knife was larger than most, being the Messer he¡¯d made back when forging to learn the techniques to work golem based super metal into his naginata. More a short sword than an actual knife, the Germans of old-world Europe had had a peculiar sense of humor for a blade thirty inches long, heavy single edged, with a small cross guard, with a ring-shaped protrusion on the guard to help protect the hand.


    A quick eye brought up the knife¡¯s description and he closed the door behind him with a bit of pride in the work.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="597">


    Silver Stone Messer: a warforged blade crafted of Far Eastern techniques western design, using the refined body of a silver golem. This war knife possesses superior cutting power cleaving armor easily and heightened durability compared to average. Its silver will debilitate the undeathly or unclean that it touches, as if sanctified.


    Ignores 10 soak. Sundering. Spectre bane.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    It was a big ¡®ol chopper of a knife, with some bonuses. Using the supernatural components of a silver ore golem had granted it additional utility at getting through Soak, damaging armor, which included the natural armor of scaled beasts, and the silver damaged ghostly or spectral creatures. He hadn¡¯t had to deal with any of those yet, but better to have and not need, and all that.


    His bow he left behind, it wouldn¡¯t be needed, as he was too busy these days to be able to go a roving out. Besides, his travel ban was still in effect, unless he went with either Getsome or Impervious as security. That irked, and he frowned whenever he allowed himself to dwell on it. Given that it was a waste of the Adventurer groups¡¯ precious time to be escorting him around while he hunted game that could be taken by any of the scouts, or doing a canvassing of the terrain that Julia could do more efficiently using her hawk familiar, he resigned himself to being useful within the city¡¯s towering walls.


    Ben had his naginata, so he was going to have to spend a little time creating a replacement. Alexander was a fan of keeping his distance, using his agility, and being able to keep the nasties outside gutting distance. A painful memory of being hacked open by a Yeti reinforced this decision.


    Snow crunched under his heavy boots and steam clouded from his breath. Lucy¡¯s forecast was proving accurate, the snow hadn¡¯t stopped, even though the howling wind had. The plow cart, still being driven by Carol Gates, was approaching and he stopped to wave at the woman. He was considerably warmer, and fully dressed, compared to the last time he¡¯d seen her. A single thumbs up from the woman in response to his greeting, and the mule pulled plow left behind a clean track about four feet wide and a pile of snow added to the sidewalk about half a foot high.


    A team of men and women bearing snow shovels and a big wagon, now emptied of the heavy cargo it had born when they arrived almost two months past would be along in a bit, piling snow onto the conveyance for deposition outside the city.


    Snow was a city-wide challenge. Everybody pitched in to deal with it, unless you had specialized skills that needed use elsewhere. He was normally amongst those. The Adventurers and warriors got their daily exercise in shoveling and hauling the fluffy white bullshit that was passing the fifty-inch mark since it had started a few days ago.


    Ahh, to be Down East, where the ocean kept things milder, Alexander mused.


    He carried on with his walk, his heavy down jacket repelling the cold easily. If there was one thing that the overproduction and high-octane consumerism had done well it was to create plenty for the clothing of peoples. A single hunting or outdoors shop could, to an incredibly sophisticated degree, clothe nearly two hundred people. If winter¡¯s new normal was to be this intense, that would prove necessary, given that the textiles industry was rebuilding from scratch. The weavers and preparers of linen of Falcon¡¯s Rest needed a couple of years to get their feet properly beneath them. When children started to be a thing again, that demand would explode.


    Such considerations occupied him all the way to a hanger style building that had been an auto shop. This was the domain of Scott and Van, who spent most of their time working over designs and ideas together. With all the snow around, and the ambient cold, Scott¡¯s abilities were far more potent, and required much less expenditure of his mana or stamina. Ice sculptures cropping up around town attested to his growing mastery. Alexander enjoyed the kind of stop motion tale of the three little pigs down one side street, it was a clever gag.


    He wasn¡¯t here to discuss the fine arts, however, he was here to talk plumbing.


    When he opened the door, a bell connected jingled cheerfully, and the two men, huddled over a set of drawings, with a big overhead lamp created in the Japanese style, heavy, wax coated paper and candles to provide light.


    A warm orange glow within the otherwise starkly utilitarian shop made for an odd dichotomy inside Scott¡¯s design space.


    To each his own, Alexander figured.


    ¡°Aha! Dear Leader has returned!¡± the Cryomancer architect announced, with an enthusiasm that made Alexander¡¯s hairs stand on end.


    These two were up to something, there was no doubt about it.


    Hoping to curtail any sidetracks, he broached his topic first, hurriedly saying ¡°How are we with the waterline, sewer, and storm drain situation?¡±


    Van Richards, the man who was mostly responsible for handling the earthworks, given that he could rather rapidly manipulate the rocky substrate beneath the town, wagged his hand back and forth before answering a gruff, ¡°We¡¯re working on it. It isn¡¯t going to be easy, not without a way to generate a steady head pressure. And we¡¯re still having a bastard of a time finding all the heating oil tanks people buried and never reported or documented. Wynona Saki is going ape trying to test for soil contamination. Whoever was running city hall around here never heard of state reporting standards.¡±


    A sleepy looking middle-aged man with a friendly smile, who never quite gave anyone a straight answer popped up in Alexander¡¯s mind. Yeah, that sort of checked out with what little he¡¯d known about the town¡¯s mayor. Ditto for his city council of similarly sleepy looking friends who basically did as little as possible to keep the lights on around town.


    Getting the tanks out of the ground was necessary to prevent them contaminating people¡¯s wells. That was the source of tension, the drive to get public water going again. They could source water easily from wells, if there was one thing you could do in Maine, it was dig down and find water beneath the rock. Without machines, however, drilling through rock was nontrivial.


    Thanks be to all the gods above, below, and in between for Van and his terramancy.


    But, to get a system going for public water, guaranteed clean, free from bacteria, metal ions, and other unwanted solutes sufficient to get an indoor plumbing set up, they needed a closed loop, with enough pressure to guarantee steady output. The source of water had been a large reservoir pond, the pressure coming from the water tower. The water tower had been drained, mostly by Alexander when he needed emergency water without hauling it from the creeks.


    They could get a steam engine powered pump system going to recreate the pressure, filling the water tower to get head pressure in the system, once all the pipes had been installed and proven sound. But not until then.


    Water treatment and sewage was a whole other problem. Just because Matriculated humans couldn¡¯t really get sick, didn¡¯t mean the inevitable, hopefully, non-matriculated children couldn¡¯t. Or Normals immigrating from other settlements. They had to plan ahead, Falcon¡¯s Rest wasn¡¯t just a club for a bunch of weirdos who didn¡¯t fit in at Safe Harbor, it was a bastion of humanity in the far north. They needed to be prepared to accommodate more people. More people meant getting the infrastructure figured out as soon as possible.


    Alexander had faith though, they¡¯d already come a long way, getting the town¡¯s water problems solved was small potatoes compared to that wall. It just took time, was all.


    ¡°Okay, okay, we¡¯ve gone over the contamination problems already,¡± Alexander chided the men, trying to keep things solutions oriented, ¡°Nothing to do there but let Saki do her thing. We can deal with contamination better when we know where our lines are going to be. Are we still good for tearing out the main roads and re-running all our water through one box trench and the sewage through a separate box trench, side by side in a utility tunnel?¡±


    The idea was to set up the town¡¯s water infrastructure like a traffic system, but instead of lanes the pipes would be in isolated stone ducts. If sewage lines broke or some other source of contamination, like the damned oil heater tanks and unmarked wells with their elevated lead and copper ion concentrations, managed to saturate the soil near the water lines, then the drinking water supply wouldn¡¯t be compromised. It was a solid plan, just labor intensive. Big stone tunnels were expensive, unless you knew a guy who could convince the granite to just naturally form a tunnel with two hollow boxes running along the base.


    Alexander did, in fact, know such a guy, and Van said it wasn¡¯t so much a matter of difficulty as stamina. There was only so much stone he could move in a day without blowing through his core¡¯s reserves of mana and needing a nap and a big meal to recover.


    The architect and stone mage looked back and forth between each other, the plans laying spread out on the wheeled utility table, and their elected leader.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess so. No reason not to get started on it I reckon.¡± Van conceded, not really having any counter play.


    ¡°Are you sure you want to have such big tunnels under the town?¡± Scott asked, the architect in him screaming about efficiency of materials and labor, to say nothing of weight supported atop the stone corridors beneath major roads, ¡°It¡¯s a lot of Van¡¯s time, and, if we do the rail system like we talked about later, there¡¯s no way they can run on top of those tunnels. Or even cross them, for that matter.¡±


    Alexander was way ahead of the man; he¡¯d thought this over after the last time that objection had been raised.


    ¡°I thought it over again. Way I see it, we don¡¯t need to run trains into the town¡¯s center in the first place. All staging for large transportation should stay outside the walls.¡± He told the older men, noting their surprised expressions.


    ¡°Falcon¡¯s Rest is going to expand. One day, probably not all that far down the road even, that wall is going to resemble the keep of a castle, the construction inside won¡¯t be anything like it is now, we¡¯ll start building up, raising the density. Like it or not, the work the carpenters and you guys did this autumn was just a Band-Aid. We¡¯re going to eventually be following a Barcelona model, rectangular, almost self-contained neighborhoods, greenspaces for parks, orchards, and gardens within, and rooftop gardens with Jules Heaters to help control the climate inside. It scales well with population and lets us expand in an orderly fashion. And it¡¯ll be easier for you guys and Potter with his carpenters to have a nice, simple, well defined building plan to follow.¡± Alexander described his plans with the kind of focused intensity of a zealot.


    Then both frowned, an objection reached simultaneously.


    ¡°But then why all the effort-¡±


    ¡°That means redoing it all in just a couple-¡±


    ¡°Ah, ah!¡± Alexander cut them off, raising a hand, ¡°I know, we¡¯ll have to redo it. That¡¯s fine. Think of this as a pilot study. No matter what, we¡¯re probably going to have to completely trash whatever we try first anyway. None of us are engineers or city planners. We have an idea, it looks good, but we don¡¯t have data on how well it works or what other problems are going to come up.¡±


    Neither liked that assessment, even if they saw the wisdom of it. Just because they were all giving it their absolute best, didn¡¯t mean they wouldn¡¯t make serious mistakes along the way. So much had been lost in the Pulse. So much technical skill and flat-out life experience. When all the old men turned to stone, they mostly took their expertise with them. There was no replacing that.


    ¡°Okay, I guess. But I¡¯m charging scale!¡± Van Richards told him, his normally serious demeanor cracking a little at the running joke.


    Scott Kaczynski chewed a lip, thinking about the sheer scale of the planned urban development problems they faced, but said nothing in opposition. He knew Alexander was right, they just didn¡¯t have the facts to come up with a better strategy. There was historical precedent in the young man¡¯s concept for an extensive subterranean system of tunnels for handling utilities. New York City had its rather baroque sewar and subway system. Paris had its catacombs. A well-developed underground wasn¡¯t altogether unheard of or even a greatly limiting factor in city design.


    ¡°Alright,¡± He signed off on the proposal aloud, ¡°I¡¯m on board. Let¡¯s just make certain we nail down and annotate as much as we can. No sense doing a pilot study if you¡¯re not going to document things so we, or the ones who follow, can learn from it.¡±


    A solid idea.


    ¡°Done. Let¡¯s get Jules in on this, and as many people as we can, really.¡± Alexander decided, now that his professional advisors were on board, ¡°I can go see Potter, then I¡¯ll visit the carpenters. It just occurred to me, but a big tunnel well below the frost line that runs central to all the structures in Falcon¡¯s Rest is basically begging to be used to geothermally climate control the houses. If Riley can figure out how to pump the air to heat exchange, we might have made residential heating and cooling more efficient and created an emergency escape route for the populace if things go completely catawampus on us and we need a place to hide until we can get to Lucy.¡±


    Both men became thoughtful at that last, they clearly hadn¡¯t considered what if the city were attacked by something that got over the wall and put the citizens in danger so great evacuation was the only recourse. Such considerations were why Alexander Gerifalte made the big bucks.


    The meeting adjourned then, both men needed to figure out the details of how they were going to tackle the utility tunnel and he didn¡¯t need to micromanage that, his was the big picture role.


    Out into the morning sunlight he strode, glad that they were checking off the really important boxes now. Survival was virtually ensured, at least for now. They were aiming higher, for a return to modernity.


    ¡°Just takes time, Little Falcon.¡± He reminded himself with a chuckle, trying not worry about how much lay before them.


    From the corner of his eye, a black silhouette moved a half second before the snow exploded into a powdered white cloud, a long sword reaching for his chest.


    Reflexes honed on Yetis, goblins, and monster panthers had the Entropic Venator turning before the assailant had stepped into the thrust and, instead of taking him through the heart, the thick rapier entered a lung, punching through his jacket easily and out the back.


    A searing agony began and Alexander reached for his class¡¯s aid instinctively.


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    Ruthless


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    Doubt, hesitation, and pain washed away under the cloak of his class¡¯s mantle and Alexander grabbed the man¡¯s sword hand and drew his Messer with the other, unleashing as he did Greater Entropic Field in a brief pulse that blew away the invisibility the man had been using. The chaos magic swept away the well-built, lightly armored form¡¯s Soak as well. His grey eyes widened in panic, as he felt his defenses blown away, but the black outlines showed no effective resistance, he''d been stunned by having his magic shattered. Up rose his arm, and Alexander chopped the heavy Messer down into the man¡¯s neck, slashing open vessels as it bit halfway through.


    Blood sprayed, red on white around him, along the arc of his stroke and up from the pulsing geyser of an opened carotid. Alexander cursed from white hot pain lancing from the tug of the corpse¡¯s weight pulling on the metal blade in his chest, a pain that should have paralyzed him with shock, muffled instead by the layers of separation of Gaian magic.


    Panic faded to blankness in his attacker¡¯s eyes, he¡¯d failed to even attempt to respond to the twisting magic inside himself, and the viciousness of the counterattack from the youth transfixed on his sword. Alexander pulled the long blade free from himself, grimacing against the agony, and threw it aside. A hand shaking tore into the first aid pouch on his belt and he packed the frontal wound with a cotton gauze coated in Mandrake Quik Clot.


    His breathing was labored, the impaled lung would probably collapse or fill with blood.


    Crunching footsteps pulled his head around and he barely got the near short sword knife between a swinging axe blade and his face. Smoldering heat shimmers of class enhanced power behind the strike threw sparks from the hard golem steel and his parry failed to prevent the bit of the axe from tearing a line out of his collarbone, not breaking it, but burning through it like a cutting torch. More searing pain was quickly buried beneath endorphins, survival instincts, and the murderous calm of Ruthless.


    Alexander fired from the hand that had been holding pressure to his chest a trio of Chaos Strikes, watching the black and grey energies bite deeply into the man¡¯s face and chest, the incendiary classed axe wielding man screeched at the feeling of flesh peeling away, like a flame combined with acid unraveling his body. A hard man though, he held onto the weapon and deflected the first two handed swipe Alexander took at his head, and the second, trying to back up, feet stumbling in the fresh fallen snow.


    The third stroke wasn¡¯t aimed at the man¡¯s head, but at the hand holding the axe haft and half his fingers and one thumb flew into the air, swiftly followed by the axe, but Alexander was watching a black outline try to draw a knife and he rammed the hand back toward the sheath with one hand, pinning the knife.


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    Baleful Smite


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    His other arm, channeling the power of the Entropic Venator, stuffed the Messer up into the man¡¯s guts, driving into lungs and heart. A single lethal thrust, ignoring Soak, that burst chaos magic within the victim¡¯s chest, ravaging his insides.


    ¡°Huooh!¡± A surprised grunt was all the second attacker uttered before he too fell dead at Alexander¡¯s feet.


    Shock was setting in now, from a deep, semi-fire cauterized chop broken open by his exertion, in his shoulder area and the stab wound. He dropped the Messer without intending to, the hand going swiftly numb and his blood running freely down that arm.


    Panting, Alexander spun in place, his eyes digging through the surroundings to find threats. Nothing appeared. A movement two blocks away made him dive for cover, just as a staccato of rifle rounds unloaded from the top of a garage.


    Cover, in this case, was one of the dead men, and Alexander pulled him up as a shield, heard the meaty thuds of bullets tearing into flesh. Distantly, he catalogued the rifle by its familiar report as a light caliber, a .223 NATO. Despite the jerks of impact, none of the small fast-moving rounds managed to bite through light armor, meat, and bone.


    Alexander slung a Chaos Strike at the source of the gunfire and scrambled to his feet into a sprint, almost falling from vertigo as he did. Blood loss was slowing him down, but he pushed himself to slide around the corner of the auto shop. No shouts from where he¡¯d sent the magic, so, a miss. Most things screamed when hit by his chaos magic.


    ¡°Attack! We¡¯re under attack! Gunfire on top of the Carrol Street garage, small caliber rifle! Two Classed dead, likely more enemies!¡± He shouted, as loudly as he could, which hurt his lung badly, even through whatever shielding ruthless provided.


    The pain was distant, muffled, but very real. He was badly hurt, he just didn¡¯t feel all of it yet.


    The young man slid down the wall of the building where Scott and Van were working. He heard them inside, Van called, ¡°Alexander! You alright?!¡±


    Was he alright? The surprisingly unruffled young man echoed internally. He looked down at the wounds. He¡¯d had worse. But, no, it wasn¡¯t great. He had no weapons, one arm, and one lung functioning, and he was probably bleeding heavily internally. The Mandrake leaf could do wonders, but he couldn¡¯t apply it along the entire length of the impaling wound. His venator focused mind suppressed a note of panic on that note.


    ¡°Nope! I¡¯m alive, but cut up some, deep puncture through a lung.¡± Alexander answered, voice clinical beneath the calming effect of the ability.


    He didn¡¯t need to give the enemy any more information than he had to.


    ¡°Van! Scott! Do not exit the building.¡± He ordered; his voice labored.


    An assassination. That¡¯s what this was. And he was definitely the target, or the killers wouldn¡¯t have waited until he was alone.


    Scott and Van were in danger as long as he stayed here, he had to move. He needed to force the enemy to navigate the town. If he could make the sparring grounds across town they wouldn¡¯t stand a chance.


    Panting, and wracked from the pain of it, he struggled to his feet, leaning hard on the building¡¯s cold exterior. Maybe that was a bigger ¡°if¡± than he¡¯d thought.


    ¡°Gotta break for it. Good luck guys, Van, watch out for Scott.¡± Alexander implored the men inside, and he threw himself into a lumbering run, grateful when, after a few stumbling steps, his legs remembered how to do it.


    Gun fire opened up again, impacts pinging the frozen pavement, thuds into wood paneling of homes, from a different direction. A hit below his rib cage staggered him, but he kept pushing, and a swift glance down showed him a growing spot of blood just above his hip. Through and through, the damage was minimal, and he gritted his teeth against the wound.


    A break in the reports meant that the shooter had lost sightline, Alexander had put several houses between them now. He abandoned the main street, cutting between houses and took a twisting path of back ways, vacant lots, and kept his bearings on his goal, the old high school football field, where Getsome and Impervious would be drilling. That was his only real chance.


    Alexander¡¯s world spun violently then, and he was sailing in free fall, hit as if by an NFL linebacker. Fresh powder padded thinly the impact with the ground, and he blacked out for a few seconds, coming to in a sprawl, ice cold melting water from the slide filling his shirt collar with snow. A low moan accompanied his slow attempt to rise. He fell back down when he tried to use his right arm to balance.


    He was nearly upright when he got hit again, this time blasted against the thick layer of snow on the turf of the yard he¡¯d been thrown onto. The force buried him in three feet of powdered ice and threw a cloud into the air, obscuring everything in white. Gasping, agony rolling from the damage accumulating in spite of the adrenaline, he knew he was at the end of his rope.


    Weakness made his struggles to pull himself out of the hole in the packed snow almost futile.


    But only almost, desperation drove him to force his way to his feet, the huge billowing fog of ice crystals drifting slowly around him.


    This time, the distortion of compressing snow revealed the attacker¡¯s weapon: a sphere of compressed air big as a basketball.


    Alexander took a barely balanced step to the side, and it sailed by, whipping at his jacket.


    Shaking, his impeccable vision still easily tracked the vector of the attack and he pulled hard on his core¡¯s remaining energies.


    Three Chaos Strikes boiled into existence, and he willed the dense shards of destruction to sizzle back along the wind magic¡¯s trail, one after another in a line.


    An awful howling wail rose up thirty feet away that quickly turned into a gargling death rattle, announcing that sequential impacts of the ruinous energy had destroyed the assassin.


    That was the end of his strength however, he fell back into the thick drift in the yard behind one of his neighbor¡¯s houses.


    Ruthless faded. Alexander¡¯s world came apart, from the pain overload.


    He was laying there deep in the numbness of shock when an east European with an unkempt goatee, the most beautiful thing on earth, suddenly blocked his narrowing view of the clouds above, and the slowly, steadily flying flakes that came to rest on top of him.


    ¡°I have him!¡± the thick accented voice called, and Shiv roughly tore open his shirt.


    ¡°Okay, is not good, but is okay. I can deal with this.¡± The Brigid healer class chanted under his breath.


    Distantly, Alexander wished that the man did not sound so much like he was reassuring himself, as compared to reassuring the actual injured person.


    With his shirt opened, each flake of snow felt like a tiny kiss of winter. He would have giggled about it if he could do much but keep dragging air into the one lung that worked.


    Shiv got to business, and, true to the man¡¯s description so long ago, it was incredibly disconcerting to feel one¡¯s flesh being knit from inside, with nothing touching. The one-time orthopedic surgeon, a man who made his bread fixing up carpel tunnel, doing hips and knees for the elderly, or the odd shoulder reconstruction for a concrete mason who¡¯d destroyed them hand finishing far too many square feet of slab for three men¡¯s life times, let alone one, did as his class described: he wove Alexander¡¯s flesh.


    Blood vessels were tied together, becoming whole, in an itching, spiders under your skin process. Muscle fibers reconnected. The perforated bowel was repaired, and, so long as he didn¡¯t croak to sepsis in the next two days, toxic shock wouldn¡¯t be an issue. An almost comically large needle connected to a pump got inserted into Alexander¡¯s chest, and the blood filling his lung was siphoned out, before the Mandrake coated gauze was removed so that the stab wound could be closed. His collarbone being burned through made the repair difficult. Alexander could feel the bones lengthening, like a soft grinding on his skeleton as Shiv forced his body to provide the material to restore wholeness to the cleft bone. He lost consciousness sometime during that process and didn¡¯t wake up until a few hours later, in his own bed.


    His disorientation was short lived, memory of the attack came back swiftly, and adrenaline flooded him pointlessly in his bed before his fight or flight response registered that everything was done and over.


    From the side, the man to whom he owed his life, Oleksiy Shevchenko, or Shiv, was waiting.


    ¡°And the patient, how is he?¡± the medic asked, relieved that the young man had come too so quickly.


    A fast waking normally meant a complete success on the healing effort. Delayed waking often mean that something was still broken, demanding the body to stay dormant while it healed. He answered Alexander¡¯s questions with a sound, comforting bedside manner. How long did the operation take? A timeless span of fifteen minutes it had taken to have his wounds knit together. Was it normal to feel tiredness unlike anything he had ever known? Da, and for a few hours. And so on.


    The price for healing was his body¡¯s reserves, he lost five pounds of healthy weight, in addition to the blood volume.


    Shiv took the inquisition well. Alexander was trying to avoid the real question, the one that made his guts churn.


    If there was one target, had there been others?

 Chapter 21: Chickens Come Home

    The citizens of Falcon¡¯s Rest presided over four fresh graves, their occupants formally laid to rest this hour past. The honored dead, amongst the first that Alexander had known personally, were these:


    David Grosse, saddler, Ifrit with alchemical potential as a Corpus Transmutationist, who stopped three cloaked figures in the street who he hadn¡¯t recognized and died with a shout of warning on his lips to a bullet in his brain.


    Hilde Baumgartner, member of Impervious, Djinn Mirage Caster, who turned off the eyes of the three Matriculated assassins and cloaked the practice field from sharpshooters until a lightning bolt from a hidden mage slew her.


    Dan Price, carpenter, Dryad with wood manipulation class Timber Seamster, who jammed the heavy caliber rifles of the dozen or so Normal hitmen by pushing the wood stocks over their triggers and died with an acid infused knife in his belly.


    Kim Summers, machinist, Oread Runic Artificer, who traded his life for the lightning wielding assassin, buried his belt knife in the man¡¯s liver, and absorbed the bolt meant to kill Ben, the target of the hit.


    There were several grievous injured.


    Julia Bonny Richards had lost an arm and had half her face crushed by a great hammer. She was unconscious, but Shiv had stopped the brain bleeds, and the Phoenix sun that rose tomorrow would bring her back to full health. Not so for her wolf familiar, and another six of the tamed pack. They had died keeping her assailant from a final blow. That had the appearance of a personal vendetta, the man who had done it was the one who had attempted to attack her all those months back in Safe Harbor. The wannabe rapist lunatic had targeted her first, and the tamed beasts had been killed by the invaders, so they¡¯d known about the beast tamer¡¯s kennels. Probably thanks to the invisible one, a stealth scout classed whose hit attempt would have been countered by the keen noses of the wolves.


    Melinda had been cut in half by a nearly invisible crystallized air monofilament. Mark cauterized her entire abdomen, staunching the bleeding, and saved her life. She too would rise with the Phoenix sun, hale and whole.


    A few gunshot wounds from small caliber side arms inconvenienced some folk but weren¡¯t otherwise worth mentioning. Nathan¡¯s Soak aura had negated most of the damage from those small, slow-moving bullets.


    That was mostly thanks to David and Hilde, who¡¯d stolen the initiative from the assassins and kept them from targeting freely for those few precious moments. Dan kept the Normals from going to work on everybody with those rifles, which probably saved more than a few lives. A dozen 45-70 brush guns unloading into the drill field from a hundred feet away would have been a massacre.


    Benjamin killed the assassins. All of them, other than the one Kim took with him. Speed like a jack rabbit, strength like a forklift, he blew through the killers in a couple of seconds, after he broke the air monofilaments that had temporarily bound him, the same ones that sliced cleanly through Melinda, who¡¯d been in the way. Alexander¡¯s gift of a naginata crafted with a combination of pure magic infused metals had had unexpected influences on the Steel Heavy Knight¡¯s self-imbuement: Golem Argentum carried a potent Impetus increase, to one such as Ben, in addition to the Golem High Steel Might and Kim¡¯s runic Durability enhancement.


    Bad as it was, the tragedy could have been, had been intended to be, so, so much worse. It was awful enough.


    Cervantes was inconsolable. Hilde and he had been an item since the Pulse, had taken care of each other through the worst of the beginnings of the end. He was a part of Impervious because she was, otherwise, he didn¡¯t care much about what happened. Cervantes stood on a cliff now, and nobody knew what he would do. The light of his life had been snuffed.


    Riley was also broken up; Dan had been his best friend in the settlement. They¡¯d worked arm in arm on every single house in Falcon¡¯s Rest, doing the labor of six together, for months. They¡¯d been best pals since the founding of Safe Harbor. Potter swore vengeance, and nobody objected.


    Everyone had liked David. He was the stereotypical chill uncle who, if you stopped to talk to him, would eat your entire afternoon bullshitting. There wasn¡¯t a person in the settlement that didn¡¯t bear at least one craft of the garrulous leather worker. His loss would be noticed every time you walked by his porch and didn¡¯t hear a call that you knew was going to take at least an hour of your life, passed in amiable chit chat.


    Despite his relentless poker face, Kim Summers¡¯ dry wit had made him friends across town, alongside his gluttony for work. If it had a simple machine involved with it, Kim had probably laid hand to it at some point or other. He¡¯d also smelted down so many cars that raw steel wasn¡¯t going to be an issue for a little while. Without him, the smithy was less than half as capable, its projects on indefinite hold for lack of a craftsman talented and experienced enough to execute them.


    None of those men and women could be replaced. They were each of them a priceless piece of Falcon¡¯s Rest, contributors to the cause of mankind¡¯s efforts to survive the apotheosis of Gaia. More, they were loved by their neighbors.


    Alexander Gerifalte was devastated. These people had died because of him. They¡¯d left lives of relative comfort because of him. And it hadn¡¯t been the beasts, the monsters, the dungeons that had killed them. It was people. It was their own kind. An unthinkable betrayal. The Guilds, it seemed, had decided that they wanted blood in exchange for the lost wealth of those dungeons, whose presence was a threat to what precious little humanity was left. Precious humanity they¡¯d further reduced by this act of murder.


    Of war.


    It didn¡¯t need to be said, how four, plus the three sent for himself, class and core bearing humans, tier two Matriculated, who should have been bound by the Contract, had managed to perpetrate blatant violations of the terms of that binding. The Guilds had hidden them. Black agents, assassins, hitmen held in secret just in case a problem needed solving off the books. And Normals to accompany them, with heavy caliber rifles to defeat the Soak of Adventurers.


    This was a crime against humanity, a break of the only real covenant left: man shall not slay man.


    They were already so few! Alexander raged; white hot anger hidden behind a mask of grief while he stood here over these brave souls. And the guilt. It gnawed his guts.


    ¡°Oh Kim, buddy, I¡¯m sorry. By all the gods above, below, and in between, I am so sorry.¡± He whispered, over the first graves dug within Falcon''s Rest.


    No graves were dug for the murderers. Alexander analyzed them to know what resources the Guilds had expended in this atrocity, what might yet be lurking about if these hadn''t been all that were out there. Shiv autopsied them, extracted their cores for use when a use was found for them, and they were burned, the ashes and bones dumped in the river to be removed to the sea by its flow. No tears did the folk of Falcon''s Rest shed for the murderers.


    After services, the townspeople separated, each to their own to process the tragedy in their own ways. Some, to console each other who they held dear. Some, like Alexander, alone. Ben walked by, stone faced, but red in his eyes. He and the young man shared one look in passing, and a small nod. They were of a mind then: This shall not pass.


    Alexander had never killed anyone before. He¡¯d never even considered it. Yesterday he¡¯d taken three irreplaceable lives. There was only coldness there for them. Dispassion. Those men had broken faith, had chosen things over their brothers. Now he understood what a Venator was. He was going to find the ones who had done this. Wherever they hid, they were never safe.


    Someday soon, probably as soon as the roads were fit for travel, he was going to go pay them a visit. He wouldn¡¯t be alone.


    For now, he was going to stand here in the cold and suffer, because he deserved to. The Lucy forecast held true, it snowed for most of that morning, grey clouds breaking up and pushing away as the Nor¡¯easter¡¯s legacy winds trailed off. Fresh dirt covered by clean, white powder, with the silent stillness that only winter could create for a backdrop.


    ¡°You freezing to death won¡¯t do anybody any favors, Alexander.¡± A quiet voice said behind him, odd for its lack of open teasing.


    ¡°You don¡¯t know that.¡± Alexander told Granny, mustering a fragment of his normal, stubborn sarcasm.


    ¡°Fine, you stand here like a big, dumb statue, with snow in your feathers, and I¡¯m going to start a timer to see how long stupid takes to turn to ice.¡± Annita Nguyen scolded him, with a little more heat in her tone than before.


    If all he had to do to get under her skin was stand out in the cold, he¡¯d have done it daily.


    Another silent couple of minutes passed, and the Dryad inched closer until she stood next to him.


    ¡°It¡¯s not your fault.¡± She tried to lie.


    ¡°Yeah, it is. I don¡¯t want it to be, but it is.¡± He corrected.


    ¡°We all knew those dungeons had to go. How many people did they kill? Before the Guilds, before Safe Harbor got its feet under it? Hundreds? Thousands? They had to be stopped.¡± She argued.


    It was a good argument. He should know, it was his. He hated it when his being right got used against him.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t change anything. I made the call. A couple of thousand people in Safe Harbor, but it was Alexander Gerifalte that broke the Guilds¡¯ piggy bank. We knew there would be consequences.¡± He replied, resigned to his role in this awfulness.


    Being in charge means being responsible when it all gets fucked up. Somebody had to be responsible, for everything. Just like somebody had to be responsible for telling those humans who were lying in an unmarked pit now to go murder their fellow man, like a cartel syndicate hitting a rival gang for stealing their take.


    ¡°You didn¡¯t kill our friends, Alexander.¡± She insisted.


    On that he agreed. They were killed because of him, not by him. It was an important distinction. To him. Not one that mattered one whisker to the dead.


    ¡°You¡¯re going to kill the ones who did though, aren¡¯t you.¡± Granny said, rather than asked.


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± He answered, without emotion.


    ¡°Can I come too?¡± She asked, and now he was surprised.


    Granny wasn¡¯t a warrior. She wasn¡¯t a fighter at all. She was a collector of green things, a grower, and a lover of life. A humble hill witch in her shack, happily tending creepers. Just because she wasn¡¯t squeamish about bashing a monster¡¯s brain in, didn¡¯t mean she had a killer¡¯s instincts.


    ¡°Better if you didn¡¯t. You¡¯re too decent, Annita Nguyen.¡± Alexander advised, hoping she wouldn¡¯t commit to this course.


    He heard her huff, and he finally turned his gaze from the mounding snow on four fresh graves to see her arms crossed, glaring at him with golden eyes, ¡°And you aren¡¯t?¡±


    Alexander smiled, and he knew that none of it reached his eyes, green rimmed with brown, set in black.


    ¡°No.¡± He replied.


    A Venator kills things. Tracks them, hunts them, stalks them until they can flee no longer, then applies the knife. He wasn¡¯t decent. He was selective. That, too, was an important distinction. Gaia knew her children, knew them best, even the things they didn¡¯t know about themselves.


    The determined features on the Vietnamese witch woman¡¯s face faded a bit, looking at someone she¡¯d thought she knew well showing a hidden side of themselves, one that stood in stark contrast to the one with which she¡¯d been familiar. To her credit, he knew right away that, just because he¡¯d shown her the ugly part, she wouldn¡¯t flinch. This was Granny, a woman who built a shack in the wilderness and slept out there with the monsters, roamed their territories with impunity, and gave no fucks, because Annita Nguyen feared no man or beast that walked this rock.


    ¡°You weren¡¯t a serial killer back before, were you?¡± the Dryad woman with sturdy, if small frame asked.


    He couldn¡¯t help rolling his eyes at her, ¡°No! Just a dumb kid that wanted to be a fighter pilot and had so-so social skills, you know this. Why?¡±


    ¡°Asking for a friend.¡± She sassed.


    He wanted to groan. How did she do this? Here he was being sad, and she comes along and professionally gives him enough shit to take his mind off it.


    ¡°You are a pain in my ass Granny.¡± He told her, smiling a little for real this time.


    She nodded, ¡°It ain¡¯t much, but it¡¯s honest work.¡±


    ¡°Fine, I¡¯m done getting icicles in my feathers, you happy?¡± Alexander demanded, not even allowed to be left to wallow in self-loathing around this burg.


    A sparkle in her eyes took hold, and she assumed a superman pose, with an arm raised, fingers forked for victory, and he groaned.


    ¡°Granny Nguyen, wins again!¡± She called, knowing it¡¯s what her friends in the ground would have wanted, to see their leader, their friend, get his tail twisted one more time.


    They left the graves and retreated to the Survivor¡¯s Well. There were the dearly departed remembered, tales of the loved swapped, and the shared sadness of community to make the burden easier to bear. Lucy had to avert disaster, when Alvin tried to slip the bottle holding the Vodka That Shall Not Be Consumed into the impromptu wake, slapping him on the shoulder repeatedly while demanding to know if he was crazy.


    Six hours later, most of the sixty remaining members of Falcon¡¯s Rest were respectfully drunk.


    Half of them were packed into the old church, its pews long since replaced by sturdy wooden tables, its pulpit a long bar, with kegs tapped along the back wall in a big set of x shaped cross braces, so that empties could be swiftly replaced. Bottles with wax pencil labels could also be found in homemade wine racks, recently brewed concoctions of varying quality, dubious taste, and full of gasoline. All of those racks, most of the tables, and the bar along the front of them, behind which Alvin and Tom tended with efficiency the full house, had been made by Dan. A tradition emerged of rubbing the bar top, saying ¡°thanks¡± and then placing your order. Years down the road, the front edge of the bar would be rounded. A Flatlander or Down Easter patron would instantly be recognized, based on whether they thanked the bar before they ordered.


    Not all the townsfolk were grieving by revelry. For some of them, with the wounds still raw, they were deciding how to answer the injury.


    Alexander sat at a square table with four chairs. Nathan to his left, Benjamin across, and Mark on his right. Mark Ross, normally a calm, considerate sort, was flagrantly pissed.


    ¡°When you two go, I¡¯d better be told.¡± He warned his friends again, only slightly slurring.


    A calm down wave of large hands from Ben preceded his promise, ¡°Easy now, Mark, you¡¯ll get yours, I told you no lies.¡±


    At the next table, Brig, Georgia, The Dame, and Granny sat at a ¡°girl¡¯s¡± table. Granny had pulled an eyelid down and put her tongue out at them when Nathan told them the tables were unisex.


    Brig responded to the provocation in usual fashion, yelling ¡°My sex isn¡¯t Un-anything, and this table has so much estrogen in it, it¡¯s going to start being late because it¡¯s doing its makeup! You hairy apes won¡¯t even be able to touch it because it¡¯s got a headache!¡±


    Like a vicious goose on a nest, she huddled arms around her comrades, daring anyone to come violate the sanctity of the fem table.


    She might have started drinking with Georgia a few hours earlier.


    ¡°You pig fuckers don¡¯t deserve to even look at our cast-off hose! I bite my thumb at you, peasants!¡± The Dame sneered and or slurred, missing her thumb twice before getting the gesture right.


    She¡¯d been imbibing with the commoners, uncharacteristically, and was no match for the works of Survivor¡¯s Well¡¯s brewmasters. She might be a mean drunk, by the look of things.


    ¡°Hell yeah! Tell¡¯em again!¡± Egged on the red-headed woman, with Granny biting both her thumbs in the direction of the men¡¯s table.


    Georgia gave everyone the ¡°What are you gonna do¡± shrug and joined her sisters'' gesture of defiance, the women enjoying their temporary she-man man haters club for the brief moment of solidarity.


    The table of adults studiously ignored the jeers from across the way.


    Alexander noted in passing that whatever friction had existed between the Dame and Brig was gone, smoothed over by the reminder that life could be terribly short, and suddenly ended. There simply was not enough time to indulge pettiness. He briefly wondered what mental shift had to occur in the Dame¡¯s fantasia to permit it, but then decided he wasn¡¯t that interested. Not his clowns, not his circus.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Heads made slightly less cool by intake of a half keg of deceptively strong pilsner between them had come together to agree that an official response was necessary. There were some details that needed working out when their thoughts cleared, but the emotional validation for the decision would hold its validity later. Blood for blood.


    Alexander Gerifalte would never have willingly taken a human life, not if it could have ever been avoided. But that was before. People had been off limits, that was the rules, his prey was monsters and only monsters, no matter what. However, the Guildies had just changed the rules.


    Speaking of rules, the assassination attempts shouldn¡¯t even have been possible.


    When Normals were taken through a dungeon to undergo the transformation from tier one, vanilla humans, to tier two, classed or Matriculated humans, with dormant bloodlines, they were immediately sworn in on the laws. The Matriculated were under a geas. Rule four of Matriculated Contract law: Manslaughter outside of sanctioned duels and without notification of town authorities is prohibited between Matriculated persons, except in defense of life, under pain of death or exile.


    Without a core, whose magical energies could be warped to enforce the geas, the Normals couldn¡¯t be sworn in. They were also far, far weaker than classed humans, so it wasn¡¯t normally considered a problem. In fact, it was an important point of balance in post Pulse society. But the matriculated assassins had not declared a duel or notified town authorities. The rule was there to guarantee that murder shouldn¡¯t be possible between classed humans.


    In no uncertain terms, that meant that these individuals were outside the law, to be killed on sight, according to rule seven: All Matriculated must swear to these laws or be considered Outlaws intent on the destruction of civil society, enemies of the state, and predators of their fellow man, to be executed on sight by any Matriculated who knows of them, under pain of death or exile.


    So, the catch-22 that had the four assembled men up in arms was this: how were these murdering bastards given orders without immediately being turned upon by the brass of the Guilds who gave them?


    As soon as the Guildies, sworn in as they were, knew of the presence of these extrajudicial Matriculated, they should have been compelled to attack them or exile themselves from Safe Harbor. Clearly, there was a loophole. That, or the top brass of the Guilds had a backdoor channel of Normals to handle problems that might arise that required breaking the law.


    Benjamin had come up with that theory, cementing in Alexander¡¯s mind that, whatever he¡¯d been before the Pulse, it had probably involved some kind of special forces, we were never here, kind of bullshit.


    Ben had killed men before yesterday. Maybe a lot of them. Nobody thought less of him, they¡¯d all suspected he was military, and not the kind that sits on a base dipping while they maintenance the vehicles or keeping latrines clean. Guys like that carried themselves a certain way.


    In any case, the hypothesis was a good one.


    Unofficial Guildies, able to circumvent the normal proceedings, operated outside usual channels, probably with intentionally vague instruction by the Guild top men, so that they, under the geas, would not be affected by it. That went beyond plausible deniability, there was an entire shadow Guild operating in Safe Harbor, made up of criminals who could order assassinations of anybody who got in the way.


    Nathan Smythe raised the question, ¡°How many Adventurers who stepped on the Guilds¡¯ toes and ended up ¡®killed by monsters¡¯ not so long later do you think were actually whacked?¡±


    Offhand, four came to Alexander¡¯s mind. Three men smuggling from a dungeon and a lady who had run a lucrative business trading insider information obtained from her front as a brothel. She¡¯d been outed by a break in security and, two weeks later, disappeared. The woman had gone missing during the Doppelganger fiasco, and nobody had questioned it at the time. Now? There was exceptionally good reason to question that woman¡¯s sudden disappearance.


    ¡°They can¡¯t be allowed to live, whoever they are. This is an infection, a lethal one.¡± Alexander said, calmly determined.


    ¡°Agreed,¡± Ben said, his usual stoicism carrying a hard edge tonight, the man¡¯s dark brown metallic luster obvious in the candlelight, ¡°The monsters, they have to be culled or humanity is at risk. Sometimes monsters hide behind human skin, that¡¯s all. The solution is the same.¡±


    So sayeth the guy who figured out that body snatchers were running amok in Safe Harbor last year and averted a calamity.


    Nathan nodded his agreement and looked around the room at neighbors, many of whom who relied on him, and his peers at the table to keep them safe. They had failed in that. Impervious had lost, effectively, two of its members to the attack and the Oaken Rampart took it extremely personally. They¡¯d murdered his family.


    ¡°It might mean killing the entire leadership of the top three, maybe even the top five.¡± He told his compatriots.


    They¡¯d come to a consensus that only the top three to five could have the kind of pull to hide Matriculated and buy silence. Anything less than a guarantee would have mobilized Safe Harbor as a society to eliminate them. Adventurers unaffiliated with a Guild outnumbered the Guildies six to one. Just because they lacked training, optimal equipment, and the more powerful of the classes that made them less in demand didn¡¯t mean they couldn¡¯t pull the Guilds down if they wanted. Most of them just had no interest in hurting anybody, they wanted to help out, survive, do their part for their kin. Like everybody, Alexander had thought, until very recently.


    Patriotism today meant being for all people, not just borders on a map. You owed mankind your loyalty, now. Apparently not for some. Fewer now, of those. Fewer still later.


    ¡°Fine. They deserve it, fuck¡¯em.¡± Mark scoffed, a lot louder than he¡¯d intended to say it, but rage fueled venom needed outlet.


    At the sound of the phrase ¡°Fuck¡¯em¡± a chorus of twenty-nine other voices rose and ¡°Fuck¡¯em¡± rang out from the old church across town, echoing off the wall.


    Boy, he really was livid. Alexander was almost surprised at his own lack of anger. It had died back after leaving the graves. He was living in the sea of calm, cold hate that made no waves, just past rage. He¡¯d kill the Guildies responsible for this with less feeling than putting down a rabid animal. It was like Ben said, they were monsters now. Fair game.


    ¡°In order to make a move, we¡¯re going to have to follow the law,¡± Ben reminded the table, ¡°We must draft an official notification that the parties responsible are to present themselves for a duel or be exterminated. Then the fourth rule is satisfied, and we can go hot.¡±


    That was pretty cunnin¡¯ of the warrior. Just straight up tell them you¡¯re coming to ''challenge'' them, and rule four was totally inert. Nice. Now he thought on it, rule four never said you had to tell them when you were coming. Alexander didn''t mention that the seventh injunction applied, they''d made themselves murderers by proxy, which stripped them of protection from the Contract. They didn''t require a lawyer for this, he could tell by absence of subtle vibrations on his core, vibrations that became white hot agony when you violated its terms, that they were justified in this retribution.


    Nathan sipped thoughtfully from his brew and put the glass down firmly.


    ¡°I¡¯ll write it. They murdered Hilde, so we have just cause as her party. Cervantes will probably go no matter what I say, and he deserves to have us behind him. Those sonsofbitches are going to pay for fucking with Impervious, to say nothing of Dan, Dave, and Kim.¡± The Anchor tank asserted.


    Oh, Alexander was going to see to it they paid for Kim Summers alright. Him and all the rest.


    After that, the table turned aside for more casual conversation. Forced casual conversation slowly gave way to the real thing, it wasn¡¯t the first time anyone had suffered loss. It wouldn¡¯t be the last. Folk these days were inoculated to grief by exposure.


    Around the tavern, Lucy bussed tables, Tom and Alvin saw to the bar, and anybody who had a hand with cooking at all, which was most people in Falcon¡¯s Rest, took a turn kneading dough or peeling taters to keep a steady flow of bar food. Before long, the tavern had transformed into a just almost jovial bean suppah affair.


    Within a half hour of beer, cheese, and pretzels, in the traditions of dudes, they shifted completely to casual talk, stories of adventures had, and outright lies, instead of addressing the underlying sources of their traumas or navigating the grief that had recently beset them. Any mention of baggage was shelved in favor of the recent rumor that Scott Kaczynski was going to use his ice magic to make a hockey rink. A league was being planned, and rules for a draft haggled over.


    Something, some intuition and subconscious part of his brain¡¯s language centers pricked his awareness and he turned to the women¡¯s table to catch Brigitte O¡¯Connor telling a fascinated table, all leaning forward to hang onto every word of her not that quiet whisper ¡°And you run your fingers through that downy black hair, lean back, and Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!¡±


    He put his head in his arms, unwilling to watch any further. Didn¡¯t she have any shame? At all? They were over here planning a rampage and his sex life was getting a re-enactment, with table humping included now, the sturdy wood creaking.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, kid, nobody is going to remember anything tomorrow.¡± Ben consoled him, barely holding in a smile, ¡°Besides, it¡¯s good to get the word out, let the chickens cluck about how fine the rooster is.¡±


    The young man raised his head to see, the stout warrior was grinning now.


    ¡°Ben, it¡¯s not your rooster she¡¯s talking about.¡± Alexander groaned.


    ¡°Don¡¯t blame me having more sense than you. Brig ain¡¯t no barracks bunny, but she¡¯s rough with her toys. I tried to warn you Genghis Butter Bars.¡± He smirked.


    Yes, he had.


    ¡°Did you ever let her at you? Just once?¡± He asked.


    The courageous warrior¡¯s gaze went distant, and he nodded, ¡°Just once, when I was too green to know better.¡±


    ¡°It changes you, doesn¡¯t it?¡± Alexander asked, tongue in cheek, seeing that they were getting a united front of lifted eyebrows from the other table.


    A heavy nod confirmed, shared by Mark. Brig was only interested in warriors who could match her. That was a high bar, which grew higher almost daily.


    ¡°You guys too?¡± He asked, amazed.


    ¡°But what about Melinda?¡± That for Mark, but he regretted the words as soon as he said them.


    The Ifrit leader of men stoically soldiered through Alexander''s moronic reminder though, appearing casual. He was aware of tendency of the young man, only two years his junior, to be incredibly oblivious.


    ¡°It was before we¡¯d met. I was walking around Searsport, we hadn¡¯t even renamed the town, and there she was, over six feet of bombshell, with a broom handle that had a kitchen knife duct taped to it, stained halfway up its length with blood. I never saw anything so amazing in all my life. I knew it was a bad idea, but I was weak, and she was strong. Melinda saved me, Brig won¡¯t touch you if you¡¯re coupled up, it¡¯s a hard rule. That''s why we gotta get you all shacked up, for your own good.¡± Mark narrated, with a brief tightness to his eyes at the mention of his wounded partner at odds with the forced humor of his words.


    He was trying desperately to hold himself together, rather than to sit at her bedside doing nothing but twisting his insides. Tomorrow all would be right with the wounded and what could be done had been done. The others at the table pretended not to see his struggle, out of consideration.


    ¡°Ahh, quit bitching, you pansies," Their demon declared, having completed the evening¡¯s theater, and she stood with a slight wobble to lean on the women''s table for support, "A lady has a bit of a thirst, and you¡¯re all over here boo-hooing because you can¡¯t make with the milk.¡±


    Now, the beast''s ire was raised and she approached the table aggressively, leaning forward on it with her hands, her long braid trailing to the surface and threatening to overturn a half full glass of beer carelessly. Ben rapidly saved the beverage and escorted it to his mouth to safety. Startled yells of "Hey!", "Foul!" and such accompanied the Oread''s near disaster.


    She¡¯d noticed her party leader¡¯s dilemma and played her role, deflecting stray emotional shrapnel. She took seriously her role as an offtank, both in combat, and outside of it. Sometimes the group needs someone who goes loud, brash, and devil may care, to prop up the rest. As Mark had said, he was weak, and she was strong. It worked to perfection; the table was now focused on giving her the stink eye.


    ¡°Brig, were you born like this, or did the Pulse turn you into an animal?¡± Alexander asked, grateful for the save.


    She squared her shoulders proudly, ¡°God given talent buckaroos! Now, we gots us four on four here, so what do you ladies say to a little Carcassonne? I¡¯ve got the expanded version here.¡±


    Who could say no to that?


    The night of grieving passed in games, food, and companionship, as was right and proper. Some didn¡¯t partake, Shiv was tending the wounded. Some couldn¡¯t bring themselves to, like Cervantes de la Cruz and Riley Potter. Others shared the night quietly with their partners, their solace in that bond. Loss was a part of the people who had survived the Pulse. The were robust. They would come away from this stronger, more determined. But not until they slept off the hangover.


    A hangover that would never materialize, thanks to the gift of being Children of Gaia.


    The Phoenix sun rose, washing over the town with golden light reflected by crystalline pure white snow. In its wake, that magical light carried Gaia¡¯s love for her surviving children, healing their wounds, restoring their bodies from whatever sickness had taken hold, destroying the cancers and mistakes of genetics.


    Shiv got to witness the incredibly disturbing sight of golden flames, radiant, almost too bright to lay eyes on, that burned from the cauterized wound of the bisected Melinda and, when the fires faded, the woman was whole again, without sign of the catastrophic damage to her form. She wept with relief, and happiness at being alive.


    Similarly, Julia sat up, the draining tube having been forced from her skull, or incinerated, one or the other, and looked wonderingly at the arm she¡¯d lost.


    Oleksiy Shevchenko gave his brief thanks to Gaia, the only god which he could acknowledge for this miracle and left the two women to dress in privacy. His had been a long watch, and he was retiring to his blankets.


    Eight gunshot wounds healed nearly instantly in a different room in the clinic. The town had never grown large enough to have a hospital, just a one room converted house doctor¡¯s office and a long drive to get somewhere if you needed anything serious medically. The new clinic was, in fact, located in what had been the town¡¯s dentistry office, which had more rooms, and triple the space. The patients who¡¯d been shot left the waiting room, where their attendant doctor, Shiv, and his assistant, Dr. Sandra Patel, had made certain that they were stabilized. They were the only two with anything approaching formal medical training, although Sandra''s was mostly limited to CPR, mandatory anatomy and physiology coursework, and a lot of hurriedly learned theory, she was a teacher turned head shrinker.


    Her efforts at crisis therapy were not wasted that long night before, and most of the townspeople who left the clinic did so without the lingering trauma that a vicious attack such as had been perpetrated against them normally instilled on the psyche. Dr. Patel¡¯s trial was only beginning, she would go to every citizen of Falcon¡¯s Rest in the next few days to help them process the attack, their emotional responses to it, and to counsel them through their pain.


    The Djinn therapist rubbed her temples, not enjoying the psychic echoes of the memories and experiences she had to wade through to help others process their trauma. Her class shielded her from it, buffered her own mind from the effects, but her resilience was being tested. The only upside from the difficulty of the case load was that her skills, traits, and abilities were growing swiftly. Two had already tiered up from their lesser versions.


    Mark and Melinda met, after leaving the rest of his comrades early he had slept outside the patient rooms, in a blanket inside the sitting room out front, and they immediately traded an embrace and disappeared to their home, not to be seen for three days.


    Similar scenes played out, for those who had loved ones to share them with. Some did not.


    Cervantes smashed his tuning fork great sword into stone targets made by Van repeatedly, hammering them to gravel with sonic vibrations that he was becoming rapidly more proficient in tuning to the natural frequencies of different objects. What had first taken a dozen hits to find the right feeling, now took three. Soon, he might be able to deliver a destructive resonance in only a single strike. The bones of the giant panther would be used to a greater purpose than being ground for meal: Cervantes would find the resonance needed to turn bones into powder.


    He was not alone on the drill field, the rest of Impervious were out, each lathering themselves to hone their abilities. Hilde would be avenged.


    Alexander Gerifalte was not idle this morning either. Well, at the moment he was idle, but that was because his head was swimming from being punished for a missed guard. Benjamin Grisham trained like he fought: hard.


    ¡°If you¡¯re going to let a little tap like that keep you from pulling guard, you¡¯re done the first time you fuck up.¡± The veteran warrior taught, while standing over him.


    The young man threw himself onto his stomach and pushed himself to his feet, still a little rubbery in the legs.


    ¡°How do you move when your ears are ringing?¡± He asked, still reeling.


    ¡°Practice.¡± Was Ben¡¯s response, and he drew back the wood practice sword, giving Alexander only a moment before he was attacking through the training routines again.


    This time, he didn¡¯t get hit until the third pass through the drill.


    Even knowing what attack was coming, it was hard to meet the speed, precision, and power behind Ben¡¯s swings and stabs. Without the helmet he wore, Alexander would already have been unconscious from the first hit. The second missed parry landed across his thigh, his having failed to push the downstroke from its arc correctly.


    ¡°Fuck!¡± He yelled, his leg Charlie horsing through the armor plate.


    He limped, trying to force the knotting muscles to straighten.


    ¡°I didn¡¯t end the drill, Alexander, get your ass ready before you get brained.¡± Ben demanded, and Alexander had to force himself to receive the attacks mostly on one leg.


    He did not do that very well, and it was only a few more strokes before his shoulder took a batting. He dropped the practice sword and then Ben stabbed him, jabbing the wooden pole into his solar plexus and sending him to suck wind on the icy drill field.


    Brig and the Dame were absent, they were doing ¡°applied¡± training. Granny and a couple of scouts, including Julia, were finding the beasts prowling the area, such as the Winter Bear, and then the attackers of Getsome would handle the dispatch. Both of them needed real use of their skills, since it was difficult to unleash a water cutter that could pulverize stone on someone in practice. Same story for the Gravity Spire. Her abilities allowed her to perform a limited manipulation of the same said force, since her class evolution and tiering up. She could jump higher and farther than anybody should be able, about twenty-five, thirty feet straight up, and came down with more force than her weight justified. It had proved incredibly effective against the giant panther, but she¡¯d broken her leg when she landed, so, clearly, there was room for improvement.


    That was good, Getsome¡¯s Adventurers were the best he knew. Them getting better was strictly necessary. Plus, he thought, from his back, only just now getting his wind, he didn¡¯t have to have his ass beat in front of the copper haired Oread, who would take time from her busy schedule of monster whackin¡¯ to poke fun. Until Ben suggested she take her turn in the circle, that is.


    Speaking of, the older warrior was waving Alexander up, indicating that break time was over. He suppressed the groan that welled up from his bruised anatomy and threw himself into the training as hard as the rest, determined to make up for lost time.


    Alexander wasn¡¯t the only one. Riley Potter, the HVAAC technician and Vacuum Fencer, was also on the field. Getting run through the basics by Georgia, who was shepherding a crop of newbies to combat through drills. Most of the town had realized now, that there were no noncombatants. First, Panther Rex had pounced on the convoy, although it had been cleaned up so quickly by the combined efforts of the Adventurers that it hadn¡¯t caused much harm. This last injury was the straw that broke the camel¡¯s back, however. Those who had even the vaguest aptitude or inclination to fight were taking the winter¡¯s lull in normal activities to drill.


    Nathan Smythe¡¯s Soak aura worked overtime, shielding the trainees from harm, some from their sparring partners, and some from themselves. More than one needed Shiv¡¯s services when they managed to cut their own leg or arm or hand open from poor grip or an errant swing.


    Only the full speed sparring happened without use of live weapons. At the moment, that was basically Alexander and Ben, the rest were either too immature to soak up the lessons raining on Alexander¡¯s body right now, or too advanced, needing, like Cervantes, to practice specific applications of their classes and innate traits, but not confident enough to tackle real hunts while they did it. Cervantes'' provided a percussive base line for the rest, while he viciously assaulted stone dummies with sonic booms that would likely kill a person, even through their Soak.


    A new schedule manifested for Falcon¡¯s Rest. Dawn to Mid-morning, training for combat. Mid-morning to noon, brunch and socializing. Noon to dark, returning to whatever projects and tasks needed attending to, the same as before the attack. From dark to bed, folk gathered in small social circles to entertain their friends at various people¡¯s houses, or, they gathered at the tavern to join the large community circle. Games of skill, chance, and memory abounded. Risk games running for days formed distinct camps of townsfolk, with their own supporters.


    Maine from December to February was a cold, dark affair. Only eight to nine hours of daylight, and half of that lost to the clouds. Board and card games were a time-honored tradition to pass the winter months. So was reading and storytelling. Scavenging through various homes, businesses, and storage buildings had accumulated an impressive library that covered everything from self help to philosophy to young adult fiction. Lucy and her boys, in addition to their prowess of the bartending arts, were trying to get a theater going, for small scale productions. The collected works of Shakespeare had been found for a script, and other narratives could be adapted for the live performances. Someday, soon, a theater house might go up for plays.


    Not until spring, however, the time of building was over. Now was the time of waiting and mending.


    Falcon¡¯s Rest held its collective breath for three months, until, a few days into March, the snow finally melted enough to see the drill yard, where those who could, had worked themselves hard to make anyone who tried again to take from them regret it.

 Chapter 22: Bumps in the Night

    Alexander was with Wynona Saki in the chemistry lab, working a handpump to operate the vacuum filter when news of the first monster attack arrived.


    His shoulders ached slightly from the effort of rapidly actuating the pump to achieve the negative pressure to draw a dissolved acidic supernatant through a fiberglass HEPA filter. Saki watched impassively, her eyes on the resulting product separation. She eyeballed the yield from the process that had consumed the better part of the lunch to midafternoon span, a clear liquid pulled free from the milky, wet chalk consistency, substance above the filter.


    Saki had high hopes that the liquid would be neutralized to produce pure crystals of a metal complex Alexander was too busy following her crisply delivered instructions for lab procedure to remember, and not well versed enough in inorganic chemistry to know the purpose of. If it had necessitated his being pulled from the smithy, then it was important. Usually, she would enlist one of the other villagers for manual labor and simple protocols. His Warforger trait carried distinct generalist abilities that might come in handy though, hence he was slightly red faced whilst pumping like his life depended on it.


    The door to the lab was wrenched open and a sweaty, panting Julia appeared there, eyes wide.


    ¡°There are werewolves in the forest!¡± The quiet girl cried, which stopped Alexander¡¯s pumping and wiped the scowl of being interrupted from Saki¡¯s face.


    Julia wasn¡¯t done, and she pointed vaguely outside, ¡°They tried to snatch Granny and Melinda, but the pair drove them back, and Kevin was around and led the creatures off with his shadow.¡±


    Two and a half years ago, that statement would have been absurd. Today, absurdity was spooned in with your coffee, like cinnamon, to keep it interesting.


    Alexander stepped away from the pump and made for the door.


    ¡°Can you handle it from here?¡± He asked Saki, not particularly needing her nod to leave, but he would have shouted for someone to come and take over if she couldn¡¯t.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go Bonny!¡± He called and the pair ran out from the old high school, down the street, with the girl and her new familiar, a winter bear this time, in the lead.


    On the way, the young girl warrior-scout of Impervious, just this month a tender seventeen, described the werewolves. Alexander listened while one of the youngest Matriculated on Gaia, and, according to her description of the ¡°Hierarchy adjusted¡± notice when she¡¯d drank the dragon blood, Gaia¡¯s youngest tier three human, listed the characteristics of a horror flick made real.


    ¡°There were four, all about five feet tall, no sex immediately determined, muscular, hominoid but with arms long as the legs, they hunched over or they¡¯d probably be over six feet, and used their arms to run as much as they were bipedal. Long muzzle almost exactly like a big timber wolf. Claws on the fingers and toes were slightly curved, but more like a bear than a dog. They were stronger than they should have been and didn¡¯t like Melinda¡¯s Solar Lamp in their eyes.¡± The once painfully shy girl detailed, calmer now that they were approaching the tavern, which had become the spiritual center of Falcon¡¯s Rest over the winter.


    The rest of Impervious, along with Getsome, and the scouts, aforementioned hero of the day Morrigan bloodline Kevin Meijer, which had earned him the moniker Major, included. Of an age with Alexander, the young scout¡¯s class, Shadow Sentinel, let him pull his shadow free of himself and control it like a hologram. Somehow, the shadow held his essence, the man faded from awareness for the duration it was parted from him, and only regained consciousness when it returned. Fortunately for him, he became invisible while this process occurred, as long as he was shrouded by another shadow.


    Alexander no longer asked how, for some things. Gaia¡¯s rules were her own, especially when magic was involved.


    The mousy youth waited until they were joined with the growing crowd, word had spread quickly, to drop the heavy news, her brown ponytail bobbing when she revealed quietly, ¡°My hawk¡¯s inspection skill said the werewolves were from Nut, realm of shadows and night.¡±


    Damn. Double damn. Another realm meant a contested zone. A dungeon had emerged nearby. Or, at least, nearby enough for its minions to spill out in search of sustenance. The phrasing of Julia¡¯s words echoed in his mind for a second, and he turned a quizzical gaze on the Dryad beast tamer.


    ¡°Julia, why did you say the werewolf tried to snatch Granny and Melinda? Don¡¯t you mean it tried to eat them?¡± He checked, his question answered by the shaking heads of the two women in question.


    Melinda answered for the girl, who looked extremely relieved to not have everyone assembled staring at her.


    ¡°No, Alexander, they didn¡¯t try to eat us. They circled like they were herding us, driving us deeper into the woods, and that only after one tried to grab Annita by the hair and she cut its hand off with that axe she calls a knife.¡± The woman explained, frowning at the remembered experience.


    Bugger. Was this Doppelgangers again?  Body snatchers?


    ¡°So why did they chase Major¡¯s shadow?¡± He asked, trying to find all the pieces of this puzzle.


    ¡°Probably because after Melinda put her sunlight lamp in their grills, we started hacking at them and they spotted something easier to grab. I think they wanted a sure thing, not a fight.¡± Granny replied, injecting her impression into the mix.


    Annita¡¯s judgment was, mostly, sound. Even when she was wrong, it was mostly the kind of wrong that points toward right.


    Alexander turned to the seasoned Adventurers and did what a good leader does, he asked for opinions of men and women smarter or more experienced than himself with a simple ¡°Okay, thoughts?¡±


    Mark chewed lip briefly before he raised the specter in everyone¡¯s minds, ¡°Doppelganger situation?¡±


    No one disagreed, although Brig noted, ¡°They¡¯re not very good at it, if that¡¯s the play. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s as straightforward as the Doppelganger bait and switch routine. Maybe they¡¯re wasps.¡±


    Alexander paused, because he didn¡¯t see the connection between a werewolf and a wasp.


    ¡°Uumm¡­I¡¯m gonna need you to go back over that. What do you mean wasps?¡±


    The slightly taller woman wasn¡¯t playing around, she was serious, so what on earth did bugs have anything to do with it?


    He didn¡¯t have long to wait, Brig sighed, and asked, ¡°Didn¡¯t anyone watch the national geographic channel when they were kids?¡± and received blank stares in return.


    ¡°What?! Seriously?  Bunch of yobs.¡± She scoffed at her fellows, disbelieving.


    Julia Richards raised her hand, which was slightly adorable.


    ¡°Yeah, go ahead Bonny.¡± Nathan insisted gently.


    ¡°I think she means wasps like mud daubers. They sting with a paralytic and drag the prey to their nest, where they lay their eggs inside. The eggs pupate in the paralyzed victim and feed on it until they¡¯re mature enough to fly and hunt on their own.¡± The beast tamer described.


    Yikes, Alexander clicked his tongue distasteful of the notion. Human incubators for werewolves?  Honestly? Not even the weirdest thing, he recalled the goblins hatching from disgusting eggs laid by the Goblin Queen. Still kind of yikes though.


    Brig strode over and patted the scout softly on the head, and praised, ¡°Yeah! There you go Bonny, you got it. Unlike the rest of these uncultured heathens.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯re calling for frost in hell, right about now.¡± Ben observed.


    Alexander slipped him a subtle pound to acknowledge the jab, which spurred the Lancer to flip her senior monster hunter brethren the bird.


    The levity lightened the mood. Everyone was afraid of another Doppelganger situation. It¡¯s why there were so many scouts with the expedition. Of the sixty surviving members of the village, fully nine of them were those who had abilities in their classes that were fantastic for reconnaissance, not counting Alexander, whose talents also lay in that direction, just with a sharper point to his talents.


    Before things could get too off track, Mark reminded them of another problem, ¡°I think we just got very, and I mean very lucky today. Nut is the realm of night, but the werewolves caught you in the daylight, and the one person whose abilities are all sunlight based at that.¡±


    Good point.


    ¡°So, nobody leaves the walls after dark?¡± Alexander suggested.


    ¡°Nobody leaves the village period, not without a full party escort.¡± Ben advised.


    The others gathered mulled it over and decided that getting kidnapped by monsters wasn¡¯t a good look.


    Nathan¡¯s fingers wrapped across his oak great shield, and he announced, ¡°Seconded.¡±


    Alexander put things to the vote, now the official procedure had been started, ¡°Ayes for none to leave the walls without either Getsome or Impervious to run escort. Nay for debate for alternatives.¡±


    The ayes rang out from all the gathered people, which, by now, totaled the full complement of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    ¡°The ayes have it. Granny, that means you too, no more shack until we figure out where these monsters are coming from and stop them.¡± Alexander declared.


    He almost expected her to argue the point, but her face said she had no fight to offer. The werewolf encounter must have been close if she wasn¡¯t willing to even joke about it.


    ¡°Fine,¡± She agreed readily, ¡°But where will I sleep?  I packed all my stuff out there as soon as Potter and Dan, gods of the earth rest his soul, finished sealing up the shack.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome to stay with me, I¡¯ve got a spare bedroom at my place.¡± Volunteered Georgia Stephens.


    By this time, it was midafternoon. The sun set around five thirty, not a whole lot of time to get any more information, but this is where Julia¡¯s gifts shined, so the somewhat unwilling leader of Falcon¡¯s rest made an executive decision.


    ¡°Okay, it¡¯s too late in the day to be risking dicking with creatures from Nut after sundown. Julia, can you double your hawk and see if you can figure out if any more of those monsters are hanging around?¡± Alexander asked, not worrying about stepping on Nathan¡¯s toes.


    Impervious¡¯ leader would have probably asked her to do the same later, where there was less pressure on her from the gathered Adventurer¡¯s attention, but he wasn¡¯t waiting around to get reports.


    ¡°Count on me!¡± She whispered as assertively as she ever could, and ran off to find a quiet place to focus on controlling her hawk, and its aetheric clone.


    He took a moment to appreciate the improvement to the Lunar Warden¡¯s social phobia, but he¡¯d pass on thanks to Dr. Patel for her obvious role in that later. For now, they needed to get a war room conference going. The priority: intelligence.


    Which was why he¡¯d given their very best the get at¡¯em. Alexander had the best eyes in the settlement, of that there was no doubt. But Julia Richards could fly, or at least, her consciousness could by proxy, and that trumped his advantage easily.


    Fortunately, matters martial weren¡¯t exclusively his discretion. He¡¯d hired out for that, so Mark and Nathan got together and started giving orders to the assembled villagers to start battening down the hatches.


    Physical capabilities of werewolves were unknown, but they probably didn¡¯t fly or have the ability to jump the one hundred eighty feet it took to get over the wall, or dig through the solid granite of its foundation, or dig their claws into the supernaturally smooth face of it to climb. Through the craft of Van Richards, that wall was smoother than glass, nothing that wasn¡¯t a gecko was getting up that surface.


    That meant that Falcon¡¯s Rest was a tight perimeter. The only concern was the access points, the gateways at each cardinal direction. Those had big ass multi-ton portcullis doors now, made of some of the steel extracted from Kim¡¯s car disassembly project. The slot through which they dropped down when you lowered them was a ball bearing track, and so tight to tolerance that anything that bent the frame of that gate effectively locked it. No bashing their way in, unless they had a cutting torch to deal with the inch and a half round stock of the portcullis, meshed about six inches square. You could put your arm through that gate, and that was about it.


    ¡°Shape shifters might have tricks to alter their size, I say we plug the portcullis somehow.¡± That from Riley Potter, who¡¯d become somewhat security paranoid since his best friend¡¯s murder at the start of winter.


    The assassins hadn¡¯t had to deal with a portcullis then, they¡¯d walked through an open gate. The citizens of Falcon¡¯s Rest were more cautious now. Riley more than most.


    Alexander offered no input on that discussion, he didn¡¯t need to micromanage his people, they¡¯d figure it out.


    Instead, he went to find his notes on Nut, the realm of endless night, giving the assembled villagers a parting wave and a clearly called, ¡°In the Lab!¡± to let them know where he was going.


    Within the holy ground of his study, mind calmed by the familiar musty odor of long stored books and the distinct notes of chalk dust, he sought answers.


    They were thin, there wasn¡¯t a night dungeon near Safe Harbor, all the information came second hand from travelers, of which there were precious few. Without cars, or planes, or many people at all who had the ability to ride a horse or drive a team to pull a cart, people traveled on foot these days, in groups of six to ten. And, if they wanted to get where they were going uneaten, they did that slowly, carefully, and with time to establish at least a minimally secure camp at night. A trip of a hundred miles was a big undertaking. Movement of information was sketchy, at best. It drove Alexander nuts.


    What there was, said what you¡¯d expect: contested zones range from deep twilight to full moon night, to pitch black, moonless forests that might as well have been caves. Light sources were absolutely necessary within. Dark adapted monsters, with excellent hearing and night vision. Creatures positively ID¡¯d included giant owls, spookier versions than the bunny boss outside Safe Harbor, living shadows similar to Major¡¯s abilities, but with claws that could cut, although they were reported to struggle with armor. Other inhabitants were eyeless humanoids, like tall, thin men, but with teeth filed to points. Those last ones were intelligent, cunning, and utterly cruel, they liked to flay things before they killed them, which was why they were called Skin Peelers.


    Skin Peelers had a limited form of terror aura, akin to the one that the undead field boss Alexander had killed, a Reaper, had employed. Instead of attempting to paralyze with thoughts of one¡¯s own mortality, however, the mental intrusion was more sinister, it made you afraid of light. The described photophobia reportedly pushed you to run into the dark, where the creatures were waiting with their jagged hooked knives. Somebody with a sense of humor darker than Alexander¡¯s had referred to the packs of six to twenty of the monstrous bastards as a Knitting circle.


    There were a couple of other nightmares listed in his notes, most absent as many details as the Skin Peelers, which meant those probably came from a survivor of the creatures. No werewolves though, they were on their own figuring that one out.


    Alexander thought of his naginata, whose construction had used golem Argentum, silver extracted from the golem¡¯s corpse. Werewolves were supposed to be vulnerable to silver, right?


    He immediately ran to the smithy, to inventory their supply of the metal. As he double timed, the pavement just recently cleared of the last traces of snow clicked on his boots. A few white banks from plowing stubbornly squatted at street corners, refusing to admit their time had passed, and the rain clouds overhead seemed bent on informing them otherwise. Groups of people organized into fives could be seen traveling around town in the corners of his eyes, each determinedly following their instructions given by the Adventurer party¡¯s leaders.


    They had their jobs, he had his, so he spared them no further attention. It only took a couple of minutes to get to his shop and he pulled the heavy door open, without bothering to light the oil lanterns that normally provided light. His eyes didn¡¯t need that assistance, and Kim wasn¡¯t around to make irritated comments about working in the dark.


    Results weren¡¯t great, he¡¯d used most of the precious Argentum while arming Getsome and Impervious. The san-mai jacketing method of fashioning their weapons meant that they had, if his suspicions were true, anti-werewolf capability. But he had two ingots of the material left, which meant very few others would, unless he came up with something.


    For himself, he had the ultimate anti bullshit tech, his entropic mana. Nothing withstood his chaos magic. Baleful Smite had killed anything he¡¯d struck with it thus far, although that meant getting up close. Chaos strikes in a volley, as draining as that was on his core¡¯s energies, put down most things, or, at least, crippled them badly enough to finish off.


    ¡°So, how do we stretch this out, get the most bang for our buck using what amounts to two forty-pound ingots?¡± He asked the otherwise empty shop.


    Times like this, he really missed Kim Summers, he mused sadly; missed the man quite a lot.


    Forty pounds, that sounds like a lot, but golem silver was a bit denser than regular silver, somewhere between palladium and gold. Alexander hadn¡¯t ever had reason to measure it precisely. He estimated forty pounds rolled out to a coating about an eighth of an inch thick, on a piece of scrap paper.


    Neat handwriting, courtesy of long practice tracked his work. Let¡¯s see¡­density maybe around 0.4408 pounds for every cubic inch. Erring on the side of maximum coverage he used palladium as his reference, looked up in a well-thumbed book of industrial standards, and jotted that starting figure for density. Forty pounds divided by density grabs your volume, the volume divided by thickness gets you surface area for¡­He continued to math it out and scribbled 726.0 square inches of golem silver per bar, his calculations checked by units.


    More calculations turned that into a more intuitive measurement, which came out to sixty and a half inches long by twelve-inch-wide sheets. One foot by five foot. Not a hell of a lot, as he¡¯d suspected. But if he only jacketed the upper third of a blade, which is where you¡¯re supposed to be striking, that would stretch it out a lot further. The balance of the weapons would be fucked, they¡¯d be less wieldy with that extra weight sitting at the tip, but if it meant killing a charging monster with your first blow, instead of having to trade with the things in close, that was an easy compromise.


    Alexander looked to Sterling the second, the completely redesigned, enhanced version of his steam engine.


    It was a work of art, far beyond what he¡¯d built on his own, far beyond what he¡¯d built in Safe Harbor, which had been based on that original design. Sterling Jr. was a monument to the miracles humanity could achieve when they put their heads together in times of need.


    Jules Reyolds had done the fine shaping that needed tools they did not have, sculpting the metals to shape and to tolerances measured with a micrometer, as well as to offer his experience as a hobbyist shade tree mechanic. Kim Summers, bless his soul, lent his expertise on engine design and machining, and was mostly responsible, with Reynolds back seating, for the revised v six-cylinder design. Alexander figured out the heat recycler and heat exchanger system, as well as most of the transmission, now a continuous variable transmission based on a working model ripped out of one of the defunct Subarus that had been scrapped.


    Wynona Saki, putting her head in to borrow Alexander for help in the chemistry lab, stopped to ask why they didn¡¯t replace the working fluid, which was water, with a more advanced water-glycerol mixture, and an exchange coolant line of ethylene glycol, which she promptly generated and they connected to a winter bear core to bring the temperature of the exchanger down to a crispy negative one hundred degrees, thus magnifying the efficiency and consistency of the machine¡¯s output.


    These modifications, plus a v six piston arrangement had quintupled the horsepower, it had at least five hundred now, and the far better continuous transmission using an actual planetary gear and torque converter to regulate that horsepower. The oil pump on the transmission that smoothly aligned the gears to keep belt tension, keeping the machine delivering power consistently with demand, piggy backed off the sterling heat exchanger coolant line.


    Sterling Jr. ran like a fucking champion, a machine god Atlas, on whose back Falcon¡¯s Rest would be carried into the future.


    Nearby, abandoned after his murder, lay the half-finished plans and a few prototype pieces of the system Kim had worked up that was meant to create Sterling the third, a true steam turbine. Alexander would come back to that project, when he¡¯d gained the skill, but his focus now was on some godsbedamned werewolves. Werewolves who Sterling Jr. was about to contribute to killing by powering the machine shop tools, so that he could retrofit anti-furry bastard swords, spears, and knives for the people of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    What a world.


    The salamander core lit up with a small pilot flame. The heat of that flame it consumed and spat out, magnified, and flames grew in the firebox to produce heinous temperatures. A heat returner pulled the waste heat back into the salamander core containing fire box, which it then continued to reheat back to working temperature. Muspelheim¡¯s defeat would fuel Gaia¡¯s ascension, which Alexander had the feeling was most of the point of Gaia empowering her children as she had.


    Not that he could be certain about anthropomorphizing an entire planet¡¯s intentions.


    It took about fifteen minutes for the small pilot flame produced by a wood fire to heat the working fluid sufficiently to permit the salamander core to maintain operating pressure in Sterling Jr., so Alexander left the smithy to start collecting preferred weapons with which one might gut a darkness beast from the realm of Nut.


    He returned with Granny Nguyen, whose pack contained the offerings to be upgraded. She was a better pack mule than he, by far, and had seemed a little at a loss as how to help, so he¡¯d grabbed her up. He also had Jules Reynolds in tow, because he didn¡¯t want to spend an entire evening hammering golem silver ingots into eighth inch sheets when Jules could, and he wished his life weren¡¯t insane enough to say this seriously, roll them out with a rolling pin, the kind a baker used.


    Inside the shop, Sterling was just about warmed up and had started to hum, pistons churning in delicate synchrony, their power impotent until the drive mechanisms were engaged that joined them to the shop¡¯s tooling, currently that of George, the power hammer.


    Alexander had forgotten to light the forge before he left, and he cursed himself for the waste of time. It would take the forge a few minutes to heat to temperature. Instead of standing here like an idiot while a dungeon shits out monsters, he could have been working already.


    Granny laid down the oversized backpack and started unloading its contents. The people of Falcon¡¯s Rest had diverse tastes in weaponry. Two handed bastard swords, double bitted felling axes, a few Messer style knives whose design Alexander might have inspired, and a solid dozen spears of various flavors. Most people recognized the benefit of a weapon that let you stay out of arms reach of the kinds of things dungeons produced.


    The kinds of things Gaia produced too, now that he thought on it. Panther Rex, Yetis, winter bears, Entlings, dire wolves, there was plenty out there you didn¡¯t want close to hand, all home grown.


    Normally, Granny hated the sound of the machine tools and engines, so the fact that she was still standing there, even after the implements to be worked on were unloaded surprised him. Jules was over to the side, already going to his task with a will. The Quintessence Shaper was whistling, rolling out solid metal like dough. He¡¯d be done in five to ten minutes with something that would have taken Alexander four or five hours. Insanity. The Guilds had been stone blind not to see his worth.


    ¡°What¡¯s up Granny Nguyen?¡± Alexander asked, while he started a wood fire inside the salamander core firebox, which fed the lion¡¯s share of its heat to the obsidian lined uber forge, and from which a small portion of that heat was siphoned to a downscaled steam powered blower that continuously circulated the superheated air inside, to produce even heating of the metals within.


    ¡°Ahh, nothing.¡± She replied, obviously lying.


    Annita really did not like being inside his shop. It was why he hid there when she was up to her games, and he didn¡¯t want to play. So why was she here, beating around the bush in a most Un-Granny-like fashion? Was it the werewolves? Itching at being stuck behind the walls?


    He had some time to kill until the forge got to temperature, so he might as well investigate what had her hanging around in the last place she¡¯d normally be found.


    ¡°Out with it, witch! I know you don¡¯t like the shop, and you¡¯re eyeballing George like he drowned your kittens or something.¡± He probed.


    She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head at him, so he knew he was getting somewhere.


    ¡°You know it¡¯s weird that you talk about your power hammer like it¡¯s a person, right?¡± She accused, more than asked.


    He seemed to recall having a similar conversation a while back, but the details were murky.


    ¡°Don¡¯t talk about George like that, he has feelings too!¡± Alexander rebutted.


    He didn¡¯t expect a hill witch to understand his steel cased friends.


    ¡°Besides,¡± he added, trying for the heart of the matter, ¡°You¡¯re not really mad at George, you¡¯re just deflecting. It isn¡¯t like you to mince around Annita, what gives?¡±


    She kicked around at the concrete floor a little, refusing to meet his eyes before she answered, ¡°I don¡¯t know! You¡¯re in here doing all this, and the other guys are out getting ready to kick ass, and I¡¯m not even allowed to sleep in my house. When those murdering fuckers attacked, I wasn¡¯t even around to help; I strolled into town like a mook and found out what happened hours after the fact. You and Melinda and Julie were all fucked up and I couldn¡¯t do anything. Just like I can¡¯t do anything now. I hate feeling useless, I guess.¡±


    That was unexpected. Granny was a source of self-assurance on most days. Getting down over something like this was definitely unusual. Most of the villagers who had even the slightest desire had spent the winter training, getting themselves prepared to defend the town, whatever might come. Granny had spent no less time than anybody else on that front, and her kukri had a way of finding ways to hamstring most people that sparred against her, which was followed by a circling death by a thousand chops from the Dryad, or getting thrown like a sack of grain, and finished, her judo was solid.


    That said, Granny wasn¡¯t a combat class, not even a little, and she didn¡¯t have that immediate instinct to go for the kill. Her mind didn¡¯t work that way. Alexander¡¯s did, and it was why he beat better fighters in their sparring matches. A flinch, a hesitation, a moment of doubt, these were wired into his instincts as cues to finish the opponent.


    ¡°I hate to be the one to tell you this Annita, but you¡¯re one of the least combat focused people in the settlement, besides the farmers. Everything in your tool kit so far as combat is geared to avoid fights, which is why your botanical ninja ass can wander around outside without a care in the world while the rest of us are walking on eggshells to avoid notice. I have to actively use Stalk to fly under the radar. It¡¯s a matter of strengths, Gaia sort of suggests that we play to ours with our abilities.¡± Alexander bluntly told her.


    She should know all this, she wasn¡¯t unaware. Just frustrated. But he didn¡¯t know how to fix that for her, and he wouldn¡¯t bullshit his friend.


    An almost pout crossed her features.


    ¡°I know! But it sucks! I want to be like Brig, just out full cowabunga, laying waste. Even the Dame, when she stops giving lessons on how many forks you need to eat a meal, picks up a creek and turns it into a monster hole puncher.¡± She cried.


    Almost literally cried, there was a hint of tears in her eyes, a complete novelty. He was taken aback by her vehemence.


    What could he do for her? Classes were relatively fixed, there were no takesbacksies with Gaia. Once you Matriculated and your core was formed, that was it. Sure, classes evolved, rarely, but only along a course mostly laid in by who you were as a person, by what Gaia saw in your soul, your Ka, or whatever. Even after the tier three advancement, abilities and traits evolved more forward than sideways. Bloodlines exclusively made you more of yourself, synergizing with what was already there. Granny wasn¡¯t a warrior, that¡¯s all there was to it. Even if she wanted to be, sometimes.


    ¡°You know, you¡¯re not exactly helpless. I¡¯ve seen you go to work in the volcano, and I¡¯ve seen you handle your share of critters that would have made a meal out of me when I first started out here without a scratch. Just because you¡¯re not Ben, doesn¡¯t mean you¡¯re useless.¡± He offered, consoling her with facts.


    From the side, Alexander saw the professional matter shaper rise and rub his lower back, two ingots of golem silver rolled into approximately uniform sheets of metal. He¡¯d smoothed them to a mirror finish by pulling a bit of concrete from the floor into brackets, liquifying the sheets, then resolidifying them. Then he¡¯d pressed the concrete back down and smoothed it like putty. Fucking outrageous.


    ¡°Welp! Job¡¯s done,¡± He announced, pretending not to notice the upset lady and the clueless lad, ¡°I¡¯m right out straight, so I¡¯ll be off. See you kids later.¡±


    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    With that, he was out the door and off to complete more miracles. That left Alexander alone to try to figure out how to fix whatever was eating Annita Nguyen.


    The forge was coming up to temperature, so he measured the dimensions of the first blade to be forge welded with a coat of golem silver and cut out the square of silver. It only took a moment with the big High Steel shears he¡¯d made before even having Sterling the first ready to go. Then, the Warforger gloved up, grabbed a set of tongs, and shoved both spear and piece of silver into the interior, leaving the wood handle well outside so it didn¡¯t char. All he needed hot was the area he wanted to forge weld.


    He hadn¡¯t come up with anything to say to make Granny¡¯s situation better, so he shut up, rather than commit to his usual tack of placing both feet in his mouth.


    A sidelong glance at her found her roaming around the shop, as if she¡¯d never been there before. Come to think of it, maybe she hadn¡¯t, other than to stand outside and call him a filthy coward, hiding behind noise and imaginary metal friends. Well, that was fine, there wasn¡¯t anything that could hurt her except for Sterling and George, and she had more than enough sense not to go touching those.


    It was amazing the increase in shop safety when there was no electricity involved.


    ¡°Ears! Back wall!¡± He called, the standard notice that things were about to get loud, and where ear pro could be found.


    For himself, he doffed the little orange plugs and seated a heavier set of muffs over top of them. Next, he pulled the cherry red spear out from the forge, splashed boric acid flux powder over the steel, and used the tongs to snatch the jacketing silver. These two he layered together under the flat dye of George and began working the actuating pedal, sending ringing echoes through the warehouse walled shop.


    Just slightly audible over the sound of George joyfully flattening metal, hopefully completely bonding the dissimilar metals to form a strong weld, he heard Granny scream, ¡°Sweet Gaia¡¯s cootch, that is fucking loud!¡±


    A lopsided grin spread on his face, and he continued to flip the spear, holding the tongs to keep the jacketing piece squarely in place. A quick pull of these two to the anvil and he laid them down, hefting a five-pound blacksmith¡¯s hammer. Practiced blows of the hammer folded the fading red of the silver jacket, which lost its heat much more rapidly than the steel, over the edge, creasing it with George before he threw them both back into the forge for reheating.


    It was critical to keep the working temperatures high, he needed the metal to bond cleanly, or it would delaminate as he completed the jacket. That was a lesson learned two years ago, when he¡¯d taught himself forge welding, with help from Papa Gerifalte¡¯s library of Ye Olden Ways.


    Now that he had a bit of a lull, he spared the attention to find Granny seated on the planning table, golden stare rapt. It was a little unnerving, he didn¡¯t usually have an audience while he worked. That weirdness was slightly offset by the amusing profile of the petit woman wearing the big earmuffs, with her elbows propped against her knees to hold them firmly against the oppressive clangs of metal.


    The young man nearly opened his mouth to say something certifiably stupid and caught himself, pulling instead the spear from the forge and making another pass on jacketing the foot long symmetrical leaf shaped blade. George threw sparks and Alexander regularly returned the blade to the anvil for some finer strokes of the blacksmith¡¯s hammer to keep the blade straight, and completely seal the jacket. He tossed the spear back in for a third heat, probably the last one.


    Sometimes he wondered how much of these skills were his, and how much Gaia¡¯s intervention played a role. He¡¯d had to work ridiculously hard to learn and polish his blacksmithing, picking it up from virtually nothing. He¡¯d failed many more projects than he ever succeeded on. Even pieces he¡¯d done five or six times, if his focus lapsed, he would flub. But, when he was on his game, he felt like he overperformed compared to his relative level of experience. Most of the craftsmen of Safe Harbor had agreed. Kim had simply responded to his inquiries by saying, ¡°Some guys just have the touch. You do. Your piece¡¯s cooling, get hammering.¡±


    It didn¡¯t matter, not really. If Alexander had been forced to make some kind of pact with a hellspawn to get the chance to bring his parents, and all those people sitting in the Vault right now too, back he¡¯d have done it.


    In a lot of ways, a meteor strike would have been easier to take. Then you could just move on, accept that unfathomable disasters happened, senseless, without reason, and that there was no going back. But those statues always seemed to look at him and insist that they weren¡¯t yet gone and why wasn¡¯t he freeing them from their imprisonment? He couldn¡¯t meet their stone eyes anymore from the shame.


    Being a little quick on the uptake at folding metal or being able to taste things and see their basic properties was precious little fucking compensation for losing every single human you ever knew, in his book. All the gods above, below, and in between take his soul if it weren¡¯t.


    Third heat done, he beat and folded, and flattened the softer silver to contour around the spearhead, carefully sealing it, welding it to the steel below. The final product was nothing beautiful, the blade¡¯s previous geometry and polish ruined by the hammering. It was rough now, asymmetrical. But not for too long. One of the first things they¡¯d done to upgrade the shop last November was to retrofit a belt grinder to run on Sterling¡¯s power.


    It was phenomenal how versatile a flywheel was for operating machines.


    This newest friend, Bonaparte, would give the jacketed spear a facelift, restoring its prior glory. The coat of silver would probably be reduced to a little shy of the original eighth inch sheet he¡¯d started with, but as long as his forge weld took and no delamination occurred, there shouldn¡¯t be too much excess metal to remove. The spear would have an extra tenth of an inch, minimum of the spectral monster slaying metal coating it by the time with Bonaparte was over.


    Alexander only really worried about the belts that were going to be consumed during this work. They couldn¡¯t currently replace grinder belts. Every last one used up was one less forever. He didn¡¯t like to think about the pace of projects when that happened.


    Only the people like Benjamin or Jules would be able to do fine work then, the only ones who could manipulate metals to produce the strict tolerances demanded by industrial machining. They wouldn¡¯t be able to keep up with the demand, not by a long shot. And their talents were needed elsewhere. He shelved that as a problem for the future, borrowed worry. His focus was needed on the now, which was plenty to keep his plate full.


    ¡°You¡¯re different like this, when you¡¯re concentrating.¡± Granny intruded on his brooding.


    He looked up from the spear he¡¯d been inspecting for faults.


    It took a moment for the statement to wind its way from his ears to his brain and, in the meantime, he automatically said ¡°What?¡±


    ¡°When you work. You look older, more mature.¡± She added, still bent over to rest her chin on her hands, her legs kicking lightly over the edge of the table, in an undignified slouch.


    Between her posture and attire as a cross between a homeless person and a bandit, Granny Nguyen made no efforts to show out. Nevertheless, she had a pretty face, and Alexander couldn¡¯t fail to miss a distinctly admiring bent to her observation. He was reminded of Georgia and Brig¡¯s statements to him a few months back. He¡¯d meant to have a little chat with the Dryad that had gotten put on the back burner by the assault, and the frenetic pace of the village thereafter. Somehow, the atmosphere had never been right, even though they routinely hung out during the evening get togethers at the tavern, where both were regulars.


    Most times, he bowed out earlyish, to plot on the next day¡¯s tasks, to plan for what would soon be needed, and by whom it needed to be done. More often than not, that meant consulting the library to figure out the endless litany of details that accompanied rebuilding civilization. And they were endless. Lifetimes of expertise to attempt to absorb. Techniques and methods unused for a century and more to unearth, all of these could be found in the library. But find them you must, and that was an undertaking.


    Saki, one of the only other college trained, and, frankly, academic minds in the village was a help. But she was narrowly focused. Her only interest was on chemical methods, synthesis, purification, and the equipment to do it.


    Honestly? Hers was the more challenging task.


    Chemical engineering had progressed farther than almost any field of science in modern history, and it was laborious work to figure out what methods and materials could be relied upon absent the facilities used to perform many, if not most of the processes. Worse, it was heinously dangerous. Many of the reagents needed, such as concentrated sulfuric acid, which seemed to be used for godsdamned everything, had to be produced in ways that demanded utmost respect, or the resulting mistake would maim, or even kill, within moments. Saki had spent more than one rotation of the Phoenix suns recovering from inhaled caustics, or a sulfur trioxide leak, or chlorine poisoning, or any of a host of hazards.


    Alexander had dipped his toes into the complexities of synthesis to produce a high explosive. He¡¯d followed an explicit, step by step process, published for its beautiful simplicity and maximum safety, and he¡¯d still managed to detonate a lab in the execution. Saki was leagues farther down the rabbit hole.


    None of that had anything to do with his current situation, growing slightly warmer under Annita Nguyen¡¯s consideration, but it helped him avoid the topic. He was beginning to think that he had trouble with ideas even approximately regarding commitment.


    Finally, he decided it was impossible, and also rude, to remain quiet.


    ¡°Thanks, Granny. I¡¯m, you know, I¡¯m trying my best. It¡¯s important.¡± He kind of rambled.


    You poor lame bastard, he rightfully accused himself.


    ¡°It¡¯s attractive,¡± Granny said, without any apparent effort, ¡°I think I get why some of the others really go for you. Most of the time we¡¯re together, we¡¯re slacking off, relaxing, and you¡¯re doing your innocent kid rain man routine. The only time I really got to see what got Brig all hot and bothered for was when we cleared Muspelheim. I don¡¯t have a thing for guys in uniforms though, so that was more weird than anything else.¡±.


    Annita¡¯s expression turned a little, like she was confused, ¡°How do you do it, anyway? It¡¯s like a switch gets flipped, and you go from being a goofball to being sort of spooky. Like Ben.¡±


    That was an easy one, even if he was still uncomfortable with her absence of the usual playful teasing.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. In a lot of ways, it¡¯s a lot like flipping a switch. I can¡¯t say how it is for Ben, because I think he lives in that space all the time, but, for me, it¡¯s like there¡¯s this clear set of rules for who you should be. There¡¯re rules for when things are peaceful. Then there¡¯s the ones for when they aren¡¯t. It took getting gutted by a Yeti to make that sink in. You lay in a ditch full of ice water, fading out from shock because you weren¡¯t a hundred percent with your head in the game, and you sort of look at yourself from the outside, with a wider perspective.¡±


    He shrugged, recalling the moment of epiphany, ¡°After that, for me, I understood the rules better. Be a good person when times are peaceful. Be ruthless when they aren¡¯t. Gaia gave me a trait when I figured it out, replaced an unfocused ability called Rage, with a sharper one called, aptly, Ruthless. I told you before, Granny, I¡¯m not a decent human being. Not all the time.¡±


    Alexander Gerifalte hated the sadness in Granny¡¯s eyes when he said that. He didn¡¯t like sympathy, or pity. Empathy, sure, it was good to be understood, but not the others.


    ¡°It shouldn¡¯t have to be that way.¡± She said, and she was right.


    He nodded, ¡°Probably not. But it always has been. People just managed to put enough distance between themselves and the reality of it to forget. We hid behind our nice, cozy little convenient lives. A lot of the world didn¡¯t have that luxury, they still had to live with the old rules. You know, Granny Nguyen, when you¡¯re putting your kukri through a critter¡¯s brains like chopping melons, you¡¯re finding your way back to that place too. You just block it out after the fact because you hate it.¡± He told her.


    That observation fed to her made the woman sit back, and she was clearly not enjoying the taste.


    ¡°That feels wrong.¡± She told him, with a sour twist to her lips.


    ¡°All decent people say that.¡± He said immediately.


    ¡°They want to live in that should be world. People like Ben, Brig, Mark, Nathan, and, I guess, people like me too, help them do that. Its why soldiers serve their country, and not some other word. We want you to be happy Annita. Even if it isn¡¯t real. You guys get to believe in Santa Claus because someone who knows better is bringing presents down the stairs in the middle of the night to keep the myth alive. I don¡¯t know how else to explain it.¡± Alexander told the lovely woman, who was his friend.


    The forge continued to blaze in the background, its blowers pumping cycled heat to a salamander core to feed the fires. Sterling Jr. ran steadily, cylinders rising and falling with precise, methodical timing. The machines instilled a dynamic, tangible basis for his argument to Granny.


    Reality was a mechanical thing, with rules that had to be obeyed, used, to survive. Joy was an imagined thing, a culmination of desire and expectation. One was real, the other wasn¡¯t. Alexander wanted a world with more joy in it, so much that reality couldn¡¯t keep up. But that meant mastering reality first.


    ¡°I love you.¡± Annita Nguyen told him.


    ¡°Yeah, I know.¡± Alexander Gerifalte told her.


    Which got the desired effect, the Asian features transformed from a gentle repose, a certain shyness into a fierce scowl.


    ¡°Who the hell do you think you are, Indiana Jones?! What do you mean, ¡®I know¡¯?!¡± She berated him.


    Alexander smiled, glad for a return to normalcy.


    ¡°It¡¯s Han Solo. And I mean I know, because Georgia and Brig said you had a case around the new year. I didn¡¯t know what to do, then, and I kind of still don¡¯t. I like you, Granny. You¡¯re one of my favorite people. Maybe ever. And I¡¯d definitely have sex with you. I¡¯d probably even cuddle afterwards. And I like it when I see you randomly around a corner, the day gets just a little bit better. Is that love? I never knew, so I didn¡¯t take a chance making you sad by saying anything.¡± Alexander explained, knowing it wasn¡¯t a good reason, but also knowing it¡¯s the one that had stopped him from asking the little witch out.


    ¡°I can¡¯t believe you tricked me into thinking you were cool for a second. You were supposed to come find me out in my shack, beat on the door, hand me a bear carcass or something, and tell me to get naked.¡± Granny argued loudly, gesturing menacingly with a finger that pointed in random directions, flickering around like a hummingbird attacking a flower.


    Alexander frowned, ¡°Isn¡¯t that sexist? I thought you were all into that wiccan earth mother shit, where women were the flesh of the land and all that?¡±


    ¡°I am! And we are! But that doesn¡¯t mean a man doesn¡¯t have his role. Women are the flesh, supple and nurturing, and men are the bone, rigid and structured. And, if you don¡¯t get over here and get boning, this flesh is going to go cry in Georgia¡¯s spare bed for a few hours, start spreading slanderous shit about you, and then, rebound off every guy that will have it for a few months and move on.¡± Granny proclaimed, half serious and half jest.


    Which was which she was going to leave him to figure out.


    ¡°What if it doesn¡¯t work? What if we don¡¯t work? I don¡¯t want us to change.¡± Alexander asked, because he was afraid of change.


    ¡°We¡¯re already changed, Alexander. The water¡¯s boiled, the teapot¡¯s squealing, it¡¯s too late for that shit. Now, what are you going to do about it?¡± Annita demanded, imperious from her throne on the work bench.


    What was he going to do about it? That was the mother fucking million-dollar question that got asked him Every. Single. Goddamned. Day. After a moment to think on it, he made his decision. Granny deserved her answer now that she¡¯d asked it. She¡¯d put herself out there, an act of courage he¡¯d failed to have. His cowardice was shameful, but he accepted it, because nobody could be perfect. All he could do was try to be better tomorrow. Today, that meant doing right by Annita Nguyen.


    Alexander sighed and turned off the forge, closing the valve that recirculated the heated air that fed the salamander core and opened the vent valve. The heated air rushed into the smithy, warming it. Then he did the same for the steam engine, letting the pistons rest, while the steam vented, rising into fast dispersing white clouds that condensed against the shop ceiling.


    When that was done, he walked over and picked Annita up, slung the tiny laughing woman over his shoulder, and escorted her that way down the street to his house. It rained the whole way there, and neither one of them cared. When they arrived, he opened the door and threw her in his bed, and she stood on it and did the most aggressively lewd strip dance he¡¯d ever seen.


    That pretty much put an end to any lingering reservations.


    He hadn¡¯t had sex in close to three months, which sped things up on his end. She hadn¡¯t had sex in ever, which slowed them way, way down. They figured it out to all party¡¯s satisfaction. Later, much later, most of the good sleeping hours gone later, they finally exhausted themselves and lay in a sweaty pile, blankets and coversheet tossed aside.


    ¡°Ohhh, that that kind of stings now.¡± The naked woman groaned, a little while after they¡¯d called it quits.


    ¡°How did you do that much damage with that thing?  It isn¡¯t even all that big.¡± Annita griped, glaring at him from her place lying on his stomach.


    ¡°You could have mentioned, before we started, I mean, that you¡¯d never put anything in there larger than a finger.¡± He replied, still laying beneath her as a body pillow.


    ¡°Besides, you got lucky. If I were any bigger, you¡¯d have been super uncomfortable. The first time I found the bottom you tried to choke me.¡± Alexander reminded her.


    They¡¯d found that their nethers were just about suited, his and hers. It made the sex highly enjoyable, and they¡¯d gone a little overboard. Which Granny paid for now, and he got to merely bask in the glow, a testament to the innate unfairness of men versus women. Except for that multiple orgasms thing, that looked fun.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you all hyper, isn¡¯t that a lady thing, getting jazzed up?¡± Alexander asked, content to lay there half asleep and chat.


    He heard a light giggle, uncharacteristically feminine, and she dispelled the myth, saying low and smoky, ¡°That¡¯s only for when you don¡¯t get stroked into a coma, I¡¯m fucking spent. And, thanks, it was great, worth a little aching after the fact.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m glad I could give you a good first roll, back scratches and all.¡± Alexander told his pacified lover, with a little smugness permitted on his part.


    Those scratches were hard earned, and he wore them gladly.


    ¡°Do witches eat their lovers like praying mantises?¡± Alexander asked jokingly.


    ¡°Should they start?¡± Annita answered, with a nip at his stomach.


    He wondered at that. Does the mantis go gladly to its death, knowing it has sowed the seeds of hundreds of its young?


    ¡°Only if you do that leg-lock shuddering thing again, then it¡¯s bon Appetit, my good lady.¡± The young man chuckled.


    That earned him another re-snuggling, with a silken leg tracing over his slowly. The damp, active part of the love making was over, but not the entirety of it. Granny completed the approving skinship with the decidedly honest statement, ¡°Then we¡¯re at an impasse, my brave sir, because those are orgasms that I¡¯m not willing risk losing, no matter how tasty you might be. I thought Brig was making that shit up.¡±


    At the mention of his other, somewhat infrequent lover, he wondered how much coaching had gone into this. Some of the awkwardness, not all of it, mind, but some of it, had had the feeling of someone trying to do what they¡¯d been told, rather than something completely spontaneous.


    ¡°If you were getting tips from Brigitte O¡¯Connor, you were taking the advanced courses. You ought to work up to that, Brig doesn¡¯t fuck around when she fucks around.¡± He warned.


    He needed not to have worried, Granny set him straight on that account, groaning, ¡°I¡¯d break my hips doing half the stuff she talked about. I don¡¯t even think she has cartilage.¡±


    After a moment, the silky voice nestled beneath his floating rib asked, ¡°Is it weird to be talking about her like this, in this place?¡±


    Alexander only needed a moment to ponder that before responding emphatically, ¡°It would make her happy.¡±


    In the comfort and utter relaxation of his maybe more than best friend he put into words what he thought of the Oread woman with copper hair. And her companions.


    ¡°She¡¯s like some pagan goddess, spreading wild joy by instinct. I¡¯ve never met a spirit freer or more comfortable in their own skin than that lady. She¡¯s a hero to me. Like Ben. And Mark and Melinda too, really. Each in a different way, like incarnations of Greek gods, each with a different seat in Olympus. Getsome saved my life, way back when, when they pulled me out of here. I¡¯d have gone completely batshit all alone.¡±


    It might have taken years, but he was certain the sustained isolation would have, eventually, warped him beyond recognition. Like that one Japanese guy, Onoda or something, that stayed in the jungle for twenty something years after World War two ended, living like a savage.


    ¡°But don¡¯t tell any of them I said that, it would make it weird.¡± He hurriedly added.


    She laughed at him then and made no promise. She did say something that caught him broadside, however.


    ¡°That¡¯s funny. Because I think they think of you the same way. The lost boy, hunting the demons in the forest alone. I used to ask Ben about you, when I was trying to figure out how to get this right here to happen, and he told me all kinds of stuff that was interesting.¡±


    He looked down and saw her smirking at him, for some reason. He didn¡¯t get the chance to ask what was funny though because she was moving on.


    ¡°After the attack, they found those four shitdicks who tried to kill you. Ben said they looked like they¡¯d, in his words, ¡®got done real professional like¡¯. I think even he was impressed.¡±


    She¡¯d pitched her voice down in her best Ben impression, which came nowhere close to the man, but was hilarious in its attempt. Knowing the older warrior approved felt nice too, even if the thing he was approving of was, frankly, fucking awful. Alexander hadn¡¯t ever killed a human before that. Not a living one, anyway, the zombies didn¡¯t count.


    A detail from, long, long ago clicked, and he grew a little confused.


    ¡°I only got three of them. There was a Normal on a garage with a gun. I took a crack at him, but he still shot me, I didn¡¯t get a chance to go back for him.¡± He explained.


    Annita nuzzled her face into him solidly, and said, ¡°You hit him in the neck, his finger must have been squeezing the trigger while he died.¡±


    So¡­he¡¯d gotten shot by sheer bad luck?  Un-be-fucking-lieavable.


    ¡°What about me?¡± Granny prompted, full of mischief, ¡°Do I get a place in your pantheon?¡±


    He didn¡¯t have to think about that either, before he answered ¡°Of course! You¡¯re my Hecate, Queen of the witches.¡±


    She giggled tiredly then, and they laid quiet until sleep claimed them, spurred by the steady drum of rain on the roof. Just before he slept, he heard a whispered ¡°Good night then, King of Shadows.¡±


    While he and Annita had lain in post coital stupor, werewolves attempted to climb the wall.


    They failed. Melinda flash banged them, and Impervious and Getsome together strode out like grim faced executioners and slaughtered the creatures wholesale. Cervante fought with murderous rage, every swing of the odd shaped great sword carving into flesh, before ringing a tone that vibrated the monster¡¯s bones to powder inside them.


    Golem Argentum, it happened, was super effective against the creatures. These monsters of Nut burned where struck by silvered weapons, their flesh parted far more easily, their Soak negated substantially by the magical disharmony between whatever essence made them up and the resonances of the mana instilled silver.


    Daily drills, spurred by the murders of friends, had put a razor¡¯s edge on the Adventurers, they moved in synchrony, presenting no weaknesses to the ravening man beast hybrids.


    Riley Potter had joined them, replacing in Impervious, as a stand in, Hilde. He would not be denied this, because he wanted something against which to apply his Vacuum Fencing to its utmost. The abilities wielded by the one-time suck-blow engineer did awful things to flesh. Air pressure removed from the back side of a monster, pulled to the front, magnified tenfold, produced cuts and thrusts that very nearly exploded the creatures struck. Add to that, his sword was coated in air, frictionless. A monster cut was sliced cleaner than a scalpel. It took almost no effort to make his blows count, so Riley Potter had practiced finesse, and speed. He fought like a cyclone, according to Nathan.


    Riley and Cervantes had bonded somewhat, over their shared losses. Nothing replaced what was gone, but a friend who understood helped.


    When the two parties of defenders returned, they packed in the corpses of the slain dungeon spawn. Shiv did the autopsies. Two hearts, that was good to know, one where you might think, another low down, opposite the liver. Surprisingly small brains, the skulls of the monsters were thicker than usual canids. Similarly, the jaws were stronger, one had taken a bite out of the corner Nathan¡¯s great shield before he cut it down, and that took some doing. Claws four inches long, not particularly sharp. Muscles and hamstrings quite wiry, the creatures had significant power. Blood was red-brown, rust colored, even when fresh.


    Alexander stood over the corpses an hour after they¡¯d been brought into the town. He was wearing his casual wear, a long-sleeved camouflage under armor shirt, courtesy of the hunting supplies shops that outfitted most of the people in town. His hands were in the pockets of his cargo pants, and he was walking around the shaggy furred bodies, his eyes dissecting the forms, cataloguing them. He needed to know if one of the scouts, Melinda or Bonny had inspected the monsters while they were alive.


    That was important, the Soak a creature had died with it, it was important to know what kind of mitigation could be expected from the creatures. The Adventurer teams had cleaned these monsters up with apparent ease, but that might not be the case if the less experienced townsfolk had to deal with them. He was the only one playing with a joker when it came to getting around the passive defenses of Soak, this was maybe lifesaving information.


    He looked around for Melinda.


    She was chatting with Mark, the two of them with their heads together, coming up with good ideas, in all likelihood, but she came over to let him in on the debrief, when he waved. Alexander was, nominally, the head honcho of Falcon¡¯s Rest, as bad an idea as that was. He would do his best to at least pretend to have a clue.


    The tight bun of black hair sat neatly under her helmet, in a divot he¡¯d specifically placed there for it. It would help as a shock absorber if she ever got hit in the back of the head and gave the small crest a distinct profile. Crests he¡¯d put on them because it was fun, and because they helped you identify who was where when the shit was in the fan. Commanders of old had had simple, but effective ideas for retrieving tactical information from the thick of melee. Alexander wasn¡¯t going to second guess Gaius Julius Ceasar or Sargon of Akkad.


    Melinda stood at loose attention, reflecting the discipline Ben had instilled in them when they¡¯d first began their careers saving humanity from the dungeons. Bless that surly bastard, there was no telling how many people he¡¯d saved. Melinda, tiny though she was, was a hellion with her rapier, making very neat holes where you didn¡¯t want them. Alexander thought sparring her was like sparring a hornet nest.


    ¡°Melinda, did you get an inspect off on them before they were killed?¡± He asked.


    She was still wearing her business face, solid and serious, despite the cute dimples of her cheeks, barely hidden by the helmet.


    ¡°Aye, Napolean Feather-Cap!¡± She said, belying his previous assertion that she was still all business.


    He blinked slowly at the address and wondered if it had been a mistake not to step on this much, much earlier. They were getting quite inventive with their titles.


    ¡°Ahuh, nice one, by the by. What can you tell me about them that isn¡¯t obvious from Shiv¡¯s autopsy?¡± He requested.


    Seriously now, she reported evenly, ¡°Fifteen to twenty percent Soak, not too bad to get through, especially with the silver. Thick hide though, and the fur likes to tangle your blade, slashing is worse than you might initially expect. The howl carries a sonic attack, makes your muscles weak. Our helmets blocked most of that, though. As we suspected, sudden bright lights blind the crap out of them, but only for a couple of seconds. We need you for the details on their cores and components. I¡¯m pretty certain, the description on their scroll is a little oddly phrased, but I think they shape shift between full wolf for mobility and this one as a battle form.¡±


    He took a minute to digest that information. Shapeshifters then, which wasn¡¯t exactly a novelty, but it was interesting. How did magic permit an entire body to rearrange itself like that?  He¡¯d have to ask Jules Reynolds again; the man¡¯s Outsider tier up had permitted him to do similar things with his anatomy.


    Alexander put one of the werewolf cores in a thick leather bag from his belt and lifted a heavy smithing hammer picked up along the way as he¡¯d passed by the smithy. He brought it down, hard, and the glasslike breaking of the magical jewel sounded loud in the pre-dawn air. He smashed the core up into powder and reached into the bag for a pinch. They had plenty to put to use later, there had been fourteen werewolves in the attempted raid.


    The flavor on his tongue was like powdered vinegar, sharp and twangy. He swallowed it anyway, long since accustomed to the odd flavors of mystical nonsense.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Nut Werewolf Core, Juvenile: the werebeast assumes a dual nature, and so too does its mana. Partly composed of the magic of life and transformation but corrupted by dark magic. The combination creates insanity, insatiable urges, and inevitably dooms the sentient infected by this magic to become one of the creatures.


    Application of silver, as a siphon, can draw the dark mana into a diamond the purity of which dictates how stable and efficient the storage gem may be. The life magic, once isolated, has potent transformational nature of the shapeshifting beasts, and may be drawn into Jade with a brass siphon.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    There was a bit there that needed further thinking. Part of which was that they now knew why silver was effective. It would seem there were nuanced interactions between types of magic and materials in opposition. The Golem Argentum separated the dark magic from its enmeshing with the other mana in the beasts, wounding them on a metaphysical level, in addition to the physical effect of putting sharp metal into flesh.


    He shook his head and ran fingers through the down on his head out of habit. It was becoming a tic when he was thinking hard.


    ¡°Okay, first thing, these fuckers are infectious.¡± Alexander said, grimly.


    ¡°You guys weren¡¯t wrong; they really were trying to take you alive. I don¡¯t know how it happens, but I think they inject dark magic into you, and it starts to eat away at you, turning you into one of them, eventually. They might have been sentient at one point, but the dark mana is, according to the Scroll, accompanied by madness and violent instincts.¡± He explained.


    The gathered townsfolk looked around at each other grim faced. It wasn¡¯t Doppelgangers, but it was close.


    ¡°Second thing,¡± Alexander continued, still mulling aloud the implications of the information hanging before his eyes alone, ¡°Diamonds can be used to store the dark mana and silver used as a kind of magical siphon, separating the dark from the life mana. That has applications in other cases, metals, maybe only the ones that come from magical creatures like the golem, can act as mana conductors and minerals like mana sinks, reservoirs, which confirms our suspicions about the different types of human cores and why every type of magic has different cores associated with it. No insight about the facet shape, though, that remains a mystery.¡±


    Wynona Saki chimed in then, ¡°We can test this today. The jewelry store has tons of, up to now, worthless rocks that we can run tests on. If it works, maybe a silver wrapped diamond can be used to prevent the infection, like pulling venom from a wound, the way the old wives¡¯ tales used to suggest.¡±


    A solid idea, this is why he liked having people smarter than him around.


    Alexander handed her the pouch of powdered werewolf core and an intact one, and said simply, ¡°Do your thing, Saki.¡±


    A thought occurred to him, and he called after the departing back, ¡°Wait! Grab Jules, I¡¯ve got the rest of the silver in my shop in sheets, cut yourself what you think you¡¯ll need to make a prototype and have him make nice fine filaments. We can maybe ballpark mana conductivity parameters based on wire gauge, which might come in handy later.¡±


    She waved to acknowledge she¡¯d heard and the pair of them departed to see if they could work out countermeasures in case anyone was infected by dark mana.


    A whole new avenue of research had opened up, as a result of a tidbit of information dropped by inspecting the werewolf cores. It never seemed to end, the things to be learned about this crazy life.


    Alexander continued his work analyzing the parts of the werewolf corpses and tasting them for useful alchemical reagents. There were, unfortunately, none immediately useful. Dark mana seemed to be a potent corruptor, although in a fashion that made more of itself. Like rot. Well even corrosive substances had uses, they might just find application for the dark magic, provided they could do it safely.


    He briefly thought of the sunlight magic contained in a rare variant of elk, ones that shot a laser from a focal point between their glasslike antlers. Perhaps the time had finally come for those little treasures to, ehem, shine. At the least, it might take the strain off Melinda, who was going to be a part of any effort to destroy this dungeon. Field dungeon or closed, her Luminous Pathfinder class was potent against the fiends that lived in eternal night.


    It had taken ten minutes to examine the corpses with Greater Analyze and Analytic Ingestion.


    He was going to start passing this off to Saki, she¡¯d just progressed her Greater Alchemist trait to Master Alchemist. Alexander had cheated his way through those ranks, Gaia granting her favor to one who faced impossible odds. Saki had done it the hard way, by being incredibly good at chemistry, applying her skills to their limits, and relearning more about how Gaia¡¯s magical bullshit worked at an atomic level than maybe anyone else he knew of. She was finicky about tasting things to gain insights into their properties though. Well, that part the Pyroclastic Cannoneer could get over, he was going to gladly pass the baton to her.


    The less the residents of Falcon¡¯s Rest needed him, the better off they were.


    Alexander Gerifalte was a bottleneck on the town, he could only do so much with his time. They were coming along nicely though, he had no doubt his generalist abilities would soon fall behind the talents of specialists, just like they had with Saki. Like they had been doing for Kim Summers too, before he was murdered. It grated his nerves, that, for more than the emotional damage. Kim was a crucial piece of the puzzle for lifting Falcon¡¯s Rest out of the pre-industrial era. His talents, his experience, wasted.


    For a few seconds, the young man let himself vibrate from the rage of it. Later, Little Falcon. You¡¯ll have your chance to collect for Kim later, he reminded himself.


    A hand rested on his shoulder, snapping him out of the rage, the grief that sometimes ate at his soul. Four dead men and women all because they¡¯d followed him. He wouldn¡¯t let himself off the hook, but it was good to know he wasn¡¯t alone.


    ¡°C¡¯mon Light Bird,¡± Ben said, gruff as usual, ¡°No sense chewing rocks, not when we could be getting hammers ready to smash¡¯em.¡±


    ¡°Besides,¡± he said with a note of humor, ¡°If what a little birdy named Annita tweeting in my ears is true, you haven¡¯t slept much more than a couple of hours. Good going, I thought you were going to fuck it up, and have her grinding poison today to slip in your coffee.¡±


    He patted the armored glove in thanks and rose to stand next to the senior warrior of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Benjamin might come off rough, but he was solid, and he took care of folk who needed him. He just might not tell you what you wanted to hear while he did it.


    As for Annita, that sneaky little horticulture ninja had disappeared into the dark, probably headed back to bed.


    ¡°Ayuh,¡± He told his hero, and friend, ¡°Well, thanks for going to bat for me. All that time, I thought Granny had a thing for you. I was cheering for you, by the way.¡± He told the Steel Heavy Knight.


    He smirked then at his comrade, ¡°But the way I hear it, you managed to bag yourself a sweet sugar momma. Climbing that social ladder on your back, you dog.¡± He ribbed.


    The amused snort from Ben was refreshing.


    ¡°I had to do something, these mothers around here, they all thought chivalry was dead. It just needed a fine specimen of man to latch onto. The Dame, she knows quality when it beats dragons to death in front of her.¡± The gravel voiced warrior bragged, indulging in some well-earned preening.


    From the side, Georgia called ¡°If you two turkeys are done patting yourselves on the back, we¡¯ve got to figure out where these virulent dog fuckers came from.¡±


    ¡°Business calls, kid, let¡¯s get our asses squared away.¡± Ben said, and they marched to where the others were huddling, intent on what Mark and Nathan were discussing.


    With the action over with, the rest of the village was retiring to claim whatever sleep they could, dawn still hadn¡¯t quite lightened the sky, but the faint hints of pink and orange were starting to break the gloom.


    ¡°By the way, Ben, what in the fuck is a light bird?¡± He asked on the way over.


    ¡°It¡¯s a lieutenant colonel, just shy of making full bird, in charge of their own battalion. They¡¯re still officer pukes, but they remember what the gravel tastes like, so they¡¯re not all bad.¡± Ben enlightened him.


    Alexander knew that came close to touching a past the broad soldier didn¡¯t acknowledge existed, so he didn¡¯t follow it up with any more questions.


    With their heads together, armed with new knowledge, the Adventurers set about planning the counterattack against Nut and whatever dark dwellers lived there.

 Chapter 23: Praise the Sun

    Werewolf hide, being robust, went into the tannery, which had gone relatively dormant. Dave was gone now, so they had no professional leatherworker, but one of the horse trainers, Nick Lancaster, Brigid bloodline, Bronco Teamster, said he might be able to pick up the traits for it, since he already had some ability called Refined tack that let him intuit the design of saddles, reins, bridles and whatnot to make more efficient their harness.


    Good news, because Alexander had only rudimentary skill, and no time to develop it further.


    Getsome and Impervious, after no little confabulation, decided that a mixed team was best deployed to find the dungeon, with the more defensively oriented Adventurers left to guard the house.


    Bonny and Melinda were shoe-ins on the mission, Bonny for her hawk familiar and its aether double to scout far in advance, and Melinda to keep the lights on, given that the creatures they faced would prefer the dark.


    Nathan would stay home, his Soak aura available to turn even the less battle-ready villagers into more effective troops, given that they would be allowed more mistakes with the extra Soak. Mark, Ben, Brig, and Cervantes would go ahead with the scouts, to add firepower, literally, in Mark¡¯s case. Their objective was mostly just to eliminate the frontal edges of any resistance, however, so that the scouts had time to withdraw if things went bad. Georgia went with as well, since a second Anchor tank was useful, and her Chronous Bulwark class had a time ward that could catch a surprise attack, freezing it, in case something nasty slipped by the sentries¡¯ notice at camp. Because there would be camps.


    The mobile wolf phase of the Nut shapeshifters meant that the creatures could travel huge distances in a day. Much farther than even the quickest scout. Wolf packs were known to travel twenty or thirty miles in a day. That was as much as the Adventurers could make pushing a tough pace, with their combat load and camp gear. There was a brief discussion about using some of the horses, but that was vetoed for the simple reason that they didn¡¯t have horses to lose. The trainers were already worried about long term viability without sufficient breeding stock. Husbandry talents in their classes weren¡¯t up to the point of heading off the inevitable breakdowns that would arise from herd inbreeding.


    As such, the party that went forth to find the dungeon would need to hump their gear, with time to fortify camp, and there was no real way of knowing how far they would have to go to locate the source of the problem. The plan was three days. Three days of travel put the recon team sixty miles out from Falcon¡¯s Rest, and, from there, Julie Richards¡¯ familiars could push out another hundred for a reliable survey of the terrain.


    Most monsters that bled from a dungeon didn¡¯t stray too far from it. Alexander had a feeling this pack was an exception, the beasts, insane enough to charge a fortress, had roved out wide from their realm into Gaia¡¯s harsh daylight, driven by the need for something. Not for food. They¡¯d been hunting for captives to turn.


    Among the more unsettling discoveries from Shiv¡¯s autopsy was the fact that the werewolves were all male. Young males. No females at all. It could have been coincidence, but zero out of fourteen, if the beasts bred in the fifty-to-fifty ratio of most Gaian sexed creatures was unlikely, at best. Either there was a sexual selection to which creatures went hunting, or they had no females in their pack and were looking to recruit. Nasty business.


    Wynona Saki¡¯s mana conduction and storage experiments yielded immediate results, a simple loose netting of silver wire at a twenty gauge, about one thirty-second of an inch, drawn by Reynolds with a draw plate around the single huge diamond Jules formed from many smaller set pieces in jewelry. A casually impossible feat of material sculpting.


    Alexander had discovered, long ago, back in that first desperate game of survival, that nitric acid, the fuming kind, would dissolve a monster¡¯s core. It separated soon after from the acid, leaving behind a mercury like viscous substance that other materials could absorb, imparting them with some of the properties of the magic that had resided withing the core.


    When Saki poured off the residual consumed acid and immersed the silver netting wrapped diamond, about half the size of his fist, it drank the blackness from the liquid, which lost much of its viscosity and became incredibly volatile, sucked up by the vents in the fume hood. A green shimmering softly golden in the lantern light of the lab, was left behind, less than a quarter of the original volume. She lifted from the residual dissolved core a pure black gem wrapped in silver mesh. Her chemical analysis trait was not powerful enough to pry the secrets from that gem, it was too narrowly tailored, so Alexander was summoned to inspect it.


    He left his troops to plan, his input having been given early, in general terms, and not required subsequently.


    On arrival into the old high school chemistry lab, he was presented a fine lattice of silver wire around a pitch-black sphere. He turned Greater Analyze upon the thing and read from the substance of Gaian knowledge, or whatever information source the skill tapped.


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    Night Stone (Master quality): a relatively pure, unfaceted diamond immersed in expertly metallurgically extracted argentum of golem origin, and saturated by dark mana similarly expertly extracted by alchemy from the core of creature spawned in the realm of endless night.


    This stone can be used to channel dark mana into runic circuits, imbue constructs, catalyze black magics that draw on the night for their strength, or enchant a weapon with a fear aura whose wounds inject creeping madness into the victims¡¯ unable to mount a resistance to the dark mana. Particularly effective against sentient beasts and beings of long life whose accumulated sufferings can be fed upon to spur the madness.


    Caution: removal of the silver ward may permit dark magic to escape its confinement from an unfaceted or poorly cut gem. Precise cutting by a Master level lapidary recommended.


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    Sure enough, the mana contained by the werewolves was deeply tainted by madness. It seemed that Nut was a land inhospitable to the minds of Gaian creatures, by its nature. Would that mean that a party sent within the confines of the dungeon had to operate under a clock?


    That was a conversation to have with his pros.


    In other, more technical news, they¡¯d essentially figured out how to make magic crystals. Alexander¡¯s earlier methods worked, but, it seemed, they did so with a kind of clumsiness, absent the refinement that could unlock higher levels of enchantment. The sight of a mention of runic circuits made him think again of Kim and what the Runic Artificer could do with a source of magic for his workings to draw from. An opportunity lost. Fuck, how it stung.


    He tried not to dwell on it, at least they were learning how to use the gains from the monsters spawned in other realms. This Night Stone, not so much maybe, but others?  More likely. In fact, they had the remaining part of the werewolf core sitting in the round bottom flask to figure out how to instill into a stone.


    Two things that needed work, clearly. First, the purity of the stone. Chemically speaking, most diamonds used in jewelry were merely alright, being of volcanic production in nature, a chemically active environment thanks to the extraordinary heats, pressures, often reactive sulfides, oxides, and water associated with those intrusive magma seepages. They had inclusions, albeit in minor fraction, compared to a synthetic diamond. Second, the jewel had to be cut. He should have mentioned that when he sent the pair off to work on this experiment, but he was with his mind elsewhere.


    Every core¡¯d creature had a distinctive shape, which the Scroll described in jeweler¡¯s terms. Nobody had ever come up with a reason for that, but, now, it appeared to influence the nature of how the magic was being controlled, or directed by the core. It wasn¡¯t much, they still didn¡¯t understand how the facets exactly manifested their influences, so they couldn¡¯t predictively carve a gem to produce a desired outcome. They¡¯d have to do it by trial and error, a painstaking process of documentation and careful observation.


    Worse, no one in Falcon¡¯s Rest had any level of trait for lapidary, or gem cutting. Off the top of his head, Van Richards, and that one kid, the one they¡¯d found who could merge pieces of stone into seamless pieces. Alexander would have to go get the Oread¡¯s name from Van or Scott later, it had completely slipped his mind. Last he¡¯d heard, Scott was training him in architecture, after they realized how egregiously losing specialized skills hurt the community. Maybe they¡¯d have to refocus that effort now on filling gaps in specific trades currently missing from the skill sets of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    With spring coming, and the agricultural folk about to be full throttle, that might  have to wait until next winter to hit high gear.


    But he was sidetracked again. Congratulations were in order.


    ¡°Saki, you godsdamned genius, by all the gods above, below, and in between, you did it!¡± He cheered, and then read the Scroll to its creator.


    Japanese features obtained a reserved, but pleased smile, and he received a nod of acknowledgement.


    ¡°You may worship, but not touch. I know where you¡¯ve been, you scallywag!¡± She informed him.


    ¡°Of course!  After Brig put on her little routine in the Survivor¡¯s Well, so does everyone in the town. Does Alexander Gerifalte get any privacy?  Ohhh noooo, let us just turn his innocent adventures into a live audience performance!¡± Alexander complained, still mortified.


    It had followed him for weeks, Brig¡¯s joke. Freaking unhinged sex beast with not a lick of shame to her.


    ¡°Anyway!¡± Alexander cried, trying to get things back on track, ¡°We¡¯ve got to work on purity, it¡¯s apparently important for the outcome. Same thing for the gem facets. Jules got us a pretty damned even sphere, but we can do better with the right tooling. Facets, shape, it seems it¡¯s all important, although how I couldn¡¯t even guess.¡±


    He chewed his lip and ran fingers through his hair puzzling over logistics for a moment.


    ¡°Did you happen to get any ideas for mana conductivity measurement?¡± He asked.


    Saki shook her head, ¡°Nope!  As soon as I immersed the diamond, the black spooky stuff was pulled into it, couldn¡¯t have been more than a quarter of a second. We don¡¯t even have a useful unit for describing amounts of mana, let alone flow rate.¡± The Master alchemist reminded him.


    ¡°Shit.¡± He commented, discouraged.


    Science is hard. Inventing it from the ground up was harder. They¡¯d have to put their thinking caps on and maintain good investigative fundamentals, the scientific method would carry this research.


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± Saki concurred.


    Maybe they could use very tiny gems, of definite mass, and scale the amount of mana to that. It wouldn¡¯t be what you might call a fundamental unit, but any way to put a number on the aetheric would help demystify it.


    ¡°Fuck it, we¡¯ll figure the details out later. For now, let¡¯s try the same process, but we¡¯ll need jade, which I hope the jewelry store has, and brass, which I think we should have a lot of from the scavenged plumbing and home renovation supplies.¡± Alexander announced, figuring forward momentum was forward momentum.


    He pondered that last a little and frowned.


    ¡°The brass will be mundane though, not magical. I don¡¯t know how much of a difference that makes.¡± He admitted.


    Saki laughed lightly at the absurdity of it all and summarized the situation, ¡°What the fuck does any of us know?  We¡¯ll play it by ear and take good notes.¡±


    Which, really, was mostly the best they could do. They put that plan into action, but that necessitated going to the smithy, and the smelter. Instead of relying on Jules all of the time, they decided to melt the brass fittings down and purify them before pouring a stock wire to draw. It would take only half and hour for the melt, and gave Saki a chance to cross train with the machine shop and smelter.


    The Muspelheim volcano smelter in the old bank was where a great deal of the obsidian had ended up. Most of the cars in town had met their final resting place here.


    A big, black-violet above ground swimming pool, is what it looked like, with a pool cover made of the same material that lowered down on a manual winch, four sets of chains married together to bring the smelter cover down even. Even a small gap would permit, without exaggeration, volcanic heat to escape. When molten metals could expel sublimated gases of impurities, that wasn¡¯t a good thing, there was a safety minded reason for the vapor catch that ran up through the roof.


    There was another good reason for the tight seal, and that was that they were able to produce precisely the atmosphere needed for the particular application of the smelter during pyrometallurgy.


    Frequently, oxides needed to be removed, such as in most ores containing heavy oxygen reactivity such as iron, chromium or titanium, or group one and two metals that just freaking loved oxygen. When that smelting condition called for it, the addition of carbon to create a reducing environment,  a coke, as in steel smelting, was used. Sometimes, they needed to create a more oxidizing environment to help drive off impurities of sulfides and carbonates in ores, a process called roasting, and air, or pure oxygen if it needed an aggressive treatment, was pumped into the atmosphere to facilitate that.


    But, when all you wanted was to melt a big ass chunk of metal and leave it as chemically pure as possible, you used a vacuum smelt or argon flood, which prevented most chemical interactions with the metal while it was at reactive temperatures, except for those contaminants that were within the metal, and many of those burned off in the melt, pushed away by the argon blanket or diffusing into the vacuum, which pulled residual atmosphere every so often to prevent evaporated inclusions rejoining the molten material.


    Together, he and Saki loaded a wheelbarrow of brass fittings to be dumped into the ceramic crucible that rode along a stable track in the obsidian. Any number of shapes of crucible could be used, and, so long as they had skids matching the forge, they slid in and out smooth as butter. Alexander forgot now who came up with that idea, but it was a humdinger.


    The bathtub shaped crucible made of graphite was what they were using now, half full of about thirty pounds worth of brass fittings. They¡¯d acid bathed the brass to clean it of any miniscule oxides and would be doing the smelt under argon blanket, just a steady flow of the noble gas to protect the brass melt, after an initial vacuum pull to purge the interior.


    ¡°Okay!  We¡¯re ready to introduce the crucible and pull vacuum!¡± He said to Saki, readying himself to push the crucible.


    Wynona turned on the third and last sterling engine that the village had available, which powered a vacuum pump and gas controller apparatus for the smelter, little brother to the massive steam engine used to power the machine shop tooling. The same make as the little one used to drive the blowers of the forge.


    When the cylinders began to churn, Saki pulled the air out of the interior and Alexander pushed the crucible along roller tracks into the dark within, closing the door behind it. He checked the graphite casting, a mold that looked like a folded noodle a half inch in diameter.


    They¡¯d be casting as a half inch, or five ought gauge, and then drawing to the much, much reduced twenty gauge using the forge in his smithy for temporary heating. He could have just melted the brass down in the forge, but half the reason for the melt in the smelter was for purity¡¯s sake.


    He had no faith in the supposed purity of a small-town fitting supplier, whose stock had sat around gods knew how long.


    Alexander spooled up the smelter, using the dire bee¡¯s wax torch that ignited a sympathetic rune, which activated the obsidian to release its magical heat, heat which was trapped by the perfectly thermal reflection inside. This was an improvement to the Jules Heater concept, courtesy of their dearly departed Runic Artificer.


    Mt. Dhoom, the name they¡¯d given the smelter by committee vote, was a loud bastard, its black glass walls producing a heavy, dull roar when the extraordinary thermal energy was present within. For a few seconds, the vacuum pulled incredibly hot air, how hot measured by a series of five tungsten bars along the top of the chamber, an analogue measuring system devised by Alexander when they realized that, without digital thermometers, the internal temperature had to be measured through more creative means.


    After some review in a physics book he¡¯d tripped across black body radiation, a property of matter to radiate a distribution of light wave lengths with a different peak at a different temperature. His blacksmithing manuals also used this principle to visibly judge when the metal was at the correct working temperature, annealing temperature, whatever. The skilled smith could look at the bar in the forge and tell its temperature, so long as it wasn¡¯t melting.


    Therefore, they had a measurement of temperature from the tungsten bars based on their progression from dull red to white hot, as long as the bars weren¡¯t melting.


    It worked, but took time to learn to make fine distinctions. You just pulled the bar out from its slot a short distance and looked at it to check the temperature. There were five to be certain that the temperature distribution was even, a relic of the experimental stages of building Mt. Dhoom, the temperature was incredibly precise and completely even, only one bar was needed these days for an accurate measurement.


    Slowly, checking the bars regularly, Alexander showed Saki how to increase the temperature with a dial, which opened a diaphragm made from a camera shutter, permitting air to hit the runic torch, whose carved scripts transmitted the increasing heat of the burning dire bee¡¯s wax on its tip to the runes connecting torch to smelter, which burned hotter in response to more air.


    Careful, repeated experiments had allowed them to notch the dial to determine the temperatures in roughly two-hundred-degree increments, given a roughly linear difference in bar temperature and its color progression.


    Alexander didn¡¯t trust the dial completely, hence the rods still stuck into the interior, but it was a fast way to adjust the temperature within the smelter space. Fast controls, and reasonably swift response in heat, meant it was still an excellent way to control the output of the Muspelheim obsidian.


    Saki took to the training easily, and they completed the melt in the half hour he thought that they would, pouring into the argon flushed tube mold to produce a beautifully pure brass wire with one flat side, thanks to the top of the mold being open. That didn¡¯t matter, the drawn wire would be perfectly round.


    They had Wynona¡¯s experience in the lab to thank for that argon, she would refill their stocks by fractionally distilling liquified air, to remove the 0.94% fraction that was the noble gas. Winter bear cores and her ethylene glycol coolant once again to the rescue for that cooling purpose.


    ¡°Done!¡± Alexander called, satisfied with the semi round stock.


    ¡°Thank fuck!¡± Saki replied, not being particularly fond of the smelter or this metal work, even if she could do the tasks easily enough.


    There was too much eyeballing and estimating for her liking, she preferred a triple beam balance, volumetric flask, pressure gauges, and titration burets, hard numbers given by all to guide her processes.


    After another hour, they had produced an almost lime green gem, wrapped in brass netting. The remaining solvent within the flask had completely evaporated, leaving nothing of the original core behind. Thus was a pure magic crystal produced. Alexander inspected it to see what they had made.


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    Chimera Stone (Greater quality): a relatively pure, unfaceted jade housed in expertly metallurgically extracted brass of mundane Gaian origin, and saturated by life mana of transformational quality by a Master alchemist from the core of a shapeshifter.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    This stone can be used to channel metamorphic mana into runic circuits to cause them to obtain variable paths, imbue constructs with shape shifting properties, catalyze chimeric transformations of organisms, or enchant an armor with a self-fitting property, causing it to mold to its wearer, as if bonding to the user over time.


    Caution: mundane brass cannot perpetually constrain mana, removal of the brass ward may permit metamorphic magic to escape its confinement from an unfaceted or poorly cut jade. Precise cutting by a Master level lapidary recommended.


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    A low whistle from the one-time brick laying Reynolds filled the alchemy, ehem, chemistry lab when Alexander read the description aloud.


    ¡°Hot damn!¡± Saki exclaimed, jubilant at the successful implementation of their methodology, ¡°We¡¯re good at this!¡±


    ¡°Yes, we are!¡± Alexander gloated, and the two traded high fives, first with each other, then with Jules, who wanted to see what all the hubbub was over that had demanded so much of his time.


    ¡°This is straight up some bullshit.¡± Jules announced, even though he could, himself, move body parts around or even create new ones, at substantial physical cost in calories and rest to recover.


    It was, indeed. But it was bullshit that was going to go to bat for humanity. He didn¡¯t know right away what the Chimera Stone would be good for, other than the obvious use making armor that didn¡¯t require uber precise fitting to acclimate to its wearer, a substantial source of the time needed to craft good protectives. He wondered how small a Chimera Stone would be required for any particular piece of gear, and if it interfered with Kim¡¯s runic work. These were necessary questions to be answered.


    Alexander would not compromise the efforts of his former comrade, not and risk losing arts that might one day be made more generally applicable. He owed Kim¡¯s memory that his gifts to humanity not be lost. Runes, whatever they were, would continue to serve the folk that had discovered their secrets.


    ¡°Okay!  Last round!¡± Alexander called, and he opened the belt pouch hanging heavy from his belt to reveal three glistening orange cores, the ones he¡¯d pulled from the sunlight elk.


    ¡°These are condensed solar magic. We know the creatures of Nut don¡¯t like sunlight, but Melinda is the only one who can wield it, currently. Whoever goes in, they need a light source without draining Melinda dry. I think we can make solar lanterns, or, at least, big time magnifiers for our gracious Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s abilities.¡± The young man revealed his angle.


    Basic science was well and good, but what he wanted was a more applied technology. A weapon, at best, and a tool at worst. The magiteck of these infused crystals would fill a missing branch in the Falcon¡¯s Rest tech tree.


    Something told Alexander that mere torchlight wasn¡¯t going to be enough to part the gloom of Nut. They needed the sun to combat the night. And, by all the gods above, below, and in between, his friends would carry the sun with them!


    Saki nodded, along with Reynolds. They¡¯d worked hard this day. Not so very long, all things considered, it was only noon, but hard, demanding perfection from themselves in all things. That kind of focus took it out of you.


    ¡°Let¡¯s do it then. What do we need to use for the siphon this time?¡± Wynona asked, ready to be on with the true goal of this day¡¯s efforts.


    Alexander inspected the core and reported, ¡°We require gold, my talented assistants. Pure gold to harness the power of the sun. Which means we¡¯re going back to the smelter, all the shit in the jewelry shop is an alloy, there¡¯s no pure gold to be had, and we¡¯ve already seen that it matters for efficiency in the mana siphon and contain.¡±


    Wynona Saki groaned at that twist in the tale, but followed dutifully back to the jewelry shop, and then the smelter. The good news was that they weren¡¯t going to be doing thirty pounds, like last time. The bad news was that they had to separate gold from the common jewelry alloys of copper, silver, nickel, platinum, zinc, and, sometimes, aluminum, to say nothing of the coatings that got used on occasion. It might prove to be rather a bitch to get all the metals separated out, but, fortunately, the noble metal they wanted was, mostly, dissimilar in melting points.


    Copper and nickel were the only ones too close to gold, with a difference of only forty to fiftyish degrees Fahrenheit difference.


    Alexander was convinced they¡¯d have to dissolve chemically the resulting ingots and recrystallize them to achieve sufficient purity, probably using Aquae Regis, the combination of three-parts nitric acid to one-part hydrochloric acid, which was required to dissolve gold and platinum. Nitric acid alone could grab the copper, and nickel contaminants, as a pretreatment. These procedures were well within Saki¡¯s repertoire.


    It was just a damned shame electrolysis was still impossible, that was a sure-fire method to get pure metals to crystallize.


    His fears were realized. The smelt was good, excellent in fact, and they were able to do a fractional smelt to pull off first the zinc, then the silver, then they got a mixture of gold copper and nickel, and, lastly, a reasonably mass of pure platinum, which Saki had uses for anyway. Once the ingots were cooled from their molds, the group, sans Jules, who, in his words, ¡°Had shit to do, so good luck geeks!¡± departed for the alchemy lab.


    There, they dissolved the alloy mixture in a preparation of Aquae Regis. The gold chloride solution was decanted off, then filtered through vacuum filter, more shoulder work for Alexander, before being treated with Ammonia solution. Then they baked it in a cast iron oven to burn off the gold hydroxide that resulted, leaving behind a pure, glistening metal.


    The process of isolating their siphon material took about two hours total. It was decided then that they should call it quits before they made a mistake in their waning mental clarity. Especially Alexander¡¯s, he¡¯d spent most of the night playing love games with Granny, and had slept, perhaps, two hours.


    He crashed face first onto his bed, forgetting to eat, and slept like the dead.


    At some point, Annita Nguyen infiltrated his slumber, and he semi awoke to being half smothered in a pair of modest, but very sensitive breasts. He rubbed his face against the softness and relaxed completely. The smell of the woman who wrapped herself around him lulled him back to sleep instantly, not to rise again until well past morning¡¯s light.


    An incredible dream, provocative, uninhibited, centered around lascivious acts with Granny, both remembered and imagined, brought him slowly to waking, close to the moment of climax.


    Alexander woke with a hunger and bit the dryad¡¯s neck gently, which she responded to by rolling over on top of him, her golden gaze intense. A few short minutes of play later and she was riding him aggressively, swaying hips rocking, and her own eyes closed in concentration on her labor.


    She made the low ¡°Uuummm¡± that heralded her shivers, and he grabbed her hips to help her along.


    ¡°Ah!¡± The startled woman yelped, not prepared for his assistance.


    Annita¡¯s almond shaped eyes darted open and she blushed bashfully at his warm gaze, as she did sometimes. They were still new to each other, and he found it adorable.


    ¡°Morning.¡± Alexander greeted her, nonchalantly, joining the motion of the ocean, which sent the girl into a lean forward.


    ¡°Was¡­I supposed to set an alarm?  No?  So, I can go back to sleep?¡± He asked, joking, but slightly breathless, and realizing that he wasn¡¯t going to be setting any records for distance on this race.


    Her recovery was quick, and she picked up the pace, threatening to end things in a hurry.


    ¡°No¡­need,¡± She panted, ¡°If you manage to sleep through this¡­I can just bury you, say a few words¡­hah, fuck!  And forget your name.¡±


    He never managed a riposte, without the inhibition of her first-time aches, she took him over the edge with ease.


    There, sodden with sweat, with her unbound hair draped over his face, the smiling Vietnamese lady whispered ¡°Granny Nguyen wins again!¡±


    They enjoyed a post coital cuddle while the sun beamed in through curtains not completely closed. The absence of clouds outside made that ray of brilliance shine bright, lighting the room easily on its own.


    Alexander trailed a finger aimlessly somewhere around Annita¡¯s L-3 vertebrae, which she enjoyed almost as much as he did.


    ¡°You trying to pick a fight?¡± She mumbled, relaxed.


    That question deserved special attention. Was he?  It wouldn¡¯t have been a bad way to spend the morning, even though he had things to do. Yesterday had been tense, waking to an attack in the wee hours, and then busting ass for most of the day, on almost no sleep. Granny¡¯s morning offensive admittedly set off by his own teasing, was, to say the least, welcome.


    ¡°Maybe,¡± He answered dreamily, and let the hand drift down to squeeze a nicely curved bottom, ¡°What are you going to do about it?¡±


    A few halfhearted wriggles accomplished not much except to make him think that, perhaps, this was a grand idea after all. He let the other hand wander from its resting place on a shoulder on around to the front, cupping the softness on her chest.


    ¡°Hey!  You¡¯re not old enough to play with those!¡± She whined, but the smoky delivery and a subtle raise to make herself more available was all the hint he needed.


    They took another spin around the world and collapsed, sunlight still pouring through the window, but at a distinctly higher angle. Gods, what had he been missing in Annita Nguyen?  The young man mused absently. She made certain to answer that question, with authority.


    ¡°Okay, this time, for real, there¡¯s stuff to do.¡± Alexander eventually rebelled against his spooning assailant.


    Granny, realizing that she was ravenous, decided to permit the day to begin.


    ¡°I¡¯m stuff, and you already did me, let¡¯s play another game. It starts with you fixing me breakfast. Then I¡¯ll give you a good, hot water and soap scrub, ya filthy animal.¡± Annita ordered.


    That was fine by him, he could eat one of the mules about right now.


    Alexander Gerifalte put a hand beneath the woman, who, despite her commands, still refused to get off him, and arranged her sideways. A casual bench press lift of the soft, stubborn dead weight, and he dropped her off the side of the bed, where she lay in a heap, giggling.


    Breakfast was a single skillet affair, which he liked to think he had long since mastered. Granny came downstairs wearing one of his shirts like an evening dress, so low did it hang, bare, brown legs swishing along gracefully. He had to admit, it was an unexpectedly powerful sight, the girlfriend in a long t-shirt maneuver.


    ¡°Dig in!  Probably going to be right straight out today.¡± Alexander indicated the cast iron skillet, with its caramelized onions and bell peppers, single huge omelet, and strips of chewy bacon, with granola bars on the side.


    Granny came up for air a minute later, with a piece of omelet glued to the corner of her mouth and leveled a suspicious golden stare of narrowed eyes at him.


    ¡°And you accuse me of witchcraft!  This grub has been tampered with, and I¡¯ll need to investigate further to determine the extent of the crime, but you¡¯re in trouble Mister!  Have you no doubts about that!¡± the silky voiced woman threatened happily, ignorant of the small chunk of omelet still hanging from the corner of her-


    Oh! Nope! Tongue got it, we¡¯re good, rescue mission aborted.


    Alexander pretended shock at the discovery of his warlock schemes over his half of the skillet, ¡°Hush!  You can¡¯t prove anything!  More weight I say!  Add more rocks and be damned!¡±


    Needless to say, breakfast was his victory.


    The big pot of water for baths was steaming on the stove when they finished the repast. By all the gods above, below, and in between, he missed a hot shower. Getting a delicious back scrub was a consolation prize. Together, they scrubbed vigorously with soap and rags, before donning fresh clothes.


    Alexander had assumed that Granny had one ratty wardrobe that she washed daily. The reality of it, made clear by the bundles of clothes escorted somewhat shyly from Georgia¡¯s house, with that one taking no pains to hide her approving nod, was that she had about a half dozen of the ratty wardrobe. The greys, browns, greens, and flaps of fabric were intentional, to break up her outline, and she swore that mixing and matching the bottoms to tops kept the critters from recognizing her.


    Whatever she did, it worked, so he didn¡¯t challenge her claim. They parted with plans for supper, probably no dinner since he¡¯d be up to his ears in work. He didn¡¯t know how the Dryad planned to spend her time, but she loved to work too much to be idle; she¡¯d find a way to be useful.


    Saki greeted him with one delicate eyebrow raised, staring over top of the volumetric flask she¡¯d been measuring, her crimson skill vibrant against the sterile white walls of the alchemy lab.


    ¡°Sleep in?¡± She asked, a knowing smirk on her lips.


    Everybody knows everything you do, as soon as you do it, the young man lamented, recalling this was an aspect of small-town life that he¡¯d never cared for. He understood Granny¡¯s shack, he did indeed.


    ¡°Something like that.¡± He answered, choosing discretion as the better part of valor.


    Without further ado, Alexander went to the purified gold stock. Today, they were going to bottle sunlight. He explained the procedure, she double checked the rational and agreed, and he left to take care of the gold siphons. Saki begged off, pointing to a bench full of projects that needed her attention. Jules was hard at work under her direction making very specifically shaped glassware that was, absent his skills at manipulating materials, impossible to make or to replace without him. Alexander left them to it.


    Glistening bars of the metal were a pleasing reminder of yesterday¡¯s efforts. He felt like he was getting better, like his skills were polishing. Ten pounds of chemically pure gold went with him to the smithy, where the forge easily melted the ingots to produce the liquid he poured into round stock molds. Those cooled rapidly, but he drew one of them out into four feet of twenty gauge before it did. Reheat, draw, reheat, draw, Alexander repeated until he had a spool of wire fifty feet long. Three of the one pound round stock segments he left undrawn, so they could play with the thicknesses of wire later.


    Back to the old high school chemistry lab he went. Outside, under a gorgeous blue sky, a rarity in early March, the citizens of Falcon¡¯s Rest were hustling to business. The agricultural folk especially, were going to be all stove up, they were pulling daylight to dark shifts getting Alexander¡¯s former garden projects scaled up to production for the entire settlement.


    Mules pulling harness were turning Entling blood enriched soil, compost, wood chips, and the dung of chickens, equines, and porcines to create furrows of rich fields inside Falcon¡¯s rest. It made a pleasing, earthy smell, that filled town in a satisfying way. The sight made Alexander feel good. It motivated him. He wondered what it was like to work your entire life and never experience seeing people who needed the results of that labor firsthand. Terrible, he decided, as he walked through the repaired doors of the school, which had been ripped away with most of that wall by an animated silver ore golem. Sometimes he forgot how quietly he moved.


    ¡°Alright, Saki, we¡¯re ready for the, Holy shit!¡± Alexander¡¯s distracted announcement was interrupted by Jules Reynolds standing with four arms, the extra set emerging from shoulders that took up his bottom three ribs, and he was in a very tactically secure location between Saki¡¯s legs.


    Jules was shirtless, not surprising, nobody tailored for Mortal Kombat mini-bosses. What was a little more surprising was that Saki was also shirtless, with a great deal more of her crimson skin showing than he was used to. And she¡¯d been boffing in the lab, which was breaking several lab safety protocols.


    A deep sigh accompanied his witness of this development and he turned away, giving the pair some semblance of privacy.


    He should have known, folk in Falcon¡¯s Rest were more than a little active. Being all relatively young, mostly physically fit, thanks in part to the effect of tiering up to the third tier, which had come with significant improvements to physical parameters, and under a lot of pressure, did that. The young man hadn¡¯t been ready for a workplace dalliance to take place inside his workplace, however. There were dangerous chemicals in this joint!  No wonder half the gossip down tavern-side was about who was in whose bed. It would settle down eventually. Probably.


    Clearing her throat, Saki played off the interruption with amazing aplomb, ¡°You did that much faster than yesterday.¡±


    Alexander shook his head exasperation in his tone, ¡°Gold is softer than brass and golem silver. You could have spilled something.¡±


    A reclothed Saki, with the usual white lab coat on over her standard attire just replied, ¡°I could have. But Jules can turn anything that spills into a solid and we can just pick it up and put it in a spill bucket, pretty much without harm. It¡¯s fine. Ehem, Jules, later?¡±


    Reynolds was wearing a big overcoat over top of a sleeveless shirt that had holes in its side, the extra arms folded around his waist, making him look comically proportioned.


    The Quintessence Shaper bowed slightly and said, ¡°As the lady wishes.¡± Overtly formal words for a joking tone.


    To Alexander he merely said, ¡°All work and no play, makes Jonny a dull boy. Good luck nerds!¡± before departing.


    Just as violence had become an expected and understood part of life in the Green, so too had love and love games become part of life in the settlements. People flourished under pressure.


    ¡°Whatever, let¡¯s just pretend that didn¡¯t happen. Commencing memory purge.¡± Alexander announced, before retracing his steps out the door.


    An enthusiastic crafter, riding high on successful machinations, entered the lab, calling ¡°Alright, Saki, we¡¯re ready to make the magic crystals!¡±


    Saki, in her usual place behind the bench, wearing the usual amount of clothes and goggles, and holding a calculator that did not work, looked up, and said, ¡°Wow!  That was fast!  Acid¡¯s in the fume hood.¡±


    With that soft reboot completed, they got down to the nitty gritty.


    A solar powered elk core crushed to powder went into the fuming nitric, red orange vapor rolling from the big round bottom Erlenmeyer flask. Jules, before he¡¯d gotten sidetracked, had already prepared three spheres of the gemstone that had affinity for sunlight magic. Good old-fashioned quartz. Broken glass from windows ruined by goblins, ogres, car crashes, and what have you was easily formed by the Quintessence shaper into glass orbs, which sat on the lab bench, crystal clear and waiting.


    The core solvent disappeared the core dust in moments and transformed into a brilliant yellow orange, with faint green tinges. The sun had a major green peak in its visual spectra, Alexander recalled. So cool, the way Gaia¡¯s nonsense mated up with known science sometimes. So frustrating when it didn¡¯t, at all, other times.


    Saki did the basket weave this time, precisely arranging the gold filaments around the quartz sphere, before bringing up the frame to net the gem, like catching a fish from a lake. Then, with a twist, the thin wires were braided to form a secure cage of pure gold around the quartz, and they were ready to create a Sun Stone.


    It went just that easily, gold siphoned the solar magic into the depths of the gem, drank it with incredible alacrity, and the volume of the remaining solution in the flask reduced somewhat before becoming volatile and steaming up into the fume hood vent, leaving an empty flask with a vibrant yellow-orange crystal inside.


    <table style="width: 83.753%">


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    Sun Stone (Master quality): a chemically pure, unfaceted quartz, housed in similarly pure gold of mundane Gaian origin, and saturated by solar mana concentrated to weaponized intensity by a Master alchemist from the core of a Sunlight Lance Elk.


    This stone can be used to channel radiant mana into runic circuits to cause them to power aetheric workings of light and heat, imbue constructs with sunlight weapon properties, catalyze light eating reactions, or enchant objects with intense bursts of damaging light or steady output of noonday brilliance. This effect is amplified when the stone is fed a source of heat and or light. Sun Stones of greater than usual quality drink and store sunlight directly, replenishing their aetheric power rapidly.


    Caution: mundane gold cannot perpetually constrain mana, removal of the gold ward may permit solar magic to escape its confinement from an unfaceted or poorly cut quartz. Over channeling of a Sun Stone without proper shielding and facet geometry may cause a catastrophic failure. Precise cutting by a Master level lapidary recommended.


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    The quality of the stone was exemplary, despite the absence of magical nature to the materials used. What made up for that lack was the sheer purity of the materials. Gold well over ninety-nine point nine-nine percent purity, over quartz that was even better than that, silicon dioxide, quartz with utterly pristine composition. That the work was presided over by two Master Alchemists probably helped things along as well, Gaian rules seemed to operate in that fashion.


    The planet did not intervene directly, but the gifts given, the traits and skills, did, in some manner, tend to have potent influences on outcomes. Alexander chose not to look some gift horses in their mouths.


    Instead, he picked up an immaculately crafted Sun Stone, and marveled at the way it filled the room with soft light, as if they stood under the open sky, instead of a dim, lantern lit lab room, absent windows.


    ¡°This is going to save lives, Wynona.¡± He said with certainty.


    There would be a raid into the Nut dungeon soon. As soon as it was found, the Adventurer squad had left yesterday.


    With this feat of magiteck, the party that traveled into night would be carrying a piece of the sun with them.


    He wasn¡¯t done yet, however. Alexander Gerifalte had some ideas for how to use these stones. Together, he and Saki completed two more full sized stones. Only one more core from the rare variant of Elk wondering the mountains, correctly dubbed Sunlight Spear Elk, was in his lock box. Later, they¡¯d try doing ten smaller glass spheres, to test creating stones of smaller size, for less potent purposes.


    Humanity had not greatly enough appreciated its achievement in creating light from electricity. Small sun lamps would be greatly appreciated by the townsfolk of Falcon¡¯s Rest. The fact that they could recharge under a good clear day was that much more a reward for his and Saki¡¯s research.


    Alexander retrofitted an oil lamp for the rest of that afternoon. Within the housing, the Sunstone hung from the top of the lamp frame over a standard wick. The burning lamp wick would feed its light to the Sun Stone, allowing it to create greater luminosity than the stone by itself. On the front face of the lamp, Alexander mounted a set of convex lenses scrounged up from a telescope, and other sources, within a mirror polished argentum cone. He had to go back and affix a camera shutter diaphragm to control the output, blocking the focus array after the modified lantern burned a small hole in the lab wall.


    Had the lantern been pointed in a different direction, that mistake would have resulted in the destruction of the lab. A new rule, by common decree between the pair of alchemists, arose: thou shalt not create weapons of destruction within the lab.


    The sun lantern, as his Greater Analysis labeled it, was a rousing success. Even better, Mark Ross, with his mastery of fire magic, could carry and power it, meaning the party of six that journeyed into the realm of night would have at least two who could light the stygian dungeon. Mark and Melinda, that was two for certain. Alexander who could see in near total darkness, and whose antimagic abilities would hinder the abnormal abilities and Soak of the beings within.


    Who for the rest?


    The young leader spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about it, and about how to best use the other two Sun Stones. He decided not to make any decisions without consulting Annita, who had a way of spotting things a lot of people missed. Her wise woman routine was a sham, but that didn¡¯t mean she wasn¡¯t wise. Just full of shit, sometimes, and sort of weird most of the time. Alexander could dig it, they had that last thing in common.


    After congratulating Wynona again, he left the Pyroclastic Cannoneer to her other projects, and took the rest of the day off. Jules¡¯ words echoed in his mind, ¡°All work and no play, makes Johnny a dull boy.¡±


    The man wasn¡¯t wrong, so Alexander tracked down the witch woman Dryad to her greenhouse orchards. There he helped her with her tasks, watched her apply her abilities, and, generally, spent time enjoying life while helping to make things grow.

 Chapter 24: Dawnbreak

    It took six days for the party that departed Falcon¡¯s Rest to return. They were grimy, blood covered, and tired. Alexander joined them in the Survivor¡¯s Well for debrief, when they¡¯d dragged themselves through the portcullis backed gate, where they¡¯d immediately stripped down to bathe. If anybody asked Alexander¡¯s opinion, the entire group looked like steel wrapped burlap dragged across thirty miles of four-wheeler trails.


    Ensconced within the tavern, the recon party each had a beer in their hands, including Bonny, who would have been too young in the world that had existed before the Pulse wiped out nonsensical laws that dictated a kid could be drafted to go to war across the world, but was too young to buy alcohol. Trust Sunday morning Christians to make shit up without bothering with unnecessary things like logic. In any case, tables had been pulled up to make a circle where the party could relay their findings. The rest of the tavern was packed, the settlers wanting to know what had been discovered about this most recent threat to the town.


    Mark Ross, Incandescent Triarii and Ifrit bloodline led the discussion as leader of the more experienced team of monster hunters.


    ¡°Thanks for coming, everybody,¡± He began, egalitarian and civil, despite the clear exhaustion writ on his face, ¡°I know it¡¯s busy times for some of you, but here¡¯s the deal.¡±


    He paused to organize his thoughts and take a long pull of beer, with an approving double take toward Alvin and Tom for their newest demonstration of brewing prowess. Tom gave the bro nod of appreciation to acknowledge the obvious pleasure of the patron from behind the bar.


    ¡°Wow, that¡¯s something! Ehem, anyway, so it¡¯s a closed dungeon. Minor, but tier three. No clue what the guardian is, we didn¡¯t go in much past the entrance. Inside looks like a mirror image of the forest outside, expansive enough to probably be a spatially expanded type of dungeon, but with bogs and swamps that shouldn¡¯t be there according to the Gaian overland outside. Pretty spooky. No moon, no stars, there¡¯s no light at all.¡± The leader of Getsome described.


    All attending took that information stoically. Closed dungeons tended to be more dangerous than the field dungeons. They were ¡°closer¡± if that was the right way to think of the overlaps between realms that formed the contested zones, to the invading realm. That meant that the monsters within tended to be stronger than they would have been in a field dungeon, with higher tier variants. Worse, the bosses of closed dungeons were suspected to be more aggressive in sending minions out to hunt the surroundings, which explained the presence of the Werewolves.


    Riley Potter broke the silence and laid out some more bad news, drawling, ¡°The critters get more dangerous the closer you get too. The grownups are nasty business; eight feet tall, fast, strong, and meaner than three barn cats in a sack.¡±


    Brig followed that observation up with a warning, ¡°They fucking plot on you too! Barking, yipping, howling all across the woods, but they¡¯re coordinating their movements to try to get your flanks all the time. Most of the frontal attacks were feints to pull us away from Bonny or Melinda or Potter. The fuckers knew who was weakest in a fight, without anybody so much as swinging their dick for a piss to go on.¡±


    She sounded almost angry, which was strange. The Oread beauty, for all her brashness, didn¡¯t normally take personally the monsters¡¯ evil tendencies.


    Getsome¡¯s Gravity Spire muttered into her beer, ¡°Wouldn¡¯t even hang around so I could whomp them fair and square, the bitches.¡±


    Georgia comforted the amazon with a pat on the shoulder, ¡°It¡¯s alright Hon, you still got to give them a good impaling once you caught them.¡±


    The Chronous Bulwark looked around at the gathered Adventurers, plus Alexander and Annita, who were sitting together with Saki and Jules on a double date kind of thing, and added her two cents, ¡°They came at us every night. Every single night, at least once. I burned myself out keeping a Temporal Ward up sundown to sunrise before we even got to the dungeon, so we need a better option to handle that.¡±


    Ben remarked, a distinctly sour twist to his usual dourness, ¡°Damn good thing you did, too, or that second bunch was getting in close, almost on top of the sleepers. They were up the trees, went right over the sentries, me included, quiet as church mice.¡±


    Nobody wanted to consider what harm an eight-foot-tall super werewolf could do to someone asleep in their blankets.


    Melinda seconded Georgia¡¯s position, ¡°The distance to, and nocturnal nature of, the dungeon is a problem. Georgia had to keep her wards up all night, and I had to maintain Day Globes constantly. I don¡¯t think we want to fight in the dark, the monsters were clearly struggling against the lights. We pushed like hell to get close enough for Julia to find the entrance.¡±


    Alexander decided now was a good time to add some good news.


    ¡°I think Saki and I have something for that.¡± He spoke up, making grateful half salute toward the professional chemist.


    ¡°We nailed down a few tricks for using monster cores and managed to successfully create magic stones that let you harness the nonsense inside them. There¡¯s a lot of details we don¡¯t have yet, but we used the cores pulled out of those Elk that try to laser you to create a Sun Lamp. It does what you¡¯d think, and it can use oil lit wicks to throw a hell of a lot of pure sunlight.¡± Alexander narrated the discovery.


    Relieved grins went around the tables, especially from Melinda, who was heavily concerned about her ability to maintain light within the confines of the dungeon. She was so unburdened she went and laid a big squeezing hug on Saki, and then one for Alexander, ruffling his downy hair for good measure.


    ¡°Hell yeah! That¡¯s our Prime Minister for you.¡± Brig laughed.


    He smiled in response to the loss of unease on the team, and gave them the bonus, ¡°Then you¡¯ll be glad to know Mark¡¯s fires can feed the lantern, meaning he can keep the lights on while Melinda handles point lighting, and we have two more Sun Stones to go around, one of which could probably be turned into some kind of catalyst to amplify our Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s solar magic related abilities. Like, I dunno, a fucking wizard¡¯s staff or something.¡±


    Even Ben laughed at that revelation, crowing, ¡°Shit, look at y¡¯all, all grown up and getting the R&D budget sorted out.¡±


    Mark raised a glass and gave a hearty call of ¡°Cheers to the nerds!¡±


    ¡°Cheers to the nerds!¡± Echoed off the wall into the night.


    After that, they got down to business. Annita had recommended, when he¡¯d asked her, that the three filler spots in a six-man party, in addition to Melinda, Mark, and Himself, be Ben, because of course, with the last two being Cervantez and Georgia.


    A minor dungeon, even at higher tiers, permitted only six Matriculated cores inside of it before its core phased, making the crystal heart completely intangible. You could kill the monsters inside, explore the shard of another realm to your heart¡¯s content, even harvest the arcane stuff from its landscape, but you could not claim victory over the contested zone. Hence, why it was imperative to build a party that could effectively take down the creatures within, deal with the challenges associated with the realm in question, and kill the guardian. In Safe Harbor, parties tended to be close knit regulars, and they adopted a sort of specialization in one direction or another. Falcon¡¯s Rest did not have that luxury, so this planning phase took on additional significance.


    ¡°But why do I have to sit out?!¡± Brig objected, peeved at being neglected from the Nut raid.


    Mark let her down gently, ¡°Because as soon as you jump out of the lantern light you¡¯ll be completely, utterly, totally blind, and you already have trouble judging your landings.¡±


    One of the Brigitte O¡¯Connor¡¯s most potent abilities was to do a high jump of about thirty feet, assisted by a sort of earth magic antigravity, that reversed to pull her down in an incredibly potent dive. It was as if her core turned her personal gravity into a slingshot. The result was impact enough to blast a giant cougar¡¯s spine apart. Trouble was, she hadn¡¯t yet figured out how to control her technique and, on several occasions, injured herself somewhat seriously during the landing.


    Her secondary ability, a remnant of her initial class, let her pull solid rock up from the ground nearby and strike like a one of those Indiana Jones themed, spring-loaded spear traps. The rock spears she could make were excellent tools in her arsenal, giving her the element of surprise to stop charging monsters cold, but within the darkness of Nut, against a pack of werewolves and who knew what else coming from the night, she might not even have time to raise those spears. Which meant Brigitte O¡¯Connor wasn¡¯t a whole lot more than an eager lass with a big lance. Within the dungeons, they had to do better than that or risk losses they couldn¡¯t afford.


    Clearly, the copper haired warrior woman was unhappy, but she subsided. Courage wasn¡¯t idiocy, and she accepted her leader¡¯s reasoning.


    A side benefit of one of the better fighters in Falcon¡¯s Rest remaining behind, was whispered by Alexander¡¯s more pessimistic side: If none of them came back, she would be needed all the more.


    ¡°Besides, if the worst scenario possible occurs, you are the number two in Getsome, and the settlement will need you to protect it without us.¡± Mark told the gathered people, his tone grim.


    Ah. Alexander hadn¡¯t been the only one entertaining a bit of the dooms then.


    ¡°Now that that¡¯s settled,¡± the captain of Getsome declared, ¡°Let¡¯s go over it again. Me and Ben and Melinda to do the regular thing, with added benefits that I can power a Sun Lamp, and Melinda¡¯s tailor made for leading us through the dungeon.¡±


    Then he motioned toward the other chosen warriors from his table, addressing each of the people coming along directly as he mentioned them, ¡°Alexander because, apparently, you can see in the dark now, and the usual antimagic and boss killing stuff. Cervantes, you proved you can tune your sound magic to crush werewolf bones, and, probably, even bigger things if we run into them, but let me do the tanking, you¡¯re a little too aggressive. Last, Georgia. We won¡¯t have you keeping your ward up all the time though, you¡¯re our ¡®Oh shit¡¯ button. If a pack swarms, or something we aren¡¯t ready for, your stasis ability will buy us time to plan and respond.¡±


    ¡°Is there a limit to how many things get frozen when they cross the ward?¡± The young leader of men asked.


    Georgia, Chronous Bulwark, confirmed that there was not, summarizing her ability as ¡°It¡¯s a kind of domain thing, like, Lucy¡¯s haven, but way less comprehensive. I can spread the ward by placing the runes, or marks, or fetishes, however the hell you magic people call them, and, after that, the only things that get in have to have my blessing. Impervious uses little stones on necklaces. The problem is, it takes time to set up the ward, I can¡¯t do it reactively. I¡¯ve got an ability that lets me slow monsters I strike though, and it stacks until they look like they¡¯re in super slow mode.¡±


    Mark nodded along and was somewhat at a loss. He¡¯d hoped Georgia could get them a free pass for dealing with ambushes.


    Ben came through, as he tended to do in these matters of monster hunting.


    ¡°You can set the wards up in advance, yeah? Place the runes, and then, when you¡¯re ready, set it off?¡± The gravelly voice asked.


    Georgia, stopped chewing at her nail from nerves and answered in the affirmative, ¡°Ayuh.¡±


    ¡°Does that mean you can leapfrog? Set locations for the wards up in advance, ready to go as soon as we get to a specific location?¡± The Steel Heavy Knight checked.


    ¡°Yeah, but that¡¯s not so great for pushing into the dungeon,¡± the Morrigan Anchor tank, rebutted, ¡°It¡¯d mean moving up with my most powerful ability effectively useless while the rest of you fight off whatever is in the area, until I can set up the twelve clock marks.¡±


    Ben shook his head, ¡°Nah, not what I¡¯m getting at,¡± the broad man, made broader by the dragon scale and high steel plate armor said, ¡°The rest of us, we can push through, what I want is a way out. If things get sideways, you can give us a set of checkpoints to extract to, a chance to catch our wind, set our feet, and make an orderly retreat. And, if that slowing strike thing you do works even on the bad news shit, then all we need you to do is give them a love tap to buy us time. A little more time saves a lot of lives in a combat zone.¡±


    Georgia¡¯s blue eyes widened slightly at that beforehand unexplored use of her time stopping wards.


    ¡°This is why you make the big bucks, Benjamin! You ought to ask for a raise.¡± She praised the Knight, before playfully yelling at Mark, ¡°Why are you underpaying this man?! We¡¯ll all strike is what we¡¯ll do! Workers unite!¡±


    The Dame, from the side scoffed, ¡°Phaw! Peasants and their bean counting. A true knight of honor, as Sir Benjamin, fights for the glory of Liege and Country. You would do well to emulate your senior in arms, Sir Georgia.¡±


    Georgia Stephens responded to that sally with a barb of her own, ¡°You¡¯re right! But I¡¯m not sure that works, you don¡¯t look like you can handle the both of us riding you.¡±


    A blush of color spread along the Dame¡¯s cheeks, and she covered her face with a hand fan she¡¯d had made at some point, exclaiming, ¡°Wench! My Bordeaux is not your concern.¡±


    But she said nothing further and, with a conciliatory look from Mark Ross, Georgia didn¡¯t continue harassing the blue blood with her modern labor perspectives or openly lesbian sensibilities.


    From there, a strategy was set, and a departure time. In two days, they¡¯d make for the dungeon, because the healing sun was due that morning coming. It took three days to make the trip, meaning they would be healed of any wounds taken fending off the werewolves on the way the morning they arrived to the Nut contested zone. The party would then, for two days, remain outside it, killing whatever came out, conserving their strength as they did. That would mean that they would go in with a Phoenix Sun at their backs, so that, even if they were badly mauled, that sunrise would heal them completely. Whoever was still alive.


    This last point brought a surprise objection from Shiv.


    Oleksiy, the settlement¡¯s only real physician, wanted to go along with the party. And not just himself.


    ¡°Is well and good for timing the sunrises, but we should not be counting our chickens before they hatch,¡± The Brigid man said, his east European accent not so thick these days, ¡°A group to assist the raid team should be present, to support and learn from our veterans. We are all in need of training, and, while not ready to tip the spear, we can help.¡±


    The pale man looked at his hands, clenching them repeatedly and flexing fingers like loosening them for a piano performance, ¡°I am improving my skills, but they are wasted sitting behind the wall while you fight and live with wounds for days. Major needs to learn to make use of his shadows against cunning monsters, not bear and wolves.¡±


    He was right. Alexander and the rest realized too that they¡¯d been too focused on the threat of the dungeon. It was an opportunity as well. A dangerous one, and not to be milked as the Guilds had done, but not one to be wasted either.


    Seeing that he¡¯d gotten their full attention, Shiv concluded his argument on behalf of the non-Adventurers, ¡°Let those of us who are not needed in Falcon¡¯s Rest, and who can defend themselves, go with you, develop our abilities in the Green, and establish a camp outside the dungeon. Van can fortify, Julia, can keep her eyes in the sky, and the rest we can learn to be of use in the field, instead of kids hiding behind the elders¡¯ legs. In the worst, someone will need to bring word back to the settlement.¡±


    Brig called, ¡°Seconded, Oleksiy.¡± seeing her chance to not be totally left out of action. She could help train the others who came, which was a fine way to spend the spring, out in Green.


    Alexander, with the motion sustained, called the vote. It passed easily.


    Some dickering for who wanted to go and who was needed to stay took place, but Alexander tuned that out. He was now fully immersed in the raid plans; these fine people could figure out their roles for themselves at this point.


    First on his priority list: making a wizard¡¯s staff for Melinda. Well, not really a staff. He was imagining something more along the lines of a modification of her gauntlet, to leave her hands available for using her cross bow, or rapier.


    When no one asked for his opinion on anything for half an hour, the Warforger took that as his cue to get his ass to the shop for more weird science.


    ¡°Gonna borrow your left hand for a bit. Got some ideas.¡± He said, undoing the bindings holding Melinda¡¯s armored glove in place.


    She rolled her eyes and smiled at his lack of anything approaching propriety when the synapses were firing on a project. He knew it. She knew it. This was nothing unusual.


    With a wave of Melinda¡¯s gauntlet to the group he was gone, hustling through the big oak church doors into another early March shower in Maine. Steady patters of droplets, still fairly cool this time of year, drummed his shoulders and head and he ran to the smithy to avoid a soaking.


    Once inside the familiar room, surrounded by the presence of his old friends, minus one new one, he began his tinkering.


    The Sun stone only needed a path for the solar mana to enter and exit it to function, like a circuit. He had plenty of gold wire left over from the creation of the stones, so he would create an inner matrix along the inside of the gauntlet¡¯s forearm protectors, as well as in the leather palm of the glove to which the dragon scale had been riveted to form the protective. That would provide a loop from the sunstone he would seat along the back of the forearm guard.


    Being a sphere, the egg sized gem would stand proud above the smooth contour of the plates that were wax mold fitted to Melinda¡¯s forearm. To combat that and ensure a secure a firm attachment, Alexander would add a riser where the end of the gauntlet extended slightly to protect the woman¡¯s elbow. It would stick out a bit but shouldn¡¯t greatly hamper her movements or interfere with her hands.


    No more golems had emerged to make of their bodies an offering, so he was, officially, out of High Steel. Alexander made do with some of the cast-off pieces of wyrmling scales left over in a bin from the armor project. They¡¯d meant to have Jules come over and form the pieces into a single plate, for storage, but the Quintessence shaper¡¯s skills were needed all over the village, and he¡¯d never gotten around to it.


    That was fine, Alexander found pieces that would overlap, leaving a gap to permit the solar magic crystal to peak out. The small vulnerability would be worth Melinda being able to charge the stone just wearing the gauntlet outside on a sunny day. Besides, he had the feeling that leaving an open face on the Sun stone would permit Melinda to push her magic into it and create a fantastically bright strobe, devastating to anything with eyes sensitive to light.


    Whether because his skills were improving, or because the project was simpler than he¡¯d initially thought, the retrofit only took a few hours of hammering, drilling, and riveting, with some finicky work to seat the gold wires so that the delicate things wouldn¡¯t move while Melinda¡¯s arm was wearing it. After he¡¯d sewn the last stitch to close up the leather glove, he set the gauntlet aside, knowing he¡¯d given the woman the best chance he could to let her talents¡­drum roll please¡­shine.


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    Sun Drake¡¯s Armlet (Master quality): a dragon scale gauntlet empowered by a Sun Stone, this piece confers potent protection against dark mana. Wearers that can channel fire, light, or solar mana can draw from the gauntlet to strengthen themselves, amplifying their magics. Alternatively, weapons wielded using this armlet can be imbued with sunlight, flaring brightly, or adding a potent pulse of solar magic to their strikes that can burn their foes.


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    And there it was. Alexander¡¯s Armorer branch of Warforger had paid dividends, he had the feeling these sorts of tasks, once incredibly challenging, were, not necessarily easier, but were yielding improved results. Gaia¡¯s tweaking, raising the young man¡¯s crafting abilities beyond what his experience might otherwise produce.


    A satisfied sigh and a brush of his long sleeve to pull the stinging sweat from his eyes accompanied the completion of the magiteck glove. Melinda would love it, he was certain.


    There were so many more things to discover. He had a great many cores sitting in his Lab¡¯s lockbox, waiting to be experimented on, now that they had unlocked this most recent tech path of Gaian nonsense. Yetis. Dire Wolves. Brown Bears. Elk. Entlings. Each with their own distinct notes of magic, like chords in a guitar, there were so many octaves to play, harmonies to investigate. Alexander was barely scratching the surface. But time, always time, was the limiting factor.


    He left the smithy, cradling the newest working like his newborn babe, and delivered it, with reluctance to part, to its owner. The young artisan almost let slip a very Granny-like ¡°My precious!¡± when the dark-skinned Luminous Pathfinder took it and, with great reverence strapped the item in place.


    Barely had she done so when the crystalline quartz, packed with aethereal sunlight, pulsed golden, flushing the room with daylight.


    All present had to squint against the sudden glare, Alexander included. Not even his bizarre orbs could take that brilliance lightly.


    Melinda surprised him with a hug, her chin buried into his armpit, and she squeezed him powerfully.


    ¡°It¡¯s perfect!¡± Her muffled voice, called, ¡°You beautiful weirdo you!¡±


    Alexander took the compliment as intended and patted her on the back.


    ¡°You¡¯re welcome, Melinda, there¡¯s nobody I¡¯d trust to use it better than you. We¡¯re going to kick that dungeon¡¯s ass.¡± He pronounced.


    The rest of Getsome, who he¡¯d found sitting in Mark and Melinda¡¯s house enjoying a bit of team bonding over dinner, roast goose by the smell, invited Alexander to stay. He declined, citing a dinner of his own with Granny, and they let him bow out with a rain check for tomorrow, which he gladly accepted.


    Annita Nguyen was waiting for him, with a wooden cooking spoon and an apron, and wearing nothing else at the door. She was not well pleased at his tardiness; they had planned for dinner an hour ago.


    ¡°You¡¯re late!¡± She told him, ignoring his shocked appreciation of a great deal of tanned silky hide being exposed to the sunset backdrop of the village.


    ¡°I¡­uh¡­wow. I was finishing a little something for Melinda. A¡­uhhh¡­just an apron huh? A magic sun glove, or something. Wow.¡± He managed to stammer.


    The dryad witch stepped out of the door and shoved him from behind into the warm candlelight of his, their, home.


    ¡°Whatever! I have dumplings with mushroom sauce on the stove. There¡¯s also some aces rabbit curry, with carrots and taters and all the fixins¡¯, that¡¯s going to get mushy if you don¡¯t get that Kiester in here! Mother Earth blind you if you waste those spices, I still can¡¯t replace the turmeric and cumin!¡±


    So spurred, Alexander Gerifalt let himself be led, and the Vietnamese lady behind him firmly shut the door via a sharp kick of her foot.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    He didn¡¯t know why she insisted on cooking without clothes on, but he wasn¡¯t willing to challenge her on it, for fear that she¡¯d stop.


    Dinner was excellent, Granny had pulled out all the stops. She only mocked him a little for the tears, snot, and hiccups when he discovered that she liked her curry about three million Scoville heat units. The young man couldn¡¯t feel his tongue after that, and they agreed that kissing and other forms of affection involving mouths were probably not a good idea for a while. If that sauce hit something delicate, there would be bad times.


    Regardless, they ambled off to the shared bed, and slept cozily.


    For two days, Falcon¡¯s Rest held its breath.


    All but the farmers and tenders of fields and livestock, they were breathless in their labors to maximize the productivity of Main¡¯s admittedly limited growing season. Even now, only the dedicated use of their magics, the gifts Gaia granted these growers and tenders of flora and fauna, allowed them to usher in productive gain at this time of year. Back in the before times, it would be nearly May before a crop got free of the frost, let alone fields full of shoots rearing ankle height as they were in the settlement.


    For those not covered to the elbow in afterbirth from the dropping of foals, or lovingly tending eggs in imp core powered incubators to expand the chicken flocks, or taking notes on soil amendments, moisture uptake, and other minutia of agriculture, there was only the wait to leave.


    Except that the dungeon was not willing to wait. The closed dungeon offered up another crop of werewolves, smaller this time, only eight of them, but they had again attempted to take the wall the night before the Adventurers departed, almost as if it knew they were coming for it.


    Falcon¡¯s Rest rebuffed the creatures easily. The Dame, on duty at the time, utilized a suggestion from her ex-military lover, condensing her water jet into three bursts of compressed water bullets that purely shredded the werewolves struck by it. Her spell craft ability to form that hydraulic weapon upgraded from Overpressure to Burst Pulse. Dame Sanchez¡¯s offensive efficiency increased qualitatively. She required less water moved, and less magic to move it, for greater damage inflicted compared to the souped-up firehose version of her spell. Six of the eight werewolves died before another member of the defense force could even close with the creatures.


    That was the good news. The bad news was that Potter, who previously had performed well against the bestial creatures, was not prepared for the remaining two to converge on him simultaneously and was gutted, his literal entire abdomen ripped open by a single swipe of a clawed hand he hadn¡¯t seen. Alexander heard later that Nathan Smythe was the only reason they didn¡¯t get to chew the HVAC Vacuum Fencer¡¯s head off, he charged with great shield and spatha and solo¡¯d the two monsters. Against the onslaught of silvered blade and shield, the beasts couldn¡¯t withstand the Dryad tank, and he felled the werewolves easily.


    Shiv reeled in whatever organs he could and sewed them back into Potter¡¯s body. He closed the blood vessels to the organs that had been destroyed, things that weren¡¯t necessary to survive the six hours to sunrise, like spleen, pancreas, bladder, and most of the colon and small intestines, part of which had looped into the low branches of a tree outside the wall. For hours, his survival was in doubt. Eventually, the good doctor declared that he¡¯d gotten the damage under control. Two blood transfusions had been needed to keep the Marid man alive.


    Mostly, what Alexander did those two days, was spend time with Annita. She wasn¡¯t one of those who were joining the expedition, and they were tied at the hip in the meantime. Annita had been quiet all that day, ever since the rumor spread, confirmed by Alexander after he¡¯d visited the unconscious man with Shiv in attendance. He was due to leave tomorrow morning to close the dungeon.


    Affectionate love making occupied most of the evening, both drinking their fill of the other.


    ¡°I think you were right, as much as I hate to admit it.¡± Granny spoke late that night, from her usual position half atop him, his having become her body pillow.


    Half asleep, he connected no dots, merely mumbling a noncommittal, ¡°Oh?¡±


    Soporific snuggle of soft hair against his side, a most welcome addition to his sheets, preceded her own sleepy affirmation, a yawn that turned into a soft spoken admission.


    ¡°Hhhihhgh, hmm, I don¡¯t think I¡¯m cut out for the warrior life.¡±


    Alexander didn¡¯t consider this news. Brave though she was, slaughter wasn¡¯t in Granny¡¯s genes. With her back to a wall, he considered the Verdant Forager a badgerlike enemy, dangerous out of proportion to her size and class abilities. It just wasn¡¯t her first instinct, she naturally preferred to make herself scarce and avoid trouble. When Alexander was stealthing around in the bush it was with a different intent, he wasn¡¯t avoiding trouble, he was trying to get behind it, so he could put an arrow in its back. His Stalking and her soft footsteps might have seemed the same to an observer, but they were not coming from the same mindscape.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with that, Annita.¡± Alexander responded after a moment.


    He much preferred the gentle expression on her face when she was running a hand along a sapling branch, as if coddling a pet, compared to the fierce blaze of fear and anger when she had to fight for her life.


    For himself, Alexander loved to make things, loved to create tools, and see his workings making life around the town better. However, there was a not insignificant part of him that loved the moment of a perfect arrow release, a smooth trigger squeeze, and the felling of the prey. It was a sublime moment, almost holy. When he was killing a monster, culling some aberration that threatened his friends and neighbors, Alexander felt that he was doing what he was born to do. It was right.


    Not everyone had to be like him, basking in that moment. Not everyone who took up the mantle of Adventurer did, even. Mark was a perfect example, he didn¡¯t fight the monsters because their destruction brought him joy, he did it because taking the front, putting himself between the creatures and his companions was what gave him purpose. Nathan was as kind souled a man as ever walked the earth, he had to be one of the most genuinely nice and accommodating people Alexander had ever met. He simply couldn¡¯t bear to leave others without protection, however, so he lifted his shield to cover them. The Dame took the field from a sense of Nobless oblige, it was her duty to serve the crown. Or something. To each their own.


    All the people of Falcon¡¯s Rest had their parts to play for the greater whole.


    ¡°Personally, I¡¯m happier knowing you¡¯re here inside the city, making green things grow taller, fuller, for our future. It¡¯s the thing that moves your spirit. If there¡¯s anything Gaia did when Her powers transformed us into Matriculated, it was to move us closer to our hearts.¡± He soliloquized.


    An unfamiliar note of hesitance crept into the soft voice at his side, and he looked down into golden eyes that wanted reassurance, ¡°Then I¡¯m not being a coward? It¡¯s fine to hate all the violence and death?¡±


    Alexander stroked her cheek lightly and dispelled any such notions.


    ¡°You¡¯re a brave woman Annita Nguyen. You walked into a volcano and fought with the most valiant humans I¡¯ve ever known, step for step. When that dragon tried to snatch Brig, it was Granny who stole its dinner and saved her. I¡¯d walk into the dungeons with you at my back to watch it.¡± He told the woman without a shred of doubt.


    She smiled, relieved. Then she climbed over him to sprawl more directly on top of him so he could better cuddle her.


    ¡°You¡¯d better not do anything stupid out there.¡± She warned him, her cute face at odds with the simmering pique at her imagination¡¯s conjured ways he could get into trouble.


    ¡°I know how you get. Something wicked this way comes and it¡¯s my feathered doofus who throws himself at them without a care in the world. We need you, Alexander, don¡¯t waste yourself. Besides, I¡¯ll be really mad if you die in a dungeon like an asshole.¡± Granny told him, and he knew he didn¡¯t imagine the catch in her voice at the end.


    Mad she said. Among other things. He still wasn¡¯t entirely certain what they were. In the short term, it was simple, they were lovers and friends. In the long term? Mates? A married couple? Alexander didn¡¯t know. Granny was the first woman who¡¯d ever made him catch feels, she confused the hell out of him sometimes. Less confusing though, he was almost certain he loved the woman latched onto his chest. If something happened to her, he would hurt something awful. If something happened to Granny Nguyen, whatever did it would have him happening to it, that was a check you could take to the bank, he decided conclusively.


    ¡°Well, since we can¡¯t have Granny getting her knickers in a twist, I¡¯ll just have to come back. I am going to need you to dial back that curry some though, or else I can¡¯t promise not to run away to a dungeon to hide.¡± He ran fingers through silken tresses while he said it, and the near purring sigh of his partner was the last sound either of them made before they fell asleep.


    The Phoenix sun restored a grey faced, not quite dead Potter to full health, and that man gained a new appreciation for the Adventurers who walked the razor¡¯s edge for a living. Alexander sympathized, having experienced a similar savaging at the mitts of a Yeti. One mistake is all you got, sometimes. Facing the monsters meant maintaining total focus, letting your training take over, when the violence of motion outpaced what a life of peace had done to your brain. Green sense was a thing won with hard experience; it didn¡¯t come instantly.


    Several times Alexander had come within breaths of his mistakes being permanent. Dire Wolves chewing his legs to ribbons. An elk trying to impale him. A Yeti. An ogre falling forward with the slide of an empty forty-five in his hands racked back. Dire bees hunting for the human that had manhandled their queen while moving her to a new home. A golem, ready to splat him against the gymnasium floor on which he¡¯d played casual basketball with friends, about a lifetime ago. A Reaper, its scythe poised to rip life from him.


    Alexander Gerifalte had stared at his mortality more times than most and found his way clear.


    Each time change you, hardened you, he thought. It was why Ben didn¡¯t flinch when somebody swung a training stick at his face, why he didn¡¯t blink against pain. He¡¯d already seen his end and moved passed it. That was a thing that couldn¡¯t be taught. Some, like Scott, shattered, unable to find the will to fight again. Others, like the Adventurers of Getsome and Impervious, were forged into warriors, champions.


    Potter, when he ran disbelieving hands over a stomach that had been ruined, tears in his eyes with gratitude at another day, demanded to know the next time some ¡®shaggy, dog fucking apes, motherfucker¡¯ was spotted, and Alexander was certain he knew which side of the coin the man had landed on. Especially after he refused to be left behind on the expedition.


    It was good. Riley was an inspiration to the artisans. He had a class that was fit for combat, but he wasn¡¯t one of the hard-bitten Adventurers, who occupied a bit of an intimidating place in the village. His fall and rise showed the rest that they could endure and come out stronger.


    The expedition departed early, just a couple of hours after sunrise.


    Annita hadn¡¯t gone to see him out, he had a feeling she was hiding her worry and didn¡¯t want to crack in front of the rest of the villagers. She made up for that with breakfast and a goodbye kiss that almost threatened to delay departure.


    Granny wasn¡¯t the only one with a last-minute hold up. Ben barely managed escape Dame Sanchez, who was also remaining inside the town. He had to go back for his helmet, an uncharacteristic bit of inattention from the professional soldier.


    From the north gate of Falcon¡¯s Rest, following the defunct highway, twenty brave souls set out to destroy the dungeon, their forms disappearing into the pall of an earnest spring rain.


    Alexander Gerifalte padded mostly silently through the soft, wet woods. He had the point of the scouts, and, despite the not at all pleasant circumstances, found himself enjoying the stalk through the brush. He¡¯d been barred from hunting the surroundings after being voted leader of the village. For the young man who had canvassed these mountains and foothills completely alone two years past, it was a stifling experience, being trapped behind the walls of the settlement.


    He understood why it was necessary. In addition to his skills, he was a symbol of the settlement, a figurehead, a totem that sustained the morale of the people who had followed him over a hundred miles away from the closest approximation of civilization. That didn¡¯t mean he had to like it.


    Now though, with no little elation in his heart, he was free again to hunt.


    The eyes marked with their black sclera from his ascension to Outsider bloodline peeled back the surroundings, and he catalogued everything. Birds flitting, squirrels running the branching paths of the maples and pines, oversized jack rabbits, some with horns on their heads, he kept watch as his feet picked their way carefully across the forest floor, Singer, his wonderful bow, held loosely in his hands with an arrow nocked for draw. Julia Bonny Richards was with the main body of the raid team, guiding her hawk and its spectral brother to find overt threats. Markers left behind by the advance team on their trip to locate the dungeon made the journey almost tame.


    There should be very few surprises. Mundane ones, anyhow. The dungeons weren¡¯t the only source of knuckleballs being thrown; Gaia had plenty of dangers to keep her children on their toes.


    A rustle of branches ahead froze Alexander in place. He listened and watched for a minute before the source of the disturbance made itself known: Dire beavers. Big as a panda bear, the flat tailed, buck toothed critters were chewing down full-grown pine trees about as efficiently as a crosscut saw, razored teeth taking chunks from the trunks. The young Venator saw the drag marks that indicated where they¡¯d been towing their lumber, a wide creek in a holler, which they were intent on damming up to form a ten-acre lake, with another twenty behind it flooded into a marsh.


    Briefly, the young man considered shooting the beavers, they were going to make travel difficult, eventually, with their relentless watershed projects, but decided against it. There was no real threat, and they had an objective. If the flooding ever got to be an issue for Falcon¡¯s Rest, then they could handle it. On their own, the dire beavers had never been known to attack people so he returned his study to the landscape.


    He pondered a moment why his instincts still said to stay still, until a huge cougar dropped from a tree on top of the lead beaver dragging its timber and hand length canines broke the animal¡¯s spine with a crack that echoed across the hills. The panther dragged its prey bodily up the hillside, easily hauling some six hundred pounds of dead weight, before disappearing down the other side of the ridge.


    Nothing presented itself as a threat, the surviving beaver had dropped its cargo and fled for a beaver slide into the creek when its comrade was so cleanly dispatched. Alexander crept forward, following a line midway up the ridge parallel to the one the cougar had climbed. Branches rubbed against his shoulders and elbows, their leaves depositing collected rain. He was immensely grateful for the wax that waterproofed his cloak, wax obtained from the only sentient creatures humanity had, to his knowledge, contacted on mutually beneficial terms: a dire bee hivemind. Absent that, he, and the others would have been treated to the experience of trekking soaked to the skin in the fifty-degree morning air.


    Methodically, the young man continued his patrol, two miles ahead of the main group, green tinged with brown eyes, set in black, scanning ahead.


    Gone was the dizzying double vision that had troubled Alexander since drinking the dragon blood. It had taken months of adjustment, but his grey matter finally had his mutant eyes under control. The additional sharpness of acuity was accompanied by an almost intuitive three-dimensional model of objects, almost like he saw from a bird¡¯s eye, one that shifted with the movement of whatever he was particularly focused on. The young Outsider had struggled mightily on the drill yard with the Adventurers to hone his ability to process the sheer amount of information being jammed into his brain, to say nothing of the black edges that moved and shifted with cored creatures.


    Annita had been somewhat correct, there was a predictive element to those outlines, but it wasn¡¯t based on time, it was based on the mana inside a thing.


    Possibly due to a synergy between Greater Analyze and Outsider¡¯s perception, he was looking at the projection of mana that preceded movements. Ben related it to like metaphysical reading of a boxer¡¯s feet. The punch that was coming was telegraphed, ever so slightly. Incredibly useful, but only if the fighter had the skill to respond fast enough to take advantage. Ben made it his responsibility to see Alexander acquire that skill, to the young man¡¯s good. Alexander, on his back on the training field, covered in bruises, full body exhausted, and with a pounding headache from straining his eyes, had had mixed feelings about the older warrior¡¯s consideration most days.


    Not today, not when the fruits of suffering were ripe for the picking.


    The Entropic Venator had glimpsed a fleeting furred outline through a pine stand ahead, a stand that sat suspiciously close to a bend in the highway that would naturally direct its travelers¡¯ attention away from it as they passed. An ambush site.


    Fingers to his lips, Alexander whistled twice, signaling danger ahead.


    He was on point, closest to what he was certain was a pack of werewolves laying in wait some quarter mile ahead.


    Only a minute later he was joined beneath a discreet witch hazel shrub, very quietly, by Bonny, who had her bear familiar with her.


    The grizzly sized beast huffed in his direction, taking in his scent, but calmed at the girl¡¯s touch. The reticent beast tamer was focused but spared a small smile of greeting before returning to business.


    Losing one of her pets and being smashed by a hammer by a would-be rapist from Safe Harbor had hardened the young girl. Gone was the wooden club she¡¯d preferred before. Now she carried a pair of hand axes. Julia was playing for keeps. It made Alexander sad, but he was glad she¡¯d responded to the experience by becoming more assertive, instead of withdrawing. Doctor Patel¡¯s therapy and her role models in Brig and Georgia no doubt played a role in that.


    ¡°My hawk is five miles ahead, and hasn¡¯t cried an alarm,¡± Bonny whispered at him, skipping the pleasantries.


    Alexander pointed to the pine stand and replied, in equally hushed tones, ¡°They¡¯re not moving, much, staying under the canopy. Probably bedded down there after sunrise to wait out the day, or for anything that turns that bend. It¡¯s a guess, but I think the fact that the other packs didn¡¯t return has them cautious.¡±


    No one really knew how much intellect was possessed by the monsters. What was especially mysterious was the connection between the dungeon boss, the guardian monster, and the rest of the creatures of the invading realm. In the goblin¡¯s case, there had been a clear hierarchy amongst the creatures and, while they were vicious little gits, they¡¯d definitely been possessed of a conscious mind. For the undead, the Reaper was the only sentient entity in the entire dungeon, the zombies were shells, operating under its commands. It too had held a disturbing degree of sophistication in its alien crypt of a mind. Muspelheim and the other dungeons had been almost like samples of the native environment of their realms, just wild things operating on instinct without guidance.


    Brig reported the werewolves to be cunning, and their instant response to the pack being wiped out by the Dame being to converge on a single target of opportunity in Potter supported that. There might be a will controlling, or at least directing, the actions of the werewolves. That meant the possibility of an over mind shifting their behaviors, learning from failure. Best to assume the worst.


    Bonny examined the apparently empty stand of mature evergreens and said, ¡°Flush them out?¡±


    She was referring to the bear, and to her ability to create a clone of it under her direct control out of pure mana. The solid mana constructs were amongst the most obvious manifestations of Gaia¡¯s gifts of power to man. They drained the Lunar Warden, but she had proven her bears¡¯ combat potential against anyone who sparred her construct and against the beasts around Falcon¡¯s Rest. Yetis had descended again from Mt. Katahdin during the winter, seeking to hunt the settlers on their business outside the walls. Julie Richards and her bears taught them to stop doing that.


    Alexander thought the girl¡¯s offer over. What could they learn? What were the risks? He decided against it for now. They were too far ahead of the rest of the raid party to get support, and Alexander had no way to know how many the enemy might number.


    ¡°No. Not yet, anyway. If you can, get your hawk back and send a message to the rest, if not, go yourself, give them the word, and come back. I¡¯ll stay posted here. Let¡¯s get Major to do a shadow run through that stand and see how many of them he kicks up, then you can let them meet yogi and the gang.¡± Alexander decided.


    Another brief ghost of a smile and Bonny hustled off back the way she¡¯d come, without a goodbye.


    A nice girl, Bonny. Only a little spooky. But then, they were all spooky in one way or another, these survivors of the apocalypse who had decided to join the march on Nut. People who couldn¡¯t be dangerous didn¡¯t fare well in the Green.


    Minutes sidled by, slowly. Insects chirped, but the cool spring of Maine meant that few, if any fliers were about for now. That would change soon, late March was the start of mosquito season. The black flies and other nuisances wouldn¡¯t come up thick until about June, for which the crouched young man counted his blessings. Other than a fox that dared to cross into the open, furtive steps, and then a streak of orange that took it across from one wood line to the next across the old highway, there was little to suggest that anything was amiss in the forest.


    Alexander knew better. His watching of the stand revealed that no birds flew into or near those pines. No squirrels pawed the pine needles for hidden treats. The native animals of these hills knew something was wrong in their home. After a few more flickers of movement, unconscious shifts in posture of huddled forms, Alexander grew certain. His count rose to at least four by the time Bonny returned from delivering the news.


    This time, she was accompanied by Major, Kevin Meijer, the Morrigan twenty-three-year-old, like a Scandinavian poster boy for fitness, who was looking a little more nervous than Alexander cared for. His bloodline had evidenced itself similarly to Georgia, feathered patterns along his back and shoulders that extended down his arms, all hidden beneath the light leather and aluminum armor he wore. As a scout, the Shadow Sentinel classed man¡¯s puppeteering of his own shadow, which somehow possessed all of his senses, was remarkably useful. He had next to no offensive ability, however.


    Alexander had considered perhaps trying to use one of those Night Stones to give the man a boost but hadn¡¯t had the time to investigate. Dark mana, by its Scroll carried risks to its use, including a predisposition for induced madness. For now, they¡¯d make do with using his abilities to get them a good look, nice and close like, to the pine grove that had a little shapeshifting monster infestation.


    ¡°You ready to roll?¡± He asked the young man, who closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and clamped down on himself before nodding.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got this. I¡¯ll circle up the ridge and come down behind, like I was coming across the highway, west to east. If they take the bait, I¡¯ll pull them into the open onto the highway.¡± Major said.


    Major¡¯s shadow, being insubstantial, didn¡¯t make sounds when it ¡°walked¡±, nor did it have any odor. If the werewolves were asleep, or did not see it, they wouldn¡¯t be roused to give chase.


    From his left, Bonny added, ¡°Getsome and my family are coming up the road, they are ready to intercept if the creatures rush the expedition. My bear is in a thicket just across the highway. We can surround them if we move on up this ridge another half mile.¡±


    Sound tactics, Alexander approved.


    Together, the three of them picked their way along that middle bench on the hillside, evidence of a long-ago forsaken logging road. Maine was littered with them, the north woods were, essentially, entirely owned by logging companies using the vast tracts as a timber nursery. Or, well, they had been. Gaia fixed that little problem right up.


    No sign came that the Homo Novus scouts had raised furry suspicions from below, so they laid down, using their cloaks for ground blankets to wait for the rest of the expedition to make their approach from the road.


    They didn¡¯t have long to wait. Two carts, hauling foodstuffs and supplies for the encampment, came rolling down the gentle grade. Alexander recognized most of Impervious, sans Nathan, who was back with Falcon¡¯s Rest, serving as the anchor for the town and its major source of protection, alongside Dame Sanchez. Getsome, absent aforementioned Dame, was in their usual formation. If things got hairy, they¡¯d be there to make with the monster whacking in a hurry.


    Alexander judged it time.


    ¡°Okay, Major, you¡¯re up. Send those furry bastards a message.¡± He told the handsome scout.


    Blue eyes closed, and Major concentrated. His back appeared to turn black, as if the shade of the forest trees above were condensing, and a dark mannequin of the man lifted itself up from its owner. The shadow-man saluted his comrades and took off at a silent sprint down the hill, running fit to qualify for the hundred-meter dash event.


    When the umbral scout¡¯s projection crossed into the stand, the response was instant. Baying howls rose up as a dozen furred man shapes flung pine needles from their concealment. Major¡¯s shadow form fled the pine trees, with the werewolf pack at its heels. Two of the beasts shapeshifted mid stride, and, like a gymnast doing a front flip in a floor routine, they smoothly transitioned to their mobile wolf form. These circled ahead, trying to box in the target, exhibiting the hunting behavior typical of wolves.


    Alexander watched the fearless shade juke and spin around a darting wolf, before breaking the cover of the forest. A casual hop of the guard rail, and Major was leading the wolves into the trap. Howls of the Nut spawned monsters increased in pitch when they spotted the traveling Adventurers and they put on speed. Alexander flicked his fingers together to Bonny, and she gave a mental command to her grizzly familiar, before assuming a concentrated pose. Magic vibrant blue and purples formed like a cloud condensing in time lapse, the shape took on firmer definition, limbs and head clearly ursine. The details snapped into focus and a bear, blue-violet fur standing thick on its body, teeth revealed by lips peeled back from its snout appeared in front of the Lunar Warden.


    The astral familiar took off toward the werewolf pack with that deceptively fast lope that bears had. They looked clumsy, like the hips and spine weren¡¯t meant to move quickly, not at all like they could outrun a horse. Many a deer learned too late that looks weren¡¯t everything with regards to bears. The werewolves learned it too, when two of the frightfully powerful predators hit them from opposite sides.


    Three of the shapeshifters were bowled over, knocked to the pavement by the charging creatures. Each bear singled out a particular monster to maul, and made savage work of it, crushing teeth over wolven muzzles and digging claws through flesh like a dog raking dirt from a hole.


    A new note entered the wolfish choir of the monsters, what had to be fear. Or, at the least, dismay.


    Alexander was hanging back, guarding Major and Julia¡¯s bodies. They were defenseless when they piloted their aetheric forms. Anything that wanted to take them would have to go through him. He needn¡¯t have worried, Getsome was in the thick of things now.


    Benjamin, riding the phenomenal boost of speed, power, and toughness of his Steel Heavy Knight class, which borrowed strength from the armor he wore, plowed into the pack, his gifted naginata in full swing. The sword blade of silvered High Steel, enchanted by bitter frost magic, bisected a battle form werewolf from neck to hip, barely slowed. Metal glittered under the sun as the spear spun and was swiped horizontally with casual strength through another at chest height. The frozen spear blade threw a cloudy trail of steaming cold air in its wake. He turned and punched with a gauntleted fist that blasted a werewolf skull apart like a melon hit with a sledgehammer, launching the would be flanking monster away in a heap.


    Shrieking laughter hurtled from the sky as Brig used Full Thrust to impale another creature frozen by the violence of the reversed ambush.


    The cavalry lance she rode down through the monster buried a foot into the pavement, arresting the Gravity Spire¡¯s flight. In one motion, the lancer released the impaling weapon, knelt, rolled forward, bleeding her momentum, and came to a crouch with both hands pushing toward another pair of monsters. The stones beneath her answered her magic¡¯s call, surging forward in a pair of stabbing spikes that punched into the creatures, lifting them up, their clawed feet kicking futile in the air.


    The coppery haired amazon tore her lance from the pavement and joined her hulking veteran leader in dismantling the mobile form creatures that had turned back to join their battle form pack members. She laughed boisterously the entire time she and Ben scattered the half dozen monsters.


    Mark Ross was coming forward now, his kite shield raised. A clawed hand reached for him and dropped to the ground, the edges of the cut from his special made firebrand smoking. The shapeshifter actually swung the same limb, not noticing its arm terminated a foot shorter than it should have from the clean dismemberment. Mark stepped into his thrust, burying the blade in the large chest, and a surge of fire magic flash broiled the monster¡¯s innards, dropping it where it stood.


    The Incandescent Triarii set his feet against three charging monsters and determined the line that they would not cross. Naught but their ashes did.


    With two bears roaring, swinging frying pan sized paws, and the three veteran warriors, soon joined also by Potter, who was eager for his comeuppance, the pack dissolved within a minute. One minute of incredible violence, and only humanity held the field in the middle of old highway eleven.


    Alexander, who had fought with these warriors, and had trained with them hard for these past few months was still taken aback by the efficient slaughter. Getsome had grown much stronger since the winter. Where others had filled their time with the endless tasks of the village, the soldiers had trained their arts, had used each other as an ever-raising ladder to climb higher in their skills.


    Shadow man and aetheric bear faded away, the skills released, and the two figures Alexander had been guarding returned to full awareness.


    Major summarized the battle thusly: ¡°Godsdamn.¡±

 Chapter 25: Toll the Bell

    No further resistance was met after the destruction of the werewolf pack. Alexander rotated to the rear, his shift at the point complete, and he got to enjoy a relatively relaxing hike through the Maine spring amongst the foothills of Appalachia. In a different time and context, the trip would have been a vacation. He caught a fragment of sadness shrapnel when he reminded himself that such a trip would have been, almost certainly, in the company of his parents, who had loved the outdoors.


    Until three hours before sunset the raid team and its support element traveled the highway. Alexander noted that the once solid road was already being overtaken by grass and weeds. Within a generation, this wide causeway of trucks and cars would be a narrow clearing surrounded by, and probably interspersed with, the fast-growing pines and maples. About twenty-five miles north of Falcon¡¯s Rest, the travelers made camp, with plenty of daylight to set up, and fortify, their position.


    The camp established by the twenty settlers, along a creek a hundred fifty feet off the road, was bounded by a thirty-foot diameter ring of rock, about eight feet high by one thick, courtesy of the Talus mage Van Richards. Brig came in behind him and raised stone pikes facing outwards to discourage any charging monsters or predators. Stakes cut from some dead wood pines made a crisscrossing palisade along the top of the ring wall, which hung outward to discourage climbing. Tents erected in organized rows only took a scant ten minutes to set up, and rocks from the creek made fire pits, all within a half hour of stopping.


    Well before the sun fell below the tree limned horizon, Alexander was sitting next to a cook fire, a Dutch oven baking simple camp biscuits in its coals, while a small pot boiled to bring a bean suppah closer to fruition.


    Every settler carried a personal ration of rice, beans, dried meat, seasoning, and some of the fresh fruits coming in from the greenhouses, along with their personal cooking kit, but a hearty meal still got fixed up by the individuals amongst the traveling Adventurers who enjoyed cooking. About everybody in Falcon¡¯s Rest was at least passable around the kitchen, but the cream always rose to the top, separating the folk who could do it from the one¡¯s that actively relished the task.


    Alexander considered his campfire one of the more attractive ones, although he had to admit a little concern at the delicious smells that threatened his reign as king camp chef, coming from over near Julia¡¯s campfire.


    She was up to something, something that smelled like bacon and apples.


    Not everything was carried in the packs born by the travelers, of course. The carts carried heavier supplies, such as tents, bedding, a big, waxed canvas pavilion that could enshroud the tents in case of heavier weather, or act as a central meeting place for the raid team and raid team associates. Other items, like saws, axes, mallets, and the like shared space on the carts as well, all the tools needed for safe travels in the Green.


    Two Sun lanterns hung from fifteen-foot poles on either side of the camp, their oil-soaked wicks lit, and the approaching gloom of twilight was repelled for forty feet around each of them. One could imagine walking under a mid-morning daylight near those lanterns. Any creatures of Nut that entered the camp would find themselves quite out of their element.


    A third, more potent form of lantern was walking around camp with her spouse: Melinda, the Luminous Pathfinder. On her left arm was the Sun Drake vambrace that amplified her abilities. She could pulse a light that would leave a person seeing doubled images under a noon day sky. Against the creatures whose sight was tuned to perpetual night, she would bring radiance that blinded.


    A sodden Brig thumped down onto one of the nearby folded camp chairs, courtesy of the outdoors shop stock in town. She¡¯d been to the creek for a bath, which Alexander considered a good call. Staying damp from your own sweat was a good way to chafe. He¡¯d go down later after he¡¯d had a chance to eat.


    ¡°Dinner ready in about a quarter hour, your Brigness.¡± Alexander told the smirking amazon.


    She turned her nose up snootily, doing her best Dame Sanchez, ¡°And I trust the help will be decent enough to be out of sight by then. I hate eating where the stink of the rabble can ruin a good vintage.¡±


    The ¡°vintage¡± she spoke of was good old Lipton¡¯s Iced Tea, sitting steaming in a stainless-steel pot only minutes past having been brewed.


    ¡°Of course, your Brigness,¡± Alexander deferred, playing along, ¡°The peasantry will be supping with the hogs, as usual. Can¡¯t have the hay haired ones getting ideas.¡±


    ¡°Quite so, quite so.¡± Brig laughed.


    The Dame had mellowed out some with her more obstreperous objections to the low bred, but she still had her moments.


    ¡°Not bad today Ms. Knievel.¡± He commented, giving the beans a stir, ¡°I give the landing an eight. Bonus points for the follow up harpooning of monstrous thingies.¡±


    The warrior woman smiled at the praise; she¡¯d worked hard on that maneuver. It was the first time she¡¯d gotten to try it at the speed of live.


    ¡°Yeah,¡± She said, philosophically, ¡°I am pretty awesome, huh?¡±


    ¡°And humble.¡± Alexander added, smirking at the woman¡¯s preening slouch.


    ¡°That too.¡± She agreed, nodding along, ignoring his sarcasm, but she leaned back and closed her eyes to rest.


    Raising a two dozen stone spears over the course of half an hour had fairly well wiped her out, magically.


    ¡°Room for another bowl?¡± Ben announced himself with suppressed eagerness, similarly dressed down from a bath in the stream.


    Alexander waved the big man on in, ¡°Plenty to go ¡®round, come on, grab a chair!¡±


    Julia, despite her shyness, had a small crowd around her fireplace now, but he still had loyal followers. She¡¯d really one upped him with the apples, though, he¡¯d have to congratulate her later.


    Benjamin took a camp chair and relaxed visibly into it, before leaning in to take a stick and begin poking the fire. Even without the armor, the presence of the man was solidity incarnate. The subtly metallic sheen from his dark skin only amplified the effect.


    A low hum of conversation gently filled the camp, as supper was taken amongst the settlers. A half dozen folk still in their travel gear were acting as sentries, ready to respond should anything dangerous crop up. Guard shifts had already been assigned, Alexander would be taking the middle shift, where his eyes could do the most good in the overcast night. There wouldn¡¯t be a moon to shed light through the persistent Maine cloud cover. For those who didn¡¯t have first shift duty, it was a chance to eat, relax, and commune.


    When first rotation was relieved, they too would have their chance to rest and make merry, before grabbing six hours of sleep. There would be, at any given time, about half the raid team awake, to limit the opportunity for any skulking critters to get foolish.


    For a few minutes, Alexander, Ben, Brig, and, soon after Shiv, sat in silence around the fire. Mark and Melinda were already asleep, they had the third rotation.


    Soon enough, savory soup beans, camp bread, and meat boiled to softness were packed away by professionally hungry folk. A lesson learned far, far earlier in his life was that hard work deserved a full belly.


    Alexander turned in after, getting his chance for a few hours sleep before his middle shift. From the warmth of the sleeping bag sprawled atop a foam pad, a far cry from his comfortable bed, he wound down to the rural orchestral of friends chatting after supper, evening songs of birds, and the yips of wolves, Gaian ones, in the hills.


    His eyes opened a second later, or so it felt. The stars wheeling above through a gap in the clouds, soft moonlight trying to peak through, told him it was time to take sentry duty. He extracted himself from the bag, the zipper¡¯s too loud buzz cutting through an otherwise peaceful night.


    It only took a couple of minutes to don the splint mail armor, and he stuffed helmet down over his feathered hair, checking the chin strap to make certain it was set. Absent fingers played over buckles and straps, doing the same for the rest of the combat clothes, as he sometimes referred to the armor. Nothing was out of place, he¡¯d done good work in the fitting, but it was habit.


    Bow in hand, quiver secured to his belt, he relieved Bonny and sent the girl to her well-earned blankets.


    Alexander¡¯s otherworldly stare penetrated the darkness, but he didn¡¯t care for the glare of the Sun lanterns, they cast odd shadows that even his eyes struggled with, so he exited the walled encampment and vanished into the midnight forest.


    Stalk guided steps took him around the perimeter of the encampment, Broken silhouette further obliterated his presence, and he breathed deeply of the damp night while he ghosted through the woods. Piney smell, detritus of the autumn fall, the earthy forest smells permeated, not yet broken up by spring¡¯s burst of flowers. After two years postmodern civilization, he found the absence of extraneous noise, the contamination of his nose by pervasive exhaust intoxicating.


    Gaia was wild again, and dangerous. He loved it. For all that he would spend his days within the workshop to obtain again some semblance of modernity, he could not say that he wanted things to go back, with two profound exceptions, to the way they had been before. There was again, for the first time since he¡¯d been born, a sense of adventure on this world. Sights unseen. Maps to be charted, if not for the dungeon generated changes in geography, then for the new creatures and life forms that now roamed the surface. Alexander Gerifalte had been denied his dream of flying. In its stead he was granted the aspiration to become an explorer. Just as soon as humanity had achieved a stable bedding.


    Once Falcon¡¯s Rest was well and truly established, once his goal for the Enshrined was met, or, if it was found to be unattainable, put to rest, Alexander would probably leave the settlement behind. Out in the Green, the last Gerifalte was purely alive, for his own sake. As much as he¡¯d come to love these people he protected, he didn¡¯t want to be bound to them forever.


    ¡°Does any falcon want anything less than freedom?¡± He philosophized and chuckled silently at himself, and at the irony of his name.


    Such thoughts occupied the young hunter as he padded through the budding forest, sometimes amongst a cluster of pines, sometimes duck walking beneath the new leaves of the early maples, occasionally clambering up and over a jutting granite boulder. Nothing arose that demanded he draw his bow, and he returned to camp with a few hours to daybreak, and, after he¡¯d passed his baton to Ben for guard duty, he made for his blankets to finish his sleep.


    Day two of the journey went more smoothly than day one, no resistance was encountered. A winter bear chewing its way through an elk caused a minor detour of half a mile, but the terrain was kind, and there was only minimal hauling of the hand pulled carts to free them from binding mud. The third and final traverse left the highway, going instead up a gravel logging road, which, five miles in, turned into a game trail. One that showed the obvious signs, broken branches, deep pawed imprints, occasional scat, and traces of animals rent to pieces, of werewolves.


    Markers along the trail guided the raid team to their destination: the tier three dungeon of the realm of endless night.


    It was immediately obvious when they arrived. Unlike the only other closed dungeon Alexander had explored, the source of the goblins and ogres that had terrorized him when first the Pulse changed the rules, Nut had not claimed a mine or natural cave. What the adventurers found was a stone temple, a small one, of almost Egyptian architecture. Obelisks of grey-black stone, like slate, rose up fifteen feet, in pairs along a stone walkway leading into the temple interior. Each foreboding pillar was adorned by carvings of strange creatures, many of them eyeless, several of them winged, and all of them belonging in humanity¡¯s nightmares.


    Gathered along the crest of a low hill, whose canopy of thick old growth fir blocked all but the most persistent light from the mid-afternoon sun, the travelers shared a moment of shared realization that grim business was at hand.


    ¡°It feels bad.¡± Bonny summarized succinctly.


    It did, indeed, feel bad. Ominous, what with the absence of light within that interior, all except for a faint blue glow, the boundary to the realm contained by the dungeon.


    Van cleared his throat and began raising a semicircular wall in front of the dungeon, about fifty feet away from the obelisks.


    ¡°First thing, I can¡¯t move the stone around this dungeon. Can¡¯t even feel it, it¡¯s like the planet just ends in a perfect circle fifty feet from the door of that temple.¡± The Talus mage reported.


    In a way, that made sense. Van¡¯s gift allowed him to manipulate Gaia¡¯s substrate. Whatever Nut was, it didn¡¯t respond to the mage¡¯s powers.


    Alexander posed the question that came to mind, ¡°Could you manipulate any of the rock inside the dungeon?¡±


    Another six foot long by eight tall section of wall lifted at the beckoning of Van¡¯s magic and he shrugged.


    ¡°Dunno. I could inside the other dungeons, but they were all field dungeons. Felt like the difference in handling two types of mortar. I can work them, but they respond just a teensy bit different. The dungeon exterior I can¡¯t so much as touch. Might be because it¡¯s anchored metaphysically, the dungeon core shrouds itself in its magic and I can¡¯t touch it from the outside.¡± Hypothesized the terramancer.


    Put it on the pile of things they didn¡¯t know, the rules to be learned about how the dungeons interacted with Gaia, and how Gaia interacted back on the dungeons.


    ¡°Do what you can to fortify a forward operations base, we¡¯ve got the rest of the day to work before we attempt the clear.¡± Mark Ross decided, and the twenty travelers set to their tasks.


    The first thing they did was to cut down several of the crowding fir trees, breaking a window into the canopy that permitted a much-needed beam of sunlight to grace the temple. Disturbingly, the ground shuddered when those first rays touched the dungeon entrance and a thick fog rose around it, as if it felt the need to shield itself from the light¡¯s touch.


    ¡°That¡¯s how it¡¯s going to be, huh?¡± Ben declared, when the shivering ground subsided.


    Brig declared, completely serious, ¡°Yeah, well, it better be fucking scared,¡± which made Alexander feel a little better.


    Sometimes confidence was infectious.


    Twenty hands made for light work, they had a similar set up to the night encampments well before the orange and pink highlights of sunset.


    Major pondered, looking at the heavy timbers of the fir trees that had been felled and used to make a palisade wall across the front of the encampment, where Van¡¯s magic couldn¡¯t find hold, ¡°You think it knows we¡¯re out here? The dungeon, I mean.¡±


    A good question. No one knew what mind might live inside the dungeon cores. Gaia spoke to her children, but the other realms did not, at least, not unless through their minions. When a human touched the crystal surface of the dungeon core, the power that it held was stripped away, used by the planet to augment, to strengthen her champions. That other world was unable to resume its grip on the crystalline heart until after a Pheonix sun, when the mana field of Gaia turned over. Since no human had ever made contact with the potential mind that dwelled within another planet, no human had insight to offer about the nature of its intelligence. If any existed at all.


    Riley answered, saying aloud what most folk felt to be true, even if there was no hard data to support it, ¡°It knows. And it¡¯s got ideas what it¡¯s going to do about it, too.¡±


    Alexander trusted his gut when it came to matters like these. He trusted Potter¡¯s gut too.


    They weren¡¯t going to be surprising the denizens of Nut. This wasn¡¯t going to be like when he¡¯d caught the entire Goblin King led army in an ambush. Those monsters had been starving, they¡¯d been cut off from their food supply, isolated, with a ravenous Goblin Queen in need of nourishment to pump out more eggs to create the filthy creatures. Who knows how long this dungeon had sat here? Who knows for how long its creatures had been consolidating their hold on the surrounding lands, fattening themselves until whatever sapience, the dungeon core or its guardian creature, determined that raids farther afield were in order?


    ¡°If we are expecting the worst, then there is only good news, da?¡± Shiv spoke, while he gripped a tent stake for hammering.


    A few loud whacks of the mallet set the stake and the physician stood, stretching his back.


    ¡°I am no general, but it seems like a good idea to go to fifteen on, five off, rolling shifts. This close, if multiple packs were coming from the dungeon and scattering, they will here be concentrated.¡± The Brigid healer reasoned.


    Ben nodded along and said, ¡°That¡¯s my vote too. Every six hours, we can put the guys who¡¯ve been up longest to bed. Georgia, you got your runes up, right? Just in case?¡±


    The Morrigan woman with her blond hair bunned, flashed a thumbs up from place next to a fire lay that awaited lighting.


    ¡°Ayuh. Temporal Ward is ready to go. If a mob comes out of there, I can put them in time out as they come through the temple doorway.¡± Georgia Stephens confirmed.


    ¡°I¡¯ve got the furry bastards¡¯ number now; I can grind their bones to make my bread with one love tap.¡± Cervantes reported.


    That conversation covered the precautions, the rest of the supporting cast knew their job was to hang back, fight together in small groups, the way they¡¯d been trained, and try to pick off anything that the Adventurers proper crippled. Now that they¡¯d reached their destination, the groups separated into their predefined teams. The dungeon clear party of Alexander, Georgia, Ben, Mark, Melinda, and Cervantes were, from now until the clear was complete, moving as a unit. The other folk were grouped by varying combat abilities and experience.


    Alexander kept an eye on the other groups, because the village had elected him mayor of what barely qualified as a hamlet, and that forced him to feel responsible for them all, in addition to the responsibility he¡¯d accepted when he told them about a little town he¡¯d planned to found six months ago in Safe Harbor and they decided to join him.


    A carpenter woman, Denise Barre, was a tall, six feet one inches and whipcord thin and the first noncombat class of one of the groups. She was a Brigid with dark brown hair in a no-nonsense ponytail whose class, Stanchion Arcanist let her infuse wooden items with her mana that reinforced them in a way that multiplied the innate mechanical properties of the object and lent it a degree of magical protection akin to Soak. He watched her make her way from one fir timber to the next, lay her hands, each of which had two extra fingers on each, delicate, dexterous hand, just like Shiv¡¯s mutation when his Brigid lineage awakened, on the wood, and the wood seemed to shrink just a tiny fraction, becoming more solid, more tangible.


    The next member of that group was that one guy who could blend disconnected fragments of things into singular pieces whose name Alexander simply could not compel his brain to remember, he was like a friggin¡¯ grey man. The early thirties, prematurely bald guy who stood average height and carried just the faintest hint of a paunch was a Brigid bloodline, his class read Seamless Carver, and he had no extra digits on his hands, but his eyes were white throughout. He claimed that his vision was completely fine, even better than it had been since before his tier up. When Denise was done with her robustness spell, he came in behind her to meld the fir timbers together, forming a singular monolithic wall of wood.


    Lastly, Potter, who led the group, made up the leader of that cell. Potter was a competent fighter, despite being on the losing end of a fight against a pair of werewolves earlier. He could handle himself and take point for his team, bringing his offensive powers to bear while both of the others, who each had a long spear and a hand axe for back up weapons, could delay and distract, playing defense.


    Brig was carrying another group of noncombatants.


    Tabitha Perrot, a stout, tow-headed Marid with hazel eyes and possessed a class called Raincaller that, let her pull humidity from the air to make rain, was the first. She could make the droplets into needles, which fell like subsonic small caliber bullets, but they didn¡¯t fall hard enough to damage most things that had Soak, so her abilities were almost entirely utilized on the agricultural sectors. She was working through a combat drill with her buckler and one-handed sword with Mark at the moment, while Brig danced in front of her with light jabs of a blunt pole to train her reflexes. The Marid girl, younger than Alexander, was moving well in her light armor, and learning from her elders with enthusiasm.


    The second civilian, as it were, was one of the farmers, a gangly man of middle years, grey haired and green eyed, with skin that seemed to want to blend into the background when he stood still. Ryan Bianchi was a dryad who could use his mana to perform feats of growth similar to the Entling blood. He also had a talent for creating new strains of magical plant, oftentimes with more potent properties than previous generations, so long as his mana was infusing the plants during flowering, pollination, and seed growth. Alexander had bestowed on the man, for this journey only mind, the Reaper¡¯s scythe. Left behind in his Lab, he¡¯d been unable to find the time to refine the thing into some more useful item and he considered Ryan too great an asset to risk without a major assist. The crop fields would miss his attentions, but he¡¯d insisted that the farmers should be learning how to deal with the threats from the Green, if ever they were to be able to expand fields past the wall of Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    Alexander couldn¡¯t deny that, so Ryan got to take his turn on a mission.


    Van Richards had another two combat greenhorns, a brother and sister pair of albino twins who never separated.


    They were both Ifrit blood lines, and they both had the same class, a rarity on its own. What made them completely unique, so far as Alexander had known amongst all the survivors of Safe Harbor was that their abilities were as twinned as the rest of them. Sara Esser, Kinetic Conduit, could slow a moving object, bleeding off its momentum as a shimmering orange liquified motion, with enough aetheric force to stop a charging horse, despite her middling five feet six inches and slim build. Herman Esser, Kinetic Conduit, could feed distilled kinetic energy into an object, accelerating with enough force to throw a thousand-pound ox five yards.


    One was virtually useless without the other, Sara could stop a bullet with her powers, but she couldn¡¯t do anything with the energy she captured and burned her mana supply rapidly trying to hold onto it. Herman could bring a fully loaded wagon from rest to a rather brisk canter, but only if he had the energy Sara created to do it with, his own mana reserve was too small to create the momentum on his own without being completely exhausted. Together, however, Alexander had a suspicion the two could act like a reality warping inertial engine, shunting momentum from one object to another, without obeying Newton¡¯s third law in between.


    That was why the dimpled, red eyed girl wearing dark, oil-based paint to protect her skin, held a net in one hand, and huge aluminum tower shield in the other, these being her tools to help extent her powers to catch incoming objects and bleed their energies. Meanwhile, Herman, similarly painted, a sturdy framed but not impressively built lad, held a two-handed hammer made of tool steel that weighed thirty pounds. It was ludicrously heavy. On his own, he could barely swing it, and only barely did the term ¡°swing¡± apply to the motion. Fed the orange energy from his sister¡¯s stolen kinetic energy, he could sling that hammer like a nerf bat.


    They worked with the farmers, most of the time, because they had wanted no part of monsters, dungeons, or anything else but tilling nicely parallel rows of dirt and living a slow, quiet life. David¡¯s murder pushed them to the drill field, realizing how cruelly they might be parted if they couldn¡¯t defend each other.


    Bonny was in charge of Major, and two others. Nick Lancaster, the horse trainer, and leatherworker novice was one. He had no horses to lead on this mission, but the foals had dropped a week ago, so his services tending the animals wasn¡¯t critical until they were weaned and ready to break to saddles and harness. The broad-shouldered ginger man was plain faced, good natured, and impossibly patient. He swung a double bitted felling axe hard enough to drop one of those two-foot diameter firs with about twelve strokes though, so Alexander didn¡¯t worry about him as much as he did some of the others.


    Nick was helping the last member of the expedition to put up the big canvas tent.


    Zainabu Omehia was six feet tall, coal black, and probably the second most gorgeous human being Alexander had ever seen next to Brig. She shaved her head, eschewing vanity, and her Morrigan bloodline printed silver feather markings instead of the dark ones of the others. She also had what might be politely called talons on her fingers. An inch long, cruelly hooked, like miniature versions of an eagle¡¯s claws. They were immaculately manicured and painted magenta, which Alexander thought was kind of metal of the young woman. Not being one of the Adventurers, a pacifist before the murders this winter past, she¡¯d been happily serving as a jack of all trades, doing a little carpentry, helping here and there with the crops, laying a hand to drive wagons, and helping Kim Summers melt down cars at the smelter, whatever she turned her hand to, she seemed to do competently. This was her maiden voyage using her skills in the Green, he sort of wished the main adventurers hadn¡¯t been so efficient dealing with the ambush earlier so he could see her in action.


    Her class, Fractured Seer, was another one of those odd time manipulation ones. He asked Georgia about it, because she, too, could bend time to her will. Georgia explained that her gifts were mostly time traps, defensive tools. In small bursts, she could even burn tremendous amounts of her mana to move faster.


    Zainabu was an offensive class, built around two simple, but profoundly powerful gifts, Seer Sight, and Seer Shift.


    Where his own eyes saw the fine tensioning of muscle beneath the skin, the flexes and positioning of the body, and then the projection of mana that showed him the resulting motion in space, the Morrigan¡¯s blank iridescent silver eyes really could see into the future. Quantum entanglements that generated the highest probabilities of the reality wave function collapsing into actuated physical events, she¡¯d called it, and Alexander took her word for it because he had very little clue what the hell she was talking about.


    He understood the results of her abilities easily enough, the more mana she drew, the farther out she could see both around herself and into the future. For a pittance of her energy a heart beat or two, and only immediately around herself. For a tenth, two seconds about three meters around herself. Half her mana for five seconds at five meters. The whole pool got her a whopping minute for anything within her line of sight. For some reason burning her entire mana pool on a single seeing was more efficient in terms of piercing the veil. Seer shift was the partner ability and permitted her to slip into the timestream while her sight was active, allowing her to move within the range of her vision, while nothing else could, because everything else was still locked into the past.


    If not for how heavily that gift consumed her magic, even taking a few steps cost her half her core¡¯s reserves, she might be the mightiest one versus one warrior alive. Who could beat someone that killed you in the future?


    The woman herself, she described it as being like everyone else frozen but with ghostly images projected where they would be, images that she could touch, when he asked her about the experience after a spar. Her long estoc, and short, heavy, bowie knife were dangerous on the practice field, what with you were never certain when your attacks had been read perfectly. Once her phobia of blood was overcome, she¡¯d be hell on wheels.


    Alexander had high hopes for the Morrigan woman as a replacement for him in the village, as soon as Saki taught her enough chemistry and he could give her lessons working with Sterling and the boys. She might be the key to his freedom when it came time to leave the fledgling village behind. If it ever came time.


    His meandering was rudely interrupted by Melinda flash-banging him from point blank range.


    Brilliant spots of white danced in his eyes and he lost balance for a second, barking, ¡°Fuck!¡± as he tripped over his feet.


    The young hunter had been working through a routine drill, some short sword exercises he had practiced until the motions required no thought. The meditative actions left his mind wonder its own twisty corridors. That is, until the all-consuming burst of sunlight blinded him.


    ¡°Sorry! Ooohh, sorry, sorry, I don¡¯t know how much to use yet!¡± Melinda cried, standing with her Sundrake gauntlet raised, mortified by half the clearing suddenly grabbing their faces or falling over or both.


    It took several seconds for the lancing pain in his orbs to fade, and he picked himself up, squinting owlishly while he dusted his pants off. He bent over to pick up the High Steel and Argentum jacketed Messer, frowning in the general direction of a blur that he felt confident was Melinda shaped.


    Zainabu swore loudly and steadily and sucked a talon bearing thumb batted by a hammer swing interrupted by glorious incandescence.


    Sheepishly, the Luminescent Pathfinder lowered her arm and covered the Sunstone imbedded in the armlet, as if that ship hadn¡¯t already sailed.


    Alexander blinked several times, trying to clear the residual black spots that replaced the throbbing bright ones.


    ¡°Melinda, can I ask you to point that thing somewhere else next time?¡± Ben asked, his hand moving backward and forward away from his face, with no indication he could tell where it was.


    ¡°Ehehehe, yeah. Umm¡­sorry, again.¡± She replied, chuckling nervously.


    ¡°I think I have eye cancer.¡± Brig announced, looking around aimless, her efforts to make out much of anything going unrewarded until the dazzle faded.


    The Albino twins, wearing their elastic banded sun goggles, as they always did when outdoors, smiled to one another and traded high fives, Herman calling ¡°Suck it melanin enjoyers! Now you know how it is on the other side!¡±


    Melinda took a walk of shame outside the encampment wall to practice her empowered talents afterward. Unfortunately, the rest of the raid party went with her, and Alexander found himself wishing he had sunglasses well before the sun slipped behind trees, putting an end to the training session. It was just as well, inside the dungeon, those flares of luminescence would be a part of the strategy for handling the creatures of night.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    Shiv¡¯s plan for rotating shifts was carried out. The six-man raid team was the only one that got a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. They rose early that morning, pre-dawn, and broke fast with a hearty meal.


    Armed in the best gear the village could produce, from the materials that the top Guilds of Safe Harbor had literally killed for, the sonsofbitches, and as prepared as they would ever be this day, the party strode between carved obelisks into the dark of the temple that housed the gate to Nut.


    Alexander noted an instant drop in temperature, as soon as the threshold into the temple had been crossed, and the daylight peaking over the horizon was muted, filtered by the infection of the realm beyond the blue boundary.


    ¡°I have the lead,¡± Mark Ross reminded his team, ¡°Melinda stays behind me and supports whatever side holds the most threat, Ben, hold the left flank, Georgia the rear to cover us, Cervantes has the right flank, and Alexander, you¡¯ve got the flex and forward scout, if you think you can recon without drawing aggro.¡±


    No one said anything, the reminder wasn¡¯t needed, it was just to help them all feel more confident about the raid.


    Mark, with a Sunlantern burning at its lowest setting buckled to his sword belt, strode into the boundary between worlds, and the rest of the team followed without hesitation.


    <table style="width: 17.9529%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="269">


    Nut Contested Space Entered!


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Within his mind, the announcement that they had crossed over into Nut sounded, as it did for them all.


    He was immediately presented with the reverse of the temple that they had strode into, like a mirror. Outside the temple were the same carved pillars. Here, in the realm of night, they emitted an eerie silver glow, soft light that cast no shadows, and only served to amplify the extent of the darkness. For dark it was. As the scouting party had reported, there was no moon. Stars twinkled in a sky arranged into constellations no human had ever seen before, but they offered the umbral forest no reprieve from the oppressing lack of light. As soon as the party exited the temple, a feeling of pressure, as if passing into the parts of a cave that had never seen the sun, settled on the Adventurers.


    The Sun lantern at Mark¡¯s belt cast a sphere of daylight fifteen feet in diameter and not a single inch more, the dungeon¡¯s darkness cut off that glow with the sharpness of a knife. Alexander knew light didn¡¯t behave that way, didn¡¯t just terminate, so this must be a manifestation of the space itself. This fragment of Nut didn¡¯t just not have light within it, it was antagonistic toward the existence of the sun.


    ¡°Oookay, I¡¯m going to go to medium burn, fifteen feet isn¡¯t enough space to work without tripping over each other.¡± Mark said, twisting the valve that allowed more of the wick to alight, which burned the oil within faster.


    The sphere of daylight expanded to twenty-five feet in diameter. It was impressive how aggressively the dark mana within this realm imposed its lightless edict.


    Alexander could make out the forest beyond the lantern¡¯s reach. It was a colorless blend of greys and blacks, where the edges of the shapes of things were more defined than their interiors, but it was vision. Outsider¡¯s Perception let him pierce the gloom.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to a dispersion of fifty feet outside the day globe,¡± the Entropic Venator reported, ¡°No risks, if anything spooky shows up I¡¯ll call the bearing and get back to the formation.¡±


    With that, he left the faint warmth of the Sun lantern behind and Stalked ahead into the forest.


    The arrow he held between his fingers he kept firmly nocked, ready to be pulled to full draw. Leaves, branches, fir tree sheddings, the same detritus as had filled the forest of Gaia were even more heavily muted here. Alexander smelled a dampness that said the forest never truly dried out and felt a coolness on his skin that was unpleasant. It was just as well the party was dressed in layers of protective gear, else they would have quickly become chilled.


    Once at the declared separation from the rest of the party, he gave a short, whistled chirp to let the rest know they were ready to move. He¡¯d be playing the role of scout here, his passive senses less impactful than Melinda¡¯s, but also less strenuous. Better to save the Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s strength, as much as was possible.


    Half an hour of cautious walking revealed that the Nut dungeon had cannibalized part of Gaia, had made of itself a mirror of the terrain above, as the preliminary scouting report claimed. It felt weird to him to be walking forward, but backward along the path that the party had taken through the Maine forest to reach this point. A flicker in the dark made Alexander stop cold, and he knew he hadn¡¯t imagined it.


    ¡°Contact, two o¡¯clock!¡± He called to the party behind.


    Immediately, he heard the pace behind him quicken and the muted sounds of armored footsteps in heavy air grew louder with their approach.


    The subtle dark on black that had caught his attention didn¡¯t repeat, but his instincts screamed that the creature was still out there, only still, and waiting.


    It decided not to wait for backup to arrive, and a black edged hunched over form ran on four legs toward him before sliding into a hulking shaggy werewolf, claws reaching.


    Alexander put an arrow into the center of the monster¡¯s chest and had a second arrow drawn, recalling that werewolves had two hearts. He loosed the second arrow and watched it disappear opposite the creature¡¯s liver, its howl cut off into a growling whine. Less than a dozen feet away from him the monster fell forward into a sprawling roll, dead. Alexander Gerifalte didn¡¯t believe it, so he put a third arrow into the monster¡¯s skull. He was rewarded for his cynicism by its jerking spasms as it clawed at the third dart briefly before subsiding.


    ¡°Be aware, the fuckers will try to play possum to get at you, even when mortally wounded.¡± He passed the information along to his teammates, as the light from their bubble enveloped him.


    ¡°Okay, rules of engagement updated to include decapitation before considering furry fuckers neutralized.¡± Ben advised.


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± Cervantes agreed aloud.


    They pulled the core out of the werewolf, a bigger one than those that had come at the party outside the dungeon, and whose Scroll imparted the information that it was mature.


    Alexander advanced, and the party followed his lead. They were in unfamiliar territory, despite the terrain matching the forested Maine foothills outside. What they were searching for was the dungeon heart, the core, the crystalline source of power that sustained this invading fragment of Nut. Unlike the other dungeon clears, they had no clue where it might be, how far they might have to go to find it, and this dungeon wasn¡¯t so straightforward as a mine shaft with a giant geode. To maximize their chances of hitting a trail or clue, Alexander made hundred-yard zig zags at forty-five degrees to the straight axis they wanted to travel. It meant taking much longer progress through the forest, but vastly increased the odds of coming across some indication of the source of the dungeon¡¯s strength.


    An hour later, they got their first big clue: six werewolves led by a bald, pasty skinned man dressed in leather hauberk, a dingy metal skullcap helm, light vambrace, knee high boots, and a bone and leather tasset. The light armor, without stain or scuff in the greyscale world of Alexander¡¯s eyes, was largely ignored when the figure turned to reveal its oversized incisors on a visage twisted into batlike features.


    Alexander called contact again and focused on the new enemy, calling the creature¡¯s Scroll to the fore of his mind.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="144">


    Dracul Pack Leader


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="133">


    Status:


    Aggressive, Arrogant


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 20%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    14


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Length


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    5¡¯11¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arms


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    18/10


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arms


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    20


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    179lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    21/8


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Vampire¡¯s Fangs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    21/8


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    21


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    84 years


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Vampire¡¯s claws


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Vampire¡¯s claws


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Blood garnet, heart


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    10/10


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    10


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Nut


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Legs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Legs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    11


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="133">


    Monster Race:


    Vampire-2<sup>nd</sup> Tier


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    24/6


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    24/6


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    21/8


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Nosferatu, Cunning, Pack leader


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Bat transformation, Vampiric bite, Hypnotic gaze


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Blood siphon, Sanguine spear, Crimson Regeneration


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Another creature from the dark recesses of the human imagination, found within the dungeon. Alexander was not a great believer in coincidence, and the startling number of fairy tale myths found inside the contested zones was enough to convince him that Gaia had not been always the magicless slumberer of a world that modern man had come to know.


    The screeching command of the vampire siccing werewolf minions on him was a confirmation that Gaia might have come close enough to waking to permit incursions from other realms before, just too transient to permit the formation of dungeons.


    Bow raised, Alexander put into flight an arrow aimed for the leader of the werewolves, and the creature, he would not call it a person, threw up an arm to intercept the shaft. A five-inch-long stiletto dagger of an arrow, driven by a hundred twenty-pound simulated draw, pinned the blocking arm to its shoulder, and pallid features showed surprise and pain in combination.


    That surprise lasted a mere moment, the vampire wrenched the arrow free, evidencing only discomfort at drawing wood and steel through its flesh. A red mist rose up from the edges of the arrow as it did and it casually snapped quarter inch ash shaft in its hand in contempt when it finished.


    Alexander Gerifalte, his mission accomplished turned tail and ran, with a glance over his shoulder to show six slavering pursuers, gaining ground. Dracul weren¡¯t susceptible, or not quickly, to the hemotoxins from Mandrake leaves, he¡¯d have to try the Mindflayer tears, if he didn¡¯t get killed to death. Grass and granite crushed together beneath his feet as he fled.


    ¡°Forty yards! Six! Dead ahead!¡± He called and sprinted toward the sphere of lamp light.


    The vampire was faster than battle form werewolves, long claws, made longer by the glittering rusty red sheathes of bloody blades scraped his armor, a shower of sparks thrown and he felt the baseball bat impact of the attack down his spine a second before he made the sheltering light.


    His balance was thrown forward and he had to roll or sprawl over his bow. Long hours being thrown around by Ben and Annita, whose Judo was much better than his, paid dividends, and he pelted into the light headfirst with some degree of control, coming to his feet with his bow in hand, if not ready.


    The Dracul miscalculated, thinking the lantern was at its limit, and the only source of light.


    Melinda raised her left arm and called aloud, channeling her powers. A sphere of pure golden sunlight roiled into being and its light hit the vampire visibly, washed over it in a wave of purifying flame.


    ¡°Heeayyarriiiigh!!¡± Screeched the monstrous humanoid, and it went into a panic batting at its form, rolling upon the ground for relief from the blazing sphere held aloft by Melinda.


    It found no surcease from the sunlight in her hand, and flashed suddenly into a man-shaped bonfire tall flames lashing the air for only a moment before subsiding. Where the vampire¡¯s form had been was now a vaguely hominid patch of blackened grass, a charred skeleton, and ash-like vampire dust.


    The howling werewolves saw the destruction of their master and demonstrated that its orders were more akin to suggestions, because they came on heedless, roaring for vengeance.


    Mark met the creatures, his kite shield raised and a dangerously glowing sword in hand. The first beast leapt into the deceivingly compact man, trying to knock him down, and rebounded from the unexpectedly solid stance, his boots dug in against the ground. It didn¡¯t get the chance to recover from its mistake, an up-stroke from the readied blade, white with heat, ripped through its chest and neck, nearly severing the creature¡¯s shoulders from its abdomen. Mark strode forward in a rush behind his shield, bullying aside the dying monster and the second werewolf in a line with the jumper found its face and chest burning from being smashed by Argentum gilt along the rim, engraving, and boss of the shield, which concern was aborted when he shoved brought down the raised sword, neatly parting its skull down through to its stomach.


    The third and fourth pack mates turned in their charge to hit an occupied Mark from his left hip and found themselves facing a Steel Heavy Knight with a silver coated naginata. Ben clipped the pair of them with a single sweeping stroke, the speed of it nearly beyond Alexander¡¯s ability to follow. The upper halves sprung upward from the lower with the violence of the attack, like wood springing apart under the splitting maul, thudding to the forest floor ten feet apart.


    Five had jumped high, aiming for the sunlight wielding woman, and came down instead on Georgia¡¯s bastard sword, her shield catching its weight to throw it aside. Its flailing was awkward for being in slow motion, like a seventy-five percent speed film of falling. Georgia met it where it landed and three vicious cuts to its neck freed the wolfen head from the man-like body.


    The last werewolf, seeing its pack and leader destroyed in seconds, discovered cowardice, it turned to flee. Alexander was drawing his bow to prevent that but didn¡¯t get the chance, Cervantes caught it in the hips with an arcing swing of the great sword, that rang like a gong when it hit bone. The werewolf collapsed in a heap, bones in the hips, thighs, and lower spine powdered from sonic vibration. The once cheerful man wore a wrathful scowl as he drove his now silver jacketed blade between its shoulders into the soft dirt below and twisted to ruin its heart and lungs.


    Heavily breathing from his sprint, Alexander rose from a ready crouch and let the tension fade from his bowstring. It was over. Against silvered weapons, the Soak of the monsters amounted to nothing. Against the direct force of concentrated sunlight, the Dracul had found death within a second or two. Preparation of the correct counters pulled the fangs of these vipers.


    ¡°Can I get a ¡®hell yeah¡¯, Brothers?!¡± Alexander cheered, gleeful, and his call was answered, their voices ringing out into the night.


    They policed the cores of the monsters and brushed the brittle bones and dust of the cremated vampire into a pouch. Who knew what alchemical use the stuff might have?  Oh, Alexander Gerifalte, that¡¯s who, he chuckled to himself, giving the dusty contents a taste, despite the grossness.


    <table style="width: 66.3688%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="594">


    Vampire Dust: the ashen remains of a sun-killed vampire have been purified of their dark mana taint, but retain magical potency from the longest night. Chief amongst the properties are potent regeneration of flesh and blood, rapid regeneration of mana, and a cure for the Dracul¡¯s infectious bite, as well as other transformational afflictions.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Barely had the information obtained by his alchemical ingestion skill registered before he was making connections with the blood clotting traits of his powdered mandrake root quick clot, the rank, yet incredible vitality of a wyrmling liver, and the crystal mana heart of another, much loathed, creature that possessed incredible regeneration.


    <table style="width: 66.9375%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="594">


    Master alchemist synergy detected:Vampire dust, Powdered Mandrake root, Powdered Yeti core, Dragon liver, Spirits base ? Elixer of Healing


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander blinked slowly as this newest piece of the arcane settled between his ears.


    ¡°Guys, I think we hit a high-water mark for weird Gaian shit. I just popped a formula for the Elixer of Healing.¡± He announced.


    The Children of Gaia found themselves restored every three days to perfect health, absent time¡¯s steady advance. But a substance that could heal rapidly, regenerate tissue, close wounds, and permit a critically wounded person from dying until that holy sunrise was, quite literally, priceless. Clues, suggestions, alchemical breadcrumbs had pointed to this. But, upon finding this last ingredient, the necessary knowledge for its creation was at hand.


    ¡°It needs vampire dust, which, apparently, you only get by killing Dracul like this dude here with sunlight. Which means, Melinda?  You get the honors for all bat faced fuckers, if that can be arranged safely.¡± He informed the party.


    ¡°Hot damn!  You don¡¯t fucking say?¡± Drawled Ben, elated at the news.


    Lives saved made Ben a happy boy. So did killing monsters. Killing monsters to make lives saved really put the stiffening in the warrior¡¯s trousers.


    If they¡¯d had something like this, it was very possible that Hilde would have survived her lightning strike wounds. Same for Dan. It probably wouldn¡¯t have made a difference for Kim and David, they¡¯d been virtually instantly killed, but just the thought that there might be a way to keep death¡¯s cold clammy fingers off human necks made Alexander tingle.


    ¡°Mark?¡± Georgia asked, getting their leader¡¯s input.


    He nodded, the feathered crest of his helmet bobbing in the lantern light.


    ¡°Oh yeah. Definitely. Melinda, sweety, if you get the chance to sun blast some pasty fuckers, I would like for you to do it, ¡®mkay hun?¡± He politely asked of his common law wife.


    Alexander had had to ¡°bless¡± the union a month back. Unnecessarily in his view, but there were still some traditions left to the survivors of the end of the old world.


    The petit black woman slapped her husband¡¯s arm playfully, and said in a fake, bowels of Georgia, Southern accent, ¡°Why Darling!  I thought you¡¯d never ask!¡±


    After that moment of levity in the darkness of the dungeon, the Adventurers carried on. A quarter of an hour later, they got their chance.


    Three Dracul, a fencer with light armor and a rapier, a crossbow wielding archer, and a big boy carrying some kind of ring hilted dadao, with a hefty cutting blade.


    This time, Alexander wouldn¡¯t bother wasting an arrow on the rapidly healing humanoids.


    He¡¯d caught the three in a game of dice, with scout form wolves, another pack of six, around them napping. There was something person-like about the way they gathered around a camp fire, clatters of bones showing symbols that meant nothing to him, rules only the denizens of Nut might know, guiding the game. Low tripods of stakes driven into the ground held oily rag torches burning fitfully in the dungeon around them. The weak light barely extended beyond a six-foot radius miniscule compared to what should have been, and those lights cut off sharply, just as they did with his party¡¯s lantern hidden behind a rise about a hundred yards back.


    Alien conversation accompanied the exchange of chits of metal, the raspy tongue sounding sibilant on his ears. Alexander never questioned his choice for how to react to the scene. Sapience didn¡¯t earn these vampires a reprieve; these creatures would kill him and anyone from Gaia they caught. Whatever was generating that cooked meat smell from the fire could attest to their natures.


    The young Venator put his bow over his shoulder, and raised his hands toward the unsuspecting monsters, an act not specifically necessary for what he was going to do, but kinesthesia aided focus with Gaian magic and abilities for most. He¡¯d been meaning to give this a try, anyway.


    Outsider¡¯s perception let him see three dimensionally when he concentrated on something, like a hologram in his visual cortex. He concentrated, completely, on the group and built in his mind an image of the camp and its denizens, lining up the angles.


    A heavy pull on his magic, his core throbbing slightly at the effort, generated six Chaos Strikes, their grey-black crackling forms clear despite blending into the darkness around him.


    An effort like a maximum effort deadlift pushed the magic forward, and he fired the salvo. Six compact streaks of entropy impacted without warning, three striking the vampires in the face, three finding a furred muzzle similarly.


    Pained cries sounded fainter under the muting influence of the night dungeon air, and Alexander was off the way he¡¯d come. Chaos strikes did heinous things to sensory organs, eyes above all. The ruin of the vampire¡¯s vision should keep them from catching up to him prematurely, unlike the last time. The werewolf pack would be broken up, half of them slower for their debilitation than their untouched kin.


    ¡°Contact!  Incoming!¡± He yelled loudly, both for his teammates, and for the benefit of the dungeon spawn, who he needed to follow him for the plan the Adventurers had come up with to work.


    The creatures didn¡¯t actually get created in the dungeon, Alexander was certain, as his feet flew over the ground. But it gave them transport from their realm to his own, in limited quantity that grew as it established its foothold on Gaia, and they were permitted through every three days, when the Phoenix sun announced a Gaian heartbeat, a pulse of mana that flared profoundly throughout the planet.


    It meant that this raid was on a timer. If they had not destroyed the dungeon heart by the following morning, it would be able to bring across more monsters, returning the full complement of guardian fiends.


    Alexander hurdled a fallen tree, thankful to all the gods above, below, and in between for his freakish eyes as he did.


    The Guilds, especially the top ten, could afford human wave tactics, bringing in six members, hammering through the creatures while their guys were fresh, then pulling them back. Then another six could come in, repeating the process until all the monsters were gone. Of course, they didn¡¯t then finish the job but instead waited until the dungeon repopulated to repeat. Sometimes, they would just go in with eighteen at a time, practicing large unit tactics, completely rendering the dungeon inert.


    The Falcon¡¯s Rest team couldn¡¯t afford that kind of luxury, they had to get this done with these six men and women, and that meant efficiency. Rest was something that had to be taken sparingly.


    Howls behind him announced that the pack was coming. Curses in Dracul language said that his alpha strike had done the correct amount of damage: debilitate without killing.


    There!  Mark with his belted lantern, feet set and shield ready, with the rest of the party in formation, about a hundred feet away as he came over the rise. On the downhill, Alexander ran so fast he threatened to topple, careening wildly over and around the trees, shrubs, and rocks mirrored from the Maine landscape beyond the dungeon.


    Mark covered the lantern on his belt, casting the group into the dungeon¡¯s stygian atmosphere.


    Alexander made the group of waiting adventurers with about ten seconds to spare. He now knew how the last one had caught him despite his similar Impetus and a head start: the Dracul had closed the gap at flying velocity, having assumed the form of giant bats, their membranous wings carrying them with incredible speed. The only barely audible clicks of echolocation said that the creatures knew where their foolish prey, mice biting at the feet of the barn cat, now sat. They dove and transformed, every bit as smooth in the act as the werewolves were, never breaking stride as they drew their weapons.


    ¡°Ben, twelve, Mark, one, Melinda, two, Georgia ten, but hold, Cervantes is in front of you, Cervantes, twelve. Targets average height man-shapes.¡± Alexander called targets, letting his blind party mates know where to aim.


    How the fuck do they carry weapons as bats? Alexander had time to wonder, before noting with a smile that the vampiric eyes were not able to regenerate to completion under the assault of his chaos magic. These were still making the clicking sounds that the first had not, which meant they couldn¡¯t see what was coming.


    This time, Melinda had her crossbow out, and, this time, she was concentrating her power into the bolt of it. The vampire that had a much smaller hand-held job, compared to the heavy crossbows, fired a shot that Mark intercepted, the bone tipped thing barely denting the metal sheet riveted to its oak backing. The Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s retort was a bolt carrying a daylight globe that sleeted into the group, taking the leading Dracul with the huge cleaver in the neck, which brought it down instantly.


    Rather than brought down, Alexander decided that scattered was a better way to describe the result: the vampire exploded into gibbets that cindered into dust before they landed.


    The two next to the blast of light screeched, their pale flesh reddened instantly by the hanging globe, which now burned in place of the destroyed vampire, and they transformed into bats, trying to flee into the sky, protected in that form from the killing light.


    Now illuminated by Melinda¡¯s arts, Ben and Georgia, calling left and right respectively, put their own heavy crossbows into the creature¡¯s backs before they¡¯d cleared the ground and gone a dozen yards. Alexander put two arrows into one and a third into the other, crippling the attempted flight. The vampires reverted to human form, and started pulling the darts, but were assaulted by the day globe. Within that sphere of sunlight above the pair, they were inside her forty-foot reach with the spell. Blinded as they had been, they could not know how strongly the Luminous Pathfinder had broken the dark.


    The same sight as the first vampire repeated, the two arrow fixated forms flailing against the fire that greedily consumed their flesh before violently combusting. Of note, the flame burned a sickly green and it took eight or nine more seconds for the creatures to expire, compared to their previous comrade, a fact that did them no favors. Outside the sphere of that daylight, Alexander saw the pack coming and called a warning.


    Mark uncovered the lantern and opened up its wick, extending the light to its full radius in time to catch the charging werewolves.


    Sudden glare hammering them in the eyes staggered the creatures and Ben got on top of them, braining one with the haft of his spear before impaling the other two together and throwing them to Cervantes, who rang the bone powder tune across their heads, stilling them. The last three, blinded by Alexander earlier, rushed into the light and froze with unnatural stillness. Alexander saw Georgia¡¯s runes flare angry blue light and understood.


    These three were now stopped, Georgia¡¯s Temporal Ward had captured them. She must have activated it after the first three came into the light, to prevent a possible overrun.


    It was an overly cautious move, but he was grateful to her. Impervious¡¯ secondary Anchor-tank was all about keeping her team alive.


    For five minutes, these three werewolves would hang midstride, locked out of time¡¯s flow. The vampire dust was collected, Dracul and werewolf cores collected, and the shapeshifters came out of their stasis surrounded by the greatest Adventurers Alexander knew. They lasted a couple of seconds, before they too were added to the collection of cores.


    ¡°Ammo check!¡± Ben barked, which was Getsome parlance for ¡®how we doing?¡¯.


    Everyone reported green, Alexander had burned about a third of his mana on the salvo, drawing simultaneous Chaos Strikes took more out of him than the same number sequentially, he was finding. Melinda reported eighty percent. Georgia was at seventy, same as Mark and Ben. Cervantes was at ninety, barely having tapped his reserves.


    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s find this camp Commandant Alexander mentioned and take five. If I was a betting man, we¡¯re starting to find their pickets.¡± Ben suggested, noting the difference in armor, thicker leather, more metal plates indicative of skirmishers than scouts, that had been worn by the vampires.


    Most of the leather had burned to crispy bits when the Dracul perished, but the metal plates, a grey-green about as heavy as bronze hadn¡¯t. The same material made up the creature¡¯s weapons. On further inspection, the colors of the plates were striated, fanciful banding patterns that Alexander had seen before but couldn¡¯t recall the name of.


    Curious, he employed Greater Analyze to see if this dungeon stuff was worth the weight of packing around.


    <table style="width: 65.7189%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="594">


    Twilight Damascus: alloyed Darksteel and Ur-nickel forged under the two moons of Nut, by a Dracul smith. The resulting metal deflects sunlight, nullifying a portion of its damage. The alloy has a low density but is surprisingly resilient, and shapes with incredible ease at working temperature. Techniques for hardening are possible, as well as for imbuing with dark mana to create a sun-eating effect or, if the enchanter or alchemist with sufficient skill can be found, a light bending invisibility.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander sighed and knew that Granny would laugh at him as he stuffed the armor plates into his pack and tied the curved cutter and rapier to its exterior. He was bad as she was for refusing to let useful things lay.


    Together, they made for the vampire camp and took a fifteen-minute rest, eating a little from their rations, and drinking a from their canteens. The cooked meat on the spit they did not touch, but kicked off the fire pit. Alexander didn¡¯t know what cooked werewolf tasted like, and he had no intention of finding out. An ever so brief eating of fresh shapeshifter had been thoroughly vile.


    It was just as well the party followed the veteran monster slayer¡¯s advice; the next six miles of forest were different from all that came before. More populated, firstly. The Adventurers slew four more camps of vampires and bypassed what appeared to be a werewolf kennel by the chorus of howls and wolf yips coming from a small walled enclave. Alexander circled the kennel and killed three vampire sentries, his silver coated Messer buried through their hearts from behind, and Baleful Smite doing to the creatures¡¯ insides with entropic force what it did for everything: make endings.


    No vampire dust could be collected from the Dracul killed in this fashion, but the Adventurers took no chances leaving enemy agents in the field behind them, and did not raise alarms by the bringing of light.


    Speaking of, were it not for Nut¡¯s strange property of imprisoning light to within sharp boundaries of intensity, the party would have been led by Alexander in single file almost exclusively after the first few hours or risk being spotted. Fortunately, the realm of eternal night hated sunlight and suppressed it mightily. He shuddered to think what it was like for the others, wandering about in a land where your vision extended only to the edges of the lantern light, with all beyond pitch blackness. They were braver than himself, these folk who journeyed unhesitant into the endless blackness of the dungeon forest.


    There was another feature that now loomed different than the Gaian wood outside: a pyramid. Mayan by its design, or, perhaps, Aztec, Alexander had no clue how to even begin to differentiate Mesoamerican constructs.


    Where there had been forest, it was cleared for the various camps, kennels, and even small scatterings of dwellings. Here, within the confines of the tier three closed dungeon, was a budding army of nightwalkers. This was the difference between tier one, and tier three. Where tier one had barely altered the silver mine in which it had budded, the tier three was actively creating an expanded space, warping it to its own realm.


    ¡°How long, do you think, until it managed to, I dunno, consume the area around it?¡± Alexander asked his teammates, in a hushed whisper while they recovered from the last fight.


    Ben shook his head, bald head gleaming within the lantern, but he scrubbed a hand through a thick growth of beard as he did, saying ¡°No telling. All we know, we know by first hand wading through the shit, or hearing about someone else that did. The laws that govern these places have their own goddamned rulebook, and they ain¡¯t feeling like sharing.¡±


    ¡°Perhaps never,¡± Georgia chimed in, running a honing stone across her sword¡¯s edge, ¡°What if the contested zone grows inside, cannibalizing the above terrain until it forms its own world?  Maybe these closed dungeons are more like seeds of the other realms, like a cancer that consumed from inside, rather than the rash of the field dungeons.¡±


    A fascinating thought.


    ¡°Ayuh,¡± Cervantes agreed, cradeling his helmet in his gauntleted hands, ¡°And maybe while it does, it eats the mana of the host world, weakening it. We didn¡¯t come across so many Gaian spawned monsters on the way here, like they avoided the area. Or, maybe, like the magic that is needed to create them, that lives in them, was eaten to support this place.¡±


    Another interesting perspective. But they had no data.


    ¡°Speculation, friends. Useful, if we can find a way to study the dungeons safely, but moot if we can¡¯t.¡± Mark said, curtailing the conversation.


    Melinda spoke for everyone when she added with a most uncharacteristically caustic tone, ¡°If the goddamned Guilds had been doing their job, instead of milking the things, maybe we¡¯d know more about how they worked. But nobody was allowed to go that didn¡¯t have a Guild fist up their butt, and Alexander kept ruining things with his magic so they stopped letting him go in.¡±


    It was a fair assessment of the situation, he granted. Ruining shit with his magic and his being too useful putting together steam engines and work shops for the artisans. How different would things be now if he¡¯d never killed the stray dungeon?


    That was a fruitless ¡®what if¡¯ if he¡¯d ever seen one, so he abandoned the attempt to pour sand back into the hour glass.


    Looking past the glow of the lantern, Alexander gazed at the pyramid that rose a few miles distant, the fitted stone road that they had traveled the last mile leading to it. He had a feeling that the dungeon heart was at the top of that pyramid. Along with whatever horror that guarded it.


    ¡°Friends, if you¡¯ve rested up, I think we ought to go climb the pyramid this road leads to. Whatever answers we¡¯re going to find, that¡¯s where they¡¯ll be.¡± He told the party.


    Ben grinned and Alexander already knew what the monster slayer was going to say.


    ¡°And one, soon to be deep sixed, motherfucker of a dungeon boss to sweeten the pot. Let¡¯s go get some.¡±


    ¡°Ayuh.¡± Chorused the party.

 Chapter 26: Walk the Path

    One mile. Not so very far, by most people¡¯s reckoning. It looks a little farther when seen from beyond the too sharp edge of a magic lamp light, over a sandstone paving cut block road that looked like something from Egypt.


    The stone was foreign, gritty, and made lower pitched sounds when an armored boot clacked over it than was typical of Gaian substrate.


    When the party had walked this new addition to the woods for a ways and begun to notice sign of heavy traffic, they halted and Alexander left his team to verify what might be waiting for them. He couldn¡¯t help but shake his head at the stone road, and at what lay to either side of it.


    Had the vampires brought the stuff over from their world? Had the dungeon interposed part of that reality onto this weird dungeon space directly? Alexander couldn¡¯t know the truth of it.


    What he did know was that, looking down the double wagon width slabs of grey on grey, both in the lamp¡¯s illumination and beyond, in the night, trouble awaited. Bad vibes had the hair on his neck raised. Not just for the pyramid that loomed tall compared to the trees, at least four hundred feet high, and big as that ridiculous stadium for the Cowboys football franchise.


    Where only wilderness should be, signs of civilization abounded. Clusters of longhouses, of dressed stone, and freshly cut timber, the sap still running from the grain, dotted the road. Capillary paths of dirt, well worn, trod by many feet, both booted and pawed, led away into the dark, where rings of buildings circled around a central feature that appeared to be an altar of some heinous god of the unknown. Alexander knew it was an altar, because offerings were upon it. Mostly large beasts. All with their throats slashed open and their life drained into a basin around the edge of the blood ritual site. A cultural crossroads, this place.


    Waddle fences penned animals. Three eyed goats, their eyes grotesquely large and round, with two sets of spiraling horns were in some. In others, chuffing creatures that grazed on grass that grew despite never knowing sunlight, and which resembled a hippopotamus cross bred to warthogs, the bumpy protrusions and tusks married to a fat body on dainty feet. There were other alien creatures, livestock.


    Alexander felt a sliver of dread at this scene, this iron age village sprung up in a mirror of the Maine woodland. Unlike the goblins, these night creatures had brought food with them. They would not be starving and wretched. They were fed. Strong. That the combats so far had been so one sided was thanks entirely to having a weapon unlike anything that could be found in their realm: the pure light of a yellow star.


    Speaking of, something fed the grass that grew here. Some force animated the trees, though the young hunter could not have said what or how. Magic, probably. Perhaps, here, in this strange land, there was a kind of energy harnessed from the darkness, an inversion of the natural order of his realm. More useless speculation, Alexander warned himself.


    Focus.


    He had reason to be concerned and realized what had him uneasy. On racks stretched tight by expert hands, were the whole hides of numerous creatures. They were celebratory skinnings, placed alongside the blood alters. An exchange of twisted culture. Now, as the party stood distant, waiting for their darkvision possessing scout to verify what lay ahead, Alexander saw forms mixed among the now familiar Dracul and werewolf and he held his breath a moment when he realized what he saw. In addition to the enemy that had been faced so far, just Dracul and their werewolf minions, Alexander spied a threat that he had very much hoped they would not face: Skin Peelers.


    Humanoid forms, taller, skinnier, with a strange, floating gait, and always robed thickly, skulked from one cluster of buildings to the next. Sometimes a shorter form, batlike features distinct to Alexander¡¯s enhanced vision, would accompany, although they seemed mostly to remain separate. Here and there, a canine form werewolf would patrol or trail a vampire, but never near the eyeless monsters that approximated humanity. Even the bestial werewolves were skittish around these creatures, a verification of the horrific rumors Alexander had recorded earlier.


    The young man withdrew silently from the bush and tree underneath which he¡¯d lain, spying the terrain.


    Stalk, its enhancement to his stealthy half crouched steps facilitating a gliding retrace of his path, took him back to the small hollow inside a thicket a couple of hundred feet off the road, in which his party huddled, their lamp shaded. They lay flat on the ground and made barely more noise than the slow, tidal necessity of breathing.


    A soft dove¡¯s coo was Alexander¡¯s warning that he was coming, lest he accidentally sneak up on them and get accidentally bisected by Ben.


    Joining his comrades, Alexander reported the scope and scale of the situation into which they were headed.


    ¡°It¡¯s bad.¡± He summarized, after describing what he¡¯d seen.


    Melinda played her fingers idly over the hilt of her estoc, deep in thought but unafraid. Mark had his serious hero frown, and Alexander could hear his brain grinding trying to come up with ways to make certain no one died. Ben, as usual was unphased by the news, it was like telling him the target was two hundred meters away instead of one fifty, he just went *click* *click* in his mind to recalculate the dials of his scope to get the shot on target. Non Getsome members reacted more overtly.


    ¡°Blessed Christ! What we needed was more to deal with.¡± Cervantes whispered harshly, a sliver of Mark¡¯s lantern casting a faint light into their hidden thicket.


    Georgia, using her shield as a ground pad, rapped her knuckles across her comrade¡¯s pauldron, and said with a calm but emphatic, ¡°Tighten up Mozart! We¡¯re fine, the reports say they¡¯re less a threat against armored fighters and we¡¯re all wrapped in Alexander¡¯s super steel and dragon scale.¡±


    Which was true, the reports did say that. They didn¡¯t say anything about a covenant between Skin Peelers and Nosferatu. What else hadn¡¯t they mentioned?


    ¡°Commmodore Pillow, what would you suggest in this instance?¡± the time warping knight addressed him.


    He hadn¡¯t had long to think on the matter, but he directed his stare toward Georgia and said what he felt.


    ¡°We go aggressive. Hit them like a fucking brush hog and mow a path up that pyramid. The dungeon heart is there, I can feel it in my bones.¡± Alexander answered.


    ¡°What guards it though?¡± Mark asked, his expression still grim.


    Mark had come about as close to dying to the dragon as anybody. If this dungeon was a tier higher than the Muspelheim volcano, and also a closed one, which meant its boss was likely to be particularly nasty, then what awaited them at the top of that megastructure?


    Alexander had no good answers to that.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter.¡± Ben replied in Alexander¡¯s place, ¡°Whatever sits between us and that heart has to go. I know you want better intel before we take it on Mark, but sometimes you don¡¯t get that luxury. I¡¯m with our spooky kid on this one.¡±


    A grin set in an intensely predatory expression on the warrior¡¯s face instilled some measure of confidence in the Adventurers when he followed that statement up by saying, ¡°Put that lantern on full blast, get your asses on my ass, and follow me to the promised land ladies. I¡¯ll be your Moses and part this motherfucking sea.¡±


    Melinda¡¯s quiet chuckle muted by the armored glove covering her mouth, and added, ¡°That¡¯s two battle junkies out of three, Mark. You know what Brig would say. Let¡¯s go get some.¡±


    With that, the raid team ate a light snack from their ration pouches, drank their fill of water, and crawled from the thicket back to the road. One mile. A mile up the main causeway through a viking era sprawling village of vampires, werewolves, and Skin Peelers. It sounded crazy, and yet, it was the best way. They didn¡¯t know what numbers awaited them, or what the actual abilities of the eyeless monsters were, given that precious few people had met them and lived, but what they had was Melinda and the Sun Lantern to blast the vampires and blind the werewolves. And, most of all, the Adventurers had an advantage that couldn¡¯t be underestimated: They had Benjamin Grisham on their side, and those assholes on the other didn¡¯t.


    They stood under a moonless night sky, heavy with dampness, and the road under their feet was solid. Not as solid as the men and women on top of it, but it would speed them along to their objective nevertheless.


    ¡°Press formation. Alexander, you want to stay outside the lantern or hang back and cover from the flank?¡± Mark asked.


    Alexander looked at the assembled team and decided in only a second of thought, ¡°I¡¯ll stay out front. I can put arrows in cores, now that I know where they are, and, any strong points I¡¯ll wrap in my Entropic field so they can meet you glorious bastards without their Soak.¡±


    Press formation was what Getsome called it when they let Ben and Brig take point to drive like a wedge through the monsters, with the Dame, replaced here by Cervantes, and Mark next, with Melinda and Shiv, now Georgia, behind to clean up whatever might be left. Alexander was replacing Brig, big ass Amazon warrior shoes to fill, so he had to be on top of his game or the party would bog down.


    The young man took a deep breath to steady himself. This was his idea. He wasn¡¯t the fighter Brig was, wasn¡¯t as front loaded with power as she was. His gifts lent themselves to more hit and run tactics. However, he hadn¡¯t spent the last three months idle. Ben had whipped him into shape, taught him how to fight. The other Adventurers had gone through the same fierce training with each other, mostly with Shiv there to repair the damage so they went hard.


    ¡°No turning back, Little Falcon.¡± He reminded himself.


    At a signal from Mark, the team advanced at a light jog, their fitted gear making remarkably little sound, their lantern forming a beacon in the darkness, a full forty feet of radius covered by the sunstone powered light.


    One hundred yards later, Alexander saw a Dracul scout with a werewolf sidekick and he focused his Gaia infused eyes, the Outsider¡¯s powers pulling at reality to manifest the black edges that mapped to their motions, motions unconsciously printed into their mana, like a reading of their future.


    Alexander paused in his jog and drew back Singer, a long spear point arrow with fletching to his ear, a breath, and then a release and the arrow traced an arc sixty yards and hit the vampire in the chest, just above the heart. The arrow dove through the top of the breast bone, shredded the ascending aorta, and pulverized the crystal core of the monster before punching out through the cervical vertebrae. He hadn¡¯t waited for the first arrow¡¯s flight to end before putting a second in flight. The vampire folded like a puppet with strings cut and the werewolf turned to its dead master. His follow up shot hit it in the neck and exited somewhere behind its thigh, mauling everything on its path through. Both targets dropped, and core destruction confirmed itself to be the answer for powerfully regenerative entities.


    Without the nexus to control their magic, they couldn¡¯t manipulate the aether to power their restorative abilities.


    The raid team had run on, having passed Alexander by while he took his shots, and he double timed to resume his place. The party couldn¡¯t see outside the light, he could, even if it was a strain, so he needed to stay ahead to forewarn the team should their enemies rally toward the kills. None did, fortunately.


    They reached the bodies a few seconds later, both frozen in a mercifully quick death. Alexander¡¯s Singer was clean.


    Ben nodded his respect for the archery, but they spared no words. There was no reason, or time, to attempt salvage from the bodies. Especially not ones absent a core, or having used sun light to make vampire dust. He just took a moment to retrieve his arrows and they were off again at an aggressive jog.


    As satisfying as the kills had been, the tension between his shoulders remained high. For all that the shots were good, he¡¯d have to replicate them many, many times before the task was done. Worse, it was a high probability that the sentient dungeon spawn would not be caught unawares for very long. This raid was a blitzkrieg, relying on the sheer momentum of the assault to prevent a coordinated response.


    The next obstacle was a cloaked group of Skin Peelers. Two were in attendance before a rack, where a brown bear was splayed out, limbs bound to gnarled tight grained wood that creaked from the live animal¡¯s efforts to escape. A third monstrosity was plying a cruel knife to the bear that drew muted growls and jerks from the beast¡¯s tightly tied muzzle, and another two gazed on in eyeless rapture at the torture. Alexander Gerifalte wanted to vomit, but he summoned the Venator¡¯s mantle and Ruthless settled over him.


    From the peaceful island of calm the hunter pulled at Gaia¡¯s gift of knowledge to examine in detail what resistance his prey had to offer.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="2" width="144">


    Xiptotec Acolyte of the Flayed One


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="133">


    Status:


    Zealous


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Soak: 28%


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    12(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Length


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    7¡¯2¡±


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arms


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    27/15


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arms


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    183lbs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    26/15


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    26/15


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    17(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    105 years


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    19


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Tiger¡¯s eye Agate, marquise


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Dark Mana Sanctified Flaying Knife


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    30/18


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    16


    </td>


    <td width="61">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="72">


    Nut


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Legs


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Legs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    19


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="133">


    Monster Race:


    Rakshasa-3<sup>nd</sup> Tier


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    28/18


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    28/18


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    18(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    20/15


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    13(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Yeti Hide Acolyte Cowl


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Flayed one¡¯s favor, Cruel, Zealot,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Sight unseeing, Greater mortal wounding


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="85">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="535">


    Greater dark spear, Essence rip, Lesser maddening aura, Lesser summon dark sprite


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Xiptotec, they had a name for the monsters now. And the abominations were cultists of some evil entity that accepted pain as its worship. A tier three monster, Rakshasa, a new monster race of demonic things, was not great news. Nor were the creature¡¯s abilities, which were far more potent than the lesser vampires encountered so far. The fanatical worshipper torturing the bear was very much a threat, with magic fed by the darkness mana pervading the Nut dungeon.


    ¡°Skin Peelers ahead, forty yards, five of them. They have offensive magic, Dark spear, and its greater version. A mana and life draining power, an aura that creates madness, and it looks like some kind of dark mana elemental of a minor variety that they can summon and control.¡± Alexander reported as the party ran.


    Rather than permit the creature¡¯s to respond at range with their powers, Alexander called his own entropic magic, funneling it into the arrow on his bowstring.


    ¡°Alpha strike, teammates. Gonna shred their Soak and cripple their magics, you guys finish them before they respond!¡± He suggested.


    ¡°Copy. Full send.¡± Mark confirmed the plan, and the team broke out into a sprint.


    Alexander focused on his aim, drew to his cheek for the knife wielding acolyte, and sent the envenomed arrow over his party¡¯s heads, where it hit the taller monster under the arm pit, where a Gaian organism¡¯s heart would be. The arrow passed through and the Skin Peeler screeched, its knife stabbing deeply into the bear as its ritual was broken.


    Ground Mandrake root produced a toxin called Mindflayer tears that coated his broad head this time, rather than the hemorrhagic poison made from that plant¡¯s leaves. The awful shrills sounds coming from the creature halted abruptly under the poison¡¯s action, the Mindflayer tears exerted the effect of a Mandrake¡¯s killing shriek within the Skinpeeler¡¯s nerves, chasing axons up into its brain to scramble it.


    Alexander spared it no more attention; he was concentrating on his next shot and saw the eyeless stare of the targeted Skin Peeler lock onto the arrow aimed for it. His target¡¯s maggot pale face locked in concentration bending its will against his and the embattled hunter felt a pressure a tickling at the edges of his mind. Whatever it tried must have involved delving into his thoughtscape, and Fractal mind made it flinch, a grimace alien for how closely it paralleled a human expression. A moment, no more, but the shared quarter second was enough for the point of the arrow he aimed to cross the creature¡¯s body, and he released his hold on the metal string of the bow. The Skin Peeler¡¯s confounded thoughts failed to untangle, its weighted steps too slow to evade a whistling arrow coated with black-grey chaos flame.


    The meaty thud of the stilleto tipped arrow coupled to fletchings standing proud just below the collarbone of the evil bastard gave Alexander a thrill. Its shriek joined its brethren, died away under the assault of poison and magic alike, and Alexander knew a third arrow wouldn¡¯t be needed when it slumped to the ground, limbs splayed haphazard.


    Humanity¡¯s first Entropic Venator was two for two in his opening salvo against the monsters and now the full might of the Adventurers was in play, riding the momentum of his archery, his teammates were now engaged. Unfortunately, the brilliance of the Sun Lanterns was completely ineffective against the demonic creatures, who saw without the use of eyes. More fortunately, it didn¡¯t matter, because the aces of Falcon¡¯s Rest were going to work with a vengeance.


    A third cultist monster tried to use Greater Dark Spear and the black, crimson, and violet swirl of magic came together and fell apart with a hissing sputter, before reforming. Either it had panicked and flubbed the spell or Melinda¡¯s sphere of light interfered. Whichever, such lapse in control cost the creature, because Ben arrived in time to bury his naginata in its forehead.


    The untouched by chaos magic and standing in the shadow of its brethren, although those three were now falling to the stones dead, the fourth Xiptotec pain god priest summoned a Dark Sprite, an almost impish creature with tiny wings that carried it into the air easily, where it started trying to dive bomb the party. Trying, because when it manifested within the Sun Lantern¡¯s globe it immediately began to smoke, its energies being unraveled. That didn¡¯t stop it for long and it tried to rip at Melinda¡¯s face with dagger like claws, howling and gibbering like a fucked up little winged monkey of Oz.


    A golden light infused crossbow bolt from the sun wielding Adventurer took the wind out of its sails, bringing the sprite low, where Georgia creased its skull with her bastard sword. Black blood hissed onto the paving stones brightened by a sphere of daylight.


    The last creature struck at Ben, its knife glimmering dangerously, and it stabbed with a long, heavily robed arm. Ben twisted away and dragged the impaled Skin Peeler, remarkably still alive, on the end of his spear between them, using it to block. Kicking legs, arms scrabbling, the still living Xiptotec howled with sharpened teeth frothing deeply green ichor.


    Cervantes came from the flank of the outnumbered demons and struck an overhead blow at it. The monster, caught up in its efforts to shiv Ben couldn¡¯t evade and got hit on its hip, the burst of sonic magic vibrating it, and the tuning fork great sword caught on the bones of its pelvis. Cervantes wasted no time pulling the creature down to the ground while it struggled, and he hit it again with a pulse of sound at a different pitch. The demon arched its back from whatever the sonic magic did to it, but Melinda was there with her estoc, driving it down repeatedly into the upper body of the monster.


    While Ben, Cervantes, and Melinda dealt with the fanatical monsters, the fourth creature, the one that called the imp, having evaded two strokes of Mark¡¯s shorter sword, used Dark Spear, the black, crimson, and violet magic coming together despite the lamp on his hip. It flung the spear at Ben, ignoring Mark, and the spell hit him in the back while he¡¯d been fending off his stabbing opponent.


    Dark mana hammered into Ben and he hissed from the splash of magic that managed to damage him through his armor and Soak, the skin above his kidney feeling like it had been frozen and boiled at the same time.


    The Steel Heavy Knight turned and gathered the strength of his armor¡¯s metal into himself and he jerked the spasming acolyte from his spear before he threw it like a harpoon into the breast of the magic slinging Xiptotec, trading a blow for a blow. Golem high steel drove deep into the creature¡¯s flesh, but its Soak, and the armor of the Yeti hide, kept the naginata blade from completely passing through it. It staggered under the impact, however, and Alexander watched Mark take the opportunity, flanked by Georgia, to step into a hard stroke with a white-hot dragon fang sword. The blade burned through the monster¡¯s Soak and hacked into its shoulder, removing the arm and biting deep into its side.


    It clawed at Mark with the other, tainted magic forming hooking claws of black and violet that tried to rip into the Incandescent Triarii, to steal his life and mana. The anchor tank¡¯s own Soak resisted that effort, and he punched his kite shield into the creature¡¯s face to break its focus. Georgia Stephens drove her sword in a two-handed hammer fist down through the robed figure¡¯s back. Its Soak was depleted by the rapid attacks and the flaming sword in its body, and Georgia¡¯s attack proved lethal, causing the Rakshasa to sag to the ground.


    Alexander had readied another arrow while the battle raged, but had found no clean shot through the furious movements of his squad mates. He¡¯d been sprinting in a circle around them to get an angle when Georgia put an end to the fight. Or, almost. Ben reached down to the creature that was twitching as if it might have survived having its brain skewered and the professional monster hunter twisted its head around a few times, the breaking of bones declaring that it wouldn¡¯t be bothering anyone.


    Eyes scanning ahead into the perpetual gloom as he rejoined his team, Alexander saw nothing in the village of evil things to declare an immediate threat. So far, so good, and he cursed himself for jinxing them as soon as the thought cross his consciousness.


    They were behind a huddle of buildings, the light of the lantern blocked by huts and the stone alter within this ring of structures.


    ¡°How are we?¡± Alexander asked, a hushed whisper slightly broken up by his fast breaths.


    ¡°I got hit by something nasty, it got beneath my armor pretty fucking good. Superficial, but that shit burns like a mother. Health only dropped five percent though, I was drawing on my armor. It would have been worse for the rest of you.¡± The big warrior reported.


    Alexander nodded, ¡°Dark spear. That¡¯s the magic it used, and the first one tried to use the Greater variant. Safe to say we shouldn¡¯t any of us be getting hit by those if we can help it.¡± He answered Ben¡¯s unasked question.


    Mark rubbed imaginary claw marks on his chest and added, ¡°They try to steal your life force and mana too. Soak resists it, but it sucks super hard, like something is digging under your skin while it¡¯s happening. I¡¯m not a fan of this dark mana shit.¡±


    ¡°Anything else?¡± Alexander asked, hoping that this first contact with the Skin Peelers would reveal enough tactical information to make future fights easier.


    ¡°They¡¯re hard to kill.¡± Cervantes said, stating the obvious, ¡°I don¡¯t know what the insides are like, but Melinda had to put five, six stabs all the way through the bastard¡¯s chest to get it down, and Ben actually fucking stabbed one through the face and it was still alive. Not fighting anymore, but alive.¡±


    Georgia made a circular motion over her head, for ¡°wrap it up¡±, reminding everyone that they were supposed to be moving. She was right, and the party rose, with Melinda coming up from having carved through the first monster¡¯s chest only to find the core was lower, hidden at the lumber vertebrae. So, these hid their cores in a different location.


    They fished out the other four cores, adding them to the crowded pouch on Alexander¡¯s belt, and he was going to have to put any others in his food bag. He took a moment to kill the bear that had been tortured, putting the sorry animal out of its misery, and grateful to Ruthless for the distance from his emotions.


    The raid team broke out into another jog. They¡¯d gone a quarter mile before the next group of hostiles came into sight. Three werewolves, a Dracul pack leader, and a single Xiptotec.


    Priority target was now the Skin Peeler for Alexander, to disable its casting and weaken it. Ben and Cervantes swerved to put themselves between the party and the lupine forms, which were assuming a humanoid shape indicating that they had spotted the party, at his call. Georgia shifted to lead that particular charge, her blows to slow the beasts would let the two attackers engage the fast-moving beasts more easily. Melinda called the vampire, where her talents were most potently leveraged. Mark held the center, to flex toward whatever threat presented the most risk.


    Howling calls rose up in the heavy night air. Georgia grunted, her shield stopping a charging form and she snapped her sword quickly into the muscular furred body, more to debilitate than to outright wound. Wolf fur and Soak shed most of the impact of the longsword, but a few shallow gashes opened and the werewolf slowed drastically. The anchortank shoved the beast off and plunged her blade into a second wolf that was angling for Cervantes, a nasty stab into its hamstring.


    Even slowed, the wolf retaliated with a rake of claws that threw sparks from her arm guard. Cervantes made that extension a mistake, the tip of his tuning fork blade whistled in and rang off the beast¡¯s forearm bones, turning the arm to jelly.


    Ben cut to one side, deflecting a lead from the third werewolf, and jabbed the haft into the creature¡¯s ribs with a sudden draw on his class¡¯s empowerment, and the monster¡¯s side caved in. The heavily armored man swiped down to sever the monster¡¯s spine and turned to finish the slowed beast Georgia had first engaged.


    Georgia kept her tower shield high and rammed the injured creature, double teaming it with Cervantes.


    Alexander spared no more time for that part of the battle, he was focused now on his arrow, pulling Entropic Imbuement to counter the Xiptotec, who was already conjuring another elemental imp. He knew Mindflayer tears were lethal, how about Bloodlet sap?


    He released the arrow and saw the creature attempt to swipe the projectile from the air with its knife. However it saw, his chaos empowered arrow must have disrupted its magic sight, because it missed badly and the arrow buried into its lung. The dark mana caster hissed, spat alien curses, and pulled the arrow free, instantly. They were resistant to pain, which should not have been surprising as it was, but the warping powers of entropic magic made even these dungeon spawn flinch. Or, perhaps that was the small stream of its nasty blood that flowed unimpeded from the wound.


    The dark mana sprite conjured by the creature came straight for Alexander, charging to preserve its master. So did the vampire, shifting to bat form and flying high for an airborn attack.


    Melinda¡¯s crossbow bolt hit the Dracul in the hip and it flared bright in the sudden daylight. The bat screeched but didn¡¯t revert, apparently smarter than its cousins. It didn¡¯t burn as a bat, whatever transformative powers that form held shielded it from its solar weakness. It did dive toward the woman, but Mark was there ready, his flame brand already orange with heat.


    Time for his bow done, Alexander drew the Messer and focused his attention on the sprite, noting its clawing outline attempting to rip his jugular. The Venator side stepped and slashed Golem High Steel jacketed by silver in a short, hard chop at the clawed limb and it came free with relatively little resistance to the razored metal. He ignored the sailing limb and took the hilt in two hands, turning the chop into a stab that took the imp like familiar in the stomach.


    It flailed at him, one hand latching onto his armor, biting, feet clawing, resilient to the damage of his knife, and Alexander ducked his helmeted head to avoid his eyes being gouged. He grabbed onto the roughly chimp sized creature and drew back, this time pulling his class¡¯s powers into the act.


    Baleful Smite accompanied the second dirking of the imp and its struggles ceased immediately, it was turning into whisps of dark mana smoke before it hit the ground.


    In those precious seconds dealing with the sprite, the Skin Peeler had managed to rally its powers, appearing to care nothing for the stain darkening its robes.


    The Skin Peeler moved like a boneless thing, flowing toward him. It was as fast as the Dracul, its knife glittered darkly in the sun lantern glow, like a piece of shadow forged into steel. It stabbed and Alexander saw its mana encase the dagger, much like his own did. He stepped back from the diving point, parried, and tried to take its knife hand off.


    The tier three dungeon spawn was too graceful, it withdrew and immediately circled, slashing at Alexander¡¯s arm in turn. So they battled, furtive rapid movements of short blades, each trying to out maneuver the other.


    He was losing, the last Gerifalte realized, when a third rake across his armer almost found flesh, a blow too clean to be shed. Grimacing at the knowledge from beneath Ruthless, his thoughts whirled desperately as the knife fight continued.


    The Xiptotec was inhuman, its range of motion and flexibility greater than Alexander¡¯s and it was winning the exchanges in spite of his vision capturing its intended attacks just ahead of them. Unexpected angles of approach, weirdly disjointed positions of wrist, elbow, and shoulder that he had learned to recognize in humans were deceitful in this enemy. He had the monster¡¯s full attention though, and was keeping it too busy to utilize its powers. A small figure, feminine but not delicate approached rapidly and he stepped forward, locking his Messer against the smaller dagger to freeze his enemy in place for a second. This was his great advantage against the Skin Peeler: Alexander was not alone.


    Melinda running at full tilt ran the eyeless humanoid through from behind, grunting at the effort of penetrating the creature¡¯s Soak. Mark joined her a moment later, and his sword fared better thanks to its inner flame.


    With both their blades erupting from the Skin Peeler¡¯s chest, Alexander came in with a two-handed stroke that carved nearly from one ear to the other, right across where its eyes should have been.


    That was sufficient damage to end the Rakshasa¡¯s struggles.


    Damned if the things weren¡¯t tough. They reminded him of the Yetis that way.


    Breathing rapidly, Alexander looked up from the dead Xiptotec to see victory in this skirmish was complete. Ben was waving them on to regroup and he and the others only spared the time to cut the cores from the monsters before doing so. Mark had decapitated the batform Dracul so there was no vampire dust to be had from the thing, unfortunately.


    Half a mile, the young man thought, hoping their luck held. Only a few guarding packs encountered. The way ahead was clear. So little did they knew about the dungeons, how the monsters arrived, what guided their actions.


    There was intelligence in these beings. Malignancy too, but sapience. It made them more dangerous than the animalistic things that had come before. The dungeon itself might be a thing of some sentience, if not one understandable to a human mind.


    That was fine, the last Gerifalte determined grimly, because he was growing stronger, learning faster in this crucible. He would take the next Xiptotec faster, now that he¡¯d seen how they move, had experienced the flashing attacks of their cruel knives.


    Whether by the violence of action or for other causes, no more creatures did the party encounter as they ran, and they pivoted to ascend the pyramid, its vaguely Aztec or Mayan, Alexander knew not which or either better applied, features oozing ancient blood cult vibes. The red stains and rust odor of the stones beneath his feet told him more than he wanted to know about the rites that had taken place on this night shrouded temple.


    Every hundred feet of ascension bore a different level of the temple, pillars of stone holding the mass above them in what seemed to Alexander to be an impossible manner. Surely this sandstone looking stuff could not bear the tons of weight? But it did. Past the warrens of chambers bearing the mien of long emptiness and ageless inattention the party climbed. A temple ground. An arena with stone bench stands absent a crowd to fill it. A residence complex with withered gardens and dry fountains. Up and up the humans bore witness to a civilization either long dead, or dormant so long it had been as much as the same thing.


    A thousand feet of climbing saw even hardened Adventurers winded and they paused to catch their breath on the precipice of the great central stair. Pillars on either side, reminiscent of those at the entryway to the dungeon loomed. Fanged faces chiseled into them. Lupine guardians circling the bases of the pedestals. Eyeless priests in supplication to a formless, shifting thing that gave all the humans who gazed on it a shivering eerie avoidance of eyes soon after.


    Whatever else this temple held in store for them, Alexander was without a single doubt that they were on the verge of glimpsing evil.


    A few minutes, time enough to slow their ragged breathing and shake the burning from their legs was all the raid team allowed themselves. As one, they marched forward down a path away from the altars of pain to either side of that pyramid stairway¡¯s zenith and closed on their target: a shrine in whose center, hidden by the great height and deceptive size of the pyramid, was the dungeon core.


    Silver witch light lit the facets of the spinning shard of deepest indigo dotted with violet.


    Before the steps that led to the stone slab of offering to the dungeon core stood a tall man. Or, at least, it appeared as a man.


    Alexander bent his attention on the figure and concentrated to call forth the Scroll of what had to be the dungeon¡¯s guardian. A glimpse, nothing more. He felt a dagger in his thoughts that shattered his concentration, and he cried out his hands pressed to his temples.


    ¡°Tut tut. Mortal, did not any rearers teach courtesy to their whelps? Rudeness abides in one who would assume to pry where uninvited.¡± Spoke the entity, a smooth baritone absent hurry or concern.


    Gasping from the aftershock of the chastising force, Alexander informed his team of what they had already come to expect, ¡°That¡¯s the guardian. Can¡¯t analyze it, it hurt like hell to try. Tier four is all I got.¡±


    A human hand, fingernails just shy of being long enough to be claws, ran lovingly across the top of the stone slab as the party approached warily.


    Mark, in front, bearing the sun lantern, brought its circle of light forward to enfold the being that they had to conquer before slaying the dungeon¡¯s heart.


    Within the daylight globe, the party witnessed the first tier four creature. Long canines, subtle enough to pass if one weren¡¯t paying attention. Black sclera eyes, like Alexander¡¯s own, with the yellow green irises of a wolf instead, lit as if from behind.


    ¡°It¡¯s a vampire.¡± Mark said, his tone slightly aghast.


    ¡°Then it bears little resemblance to the others, it doesn¡¯t seem to mind the sunlight.¡± Cervantes declared.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know about y¡¯all, but I liked the ugly ones better.¡± Ben commented.


    The creature before them lowered the weight of its attention on the party and Alexander felt a tightening in his chest. Fear. Fear so deep it pushed against Ruthless. His respect for the others grew several notches when they didn¡¯t take even a step back. The foe wasn¡¯t visibly showing any effort at enacting an aura of terror, this was instinctual. A human hind brain recognizes a dangerous predator when it sees one.


    ¡°Ahh, yes, you would have met my spawn. They huddle below, afraid to challenge the hunters that destroyed them so easily.¡± Spoke the vampire, its use of language oddly accented, but unlike anything Alexander had ever heard of.


    It spoke as if the words were fed to it through a teleprompter full of irregular phonic cues.


    The mention of the Dracul they had faced brought an almost wry expression to the vampire¡¯s face, a twist of too red lips compared to the porcelain skin that suggested contempt.


    ¡°Barely thinking, barely old enough to speak, too young, too immature to be worth speaking to, not even capable of taking mortal thralls. Had I known the gate would open to a wilderness so empty of suitable prey, I wouldn¡¯t have bothered accepting service to a realm crystal. Absent proper food, my spawn have grown with aggravated sloth. Your world, so long sealed from the myriad, has been a disappointment.¡± The guardian spoke, in that same unhurried way.


    Eyes focused on each member of the raid team in turn and they each felt a boring sense of being examined. Had it just dragged from them their own Scroll? Alexander hated to think that their enemy had the equivalent of Greater Analyze to leverage against them.


    ¡°But, now,¡± The tier four monster said, almost gayly, ¡°Worthy nourishment has come, fully developed and their dormant legacies alive in their veins, unlike those offerings brought when first the gate opened. And they have even pruned away the unworthy of my brood, including those disgusting worshippers of the Pain God, that flayed dross of a deity.¡±


    ¡°Georgia?¡± Mark whispered, without looking over his shoulder.


    ¡°Ahead of you.¡± Replied the Impervious Anchor tank behind the team leader, sounding a little rocky.


    The dungeon guardian paced back and forth before the offering slab, slowly sauntering. It wore a vest of thin leather dyed red, over top of a white silk shirt. A wide billowing pair of black silk pants tucked neatly into knee high boots of the same leather as its vest. The boots made no sound as the vampire stepped. It moved as if weightless. Alexander knew that if the Xiptotec had been fast, this guardian Dracul would make them look slow.


    A cold sweat was beading his forehead as he watched every movement, trying to absorb every detail that might turn an advantage. It hadn¡¯t attacked yet. A memory of the Reaper came to mind. Neither had that creature been immediately aggressive. Soon though.


    ¡°Does the prey believe its trivial time trap can save it?¡± the vampire guardian asked aloud.


    A fine tipped fingernail tapped against its full pouting lips, skipping off a fanged incisor absently.


    ¡°Perhaps¡­yes¡­to hold the guardian long enough to break the reality crystal,¡± the pale creature mused, ¡°Have they recalled the pacts? Only by slaying the guardian does the crystal yield its strength. They must not remember, it has been, what, a handful of thousands of years since last Gaia saw an incursion? Their last great champion, the Pharoah of the river empire. None of that one¡¯s legacy remains to these. A pity. His blood would be sweet, even diluted.¡±


    ¡°I got your sweetness right here, you pasty bastard.¡± Ben told the monster.


    The vampire came to a stop, arms crossed behind it and the phrase dead still was made to describe its stasis. It drew no breath.


    A flicker of the lupine glowing eyes to his own made Alexander want to either run screaming or throw himself at the monster before them. He made his decision then, that this creature had to die, no matter what. If they failed here, it would hunt Falcon¡¯s Rest to the last.


    Fangs were revealed in an eager smile and the vampire flickered. Standing in front of Melinda, Mark¡¯s kite shield shifted instinctively to cover his partner and immediately rang out. Small dagger hilt protruded from its face. Belated, the Mark moved his feet to better align his shield, as if his body caught up to his combat awareness.


    Half an inch and a quarter second, no more, and the small thick knife, like a kunai, would have punched through The Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s neck.


    Alexander had seen the monster move, but in no way could he have voiced a warning. So fast. The arrow in his fingers was useless. Georgia would never catch the monster in her temporal ward. Not unless they completely overwhelmed the creature. They were not going to completely overwhelm this thing, he had a feeling. But they were going to try.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°On me!¡± Mark called and he led the charge, faint flickers of flame rising from his form as he used Bolster to further enhance his toughness.


    Ben responded to the shout raising his spear. Melinda brought an incandescent sphere of pure sunlight above her hand. The vampire¡¯s skin reddened in the doubled daylight and it vanished.


    Alexander scanned, turning his head left, then right, and he dropped his bow, hand going to the Messer, too late. It was behind him!


    A claw tipped spear hand was diving for his spine, intercepted by a Chronous Bulwark tower shield. Metal screeched, and Alexander saw Georgia blur, her sword cutting at the elevated Dracul. She was already using her Acceleration, a spell to quicken her flow of time. The monster and the Anchor tank skirmished while the rest of the party gathered themselves to adjust to the superhuman pace of the fight.


    It had me, he realized, and he readied his knife, whispering a thanks to Georgia Stephens.


    As suddenly as it started, it ended, Georgia staggered back, her shield ripped by claws, and her sword broken off halfway up its length. Her Golem High Steel sword. The vampire was lacerated on its arm, side, and leg. While Alexander watched, the angry, welted cuts healed. Wafts of smoke issued from them as they did, as did an acrid stench.


    ¡°So¡­they remember the silver, do they?¡± the Dracul pondered, watching the wounds repair themselves more slowly than it was used to, as well as with far more pain.


    Added to the silver was another source of retardation to the regenerative process: the vampire¡¯s flesh was growing redder under the influence of Melinda¡¯s day globe, as if developing a rash. Or a sunburn that spread visibly.


    Alexander saw the irritation flash in those wolf-like black eyes and black lines raced ahead of the creature, a suggestion of its intent. Body lagging behind his senses, the young hunter pivoted around, he slashed preemptively behind the shorter woman, his oversized knife jarred in his hands, caught against the clawed hand of the vampire, which had darted forward to open Melinda¡¯s throat. Barely pausing, it retracted and leapt back gracefully, twenty feet distant, a slight pique on its features at being denied a kill. It barely noticed the deep cut Alexander¡¯s ridiculously sharp blade had given its palm.


    ¡°Your alchemist is remarkable. This venom almost burns even my immortal flesh.¡± The Vampire praised, licking the wound even as the thin line of blood welled up, halting almost immediately.


    Immune to poison. Absolutely swell. Alexander shelved another set of strategies that involved loading the guardian up on poison and waiting it out. He didn¡¯t even have a chance to hit it with chaos magic.


    Mark saw the exchange and backed up to stay closer between his lover, who wielded the only weapon that harmed the vampire permanently. It badly wanted to slay the Luminous Pathfinder, would use any opening to do so. The anchor tank was a hard point, a bastion of safety on the battlefield, preventing it from diving on her, for fear of the shimmering hot sword and the blazing shield. That was good. Not so good, neither Ben nor Cervantes had been able to so much as swing a sword at the creature, it had avoided them entirely.


    That was soon to change, Alexander wasn¡¯t the only one who noticed that the formerly blinding speed of the Dracul wasn¡¯t nearly as impossible to follow. Georgia¡¯s cuts, while they had failed to do lasting harm to the guardian, had carved into its flow of time, slowing it. She¡¯d eaten into the awful thing¡¯s advantage substantially.


    The creature noticed, seemingly about the same moment the Adventurers did, shooting a vicious look at the woman, who grimly rang her broken sword against her broken shield, challenging it to receive her attacks again. She was hanging back though, keeping Melinda¡¯s other flank secure. Together with Mark, the two of them formed an island of stability in the battlefield, the guardian seemed unwilling to put itself in reach of the both of them together.


    Hunting eyes searched for a gap in the defenses, a way to end the abominable light floating above Melinda¡¯s hand.


    Ben and Cervantes took off as one and Alexander sprinted off to the side, striving to go on the offense, instead of reacting to the Dracul guardian¡¯s initiative. The two front liners angled to force the monster to face one or the other. It chose Cervantes. Even slowed, the Sonic Highlander¡¯s sword couldn¡¯t touch the vampire, who stepped smoothly out of the arc of his cut. The blast of sound that caught it as it evaded surprised it, rang its refined predator¡¯s senses, and that surprise is why its retaliatory swiped only took most of the claymore wielding warrior¡¯s jaw off, instead of decapitating him.


    Cervantes went down, missing an eye, a cheek, his nose, and most of his jaw on one side, his helmet rent apart, his Soak defeated by the shimmering red sheath of mana over the vampire¡¯s claws, claws now lengthened to bloody knives a foot longer than before. It had hidden that ability, saving it to lethal effect, its intent only barely unfulfilled.


    Alexander fired a Chaos Strike at the dark stalker, to force the monster to move reactively, rather than any hope of making contact. A turn, a casually ducked chin, and his entropic bolt sailed into the dark. But it had paused in its aggression to do so.


    Cervantes, hanging onto consciousness, dragged his sword through his modified gauntlet, and the tuning fork sword sang, blasting the vampire again. Gravely wounded, he poured everything he had left into the sonic attack and dry dust lifted a moment before forming a visible sphere from the shockwave, like a fighter jet roaring past a tower at mach two. Vampire features warped almost comically from the fist of sound that walloped it to the stones in a tangle some feet distant.


    Alexander and Ben followed, glad to engage the creature farther from their downed comrade. An opening! Dearly paid for.


    Ben pulled on his class and matched the creature¡¯s speed momentarily, taking advantage of the brief break in its posture. The man of steel called its strength to himself, sword bladed spear at the ready.


    It rose, less fluid but still with a disturbing ease. Cervantes had hit it with his best shot, had hurt it something awful but the regeneration of a tier four was otherworldly. An expression of disgust was plain of pallid features, fangs visible from its grimace when for the first time, its menacing grace failed it. The monster staggered a step, the close-range hammer of vibration holding most of the injured warrior¡¯s remaining mana having done ruinous things to its balance. Ben closed while Alexander circled.


    A clawed hand raised to intercept a trademark uppercut from Ben was blown aside, glittering crimson shrapnel from the blood magic talons shattered, and the humanoid form launched thirty feet, arcing up like a pop fly. Impossibly graceful, the vampire landed on its hands and feet like a cat. The deep cut from its floating rib to its collarbone healed, cleft bones knitting visibly. From its longish pointed ears there was a steady flow, at first, which began to slow, a few seconds later tapering off to a barely dripping crimson from blown ear drums, damage to its balance and reflexes suggesting parallel nervous structure to humanity, which now was not the time to examine. Predatory black eyes remained fixed warily, but with complete awareness on Ben from the crouched vampire.


    Horrified, Alexander couldn¡¯t believe what he was seeing. The bastard was still healing! Through silver. Through sonic shock that would have done a c4 charge proud. Through a blow that had battered a dragon.


    Its Soak absorbed enough of the impact to prevent catastrophic wounds, despite the silver in the Naginata and Ben¡¯s raw power, the man himself shaking his head at a clean hit making so little difference.


    What didn¡¯t heal was the reddened flesh of the pale creature of Nut. In fact, the burned skin had started to blister under Melinda¡¯s concentrated assault, starting with its still healing wounds. She was holding her spell with teeth gritted in concentration as she funneled her mana into it, the sunstone in her gauntlet feeding her magic its amplifying force. Flanked by Mark and Georgia, the vampire couldn¡¯t get to her without going through the pair, although the party¡¯s formation was strung out now.


    That was a mistake, and the predatory monstrosity that bore outward resemblance to humanity saw it. Wise in its evil ways, the creature capitalized immediately. Alexander saw magic compress and pool inside the ancient evil.


    ¡°Stay sharp! It¡¯s using magic!¡± He called a warning, bitter at his inability to analyze the monster to know what they faced.


    The vampire hissed and waved a hand at the party, a wave of swirling shadow dimmed the battlefield, powers of Nut warring against the solar mana brought to bear by the Adventurers from Gaia. Within the miasma, breath came short and senses dulled, the body growing chill in conjured darkness. Only nearest Melinda did the darkness fail to take hold, everywhere else stood as if in a cloudy night.


    Black outlines gave warning, and Alexander Gerifalte called warning to Ben. Too late. Blood magic talons rang against armor and Benjamin¡¯s ability had a cool down, he couldn¡¯t become a man of steel again for another minute. Worse, Ben could not see through the dark magic shadow the way Alexander could. A flurry of sparking slashes, a grapple, and then Ben screamed, guttural agony from their best hope in melee.


    A contemptuous kick, almost a flick of its leg punted Ben. The dungeon¡¯s guardian launched the knight to land heavily behind the trio of Mark, Georgia, and Melinda. He didn¡¯t move. The vampire held Ben¡¯s right arm, torn free rather than severed; the wonderful frost enchanted spear still clutched in the gauntlet. This the monster tossed aside and began to stalk forward toward Cervantes, who was no longer moving.


    Dismay at their mightiest fighter being so badly hurt by the monster shook Alexander¡¯s guts, but he couldn¡¯t stay on the fringes to take an opening now. Time to stand your ground, he told himself reluctantly and he stepped forward, putting himself in the path of the dungeon guardian.


    Alexander was the only one close enough to cover for the downed man. It would kill Cervantes, then it would move on to pick them off, one by one. He gripped his Messer hard. He couldn¡¯t fight the creature heads up for long, it was too strong. Alexander had no Soak. No defenses to speak of against a monster that could carve through the best armor he could fabricate. Dragon scales rebuffed the bloody talons, but they treated golem high steel like a pull saw through pine. It didn¡¯t change what he had to do.


    Ruthless helped him settle the acid in his belly when the fully mature Dracul guardian focused its full attention on the being with the audacity to face it.


    Hateful eyes gazed on him and the vampire launched itself at the Venator.


    Entropic aura blossomed and Alexander hammered the dungeon boss with the corroding influence of his chaos mana, while his hands worked desperately to deflect reaching claws. It hissed again when his magic bathed it. They dueled for only a few seconds. One parry, two, and then Alexander lost the upper third of his Messer, sparks showering as the Dracul caught too squarely his blade and sheared it off with blood magic claws that broke apart as well.


    Only, the monster¡¯s weapon reformed from its own blood and mana, though it was clear that his entropic field was taking effect: the congealed magic refused to sharpen the way it had before, the black eyes hardened as it set its will against the chaos that pushed its familiar magic awry. Against the day globe that flared brilliantly thirty yards distant, the regeneration of the Nut spawned Dracul against its bane was slowed to a crawl and blisters began to raise from tortured flesh.


    It grimaced, baring fangs, at Melinda, who stood under guard of Mark and Georgia. They could win.


    Courage, Little Falcon, he screamed at himself, and Alexander raised the remaining weapon to receive the vampire.


    The black outlines were starting to slow, somewhat. The shadows cast over the battle field were evaporating. Within the grip of his aura, the tier four monster¡¯s Soak was being eroded, its powers eaten away. Melinda¡¯s sunlight was burning it more intensely. All he had to do was hang on for a little longer, the Adventurers behind him were approaching steadily, threatening to overwhelm it, but offering no gaps in those shields to grant it an opening.


    ¡°An Unweaver.¡± Remarked the cold-blooded humanoid, its lips twisted with contempt and its once alabaster complexion pocked now from accrued solar damage.


    ¡°A bearer of the sun, a guardian of flame, a knight of the clock, a cold iron forged warrior, and an unweaver of aether, well prepared was this assault on my domain.¡± The sapient guardian of the dungeon said, again using that oddly inflected English, as if it read from words only seen.


    A translation spell? Why bother? Unless it was automatic. That Reaper had been understandable too. Were the worlds bound in a way to permit common language?


    It continued speaking, and Alexander¡¯s curiosity took a back seat. It was delaying, and every second was to his advantage, so it could talk all it liked. Perhaps it thought to shake him. Well, too bad for Vlad, he was already terrified, but Ruthless suppressed everything to a whisper, and good old Mainer hard headedness covered the rest. Everything except for the firmly entrenched desire to kill this thing, that was all Alexander Gerifalte.


    ¡°But your realm has only fledglings to offer, too weak to stop a convergence. Soon part of your world will belong to mine. In a few centuries, perhaps a millennium, that convergence will spread to the horizon. I will be there, to raise an empire of Dracul, an Emperor of Nut on under a darkened sun.¡±


    ¡°You won¡¯t see your sun again.¡± It promised, and came again.


    Another exchange, worse this time for him, the pale bloody clawed thing attacked relentlessly to end his resistance before the others could close. Alexander strove to keep the Dracul from driving him out of the light of the lantern and day globe, to keep the pressure of the sunstones in play. He danced back, side stepped, feinted, anything to extend the fight, to drag it out, to stay close enough to threaten so it couldn¡¯t murder Cervantez.


    A hissing snarl told him his plan was succeeding in aggravating the dungeon boss. Close calls were turning his armor to ribbons, and he bled freely from a half dozen minor cuts.


    It redoubled its efforts, a flicker of motion that made the Xiptotec seem sluggish.


    His eyes saved him six times in half that many seconds, and he felt the monster¡¯s frustration as its slowed motions, projected ahead of its blows, failed to execute him.


    They came apart and he took a breath, and, worse, blinked. The Dracul flickered, its outline flashing a millisecond ahead through his Outsider¡¯s perception.


    Sparks from blossomed from the dragon scales on his chest his dodge only half complete. The hammer blow sent him staggering backward when as the immensely powerful pistoning arm tried to impale him through his chest. Alexander, movements trained by Ben¡¯s uncompromising discipline, agility dialed to maximum under adrenaline, turned just enough to shed the worst of the attack, and drills beat into him forced the Venator to take the hit and riposte on reflex. He drove his broken knife forward, jagged silvered blade ripped an eye from the monster that had thought its prey executed, causing it to disengage before the Messer could enter its brains.


    Just as well, it had knocked the wind from him, even from a glancing strike.


    Alexander was running on fumes, both physically and magically. He had exhausted his repertoire of combat tricks, the maneuver to half blind it was all he had left. The Entropic Venator was coming to the end of his tether, burning muscles and tiredness from blood loss were stacking against him. Worst of all, his armor was hanging weirdly, too much of its integrity lost to count on to take another direct raking. But he stood, and he had held the Vampire for precious seconds while his comrades advanced steadily.


    ¡°You will all become food. I will keep you living, crippled, and drink from you when I wish, while my spawn grow strong on you.¡± Threatened the vampire, one socket darkened, the other narrowed menacing at him.


    That pause was punished, his allies had come close enough to be effective. Covered by his shield, Mark Ross lowered the mirrored shroud and flicked the diaphragm open, turning the lantern into a beam of solar energy and brandished the sun lantern, now a weapon that splashed a golden ray over the vampire¡¯s face. It¡¯s features boiled under the concentrated sunlight, and its screech echoed along the top of the pyramid, Mark had saved this tool for the ideal moment, when it would do maximum damage.


    A hunter knew when his moment had come.


    Alexander dove in, broken knife leading, he pulled his class¡¯s abilities, draining himself of his remaining reserves. The shard of metal slipped between the blinded humanoid creature¡¯s ribs, Baleful Smite already delivering a payload of entropic force. A batting arm whipped across, catching him cleanly across the shoulders like a truck hitting a bicyclist. Alexander exited the sphere of daylight in spinning flight, world rotating senselessly.


    He never remembered hitting the stones, but came to what must have been seconds later, if that, and he gasped hard for air to pull into his lungs. His knife was gone. His limbs refused to work, although the distant static of a wrenched left leg indicated he wouldn¡¯t be using it for much any time soon. Laying on the stones of the pyramid, all he could do now was watch. And hope.


    Lantern leading the charge, the others had advanced on the enemy, Mark shifting the beam with his sword arm to follow its darting movements as it struggled to evade. That advantage lasted only another moment, the creature flickered again and another thrown dagger struck the lantern, knocking it from Mark¡¯s grasp. The other two daggers rang off his dragon scale plate, a ricochet biting part of his cheek deeply before it spun away. The vampire charged the trio, its burned face a rictus of feral rage, the scarred, corroded hole in its side from Alexander¡¯s blow, running freely of its blood. A wound that did not heal.


    Mark bit back a curse at the broken fingers and sudden metallic warmth pouring into his mouth and pulled his enchanted sword again, its short blade taking on an angry, violent glow once more.


    Their shields covering the woman behind them, who poured even more magic into her gauntlet, the anchor tanks stepped up to intercept the monster. Shadows cast by the party lengthened until they were cut off by the night shroud of Nut¡¯s influence on this slice of the dungeon born realm.


    The Chronous Bulwark, having expended most of her mana in the initial, desperate exchange to keep up with the guardian, blurred again, sacrificing the rest of her combat potential to occupy the wounded guardian. Every moment mattered now. The armored woman fought the vampire again, this time holding the advantage. Georgia hacked a bloody talon free, twisted her hilt deftly in a hammer fist and buried her sword in its chest. It didn¡¯t die. Malignant vitality kept the dungeon boss fighting. With awful strength, the vampire ripped her shield away from her and punched her in the chest squarely, its full might behind the blow. Georgia¡¯s ribs broke loudly, and she folded around the creature¡¯s fist. Alexander winced from the ancient stones, it had hit her much, much harder than it had him. It would have impaled her with its arm if not for her draconic cuirass and heavy Soak.


    It reached for her throat, to finish the defenseless woman.


    Ben Grisham raced out from the darkness as a metallic streak and drop kicked it between the shoulder blades with his full class imbued power. Georgia fell to the pyramid floor groaning, freed of the vampire that was launched again by the knight thirty feet into the stone slab it had fawned over, whose arrest blasted the stone into fragments and crumpled the monster.


    The big warrior landed hard, then struggled awkwardly to his feet with his good arm, the blood loss from his torn limb halted by the Mandrake leaf quick clot from his emergency kit. Alexander¡¯s efforts processing that brain-curdling plant was saving lives now.


    For once, the vampire was static, unmoving. Its battered form struggled to heal against the massive damage taken from the broken longsword it tore from its chest, the bones snapped on the hard rock slab, and the ever-biting sunlight that tore at its night born essence.


    Melinda, for the first time, lowered her gauntlet and leveled her crossbow at the vampire half buried in the rubble of its stone altar. Now focused into the bolt, she let sail a brilliant lance of day that slammed into the creature¡¯s chest, and the vampiric guardian ignited, howling, for once its agony obvious.


    Stone shards scattered from the violence of the monster¡¯s struggles, and Mark, shield abandoned for haste, brought a white-hot sword in a two-handed stroke with all his strength behind it. The vampire¡¯s head flew free of its body, and it sagged to the ground to twitch briefly, before the sunlight in its chest rendered it to a pyre.


    Alexander dropped his head to the cool, dry stone beneath him and thanked all the gods above, below, and in between for the courage of his allies. Then he started trying to figure out how to get up in worse shape than he¡¯d been in when he¡¯d crashed his plane. It took a minute to figure out which limbs worked well enough to use.


    Meanwhile, Ben had gone to Cervantes, to see what could be done for the gravely injured warrior. Alexander was starting to regain enough feeling in his legs to know he¡¯d be able to limp, slowly, but his head rang like a bell and his shoulder was definitely dislocated from the boss¡¯s direct blow. A fabulous searing pain when he tried to use the arm anyway revealed that the arm was broken cleanly as well. By the time he managed to obtain his feet, Mark and Melinda had managed to see to Georgia, and Ben had Cervantes draped over his shoulder like a sack of wheat.


    Alexander Gerifalte staggered over to the party. He was sort of fucked up on his left side, and he¡¯d probably torn most of what held things together in his knee. A single, solid hit had almost killed him. The young hunter was still slightly amazed that they were all alive. Maybe all of them. Cervantes didn¡¯t look so hot, those blood talons had ripped him up good. His armor looked like he¡¯d let a toddler alone with it and a grinder with a cutting wheel. If not for the red wyrmling¡¯s armored scales to reinforce them, the tier four monster would have carved them all apart, armor or no.


    Amazingly, Mark and Melinda were relatively unscathed. The creature, wily, cunning, had understood that their abilities countered it effectively and it had tried to pick off everyone else first, to isolate them. It had very nearly pulled that off. Speaking of which, Alexander limped over and retrieved his former spear and Ben¡¯s arm. How the warrior was even standing, let alone packing another large man in armor was beyond his ken.


    Melinda drove her estoc into the crystal core of the dungeon about the time he returned to join the bedraggled group.


    The world vanished from his eyes.


    WORTHY! WORTHY! THEY WALK THE PATH! NIGHT¡¯S HOLD FALLS FROM THE DRAGON PULSE!


    Within the space of Gaia¡¯s recognition, Alexander didn¡¯t know what to expect. It was just as well, whatever he might have anticipated, the magma running through his blood and frost on his bones cast aside those vestigial notions. Only a second or two, or a life time, and then gone.


    WORTHY CHILDREN DRINK OF UNTAPPED POTENTIA!


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Class:


    Entropic Venator


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="122">


    Status:


    active


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Soak: 5%


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Mana: 6%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    23(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="65">


    6¡¯4¡±


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    14/21 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    27(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="65">


    174lbs


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    8/9 slash resistance, crippled


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel combat helmet (damaged)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    7/15 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    28(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="65">


    20


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splint mail (damaged)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splint mail (damaged)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    25(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="65">


    Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    17/27 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Golem forged Messer


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    22


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="65">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splint mail (damaged)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    26(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="122">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Outsider)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    12/10 slash resistance, crippled


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    14/20 slash resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    25(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor (damaged)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    17/27 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splinted Leg Armor


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    32(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Highsteel Splint mail


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="533">


    Outsider¡¯s perception, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Warforger, Scholarship, Singular prominence, Fractal mindscape


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="533">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk, Blindside


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="87">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="533">


    Greater entropic aura, Chaos strike, Lesser wyrd edge


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    No ¡°what is thy desire?¡± this time, Alexander noted. The planetary will was, near as he could tell, joyful. Or, maybe, optimistic. A great enemy had been destroyed, a creeping evil that would have, in time, become a plague on the north. Had they failed, Alexander had little doubt that a Vampiric stronghold would have been established, fueled by the tier three humans of Falcon¡¯s Rest. To drink of potential, at least, made sense.


    Within his chest he felt some of that molten energy that seemed to accompany the destruction of a dungeon core, its metaphysical essence akin to a thaumaturgical predation.


    Those energies combined with his and within the mindscape, Alexander Gerifalte felt himself become greater. His stats, those mystical little indicators for his physical and mental abilities, lurched forward by about twenty percent across the board. More in some cases. A new skill came alive in his mind, a new twisting of the rules as he knew them to alter Gaia¡¯s children to better survive in the mesh of worlds that strove against each other.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Blindside: success begets success. Proclivity for attacking from behind, from cover, or against distracted enemies results in greater lethality for culling inattentive foes. Attacks against enemies that fail to see the strike that hits them negates half their Soak and treats the attack as if delivered with twice the applied force.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    As soon as that slight twisting of his being came and had gone, another came, a pulling sensation on his core that he was compelled to witness first hand through its Scroll.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="288">


    Entropic Imbuement ?Lesser Wyrd Edge


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="588">


    Lesser Wyrd Edge: The blades of chaos never truly miss. Shrouding your blade in entropic magic causes the attack to project an entropic phantom of the blade to pass through a blocked or shielded hit with a fifth of the effect as if it had not been guarded. Entropic magic disrupts magical shields, unravels Soak, and leaves behind chaotic remnants of mana that disrupt organized magic in the target area for several minutes.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Once again, the slaying of a dungeon core had transformed Alexander. Inside the timeless pause of his mental space, he couldn¡¯t help but notice that most of the changes seemed geared toward intensely offensive capability. There was an irony to it. Just as he had no defense, no Soak, towards the crazy shit that kept popping up, increasingly, it could have no defense against him. The playing fields were drawing closer to even. Alexander would have spat if he could have. He didn¡¯t want even, he wanted to be ahead. So far ahead that nothing that tried to kill him could ever see his back. The only way forward was to keep walking the path, to cleanse the dungeons that infested Gaia.


    That momentary pause in existence ended, and bodily awareness returned. Unfortunately. He felt like shit. Tired. Beat up. Hurt. Wrung out. But so very alive.


    Raiders all came out of the trance at the same time on this occasion. Blinking owlishly around, most cursing from wounds taken, one nestled in the blessed numbness of unconsciousness.


    Mark scooped the dungeon guardian¡¯s dust into a bag and Melinda pocketed its core.


    A magical gong sounded, causing the ravaged party to assume combat stances. Alexander scanned anxiously, looking for a source to the sound or sign of threat. A second gong rang out. Nothing appeared over the edge of the stair. Nothing descended from the eternal night sky.


    ¡°What exactly the fuck is going on now?¡± Ben asked, pained, exhausted, and generally fed up with this shit.


    A third pervasive gong rang, brassy and full.


    The dungeon heart, a lifeless hunk of grey crystal now, flared one final time and the adventurers were treated to a reality warping twisting sensation, like being turned inside out in four dimensions, and they found themselves standing at the temple entrance through which they¡¯d walked some hours ago.


    On the outside.


    Already, the stones of the structure were cracked, rotting, and it was dissolving into a pile of gravel. Pillars once foreboding had collapsed, their sculpted demons unrecognizable.


    ¡°Woah!¡± Mark exhaled.


    ¡°This dream gets weirder all the time.¡± Melinda accurately summarized Alexander¡¯s former source of fantasia.


    ¡°It can get weirder if it wants to, we need to find Shiv. I think my lung collapsed.¡± Georgia wheezed.


    Ben boomed ¡°Medic!¡± and the gathered expedition exploded into motion, throwing open the big reinforced gate.


    Shiv was kept busy for the next three hours patching up Adventurers, starting with the mangled wreck that was Cervantes. Georgia ended up getting a chest tube to relieve the pneumothorax. She also passed out from a rib fragment that lacerated her spleen, and almost bled out internally until the Flesh Weaver clamped off the arteries feeding the organ. Shiv earned his pay that afternoon. Cervantes, for all that his injuries were a gory mess to behold, was fine once Ben had applied the alchemical wound treatment compound, blood loss aside.


    Alexander¡¯s own blood loss was similarly stemmed and he spent most of those first hours following the dungeon conquest drinking copious volumes of water, eating a hearty meal, and contemplating how his new abilities could best be put to work for the sake of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Testing would be required. For instance, did these new abilities, both the skill Blindside and the arcana Lesser Wyrd Edge apply to the arrows from his bow? He¡¯d have to hunt the Gaia spawned critters that roamed the wilderness to know for certain.


    Watchful observers noted the state of the raid team¡¯s armor, the severity of the injuries sustained, and the grim set to their features. All they said initially was, ¡°It was close.¡± Further discussion could wait until the safety of Falcon¡¯s Rest, a warm bed, and a tankard of something highly alcoholic.


    Brig took one look at them and bitterly complained, ¡°You losers got all the fun.¡±


    The return to home was three days journey. Disturbingly enough, they all heard the howls of werewolves in the distance at times throughout the trip. Gone was the gateway, as the Nosferatu lord of the dungeon had called it. No more werewolves would come hunting from the realm of Nut. Nor would their Dracul handlers be snatching anymore humans to eat, not that they¡¯d had much success in that in the first place. The few scattered towns and hamlets of upstate Maine were empty.


    But the werewolves didn¡¯t need their masters to hunt humans, nor to turn them into more of themselves. Gaia had picked up another predator species to contend with. Who knows how many other similar nightmares roamed the landscape, able to flourish in a world not their own. Invasive species, so to speak.


    That was an unsobering thought, as in, one he needed to save to consider until he was well liquored up, lest it depress him.


    Julia Richards, Major, Brig, and the others kept the critters at bay all the way back home, as if they had something to prove. They didn¡¯t, not in Alexander¡¯s opinion, and not in the opinion of any of them who had ventured into Nut. But they couldn¡¯t talk that lot out of pulling double shifts and relentlessly culling anything that dared to come within Bonny¡¯s hawk¡¯s sight.


    When the phoenix sun cleansed the wounds taken, everybody breathed easier, especially Cervantes, who¡¯d been kept under sedation by Shiv because, while not life threatening, his wounds were heinous and agonizing.


    Dungeon clearing did have its perks, however. Alexander took time to espy each of the members of the raid team, with their permission, of course, he still remembered that mental spike of agony when the vampire guardian had rebuffed his Greater Analyze.


    A thought called first their fearless leader.


    <table>


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Mark Ross


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    Class:


    Incandescent Triarii


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="101">


    Status:


    Fresh, active


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Soak: 60%


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    21(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    5¡¯6¡±


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    34/85 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    22(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    178lbs


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    24/80 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Crested Helm


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    24/80 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    19(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    21


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Vambrace


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Manica


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    20


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    Ruby, ceylon


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Kite Shield


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    40/35 slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Wyrmcinder


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    30


    </td>


    <td width="44">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Cuirass


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    20


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="101">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Ifrit)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    30/86


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    30/86


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    34(+15)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Grieves


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    34/80 slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Grieves


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="110">


    38(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    Dragon Knight Cuirass


    </td>


    <td width="112">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Praetorian, Fire hardened build, Unwavering, Gaia¡¯s child,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Greater firebrand, Bolster, Shield rush,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="546">


    Incendiary counter stance, Heatsink, Flamestrike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Mark had grown substantially. Unlike many others, there had been no sideways upgrades, the man was strictly a more powerful version of his former self. Base stats increased, as they had for all of the raiders, traits upgrading to higher tiers, and at least the standard version of any arcana or skill. The only new thing in his Scroll was a new magic, a spell that could allow him to hurl the flame in his sword at enemies either as a wave of fire from the blade, or, conjuring it into a great fireball that fell from about fifty feet above the ground. Mark was tougher. Meaner. Burnier.


    In contrast to this greater self-expression through reinforcement of what was, Ben had undergone a semi metamorphosis. The stout warrior strode close to the front of the procession, looking like he wanted something to take a crack at in his armor battered by the guardian¡¯s blows.


    The man¡¯s abilities had allowed him to borrow the strength of his armor and held weapon, pulling on the metal to infuse him with far greater physical characteristics. Now though? Well, Alexander recalled the Scroll.


    <table width="630">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Benjamin Grisham


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="83">


    Class:


    Adamantine Knight


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="121">


    Status:


    Fresh, active


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Soak: 55%


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Mana: 100%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    32


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="60">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="78">


    6¡¯3¡±


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    31/85 (slightly damaged) slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    26


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="60">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="78">


    318lbs


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    24/12 (broken) slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    Dragon Knight Great Helm


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    24/90 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    24


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="60">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="78">


    32


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    23


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="60">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="78">


    Cassiterite, navette


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (reforged)


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    33/83 (slightly damaged) slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    27


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="60">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="78">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    19


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="138">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Oread)


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    30/74 (damaged)


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    30/95


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    30(+10)


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    28/33 (damaged) slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    40


    </td>


    <td width="116">


    </td>


    <td width="118">


    Dragon Knight Full Plate


    </td>


    <td width="114">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="7" width="552">


    Memory alloy flesh, Born soldier, Gaia¡¯s child,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="7" width="552">


    Titanic strike, Overpower, Golem install,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="7" width="552">


    Greater adamantine infusion, Blade sharp, Lesser sense metal, Whip sword


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="78"> </td>


    <td width="66"> </td>


    <td width="17"> </td>


    <td width="43"> </td>


    <td width="78"> </td>


    <td width="116"> </td>


    <td width="118"> </td>


    <td width="114"> </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Instead of his abilities refining in the same direction, Ben¡¯s class had evolved. He had gone from a merely powerful man, with bursts of strength and speed, into a juggernaut.


    In its new iteration, it seemed to lean more heavily on manipulation of metal and arcane durability, rather than simply borrowing strength from his armor. Memory alloy flesh, he could heal from blunt force trauma and cuts, his tissues rearranging themselves to their former state, broken bones and muscles welding together. Golem install, which made his already metallic looking skin hard enough to turn a carbon steel knife edge and gave him a brief window where Benjamin could not die unless his core was destroyed, very near immortality for one minute. A metal sensing ability, he said it was like sonar, but better, because he knew what type of metal he was feeling too, somehow. Whip sword, another brand-new magic. The warrior could turn his metal weapon flexible as cord, somehow without losing any of its toughness or sharpness.


    Watching the man use Winter¡¯s breath like a bull whip, blade lashing out to neatly clip a wrist thick pine limb fifteen feet outside its usual range one moment and retract to form the powerfully defensive naginata that it was in the next was one of the more memorable things Alexander had seen in recent memory. It made Ben smile, which was all he really needed to know about it to feel like that was a win for humanity.


    Melinda walked along behind the supply wagon, juggling three orbs of solid light in a standard loop, each one sizzling through underbrush that touched them. Alexander figured they had to be maybe five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. He pulled the Luminous Pathfinder¡¯s Scroll for review.


    <table width="628">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Melinda Berry


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    Class:


    Luminous Pathfinder


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="129">


    Status:


    Fresh, active


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Soak: 20%


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Head


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    Mana: 70%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    15


    </td>


    <td width="55">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    5¡¯3¡±


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Arm


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    23/55 slash/impact resistance


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Arm


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    24


    </td>


    <td width="55">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    118lbs


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    20/52 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    Drake Scale Spangenhelm


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    20/52 slash/pierce resistance


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    26


    </td>


    <td width="55">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    23


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Drake Scale Hauberk


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Chest


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    Drake Scale Hauberk


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    19


    </td>


    <td width="55">


    Core


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Clinohumite, ball


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Winter¡¯s Breath (reforged)


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    28/76 slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    25


    </td>


    <td width="55">


    Origin


    </td>


    <td width="74">


    Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Left Leg


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    Drake Scale Hauberk


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Right Leg


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    17


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" rowspan="3" width="129">


    Sapient Race:


    Human-3<sup>rd</sup> Tier (Ifrit)


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    25/65


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    LifeForce/Armor


    Abdomen


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    25/65


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    18


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    Drake Scale Greaves (Hauberk Tasset)


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    25/72slash/pierce/flame resistance


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    Drake Scale Greaves (Hauberk Tasset)


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="70">


    25


    </td>


    <td width="113">


    </td>


    <td width="142">


    Drake Scale Hauberk


    </td>


    <td width="100">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="554">


    Geopositional awareness, Solar resistant, Flame resistant, Gaia¡¯s child,


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="554">


    Strobing glare, Greater luminous dash, Sunlight infusion


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="74">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="554">


    Hardlight sphere, Greater day globe


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Here was another example of Gaia¡¯s blessing granting an enhancement to what was. Melinda was now fire resistant, in addition to solar resistant, meaning half the damage from a source of fire didn¡¯t affect her, and the remaining had that damage reduced by her Soak. Resistances were considered golden enhancements from their classes or bloodlines. Firstly, they were passive, requiring no expenditure of the core¡¯s reserves. Secondly, they greatly assisted in keeping soft, squishy humans alive.


    Her Day Globe, which had carried the team so hard during their adventure into the night bound dungeon, was even brighter now, and she could also split it into smaller globes, upwards of a dozen of them, and move them independently. It now also had a fascinating form, she could disperse the globe from its focal sphere, forming a homogenous zone of even late afternoon gold, that covered five acres in radius.


    Other abilities had greatly improved, the dungeon core¡¯s injection of magic perhaps favoring she who had so massively contributed to its down fall. Where before, at its lesser form, the light wielding scout could dash short distances, she could now almost teleport in a straight line up to fifty feet through her Greater Luminous Dash. Her eyes, which before could flash blind you like a close-range camera, could now strobe you quite debilitatingly.


    The hard light orbs she juggled were totally new. Alexander had a feeling they would prove a potent addition to a somewhat lacking offensive capability in the woman¡¯s toolkit.


    How or to what extent Gaia granted her children their gifts from the dungeons was still a mystery, but there was most certainly an element of preferential treatment given to those whose contributions were most keenly felt in the claiming of victory over the contested zones.


    Cervantes, despite his potency elsewhere in the dungeon, had only minimally been able to damage the dungeon¡¯s guardian, its regenerative powers, Soak, and agility had proven too resistant to the man¡¯s sonic attacks, and it had put him down too quickly for him to manage much in the way of contribution to its defeat. His class abilities had grown the least of anyone. The tuning fork claymore wielder didn¡¯t complain about unfairness though. There was no point, Gaia and the crystal cores operated according to rules only they understood completely.


    For the first time since his beloved had been murdered, the man found a reason to smile: he had gained two large enhancements to his skills that he had desperately needed, and been trying for through his own training, without success. Gaia¡¯s mysteries threw him a bone.


    Firstly, the sonic pulse from his sword could be directed in a cone now, instead of in a spherical area, concentrating its power and permitting the fighter to both extend his range and to fight in tighter formation with his allies without harming them. Much like Alexander¡¯s own Entropic field, Cervantes had had a problem with friendly fire. The sonic boom he¡¯d cut loose on the Dracul overlord would have concussed any one of his comrades in the raid party had they been close enough to help him. Secondly, he had also acquired echolocation, sonar, and would be capable of ¡°seeing¡± in the dark. Already, the man was murmuring about a visorless full helm that would deprive his foes of being able to see his eyes, to read his intent from the direction of his gaze. It was a not small advantage, to see in conditions where most could not. As, appropriately, Nut had been for the warrior.


    Alexander heard a curse when the blindfolded claymore wielder ran into a third tree and flinched backward into yet another, before stumbling into a briar bounded dry stream bed. It was reason to be cheerful, and the raid team enjoyed a laugh at the man¡¯s expense, before catcalling him directions home, offering him everything but the truth. There was little fear of beasties. What the werewolves hadn¡¯t driven off were being handled by Bonny and crew. Even Alexander could relax under that surveillance.


    Everyone in the expedition to cleanse the dungeon breathed a sigh of relief when the great gothic walls of Falcon¡¯s Rest came into view. Despite hard miles, the group¡¯s pace quickened unconsciously, and they double timed it to stand again beneath the comforting shadow of the protective enclosure.


    Shouts from the battlements above, hearty and welcoming, greeted them, and most of the raid party waved enthusiastically in reply.


    Slowly, counterweighted pulleys lifted the immense portcullis. Weary, caked in the detritus of the many miles they¡¯d traveled, and oh so glad to be home, the strike team made their entrance home.

 Chapter 27: Comings and Goings (End of Book 2)

    Bedlam greeted road worn Adventurers. They had to be pushed from the gate as their support crew entered, and then they too were witness to the shocking scene of over a thousand strangers crawling over the rebuilt town¡¯s streets like ants. Many appeared ragged or underdressed. A fair few were bandaged, which bespoke that they had come within the last thirty hours, because the phoenix sun had risen day before yesterday.


    Slack jawed, Alexander only managed a breathless ¡°What is this?!¡± and preceded to quietly melt down. At some point you reach your limit for what you¡¯re prepared to deal with and finding his tiny town overrun was that limit for the last Gerifalte.


    Cooler heads took charge, and Mark led the raid team into the enclosure. The armored warriors, accompanied by wagons loaded with half empty barrels of supplies and packs containing the spoils of dungeon spawned monsters and the villagers who¡¯d turned out to help, drew as many stares at the strangers in the town as they gave.


    A few outlines jangled memories and Alexander realized that he recognized some of these people, now that he¡¯d gotten over the initial shock.


    They were from Safe Harbor.


    His stomach dropped, because the only reason a thousand people from that town would be here was if something horrifically wrong had driven them from their homes. The two years of struggle scratching something close to comfort from the outskirts of the Belfast hybrid dungeon, clearing the surroundings of monsters, taming the new Gaian landscape, all of it must have come crashing down, somehow.


    Slowly, the train of carts and victorious Adventurers, their exuberant return now muted by the sign of catastrophe that surely had occurred, pushed into Falcon¡¯s Rest. The central town square, where one day Alexander had lured the majority of the aggressive elements of a goblinoid incursion to its doom, held a sort of impromptu field hospital, big canvas tents raised to enclose the wounded who had been hauled from whatever disaster had driven Safe Harbor¡¯s people to flight. The original settlers had posted a detail to keep watch over the Dire bee hive, so a newcomer didn¡¯t accidentally trigger a swarm for some slight toward her gilded majesty the queen, or interfere with the duties of the workers, and the expedition as a whole sighed with relief.


    Alexander noted that many of the Guildies, the Adventurers under contract, were not present. In fact, he saw not one in ten of those who took the guild¡¯s coin in this lot, those he knew. Of the matriculated he knew to be like Getsome and Impervious, companies of freelancers, there were only about half of the Adventurers he would have expected. Their armor and arms told stories of dire struggle, though the children of Gaia bore no scars on their flesh, thanks to her gifts. A gentle shove from behind and a muttered, ¡®March on Feathers, time¡¯s a wastin¡¯ from Ben got his feet moving again.


    Without discussion, the dungeon raiders continued along suddenly busy streets to the only place where business of this gravity could be conducted: The Survivor¡¯s Well.


    Lucy Durnham, absent her customary cloak that covered angelic owl wings that rose high behind her head now for her neglect to keep them low profile, met them at the door.


    ¡°Welcome home folks!¡± She shouted, a warm smile for the returning townsfolk, ignoring by force of will the obvious elephant in the room.


    Eyes from the crowd, not quite used to the modified anatomy of the tier three humans, were drawn to the tavern keeper. Lucy had a magnetic personality and a radiant beauty before the angelic cloak, so Alexander couldn¡¯t blame them their stares.


    She ushered the lot of them inside, taking cloaks, coats, insisting everybody scrape their boots off before entering, and declaring no charge on beer and food, which running joke drew laughs. Alexander appreciated her seemingly effortless way of establishing a calming influence on everyone. He knew he could use some settling down.


    Impervious broke off, finding a table and reuniting its members. Getsome similarly claimed a table.


    Alexander found himself sliding away, standing to one side, hugging a table near a wall, cataloguing the changes in his people since they¡¯d left. For those who had entered the dungeon, a tremendous spurt of growth. For those who hadn¡¯t, but who had joined, minor, yet significant improvements, if only thanks to gaining experience with life in the Green. For the town, he couldn¡¯t even start to put that animal in a cage. The sight of his town, so drastically changed in these last few months now bursting at the seams with semi familiar faces had his thoughts all a whirl. He was left alone, as reunions were taking place, friends and more than that finding each other for the kind of intensely personal whispered exchanges that needed communal privacy. The problem was all the new faces, the unfamiliar voices, many with an edge of trauma marking their features, they were setting him on edge. Gods there were so many. And not enough. What was the toll on Safe Harbor? The butcher¡¯s bill?


    Bustling thoughts verging on panic were interrupted by a swift and technically perfect hip throw that bounced him with intentional gentleness off the hardwood of the onetime church floor.


    *Thwack*


    Annita Nguyen grabbed fistfuls of his ¡°hair¡± and delivered an imperious accusation ¡°You didn¡¯t come find me, Alexander.¡± With a low and level tone.


    He swallowed against the golden irises that peered into his soul.


    ¡°I! We! There was a lot going on!¡± he yelped in defense.


    ¡°Yes. There was. And you let that distract you from coming to find me Alexander.¡± She agreed, threateningly.


    He looked around briefly for aid and saw no succor in the eyes of his neighbors. Traitors! Cowards! He moaned internally at the passive bystanders. Brig saluted, a hand to her eyebrow grinning widely to seal his doom.


    ¡°Look at me, not them Alexander.¡± Instructed Granny, and he did.


    Wearing her gathering ensemble, weeds and leaves still stuck to it in places from the rapidity of her return to town when word of their return came, she had directly homed in on him somehow.


    ¡°But how was I supposed to even know where you were!? You don¡¯t even stay in town half the time!¡± He objected, in a futile hope of reason having some bearing on the situation.


    She looked at him with disappointment and released his head, standing tall, all five feet and a little change of her.


    ¡°That¡¯s not the point, Alexander.¡± He was told.


    Ben was the one whose knife struck truest into his back. The warrior said, ¡°You take him and do whatever needs doing Annita, we¡¯ll fill everybody in tomorrow morning over breakfast.¡±


    That man was himself being shuffled off away from his table, the beer in his hand clutched against the dragging of Dame Sanchez, who had a determined set to her.


    With strength that belied her tiny frame, Annita lifted him and determinedly hauled him out of the tavern, leaving behind its doubtless portentous discussions, with implications both great and dire for the futures of Falcon¡¯s Rest, and humanity at large. She did not let him go until he was locked inside their shared bedroom. She convinced him to stay a while.


    There would be tomorrow to learn of events. One disaster had been averted. One had been completed. Gaia spun on not indifferent to the struggle of her children, but neither able nor willing to spare them the trials that were upon them. It was up to the survivors to blaze a trail toward a future that included humanity, but that would be for tomorrow.


    Tonight, Alexander Gerifalte would hold a woman who cared for him close and show her he cared back. No tomorrows were required for that. Sometime deep into the evening, Brig wandered in from her debrief and joined them, with Annita patting a spot on the bed like it was the most natural thing in the world. Alexander opened his mouth to demand ¡°What gives?!¡± before the wise lizard in his limbic system punched the override button and he shut up.


    Somehow, the tall woman¡¯s presence wasn¡¯t weird. More like a puzzle piece sliding into its proper place. With the picture complete, they passed the witching hours playing games youngsters who glimpsed a Reaper¡¯s cloaked form play when reunited. Once, he tried to crawl away, for water he claimed, and Annita warned him of Consequences before leaving herself to return with a bucket drawn fresh from the creek outside, no clothes ever being donned in the process. Ms. O¡¯Connor was left instructions to ¡°keep the bird busy¡±, which she did with enthusiasm.


    On the morrow, Granny glued to his hip with Brig offering carnal advice that would be illegal in some states and highly frowned on in several others, Alexander learned of the calamity that had claimed Safe Harbor. It was an odd thing to learn of great and terrible events standing over a cast iron stove cooking breakfast for two naked women just previously trading notes on profound fucking, while you yourself wore only an apron to keep the popping bacon off your tenders, but life had gotten sideways on Alexander Gerifalte.


    Orders of business first, the long prepared for revenge against the Guilds would never be, it seemed. Fate had dealt them a different hand. Survivors told the tale of sorrow: the Guilds had reaped what they¡¯d sown, and the riches of the Belfast dungeon had poured forth in a tsunami. Very simply, the hyper dungeon broke.


    Just as the vampire guardian of the dungeon Alexander and company had battled intended for its own domain, the hybrid dungeon cores had reached a critical density of mana and ¡°detonated¡±, expending their gathered, stolen mana, claiming a circle consisting of more than three hundred square miles of coastal Maine. Because it was a hyper dungeon, with several cores involved, the result was a collage of territories. When the Belfast dungeon ¡°broke¡± or permanently transfigured a portion of Gaia¡¯s surface, about a radius from Belfast to Prospect in the north, or to Lincolnville in the south, the Guilds had fought for the survival of the town. They¡¯d lost.


    Three thousand something people in Safe Harbor, ten great Guilds, a few dozen minor ones, nearly all of it was shattered inside of a day. The third of the populace that was able ran, their flight covered by the Adventurers who took the blame for the happening on their shoulders and paid for it with their lives, to save what they could. In a way, the debt to Falcon¡¯s Rest was somewhat squared by that valor, though hard feelings remained in the settlement from those who had lost friends and family to the cowardly ambush.


    Alexander, by his own admission, wasn¡¯t so certain he was entirely ready to move on, something nagged at him over the entire affair. Had it not been that the person who coordinated the hit job was not classed, would not have participated in the defense directly? He waited until the story was told, holding his peace while he was dribbled the details from the coppery haired Oread, in her usual earthy style.


    Brig concluded ¡°So, with the Guilds finding the footlocker that held their balls,¡± ¨C


    ¡°And their brains with them, too late all.¡± Annita growled over her empty plate.


    ¡°Word.¡± The Lancer said, offering a fist for the Forager to pound as she continued, ¡°They put together enough resistance to turn the route into a retreat, with the non Guildies running the escort. There¡¯re survivors trickling in, most of them pretty chewed up and still being chased, but our scouts are dealing with the pests that try to follow the runners. It¡¯s been three or four at a time, a dozen at most for the last couple days, and none at all yesterday. Bonny¡¯s right straight out keeping tabs on the survivors and Major is in a semi coma from keeping himself split up with shadows to run interference with the critters.¡±


    And that was that. Alexander stared sightless taking it in. He reached only one solid conclusion throughout Brig¡¯s report.


    ¡°I¡¯m not cut out for this leader stuff.¡± He announced with certainty, ¡°I quit. I retire. Let Lucy take over. Or Scott, I know he can¡¯t fight, but he knows how to put things together so they work, and that¡¯s people too. I¡¯m not the guy to keep a thousand of us headed in the right direction.¡±


    Granny and Brig nodded, both in agreement and having anticipated his revolt. He¡¯d never wanted to sit in the hot seat in the first place.


    ¡°Ayuh, that¡¯s what we all figured last night in Survivor¡¯s Well. We¡¯re going to let Lucy be mayor, everybody loves her and the boys, and we have ideas for a city council to help make decisions. Impervious and Getsome, we figured we¡¯re better off letting you creep around the woods being a scary bastard than couped up inside tinkering twenty-four seven under guard.¡± Brig answered, accepting his resignation on behalf of the town.


    ¡°Firstly, I am not a scary bastard.¡± Alexander protested.


    He was completely a scary bastard, with soulless looking black sclera glittering green and brown hawk¡¯s irises staring, a nack for getting behind people without being spotted, despite his height, and a mind that skewed toward lawful evil when it came right down to it. A flash of four dead humans crossed his mind¡¯s eye and he grimaced unconsciously at those killings. He¡¯d have done it again, too, and was going to do more up until finding out there was nobody left who needed killing for the crime. But he didn¡¯t like to admit it, so he would deny deny deny.


    ¡°Are so.¡± The women chorused, not playing along with his bullshit, and he hushed them, waving a porridge ladle threateningly.


    ¡°And secondly, good luck to them, they¡¯re going to need all the help all the gods above, below, and in between can dredge up for them.¡± He said, closing the book on that matter.


    He had questions. So many questions. Most of them more like worries that he wanted to turn into problems to solve, but that meant getting more information, which meant even more questions. Where had that hypothesized shadow guild of nonmatriculated gotten to, for starters.


    Brig, familiar enough with the chewing lip and distant look to know he was pondering hard enough to blow a gasket, anticipated one of the issues he¡¯d fixate on. She gave him his answers, spooning more oats into her twice emptied bowl.


    ¡°We found a Law Binder in the refugees and she¡¯s working with some guys to close the loopholes in the Contract. We¡¯re also going to find a wild dungeon and matriculate everybody in the next week, even if we gotta cart their asses in on a stretcher. Nobody gets to be above the law anymore, and nobody gets to sit on the sidelines, that came from a unanimous vote of the old sixty. We assumed your vote, you and Ben were saying that all the way back in Safe Harbor.¡± Brig told him from around her third helping of honied oats.


    A weight fell from his shoulders. What to do about taking care of what amounted to hundreds of invalids was, not precisely solved, but a solution was in the works. It also started to chip away at the problem of what to do about folk not beholden to the Contract, people who could commit murder, if they were smart enough to figure out how to kill tier three humans through their Soak and abilities.


    ¡°Bonny left yesterday with her crew to find us a nice bunny dungeon or three. We figure the mana flow from the dungeon break probably caused more of them to spawn around it. Best anyone can figure, the dungeon cores are kind of like seeds of the other planes, they need to feed on magic to grow, and, when they¡¯ve got enough ¨C¡± Granny informed him, cut off at the end


    Spreading hands with fingers dazzling in a pantomimed explosion followed, Brig¡¯s freckled face screwed up in a goofy puffing whistle.


    ¡°Yeah, that.¡± Granny ended, smirking at the taller woman¡¯s antics.


    Breakfast was good, if he were allowed to brag, and they finished it chatting about less heavy topics. The harvests coming in, townsfolk upgrading their classes as they polished their skills, the weather, of course. He was informed that he was off duty, and Brig as well.


    The raid team was taking R&R, under the advisement of Nathan and Mark, the two most senior party leaders. Even the folk who¡¯d stood guard outside had had to keep sharp, and maintaining that kind of focus for too long led to lapses that could get a guy or gal, even an experienced Adventurer, killed.


    After a slow morning in the now somewhat fuller Lab, as two of its rooms were now occupied by the gear of his¡­girlfriends? No that felt wrong, juvenile. Companions? Too shallow. Conquests! He crowed within the safety of his mind, chuckling a bit as he did.


    Absolutely not. Very clearly in his mind, he knew he had not been the architect of this design.


    In fact, as he sat there poring over an idea brewing since the dire bees had first been ensconced in town, the production of super candles from their incredibly fire-retardant wax, he was starting to think that his circumstances bore the hallmarks of coordination betwixt his lovers. The wax burned brilliantly, shedding copious yellow light, but only under the heat of a torch, a normal wick wouldn¡¯t work.


    Hadn¡¯t it been Brig¡¯s influence that made him aware of Granny romantically in the first place? No, that was Georgia. But, maybe, there¡¯d been some hints dropped, Georgia and Brig were tight. Granny too, now he thought on it. Maybe they¡¯d set this up, strategized out their efforts to nudge his admittedly not socially adept nor particularly difficult to seduce self into a favorable arrangement.


    ¡°Now you¡¯re being paranoid, Little Falcon.¡± He told himself aloud in his study.


    ¡°And a little conceited, if I might add.¡± He noted a second later.


    ¡°Yes, to both.¡± Annita Nguyen confirmed from the doorway, dressed for work in her deceitfully ratty coat and breeches.


    The ragged nature of her pants and coat helped break up her outline in the brush and she tied off local foliage like a form of rapidly improvised Ghillie suit. Alexander¡¯s Broken Silhouette skill did that through aetheric means. Granny said the knowledge of how to do it so cleanly was part of her class¡¯s gift. His skill took a massive amount of concentration, but required no equipment or finagling with his clothing, hers was passive but needed active preparation. Their classes approached the same problem along two very divergent avenues. Verdant Forager was ill-equipped for any kind of combat, but well tooled in avoiding it, using the flora of its surroundings, in theme with its connection to all that grew green. The big titanium kukri she¡¯d conned him into making for her hung easily from her belt, long as her forearm. Alexander knew it was well oiled and razor sharp within its sheathe. Granny Nguyen wouldn¡¯t settle for rough cuts on her stems. Or her monsters, when that became necessary.


    Clearly, she was on her way to either explore outside town for new goodies or to head to her green houses.


    Reading the pages backward from her place, the almond eyes, irises gilded by her dryad blood line, looked up and met his.


    ¡°Dire bee lanterns? What gives, I thought they made wax that was fireproof.¡± She said, confused.


    An odd quirk of the semi magical stuff. It melted. Easily. Just like normal wax. It just didn¡¯t want to become volatile or burn. Once it did though, it was like slow-release thermite, putting off a, to use the technical term, fuck-load of energy, mostly in the form of a bright orange flame larger in proportion to the wick used to light it than a guy with whole eyebrows might suspect. But not a guy with singed ones, that guy knew better. From experience.


    Leaned back in his chair, Alexander frowned and stared at the ceiling, just as he had done half a dozen times since coming up here after breakfast.


    ¡°Yeah. Not really fireproof, an oxy torch lights it just fine. Problem is getting it to stay lit without running the torch or it burning its way through your candle stand. The wick¡¯s gotta burn wicked hot to keep it going, but too much and it takes off, you gotta balance it. Somehow. Candle technology is harder than it looks.¡± Alexander admitted, turning it over again distantly in his head.


    She looked at him and asked, slightly hesitantly, not wanting to sound foolish at mentioning something so obvious, ¡°You tried blending the wax with an accelerant, petroleum jelly or something?¡±


    He flapped a hand pitifully in confirmation answering, ¡°Yup. No dice, the wick either burns up too fast and snuffs itself or there isn¡¯t enough accelerant and the wax won¡¯t reach volatility. I haven¡¯t hit the right balance, if there even is one. And petroleum jelly doesn¡¯t even work that well, its oily, so it blends, but it doesn¡¯t have the firepower to serve the purpose. Really, it¡¯s the wick that¡¯s the issue.¡± He said, keying in on the root of the problem with Direbee candles.


    A small fist popped into her palm and Granny grinned at him, crying ¡°Hey!¡± in sharp short call that echoed in the library.


    The sudden volume and movement caused Alexander to flinch, overbalance backward, and tip himself out of his chair. When he stood next to the desk, dusting himself off and muttering imprecations about Asian hedge witches he found himself greeted by the two fingers in a ¡°V¡± Granny¡¯s superman pose.


    ¡°Oh, no.¡± He moaned.


    She only did this when she was about to take the piss out of him.


    ¡°Come with me, Alexander. I think we¡¯re due a date in my greenhouse. And you¡¯re about to need to start figuring out even more refined ways to worship my greatness.¡± Granny ordered.


    ¡°Yes, Great Master! Of course!¡± Alexander acquiesced with false enthusiasm.


    Putting it off was only going to cause him trouble later. Besides, he was done drumming his head against the wall with the damned beeswax. For all her oddness, Annita Nguyen was sharp. She probably knew something about his problem he didn¡¯t. That victory pose was reserved for when she had a sure thing. And she was going to milk it for all it was worth, he was certain.


    Outside, clear strong sunlight bathed Falcon¡¯s Rest and it teemed with peoples, most hard at work repairing or rebuilding a dwelling under the supervision of the original colonists of the town. Potter and his apprentices were working their asses off, flitting around like humming birds to poke around making certain things were getting done right. He would take it personally if a house had to burn much more than a wheel barrow load of wood in deepest winter for failure of the place to hold heat.


    Faces set in labor, sweat dripping, took their orders and put their backs into it. Many of them slightly familiar, like faces recognized at the grocery store, even if you¡¯d never swapped names or held a single conversation. Shared amongst some of the refugees was the same slightly wide-eyed gaze of those who¡¯d been through a terrible trauma. Again. They¡¯d just had a taste of what the wilds offered and weren¡¯t keen on any more nights outside with monsters on their asses.


    Most of the people who¡¯d escaped Safe Harbor either hadn¡¯t matriculated, or, if they had, they hadn¡¯t participated in the dungeon runs and Adventurer life. They¡¯d lived as noncombatants, protected behind the walls of the city. That was fine, Alexander knew not everybody was cut out for the bloody stuff. But they were in for a rude awakening if they thought they were going to be treated like kids up here.


    Time to grow up and get your hands dirty, he thought, staccatos of hammers working, shouts, grunts, and the general din of hard work underscoring his assertion. Dirty hands¡­the nagging whisper in his head was silenced by their arrival at the greenhouse Granny had commissioned for the Muspelheim flora she¡¯d gathered before their close call with the dragon. Stepping into the glass building was like walking into an oven.


    ¡°Whew!¡± He huffed, not liking at all the heavy heat.


    ¡°You bet! Now you know why I got to take a bath after doing my rotation in here. Like a sauna, my knickers are soaked if I¡¯m here even five minutes.¡± Granny replied.


    One of the reasons for the heat was quite obvious: a woody vined plant like a rose, black, almost charred looking stems woven through a metal wire trellis. Flowers bloomed, but where they should have had petals there were living flames, blue with heat. Flowers made of azure fire, like burning sulfur. How appropriate for a realm of volcanism. And how utterly alien to see here on Gaia.


    Granny went to the furnace rose and grabbed a pair of light tongs and a set of heavy shears. With practiced ease, she held a blossom with the tongs and cut the flower from the stem. Over the course of a minute the fire¡¯s flicker slowed, dimmed, and it congealed into petals, still vaguely shaped like tongues of flame. Wild. Magical.


    ¡°They bloomed a few days ago.¡± He was informed by a still gloating Granny.


    ¡°I¡¯m the only chick on this whole great big rock awesome enough to be cultivating torch flowers.¡± She swaggered.


    Alexander found no way to disagree with her. She must have used her class¡¯s abilities to get the plants from a different realm to take root. It was pretty impressive. Not that he was going to let on, whatever the tiny harvester had cooked up, she was already going to be lording it over him.


    When the last of the heat shimmer disappeared from the blossom in her tongs, she took it and handed it to him for the honors.


    Without a word he took the smallest bite of the petal and nearly gagged from molten spiciness that assaulted the back of his throat, a burn that made a chocolate primotali jealous. After a few choking coughs, he pulled up the relevant information from its mystical scroll of Gaian nonsense.


    <table style="width: 63.7693%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="588">


    Prometheus Rose Blossom: petals of congealed flame, grown from the rich thermal magic of a Muspelheim dungeon core bear their native plane¡¯s properties in flavor and property. Extracts from these petals will slowly increase in temperature unless properly insulated before spontaneously combusting in a violent burn. Syrupy extract oil acts as a vicious oxidizer at combustion temperature.


    Caution! Volatile at room temperature and prone to autoignition.


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    ¡°Wonderful! It¡¯ll just set itself on fire and burn the whole goddamn place down with it!¡± He remarked, mostly to himself.


    How did Granny know it¡¯d be useful to his problem? Unless¡­


    ¡°Granny Nguyen, you sneaky witch! You got an analysis skill, didn¡¯t you?!¡± He accused, both overjoyed and put out.


    Having the ability to decipher the properties and uses of the metaphysical and sometimes not obvious properties of this new world was a god send. Greater Analyze was surpassingly rare and Alexander would be infinitely grateful to be done having to sample and compile notes about every last goddamned thing.


    Smugness radiated from the tiny woman and she brushed her shoulders, flicking away the dust of the undeserving masses.


    ¡°I¡¯m now fully capable to start brewing alchemical wonders that will make you and Saki green with envy. Granted, only with the plants, mosses, roots, fruits, or herbs with which I am familiar, or their derivatives. But yes. Verdant Forager is expanding. I think it might be close to changing, I feel¡­pressure, like my skin¡¯s too tight sometimes.¡±


    That was terribly exciting. They knew class abilities expanded through practice, Alexanders had done so on a couple of occasions, but it looked like Annita¡¯s industrious application of her skills was pushing the boundaries.


    ¡°Okay, the Promethius Roses here might help our wax burn, but that doesn¡¯t do anything about the wicks.¡± Alexander reminded the preening harvester, trying not to smile along with her.


    He had walked right into her trap.


    ¡°Behold!¡± She crowed in a rich tone, pulling a strip of woven bark rope from a counter top and flailing it at him.


    ¡°Ahuh, it¡¯s a very nice piece of black string. Very stringy. Just look at it, in all its burlapy glory.¡± Alexander sassed drily, unknowing of what was special about a fuzzy bark string.


    ¡°And you wouldn¡¯t have possibly conspired with Brigitte O¡¯Connor to pass me between you like some kind of sex bong right?¡± He inquired as a follow up, because he had no intellectual reason not to just ask and not social grace to know he shouldn¡¯t.


    ¡°I was playing with the sap, it¡¯s basically the same as the petals, but thicker and won¡¯t evaporate, so I don¡¯t think it¡¯s as good as the petals. And we did, Brig caught feels and I couldn¡¯t watch her do the unrequited lover dance, you¡¯re mine, and also hers, it¡¯s cool for us if it¡¯s cool for you.¡± Granny narrated, savoring this moment, ¡°But! Smoking hot banging and cuddles most affectionate aside, just look at this little beauty! The dried stems have these long, fine fibers so I tinkered around with making them into strings for hanging this other Muspelheim cactus fruit that has, like, lava inside it or something. And, what do you think I found, eh, Alexander von Bismark?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m not the president, or mayor, or whatever anymore, remember?¡± He rebutted, hoping to at least put those jokes behind him.


    With flamboyant yet graceful gestures, Granny positioned the crudely woven short length of rope, its charcoal black fibers fraying, over one of the flowers of radiant blue flame. Nothing happened for several seconds. At the point of giving her a taste of some more sarcasm, Annita Nguyen¡¯s glory was at hand, the fine filaments of bark rope lit with magnesium intensity white incandescence, throwing harsh relief shadows against the walls of the greenhouse.


    Alexander had to turn his head aside, the painful spikes of light digging at his eyes.


    ¡°Damn! Warn a guy!¡± He groused, and rubbed his orbs, the sunspots dancing in his vision.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Just like the menage a trois, Granny liked springing surprises on him to watch him jump. Well, joke¡¯s on her! He was down to clown with two most awesome specimens of tier three humanity, and he didn¡¯t give a damn who knew it.


    She pulled the fibrous rope from the heat source and the piercing glow faded, faint whisps of smoke coming from the burned white tips of the string.


    ¡°Accelerant? Check. Wick? Double check. I¡¯m the solution to all your problems, pretty boy!¡± Granny said.


    Chest thrown back, legs spread apart with one hand on hip, Granny pushed a victory sign toward him again and declared ¡°Granny Nguyen wins again!¡±


    He bowed his head in defeat and endured the princess laugh, ¡°Hoh! Hoh! Hoh! Now walk your goddess back to her rooms and give her a back rub! With feeling, my towering worshipper!¡±


    Brig came in later that afternoon and together, with Granny napping on the couch, they made a set of molds to pour wax/fire petal extract candles with their dried rose stem fiber wicks. When the wax cooled it locked the extract into itself, no autoignition. They were seemingly made to be used together, Alexander thought. Or, maybe, candle technology was just vaster than he had given it credit for.


    ¡°I heard I¡¯m property now,¡± Alexander said while they worked, ¡°Some kind of matriarch cabal involved in keeping me tied to the town forever.¡±


    Brigitte O¡¯Connor side eyed the dark-haired man a few years her junior and wondered how much he was fishing and how much he¡¯d weedled out of Granny. That twisty brain, less surprisingly tied to the unfathomable Outsiders than he ever admitted, probably was putting two and two together to make five, but he surprised folk all the time seeing shit they really thought they¡¯d hidden. Soon enough she decided that there wasn¡¯t any reason to hold back. Clearly, he was on board, their late-night romps and a fandamntastic breakfast were proof enough of that.


    ¡°Eh,¡± She wagged a hand back and forth, ¡°More like I caught feels and realized it when you lot piled out of the dungeon looking like you tried to fuck a wood chipper. Heart seized like I don¡¯t remember happening before, and my guts got all tight. Decided there wasn¡¯t any point beating around the bush, got Bonny to pass a message to Annita and she said we¡¯d give it a try. She¡¯s a big¡¯ol softie is that witch.¡±


    ¡°Shotgun meat in the sandwich.¡± Was Alexander¡¯s reply, already thinking ahead.


    He¡¯d never suffer blanket exile that way. Brig scowled at him when she realized his intent but yielded to the rite of Shotgun and they continued crafting in companionable silence.


    A big paper lantern made from stiff steel wire and cardstock enshrouded the smooth cylinder of composite wax. A fluffy tuft of hastily braided string that had surely absorbed some of the wax and extract while it was in liquid phase stood proud. Alexander lit the wick with an oxytorch and turned his head aside in anticipation of the flare of light. A white flash behind his eyelids was replaced by a soft, yet insistent, orange glow.


    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll be!¡± praised the Amazon red head, a wide smile at the substantial glow casting shadows in the kitchen of his, now their, Lab, which was he supposed, was now a home, rather than a laboratory.


    He¡¯d hesitated to call the place home, given that the place he¡¯d grown up was just a little ways away, not a quarter mile. That hesitation was born from attachment to the past, and to the two statues of beloved people who had, until recently, occupied the upstairs where he¡¯d left them so long ago. No point holding back now, though. This was the now. His parents lie somewhere in the future, if ever, and he had to keep moving himself or miss out on what this wild life had to offer.


    Four days after that, on into the evening, Alexander piddled around his workshop, laying plans. Sketching out ideas for how to make use of the new Direbee candles, the pyromaniac flowers, and more. He had all kinds of things laying around from hunting dungeons and dealing with Gaia¡¯s own brand of fun. Now seemed a good time to get around to making himself a new set of weapons, his spear was Ben¡¯s now, and his knife was shattered. He was out of Golem High Steel too, and most of the silver. But there were still things available. Dragon bone. The Reaper¡¯s scythe, stashed away all those years ago. Skin Peeler knives. All sorts of things¡­


    Bonny exploded through his door, arms full of a slime covered scaled thing that looked like a bat had sexed up an alligator and she hollered ¡°I hatched a dragon from the core! It¡¯s bonded, I¡¯m a Chimeral Sovran! She¡¯s adorable!¡± and fled giggling madly with a chirping hatchling clutched in her arms. He blinked rapidly a few times, trying to force the ebullient tirade to register and then laid down his pencil and compass, the schematic abandoned. Then he helped empty some ale kegs with the lads and ladies at Survivor¡¯s Well, which was over capacity, and whose patrons included a good many newcomers who learned quickly by observing that it was good and proper to pat the bar top and say ¡°thanks¡± before you ordered. Thanks to the ones who¡¯d gone before. Thanks to those who were still there at your side, working to make a life in this transformed world.


    Another week gone by in a flash, Bonny Richards, along with the scouts, had found a couple of field dungeons up toward Millinocket, by the lakes. Farther south, back near the hyper break, they found even more dungeon cores about twenty miles outside of Safe Harbor, damned near the first ones they¡¯d cleared on leaving the city. The dragon pulse flowed strongly in those places, it would seem. Muspelheim had not formed a new core on Verona island, unfortunately, but there was reason to believe it would, in time. Still, two other cores were located within the week. With her hawk, the dragon hatchling too young to fly and therefore following her like a reptilian German shepherd puppy, the Chimeric Sovran led trains of heavily guarded Normals to be matriculated into Gaia¡¯s struggle.


    Things happened quickly after that. Mostly taken care of without his need to make decisions, just jobs for the last Garifalte to complete. Thank all the gods above, below, and in between for that. By the time Alexander had figured out, mostly thanks to aid from a wonderful lady who used to make candles for a side hustle, how to get enough lanterns to light up the streets of Falcon¡¯s Rest and shed the dark of night, the refugees now filling the walls of the town had been run through the dungeons to matriculate.


    Each was brought to Alexander Gerifalte for a Greater Analyze, and their Scroll recorded for posterity in the book of citizens kept by Lucy, who was the leader of a council of twelve rotating citizens of the town to make decisions that would then go up for a referendum. Not a perfect system of governance, by any stretch, but that, just like the new steel coins minted by Jules Reynolds to take the place of a common currency, was also progress.


    Each was then put under sway of the Contract, revised with a couple of new rules


    Bring no harm to one who has rendered you aid and comfort under their roof, or from whom you have taken food or drink, under pain of death or exile.


    Very fae language, but, since everyone in the town had accepted the aid and comfort from the initial townsfolk, and traditional bean suppahs were prepared as potluck affairs to which nearly everyone contributed, the new law was damned near inviolable for bringing harm against your neighbor. The final law would have made an economist proud.


    No man may intentionally destroy, modify, or counterfeit currency under pain of death or exile nor aid or abet one who does.


    Thusly shielded from the most obvious forms of chicanery, should some unworthy be tempted, the town economy of shared labor, barter, traded favors, and general community service yielded way to a more traditional environment. It was good, Alexander knew, but he had liked living in a world where money had no value, only people. At least nobody had thought to try to resurrect credit cards, he was going to be forced to arrange for a monster to find its way to the person¡¯s bedroom who tried that.


    It took time, most of the summer, but the refugees stopped being refugees and started being accepted as citizens of the town. Soon enough they became neighbors. Friends. One of Us. Before the first frost that autumn, the only real separation between the original sixty odd settlers who had joined Alexander¡¯s pilgrimage and or banishment, depending on how you wanted to look at it, was that the original settlers of Falcon¡¯s Rest were all tier three humans, while the newcomers were tier two.


    There was not enough of the catalytic Red Wyrmling¡¯s blood to push everyone through to the blood line awakening. At about three ounces per person, the volume of a double shot, and three quart or thirty-two ounce mason jars left, they could only boost eleven people per jar. Soon, twenty-two additional tier threes joined the awoken, split evenly across genders, with one jar in reserve in case they needed its alchemically potent powers.


    Just as well, it had taken nearly one complete Calander year following the advance to tier three, but on the winter solstice the female members of the original crew experienced their first ovulation since the pulse. They had gotten an unbidden blue scroll indicator.


    He was at home when it happened cooking for Brig and Granny. The both of them were upstairs in a copper wash tub steaming after some particularly grungy field work, Annita with her magic gardens, Brigitte driving off some marauding werewolves trying to pick off gatherers in the nearby woods. It would be nice to see children again, Alexander thought, when the announcement from the ladies went up.


    ¡°Alexander, you get up here and give me a baby, and I mean right this instant Mister!¡± Granny Nguyen shouted at him from upstairs, just a few short seconds after the fortuitous announcement.


    Clangor of the utensil dropped from numb fingers went unnoticed and a sensation not entirely unalike mortal terror shot through Alexander, climbing his spinal cord.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but what did you say?!¡± He asked, his voice slightly higher pitched than hers had been.


    A slop of water sounded, followed by the heavy thud of rapid footsteps, and Granny appeared in the stairwell dripping water from her nude figure, her finger unerringly aimed center mass at him, and Vietnamese maternal femininity commanded greater obedience than a Roman Emperor when she yelled, ¡°Here! Baby! Now!¡±


    Thus compelled, he ascended the stairs like a man going to the gallows. When he arrived in the bedroom, Annita was splayed out on the bed with a heated stare, a grin, and both hands pointing to her nethers.


    ¡°It¡¯s nakey time Alexander.¡± She told him, and he complied woodenly, shedding his clothes.


    From the side, Brig opted out of parenthood with the grace and tact that he had come to expect and love from the towering Amazon.


    ¡°Give her my share too, I got beasties to reap, and miles of asses to kick before I sleep. But I¡¯m gonna watch, to make sure you do it right, and if we dance, it¡¯s birth control hole!¡± the coppery haired beauty called, and she swatted him on the rump on his way to do his duty.


    Time vanished.


    General consensus was that tier three humans now had a seventy-two hour mating season characterized by intense lust that ramped on the first day into the second. Pheromones got so thick even the tier two humans experienced the wildness, even though, by the rules of the new pseudo biology of Gaia, they were too immature to breed. It was the womenfolk of Falcon¡¯s Rest who called the shots for that rampant period.


    Half got themselves knocked up, deciding that they wanted to start families. Nobody knew what gestation was going to be like, but Alexander figured it wouldn¡¯t be shorter than before. He had almost a year until the dadhood bomb went off, it was fine. Problems for future Alexander.


    The other half of the lady folk decided to wait, not being specifically ready to bring new humans into the world. Or those like Brig, who refused to come off the front lines long enough to welp a babe. Someday. Just not yet.


    Just as well, the loss of so many experienced matriculated had put the people of the far north with their backs to the wall. Dungeon hunts were ongoing, but, by the first snows, most of the nearby cores were gone, conquered, and consigned to the aether by Gaia¡¯s WORTHY. Alexander abstained from these, it was important to speed up the advancement of the others. Not everyone was willing or able to fight. Some, like Scott, while technically able, just didn¡¯t have it in them. Others, like Annita, didn¡¯t have a class suited for it, combat wasn¡¯t their nature, even if they could force themselves to it. Alexander was made to destroy monsters, it was what he¡¯d asked for all those months ago, when he¡¯d christened himself on a dungeon core¡¯s death. Monster hunting came natural to him, even more than tinkering in his workshop. Which made it his responsibility to see the folk in Falcon¡¯s Rest protected from things that would prey on them. Annita¡¯s conception of a child, his child, their child, made that an imperative. Alexander was a serious young man, and took seriously his responsibilities.


    That is why he was, at this current moment, stalking the streets at night, around ten thirty by his best reckoning, a time not by accident. He had an appointment, so to speak. One last thing, a loose end to singe to close up the stitches perfectly.


    Cold winds blew and a Nor¡¯easter¡¯s trailing edges left flakes sporadically falling sometime just past the new year, the third winter since the Pulse. Alexander¡¯s coat shed the wind, as did the wool underthings, clothing in layers that anybody who¡¯d experienced real winter learned to adopt to stay warm when it got frigid. His boots left footprints in the fresh snow on the streets, but made no sound. He¡¯d just last week pushed Stalk to Greater Stalk, by studious application of his abilities against a dangerous prey. He moved like a ghost now, when he wanted to.


    Tonight, he wanted to.


    Warm lights from lit lanterns, kept trimmed and replaced as necessary by a duty as Lantern Keeper of Falcon¡¯s Rest, currently the title held by Kevin ¡°Major¡± Meijer, who could send duplicated shadows running through the town to check the status of the candles while his body sat in the warmth of his house, or a nice chair next to one of the fireplaces in the new tavern recently opened by competitors to Alvin and Thomas¡¯ devil juice manufacture. The new place was run by a Vintner class. More specialized than the men, she was only capable of the synthesis of fruit fermented beverages. They were potent and potable however, and she was cranking out barrels of the stuff. In the interest of fairness, Thomas aged her a few barrels to get her started. Then they competed as diligently as possible to keep the townsfolk well sauced.


    Not for him though the ciders of Alice¡¯s Wonderland nor the heady ales of Survivor¡¯s Well. Tonight he had some business. Not business, he supposed, letting his eyes inscribe the image of the town he knew so well now into the back of his mind, all the details clicked into place against the mental map that lived there. More like a debt to repay. Somebody owed for Kim Summers. For Hilde Baumgartner. For David Grosse and Dan Price, and all the folk who¡¯d loved them, somebody owed. It had taken him a long time to work it out. Probably too long, but he wasn¡¯t a naturally vindictive person, although he was catching on fast.


    Somebody gave the orders. Somebody who hadn¡¯t been limited by the Contract had been running the clandestine organization that sat behind the Guilds, somebody who had been able to hide a small number of matriculated from the Law, to make those murders happen. The more people knew a secret the less likely it was kept.


    Alexander sat down with Ben and Dr. Patel, one who¡¯d known and dealt with killers, some of them his own comrades, and the other a professional mind reader, even before her supernatural abilities manifested. There was a temptation to simply have the good doctor read all the people in town, but that was a line nobody wanted to cross, Dr. Patel herself leading that charge. For one thing, she told him it was a good way to get hanged by a mob when he asked her what she thought about the idea. She had a point there. So, they talked. And he learned.


    It came down to ego. The one thing all psychopaths had in common was they were incredibly self-interested, and, mostly, with egos that reflected that self-interest. The smart ones, the effective ones, they figured out how to blend in.


    Alexander had done some reading. Criminal psychology. Not from his Old Man¡¯s library, but from the stuff brought from Safe Harbor by an Archivist class, middle aged man named John Ellington that everybody called The Giver, after that sad old story. Blessed by his class, he now had a perfect memory, did The Giver, for anything he read. So, he read everything he could and wrote it down so that as little could be lost as he could manage. A scribe classed lady was helping him now with the project, she could write four different texts simultaneously with telekinetically controlled fountain pens, somehow. Must have four brains or something. Whatever the case, he¡¯d had a treatise or two on what drove criminality and had provided Alexander the copies he¡¯d asked for.


    It took almost two months of diligence to narrow the field. To follow the trail of his quarry to its den. At the turn of the year, the Entropic Venator had as close to definitive proof as a man was going to get in this world and decided on his target¡¯s name: Gary Lee Harvard.


    Mr. Harvard ticked all the boxes. Jovial, but not known for having a good sense of humor. Always smiling was Gary, but somehow never laughing. Frequently in the company of others, but, mostly, only people Alexander had categorized as weak willed or tame. The kind of folk Brig liked to prod for laughs and who he made very nervous when he was around, for reasons he didn¡¯t understand. It was fine, it takes a village, but he preferred now the Bens and Brigs of the world for his company. Gary had lovers, men and women both, but no one steady. The men had been Guildies, and had perished in defense of Safe Harbor. None of the women he¡¯d interviewed had anything particularly warm to say about him, they suggested he was either a completely selfish lover or going through the motions. Nothing proof positive, but moving in the right direction.


    Other signs that had been suggestive was that, when he¡¯d matriculated, he''d drawn a class called Bloodless Butcher. It was sort of like the opposite of Shiv. Instead of weaving things back together, Mr. Harvard¡¯s magic unwove them. Very nasty stuff. And the guy had taken to it like a duck to water. In fact, he was one of the more promising prospects for an Adventure party.


    A shame that, and Alexander shook his head, turning a corner instinctively, sort of like driving a commute done hundreds of times and not remembering the trip.


    The class, while not directly itself anything remarkable, was telling for what it said about the man. Your class, bequeathed by Gaia, the will of the awakened planet itself, knew you better than you ever would yourself. Your soul was laid bare to the consciousness of the Earth and when it integrated your core with its mana flow and made you WORTHY there were some things an observant person might learn about your nature. Alexander had seen everybody in the city. A man who killed without blood, butchering them like so much meat, spoke volumes to a man with a class that decreed them Venator. A hunter. His prey ran. It fought. And, when it died, you and it shared something intimate, never to be shared again. A transfer of life force. A butcher only dealt with dead meat, without passion, without feeling. Not conclusive. Just veeeeery suggestive.


    Which had led to another check box.


    When the dungeon break that killed Safe Harbor occurred, some folk had panicked. Completely come undone, had to be herded like sheep to get out of there alive. A few had responded with total calm, most of them non-Guild Adventurer¡¯s or the pros who¡¯d earned their tenures with the Guilds through competence and had the experience. But there was an outlier in that data.


    Alexander was a regular in the bar this month past. Part of that was because he was growing more comfortable in his skin as he got older. Part of it was to conduct interviews with the refugees while their memories were still reliable on the events of that awful day when the city fell. Casual chats over beer or wine or card games or some such social lubricants, harmless conversations he managed to eventually turn to getting their personal story of the dungeon break, assisted sometimes with the brews Alvin toyed with that were spiked with the pure stuff, not his watered-down liquor. He¡¯d gotten the okay on that from Lucy first, the old crew knew what potential for anarchy came from indulging her boys¡¯ experiments.


    Tier three bodies intaking the unadulterated stuff Alvin and Thomas made wound up black out drunk. Tier two¡¯s would tell you anything you wanted to know for fifteen minutes until they passed out, remembering nothing, but waking with a two day hangover. It was like administering barbituates, the stuff just ran over central nervous systems in lower tier humans. He wasn¡¯t going to make Dr. Patel do mind bending, but he wasn¡¯t above letting folk make bad decisions, especially when he was reciprocating them. Alvin and Thomas wore shit eating grins every time some brave fool ordered a shot of Goodnight, neat, and he had to join them because he¡¯d sort of goaded them into it so he could extract their tales, with as few filters or inhibitions as possible.


    The hangovers were worth it.


    Everybody he spoke to who recalled seeing Gary Lee Harvard cool as a cucumber on the day of the fall. No, he wasn¡¯t an Adventurer, but, yes, he did always seem to be around them. No, he didn¡¯t leave the city, he was a messenger for the Guilds, always coming and going. He was a hell of a gambler, was Gary, not afraid to bluff on the all in, no nerves at all to call the pot. Come to think of it, didn¡¯t he manage to get out of the city with a huge mess of supplies? Pretty lucky eh? And not a drop of sweat on the guy, very calm, very composed. Hell, you might even say he¡¯d been enjoying himself when most folk were shitting themselves with terror. Fear don¡¯t touch old Gary Lee, no sir. It was too much to be coincidence.


    Psychopaths don¡¯t feel the way normal people do. Like a big velvet blanket covered over their emotions. Fear turned into excitement for most of them, they enjoyed the risk taking, relished it. Danger was one of the only things that actually let them feel something. The more Alexander learned about Gary Lee Harvard, the more certain he was. And, tonight he¡¯d made his decision.


    One more turn of a corner, down a narrow alley between a leather working shop, and a bakery, the ovens cold now at this time of night. Alexander didn¡¯t need the high gibbous moon to see but he did appreciate its silver sheen aesthetic.


    Right on time. Very punctual guy was Mr. Harvard. The outline of the man that had become familiar to him as he¡¯d kept increasingly close watch on his prey appeared at the other end of the alley. This was the cut through he liked to take on his way home from a Wednesday night poker game. Grey-blue eyes looked past Alexander, they were just two semi strangers come passing in the night.


    ¡°What a night, huh?¡± the last Gerifalte called in greeting, nearly cheerful.


    He was glad to get this over with. Some wounds had to be lanced to heal correctly.


    ¡°Yeah, sure. Nice night. Barely even cold, but I hear that¡¯s coming.¡± Rejoined Mr. Harvard, not slowing on his way home.


    It was a common thing to fill conversational space, speaking of the weather around Mainers. They¡¯d go on for hours about it, fill out a farmer¡¯s almanac from the last five years from memory if you let them. Also, an incredibly vital cover to learn for a serial killer wanting to blend in and completely unable to appreciate the sublime beauty of a January night lit by a near full moon.


    ¡°Hey, Gary, what were you doing this night last year?¡± Alexander asked, his disturbing gaze used deliberately now, sinister eyes locked onto the face of the man who had not a single real friend, and who did not love a single thing outside himself, perhaps did not even recognize that there were actual people outside of himself.


    The question had come from left field and, in that brief moment of surprise, the face revealed everything Alexander needed to know. Because, this night last year, Gary Lee Harvard, to maintain a grip on the seat of power built on a radical plan to farm dungeons that grew more and more dangerous as they were left unchecked, and proportionally more prosperous, ordered humans to murder other humans. A week from that day, the assassins he¡¯d sent would come through an open gate and kill Alexander¡¯s friends and neighbors. Within that same year, the dungeon cores, ripe with Gaia¡¯s mana and completely unimpeded by regular cullings of their spawn, would burst and pour the spawn of eldritch worlds over the walls of Safe Harbor, killing two thousand and change of the last remnants of humanity. All because of Gary, and men who¡¯d followed his lead.


    Alexander saw. And Mr. Harvard saw that he saw.


    ¡°Why did you do it? There are so few of us left, but we had the Contract, we had civilization. Me and my friends did what the Guilds should have. So why did you fuck it all up letting the dungeons break?¡± Alexander asked, voice pitched low, needing to know.


    ¡°It was mine, all of it. You took from me, so you had to pay.¡± Came the answer, detached from emotion, ¡°I was going to be rich. I could have had it all, and I could have had even more. I gambled on the dungeons, and the turn burned me. Too bad, it cost me the Guilds to buy time to get out. But I have new deck, so why not play another hand?¡±


    Gary jerked a broad razor-edged chopper of a cleaver from his belt and summoned the powers that Gaia gifted her children to survive in this awakened land, the strength to walk the path, quick stepping to eliminate the one that had pierced his veil of subterfuge. But Gary was only matriculated twelve weeks ago, and had faced no real test of skill or developed his talents, outside those of the manipulator, the murderer by proxy. Alexander was in the fullness of his gifts and had faced down worse monsters than Gary, if none as revolting.


    Without pulling his knife, he batted aside the slow chop for his jugular, flashed his Greater Entropic Aura to destroy the man¡¯s Soak, as well as unraveling the strands of magic meant to vivisect him, and only then, faster than Gary Lee Harvard could follow, casually put a Fairborn Sykes style dagger into Gary¡¯s chest, its metal infused with chaos magic.


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    Blindside


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    Baleful Smite


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    Gary Lee Harvard, Bloodless Butcher, and oh how ironic that class was for the deeds he¡¯d done, never saw the blow that killed him and died essentially instantly, with very little pain. It was not in Alexander¡¯s nature to cause unnecessary hurt. Not even to monsters. All that mattered was that they didn¡¯t live to hurt anybody else. Not even after what this poor broken souled creature did to his people.


    By the laws of the Contract, Gary Lee Harvard was a threat to humanity, and so were any who had aided him or those of the Guilds who had embarked on their misguided effort to farm the dungeons. Alexander was obligated to slay this man, by the laws he''d sworn to obey, under pain of death or exile. The satisfaction of seeing the man who¡¯d given the orders that resulted in Kim¡¯s murder dead at his feet had nothing to do with the law.


    Whoever said revenge wouldn¡¯t make you feel better was a spineless fuck, Alexander decided, as he hauled the corpse by its pant leg to hang from the lamp post in the town square, that same square he¡¯d once firebombed the Goblin King.


    Using the dead man¡¯s belt, he tied him off and left him for the dawn. He¡¯d told Mayor Durnham and his closest confidantes what he intended two months ago, when his suspicions that the man responsible for the shadow Guild had not died when Safe Harbor fell. A nagging suspicion, more a hunch, had increasingly led to the belief that whoever had exerted so much influence they could arrange the attack would almost certainly have made arrangements for their Normal self to blend with the evacuees. Getsome and Impervious, Scott Kaczynski, Dr. Patel, and his Engineers party, all agreed that it was possible. Nathan and Mark, backed by the two Adventurer parties, and the rest of the two dozen or so that led most aspects of Falcon¡¯s Rest declared that Alexander was best suited for the job, by class and inclination, of rooting them out.


    The last Gerifalte did not disagree, or even pretend to be bothered by that assessment. He was what he was, and he would have felt compelled to search for answers regardless of who they chose, or never know peace again. Not with a child on the way, certainly. That had roused all sorts of hidden instincts towards ridding his environment of whackos, creepers, and potential horrors from the contested zones.


    Had he found no substantial evidence, the matter would be put to rest. Alexander could sleep full nights again, knowing that he¡¯d done what he could to honor his murdered comrades and to keep his people safe. But the evidence was there to be found. Justice was done. Frontier justice, absent a court of law, but that was about the best you were going to get for now.


    Question was, could he do it again? Another Gary Lee might crop up, and what if they weren¡¯t so confident in their megalomania that they didn¡¯t own up to it? Alexander paused on a lamp lit street with the cold on his cheeks to think on that.


    No, he¡¯d have killed Gary tonight, even if the sonofabitch hadn¡¯t confessed. He wouldn¡¯t have struck if he hadn¡¯t been certain. How certain?


    Another time, maybe he would be wrong. It was possible. Unlikely, Alexander was nothing if not thorough in his research, but it was not impossible he would make a mistake. That was a thing that hurt him to contemplate, killing an innocent. So don¡¯t make mistakes. If he killed an innocent, he¡¯d turn himself in to face execution. He could live with that. But he couldn¡¯t do nothing. His children¡¯s lives would hang in the balance if a creature like Mr. Harvard were allowed to live to rebuild his den, to fester like a diseased sore in Falcon¡¯s Rest. Mama and Papa Gerifalte had raised him better than that: those who served paid the toll on their souls to do their duty.


    That last hardened the foundation under his decision. All the Mr. Harvard¡¯s had to go, as quickly as he could find them, just like the too ambitious men who had taken hold of the Guilds of the past and let themselves be suckered by a lunatic in their greed. The new Guilds were wiser, led by more pragmatic minds, people who truly understood the stakes: everything. And Alexander would be keeping an eye on them, just in case they forgot. Ben told him, when he reported the killing later, that nothing keeps powerful people in check like knowing there¡¯s a knife between their shoulder blades. In his gruff words, ¡°Kiddo, you get to be the knife. Congrats. If it makes you feel better, you¡¯ll do it better than anybody else I can think of.¡±


    It didn¡¯t make him feel better. He hated the idea that it took a sword of Damocles and a set of magically binding laws to make people do the right thing. But Kim Summers and three friends, along with about two thousand folk in Safe Harbor took Alexander¡¯s naivet¨¦ with him to the other side, so he nodded and accepted that role. Not that anyone was likely to follow in Mr. Harvard¡¯s footsteps with the reminder of the consequences still swinging in the wind. Still, people had short memories.


    It was a matter of time until someone came along that got ideas about feeding on their fellow man, those for whom that was their nature. And, because it was his nature, Alexander would kill monsters. All the monsters. Even the ones that wore human skins. Maybe especially those, their camouflage makes them particularly dangerous to mankind. Alexander shook his head in frustration at the waste of it and walked home to his reminder that most people were worth loving.


    One miserably cold, cloudy day in February, before the snows had even thought of melting, a quartet of strangers came to the gates of the town.


    They were from Downeast. Way Downeast, a tiny burg just outside Philadelphia. Not much between Falcon¡¯s Rest and their settlement, which they dubbed Liberty Bell. They bragged that they actually had the bell, pulled from the ruins of the massacred city. A dungeon had spawned there, but long since destroyed. These folks took care of business, no fooling around. The news they shared in a town hall meeting would have been shocking, if the townspeople of Falcon¡¯s Rest had not already been hardened by multiple catastrophes.


    News traveled faster farther south, there were more settlements, the travelers had stories to tell that spanned much of the North American continent, with some of it even coming first hand. Towns, cities, a few of them had done quite well for themselves, the lower mana densities in the south produced fewer dungeons, less virulent monsters spawned by Gaia herself, and less Enshrining of those with weaker mana constitutions. The settlers rejoiced at that, knowing that things had not gone so terribly everywhere. Even so, no kids or elderly survived the Pulse, north or south, and tier two humans could not bear children. The pregnancies of Falcon¡¯s Rest¡¯s citizens, birthed hope in the Flatlanders and they vowed to spread word that the future of man was in achieving tier three. That word would travel as swiftly as they could manage, the Flatlanders swore. That travel would be far and wide, settlements were springing up across the world, and they were passing communications between themselves, if slowly, as Adventurers scouted deep into the hinterlands between concentrations of humanity.


    It had taken almost three years to stabilize enough to try to find survivors or colonists in the far north. But folk had found a foothold, and were growing hardier as Gaia pruned the dead wood from her children with the gentleness of a flensing knife. Unfortunately, there wouldn¡¯t be any neighbors anytime soon. The hard men of the explorers had been astonished at the dangers abounding from the Belfast hyperdungeon break, and their advice was to give it wide berth, unless you be mighty warriors. Settlements down south, that wasn¡¯t the big news.


    Globally, some of the dungeons that had sat along particularly dense mana veins leeched enough power to achieve permanency at about the same time Safe Harbor did. That the dungeon break phenomenon wasn¡¯t limited to New England, although none within the far north Maine country could have known with certainty, had been generally accepted conjecture. Over many a winter night of board games, booze, and friendly wagers, they¡¯d philosophized as much. No, the generality of the dungeon breaks was but confirmation of fears held by the citizens of Falcon¡¯s Rest. Not all had gone critical. Many even, did not, when the people living there showed more grit and wisdom than had the Guilds of Safe Harbor and they had followed Alexander¡¯s course in parallel. Those that did, however, transformed regions aligned with the realm that spawned them.


    The transfigured domains pocked the landscape of Gaia.


    Forests once manicured by the logging industry or clear cut for agriculture transformed into fairy forests of towering trees never seen on Earth, their limbs forming a web of branches that permitted only a dim half light beneath them, territory of the beings of Tirnanog. There were goblins in those woods and hobgoblins to lead them, with a few ogres that had begun to vie for ascendancy to the vacant title of a goblin king in the region. There were Hags who took daughters from wombs to raise as witches. And unicorns, which hunted children who strayed too close to the wood line.


    Along the coast, a tribe of merfolk took hold, claiming Islesboro as their domain and the waters around it. The sirens that sang on that island put chills into any sentient creature that heard their song. Hulking cephalopidic creatures patrolled the waters off shore, things with tentacles that made giant squid seem harmless. Others, built along the same general theme as a blue whale, if it had graboid jaws, armored scales fit for battleships, preyed on anything large enough or mana rich enough to draw their attention.


    The great plains was a hodgepodge of varied territories, diverse in the domains that had claimed them. Yellowstone had become a vast domain of Muspelheim, to no one¡¯s surprise. Massive floating crystals like sky scrapers hovering a mile above the earth, surrounded by myriad city sized islands covered by jungles were but one of the sights to be seen over Kansas. There was a region where night never ended, a full moon high taking the place of the sun across the horizon. Las Vegas was an enormous necropolis, ruled by a Lich. Keening banshees, gargoyles flitting between toppled ruins of the casinos, it was an inhospitable place to hear the travelers tell of it. They had not gone far inside the domain to learn more.


    More locally, Muspelheim¡¯s volcano, rendered dormant, was rekindled, and joined by two others, one rearing up from Sears Island to shadow the remnants of Safe Harbor, now overtaken by Nemeta, a verdant grassland, bog, and dense, almost tropical cedar rainforest that spanned Belfast to Swanville, such as might be found along the pacific north west. Dragons circled the volcanos, small ones, for now. There were other, more sinister, nightmares. Other realms and their denizens, bringing weary travelers across the planes of existence or predators, touches of the hundred and eight worlds that connected to Gaia, and mankind¡¯s empire was reduced to shattered remnants, all confirmed by the belabored Adventurers who had risked their lives to seek out sign of civilization in the north.


    That left Falcon¡¯s Rest the bastion of humanity in the North, alone, to stand against the hordes nearby. In due time, fed on Gaia¡¯s lifeblood, new dungeon crystals would emerge. New contested zones that had to be defended, or lost. There was opportunity there, in addition to danger.


    But that wasn¡¯t the big news either, however.


    Upon Gaia¡¯s surface now strode denizens of myth. Different from the spawn of the dungeons, these had agency beyond expansion, beyond winning the contested zones, spreading dominion of their worlds in the name of a conquest the survivors of Gaia knew nothing about, beyond the need to stop them. Many of these entities were refugees, fleeing terrible demons or fallen gods. Closed dungeons didn¡¯t always expand, some of them opened paths that could be traversed two ways, if only for short windows of time. Those dungeon cores called gateways had been consumed to provide an ark of sorts, a safe haven from the ravages of horrors in those other realms, and closed swiftly behind them.


    So it was that a world fresh off the shock of one apocalypse experienced another, more profound one: the advent of the otherkin. Sentient creatures that had dwelled in realms mostly separate, shadow worlds similar to Gaia but with their own histories, ecologies, magics, and passions traveled through the portals and found a land nearly emptied of those humans who had once proliferated.


    When pockets of humanity encountered strange beings, obviously intelligent, and just as obviously not human, the expected outcomes were observed. Conflicts sprung anew. But not always, and not even for very long, humanity had not the strength to spare chasing gnomes into the mountains, elves into the forests or dwarves beneath the earth, or hunting phoenix in volcanic nests. No, the native folk of Gaia had greater concerns than the otherkin. Soon, mostly along the boundaries of the remnants of the old contested zones would come the second generation dungeons, new magical hotspots that drifted as Gaia¡¯s dragon pulse shifted from the first wave of dungeon breaks.


    Gaia was in desperate need of her children now, she could not sustain many waves of her energies being siphoned off and survive. Eventually the consciousness of the planet would fade with its aether and it would become merely a vessel for the inhabiting creatures. Perhaps one of those worlds would consume her entirely, creating a shattered mirror of their realities to take her place in the cosmos. Who knew?


    But those were happenings in distant places and not so distant times for the survivors of Falcon¡¯s Rest, and those stories would unfold as they must. Whatever the future held, these people did not fear, for they were dragon slayers in a land that now teemed with dragons.

 NOT A CHAPTER! Book Three update

    Greetings gents, it''s been a minute here on RR. I''ve been plucking away in the background though and have approached the completion of the third book of the series, titled Children of Gaia.


    Patreon is getting their first dibs, of course, while I finish the last couple of chapters and do some polishing on the rest, that starts this friday. Expect the consistent weekly uploads to happen here around mid-March. First of April at the latest, and no fooling. If possible, I''d like to time it to line up with a writeathon, since I always seem to be writing during writeathons, but never using them to drum up attention. Pretty sure a 60k January to crank out half a book is in the spirit of the thing.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Anyway, that''s all, I wanted to let followers of the work here on the site know there''s fresh content coming. I changed my table set ups too, so those are going to be different than in previous entries in the series, I hope that won''t be too jarring for you, but I think they''re easier to read, simpler, and solve most of the complaints I''ve heard about them. We''ll see, the early access readers will hopefully help me iron out any bugs before it shows up here.


    Later folks.

 Children of Gaia Chapter 1: A Long Way From Home

    Gaia spins, and her WORTHY children fight on. That was one of the few certainties left in the world for Alexander Gerifalte. Recent years had left him with another: there was always another monster. Small comfort. Certainly, less so than the obliging heat of a campfire for which he increasingly longed. He sent up fervent prayers to all the gods above, below, and in between that his task would be done swiftly, so that he could be home before the fall. His son was growing fast, and he wanted to be there to help his mates handle the rambunctious little scamp.


    ¡°What are you doing, half way across the damned continent Alexander? Why are you here, chasing some twist, instead of helping the forge masters smelt the High Copper and Argentum from those new mine shafts? Or, better, finishing half a dozen projects you had on backlog in the comfort of your shop?¡±


    A half-moon, leaning low amidst the star scape, gave no answer. Nor did the chilled, damp wind of the witching hour, nor the swaying, stunted trees and briar latticed thickets. The thickly cloaked and lightly, if robustly, armored young man, alone in unfamiliar territory, peered suspiciously around the dark in case a Windego, or dire wolf, or ghoul, or whatever else that might find picking through his viscera interesting, came to irony¡¯s aid. It was not uncommon that irony mostly functioned to make his life worse, but nothing took up the gauntlet. Not yet. Peace reigned over the late-night wood, which remained merely indifferently, passively wild, and the twenty-four-year-old got no closer to one of the great philosophical riddles of his life, namely: how do I get myself into these messes?


    Alexander sighed into the deep hours of the night at the answer: because it needed to be done, and he was the best one to do it. So, he¡¯d do it, end the string of murders, see justice done. And then he¡¯d go home.


    Home was in the settlement he¡¯d helped build from the ruins of his hometown in the wilding forests of middle Maine, along a little goat trail of a state highway, a few hours from the coast, perched against the Appalachian Mountains. Home was a cozy old New England farmhouse, with its wood shutters, cast iron stove, and library of books inherited from his old man. Home was listening to his wife, Annita Nguyen, scold their ambitious two and half year old for climbing the furniture. Or digging through Alexander¡¯s study, and the Not To Be Opened By Children chests therein. Or picking through his second wife Brigitte O¡¯Connor¡¯s trophies of monster hunts, scattering gemlike monster cores, teeth, and claws across the floor in whatever imagined battlefields toddlers created for their pleasure. There were many reasons young Durian Garifalte¡¯s name was called through the house, those were but a few.


    Alexander missed terribly the boy¡¯s clangor on his much quieter sojourn through the wilderness. He missed many things about his home, not the least the warmth of soft skin pressed to his and the smell of the ones he loved as he slept.


    A frown painted his features, mostly hidden beneath cowl of his heavy cloak, a somewhat boyishly handsome face, slightly angular, over serious, and frequently scowling or locked into a laser focus on some objective or other. That frown deepened when he admitted to himself now that he would have to continue to miss them for a bit longer. Today would be the forty-sixth day since leaving behind kith and kin to pursue a killer, and Alexander was ready to have done with it.


    But today would not be the day. Neither tomorrow, unless his fortunes turned.


    Before him lay the trail, such as it was, pointing him farther away, instead. Onward to the west, since the spate of murders that had prompted the settlement of Concorde, located in what had been the state of New Hampshire, back when such lines on a map had meaning, to send a request for aid to Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    Alexander Gerifalte¡¯s surname had the meaning of ¡°gyrfalcon¡± a favored species of hunting bird. His class was Entropic Venator, which framework of arcana and metaphysic enhancement was built around the concept of the hunt, the decisive kill. A bird, a name, a Class, signs came in threes, wasn¡¯t that the superstition?


    The young man held no truck with superstition, but he would be the last to claim all knowledge. Magic was real as the clay on his boots, as pervasive as the heavy chill coming down from Lake Michigan that would kill a man unprepared for the cold, damp air that failed to penetrate his cloak, even absent a fire¡¯s warding. Besides, bird, name, and class, he couldn¡¯t deny what he was.


    There! There it was! A disturbance in the leaf litter, faint, little more than a divot that had scattered the winter detritus in a manner only his eyes amongst any of his neighbors and fellow Matriculated warriors would discern as sign of passage. With the quarry¡¯s trail renewed, he prowled onward, keeping his cloak close, his bow ready.


    Singer, a meticulously crafted compound long bow of his own design, was held with tension on its piano wire string, a stiletto tipped arrow, poisoned, as always, between his fingers. To draw and release would require a heartbeat. One beat for him, and then one final beat from his prey to see the task done, all the gods above, below, and in between willing.


    Alexander was a hunter of monsters. Of all kinds.


    One of the things he¡¯d learned was that the game of prey and predator was turn and turn about on Gaia. To be careless was to find yourself on the wrong end of the contest. Mostly when you least expected it. A sniff of the air revealed nothing but the usual forest smells, slightly musty decay from the persistent damp of winter rains and too cool to ever dry off days. Ears attuned to the rhythms and melodies of woodlands that never slept found no discordant notes. Things moved, small animals crept, those natives of the midnight arbors still determined to find sustenance in the gap between winter dearth and spring plenty jostled around, just as they should. It was when the denizens of the forest went still that a man should worry.


    Total stillness meant something bad was more immediately threatening than hunger. For the wild ones, it had to be quite dangerous indeed to be of more concern than hunger, for food was always precious to the fauna of the land. Silent, padding steps of his added nothing to the cadence of the wood, courtesy of both gifts of magic and long experience. Another miniscule scattering of leaves led, as it had since the chase had begun, deep through the wilderness of the Midwest, and with a bearing that directed him to the settlement of New Chicago.


    He¡¯d arrive tomorrow, probably mid-morning, at this rate. The hunt would not end then, probably, just enter a new phase, and one he loathed: city work. Nothing was so obnoxious as trailing a man, or man adjacent thing, through a populated settlement. Not as though his target was asking him his druthers. Despite the relative lack of sign it left, it was pushing, hard, toward the greater tangle of the reclaimed ruins of Chicago as if toward sanctuary. Or a lair. Man or beast, most creatures that knew they were pursued would attempt to return to a place of perceived safety, a home turf from which to defend with advantage. It was a familiar routine, like the chorus of a song Alexander had listened to many times now.


    He¡¯d come to embrace a role as something close to a bounty hunter, a seeker of justice, a monster hunter, or, depending on your perspective, an honorary hitman of Falcon¡¯s Rest. He didn¡¯t necessarily relish this place in his society, but somebody had to inhume the things that fed on what was left of humanity, and Alexander was good at it. Designed for it, nearly. The silence of his steps, the exquisite sensitivity and fidelity of his vision, the way his form blurred to the attempts of any creature to observe him with any specificity, and the lethality of his mana to living things, especially those for whom magic was integral. That was a condition becoming more ubiquitous, almost necessity on Gaia. Especially for the folk that now populated the remnants of man¡¯s fallen glory.


    Humanity was changed from before the Pulse.


    Those for whom magic and mana was physically intolerable were Enshrined, transformed to stone in the very moment of the waking of Gaia, preserved by the planet that loved her sentient children but could not save them from her power. That was the first culling. The second came from the dungeons, as did humanity¡¯s salvation.


    On that note, Alexander was ready for a little salvation of his own, if only for his poor, tired muscles and shriveled stomach. Perpetual focus dulled the senses eventually, led to mistakes, lapses in judgement. He could afford neither, so he returned the arrow to its quiver and pulled Singer over his back, before he prepared a small fire in a hollow beneath a dense, difficult to access thicket. Here would be a temporary shelter for a meal and a few hours sleep. The tangled bramble and undergrowth made for a single easily navigable access pont, one he could readily defend. Efficient, practiced motions cleared a small piece of thicket floor, assembled stones for a pit, a base of damp sticks, nevertheless drier than the wet earth below his feet, and he had a single tongue of flame, fed generously within a few minutes effort. The wax, oil, and sawdust fire starters from his kit were miraculous for granting a weary traveler flame when suboptimal tender was available and time to improve it short. Wearly muscles finally relaxed as he huddled against the tree trunk around which the thicket grew and his fire began to project an even, comforting heat while its burning dance barely lit his hiding place.


    From a pack now showing significant signs of wear, along with the rest of him, Alexander dug foodstuffs to break the ten hour fast of his last meal. He¡¯d lost more than five pounds on this chase, too much, it would affect his combat readiness if he didn¡¯t replenish lost calories, so he prepared generous portions. As always, Alexander¡¯s mind drifted to the past while he went through familiar routines.


    Shortly after the flood of magic that swept over the Earth when its consciousness awoke to godhood, came spaces called ¡°contested zones¡±. These manifested alien life, impossible life, the kinds of things that haunted stories and fairytales, and nightmares, spawned from a giant gemstone of solid magic that harnessed Gaia¡¯s arcane lifeblood. Mana to some. The Dragon Pulse, from those who had heard the planet¡¯s own voice.


    From those nexi of power, the dungeons arose. Some across the surface of the planet, large swathes of transformed space called ¡°field dungeons¡±. Some hidden in pocket dimensions called ¡°closed dungeons¡± spaces where the environment was wholly fabricated from the stuff of a foreign realm. These were separated from reality at large by glowing gates, often surrounded by what appeared to be stone temples or monuments akin to ancient Egyptian ruins, Druidic ritual places, and pagan cult sacrifice stones long abandoned by humanity by the time of the planet¡¯s apotheosis.


    ¡°We forgot them, but they sure didn¡¯t forget us.¡± Alexander chuckled to himself as he stirred the growing bed of coals to produce a hotter flame.


    A sputtering log, damp with the recent spring rains, burned fitfully and with heavy smoke when he placed it on the fire. Long would it contribute to creating a bed of ash and cinder. Aggravating though such smoke could be, it was intentional on his part. Wet or green wood was best to make a dense, protective fog to ward him from the flying insects, who were ferocious. An early thaw and mild march had accelerated their hatching. They couldn¡¯t bite through his skin, a tier three human was too tough a nut to crack for probing skeeter mouths, but they could, and did, annoy a man to madness in their trying.


    And besides, there was a special something about a popping, hissing fire that drove back the darkness, and let you feel a little safer from the things that crawled around in it. Even if Alexander could see through the dark, he couldn¡¯t deny the flame¡¯s comfort, the easing of his mind.


    Things tended to hunt in the night. As they always had, just not so often or in as sinister a manner as in the days before the Pulse. The way he figured it, weak places in the aetherscape, fleeting gaps in reality or quantum foam or whatever the fuck magic was, permitted things from beyond to travel between worlds. Probably not frequently, or in masse, or humanity would have been wiped out eons ago. But enough for their existences to be passed down in lore and story, mostly with a nice bright fire around to keep the fear of them at their mention at bay. The spawn of dungeons were mostly inimical to Gaian life. Fed on it. Hunted it. Loathed it.


    As far as he knew, and Alexander had picked many a brain in search of answers from those early days of chaos, when the Pulse brought to Gaia¡¯s surface enough mana for the dungeons to coalesce, these monsters poured out and consumed humans en masse. The second culling then, destroyed the cowards, the weak, those who were unwilling or unable to fight, until brave ones fought back and struck the hearts of the dungeons to destroy them. As Alexander had done, almost six years ago, to end the scourge of a horde of goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres from Tirnanog in his home town in upstate Maine, which later would be rebuilt as Falcon¡¯s Rest. As he did again when zombies came calling from a budding necropolis a day¡¯s long march away from his home. As he had done a dozen times since then, in defense of his people and his planet.


    Alexander stirred once more the coals and then placed a foil package into its glowing heart, a wrap of wheat flower, beans, rice, peppers, and wild pig, the meat taken yesterday morning on his hunt for the murderer. Or murderers, Concorde had not been clear and the trail he followed had been deliberately obfuscated. If not for the clarity and sharpness of his Outsider¡¯s eyes, he would not have been able to follow such minute traces of their passage. They knew he pursued them, tipped off about two days before his arrival to Concorde by some loose lipped numb nut, and he chewed his lip in frustration over that failure of intelligence. In all of its contexts.


    As he covered his meal in ash to bake more slowly, as they often did when he was in repose, his thoughts pondered mortality. In many ways, he¡¯d been born three times. First, when the Pulse knocked him from the sky, but also claimed him as one of her children. And then, when he Matriculated. That¡¯s what they called advance from a tier one Normal, a regular human, into a Classed tier two human, with nascent blood line.


    The first was given, the second, earned. You had to touch a dungeon core. Or kill it. He¡¯d chosen the latter.


    On slaying his first dungeon, he was transformed. His body was enriched by the liberated magic of the dungeon core, whose stolen energies quickened the genesis of a core inside his body and the gifts that Gaia bequeathed to those who fought the infestations of other worlds on her behalf.


    When first he¡¯d drank of the energies released by a dying dungeon core, that crystalline metaphysical parasite that fed on the planet¡¯s mana currents to create pockets of other space, the seeds of realms beyond Earth, Gaia spoke to him. WORTHY he was named, and his being bolstered by the planet¡¯s children to defend themselves. And it. Then had come the class, core and a bloodline, a Shaggoth, the immature version of some nascent mystical heritage. The third birth was when his bloodline matured, and he became an Outsider. He, and the people of Falcon¡¯s Rest, had taken the first steps toward truly mastering the new world when they catalyzed their tier three advancement, wakening dormant powers and strange physiology by drinking the blood of a dragon.


    Threes again, there if you looked for them, he noted with chagrin.


    It had been a young one, the dragon, thank all the gods above, below, and in between, because the big ones were terrors. He¡¯d run if he ever came face to face with a great old wyrm from one of the hundred and eight realms. But achieving tier three had been a thing worth celebrating, worth the close shave of tangling with a red wyrmling from Muspelheim, the land of fire.


    A scattering of leaves sent the young Venator into a blur, hands moving faster than a Normal could follow, and he had his war bow pulled from his back, metal string drawn full, with thumb thick arrow topped by a half inch stiletto of an arrow head. A second from rest to combat posture, just as in the hundreds of hours of practice that made it second nature. Grey scale night vision resolved in sharp contrast the raccoon struggling through a briar caught in its fur that had prompted Alexander¡¯s brief journey to defcon three. A release of tension, both in the bowstring and his body generally, accompanied the return to resting levels of ready to kill.


    Gaia was dangerous. Unwary folk didn¡¯t last long, especially alone. Alexander had spent the first eight months of the post apocalypse in isolation, a thing unheard of, and had survived it. It had required luck. Caution. Talent. And sheer teeth grit will to live no matter what. Grit defined most of those who survived the Pulse.


    While he was up, he poked his fire again and drank from a half-full canteen of river water, before returning to a slouch that, as evidenced, wasn¡¯t far from combat readiness before returning to his meandering about the past. A slain dragon, and the rich, iron tang of its blood. Followed by surging energy that roiled his core¡¯s energies, magic that infused and saturated his body unlocking its potential, forcing its evolution. It had been a curious combination of pain and ecstasy.


    That transition marked a drastic change in circumstances for the people of Falcon¡¯s Rest. It had opened the doors to humanity¡¯s survival. The reason being, tier one and two humans couldn¡¯t reproduce, they were sterile, immature. But reaching tier three had permitted them to create children, new hope for a future for the species. His boy, carried a full year to birthing by his darling wife, a wonderful woman of Vietnamese descent, who bore a dryad bloodline with a harvester hybrid class, was proof of it. Annita Nguyen, with the spirit of a hedge witch, and a work ethic to shame a puritan, had demanded a child at the first opportunity, and he had granted her wish. Durian was born a tier two, a dryad like his mother, with a dormant class that not even Alexander¡¯s Greater Analyze could decipher until it was ready to empower the child¡¯s core.


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    Granny Nguyen hoped he shared her harvester class, not her father¡¯s more militant aspect. He did too. Her gifts made her a gatherer and cultivator, and more recently, alchemist of things green and growing. That was a beautiful thing. Perhaps the always inquisitive boy would take after his grandfather, be a tinker, a crafter, a smith and maker of things.


    Alexander shook the thoughts away, he always turned maudlin thinking of his parents, still Enshrined in the vault at Falcon¡¯s Rest, still awaiting him to find a cure for the petrification. He had come up empty these six years later, and the failure stung when he thought of it.


    Instead, he forced himself to his remembrances from those days after Falcon¡¯s Rest had kickstarted their own evolution. There had been some fears, his included, that you had to drink dragon blood to advance, but that turned out not to be the case. Draconic blood was merely a powerful catalyst that drastically shortened the incubation period, tier two humans would naturally, after four to five years, mature. But only if they were diligent in the exercise of their cores, drew on their powers, and grew them. It was like exercise, but for the metaphysical.


    Classes. Bloodlines. Magic. Ravening monsters and dungeons that housed them. These were part of the new world, the new reality that had followed the Earth¡¯s apotheosis, and the flood of aetherical might when her veins lit from within, surging with mana. For some, the differences were more obvious than for others.


    For Alexander in particular, he had trouble convincing people he meant no harm. Most people didn¡¯t get past the eyes, disturbing black sclera, vivid green and brown irises that reminded you of a bird of prey, instead of a human.


    Those eyes closed briefly against an errant wind that drove the dense grey smoke into his face, forcing him to hold his breath or choke for a few moments. The glare leveled at the ascending column of almost indistinguishable from night cloud, would have made most cross the street, their hands to find and hold tight the hilts of their weapons. He couldn¡¯t help the sinister cast to his gaze, any more than his excessive six-foot, four-inch height. Or his tendency to lapse into silence and stillness when he chewed on a problem in his thoughts.


    At least, from afar, they mostly didn¡¯t notice that the fine, silky hair was actually a dense, black, downy crest of feathers that grew in an approximation of a glossy, styled, back swept business cut. All told, his Outsider bloodline did him no favors in the social scene. Physical features distinct from Normals were more blatant for some bloodlines than for others. Most Jinn could pass unnoticed, and a Morrigan was normal enough except for the feathered markings on their skin, almost like tattoos. These relatively minor outward features contrasted with the Ifrit with the pale flames that rose from their skins when their ire was roused, or the Oreads, that towered over normal human stock, like giants, and, most of all, the Outsiders, which could have angelic wings spanning thirty feet, or multiple eyes and limbs.


    Alexander used two middling small twigs as tongs to fish his dinner out of the campfire. The thick aluminum foil he carefully unwrapped, it being a gift of a friend to help him travel with food ready to heat as he had just done.


    Since the fall of old mankind, such things as a metal foil were harder to come by. Less now than just after the Pulse. He¡¯d played an important role in the northern regions in those early days by helping to make steam engines, based on the texts of a nuclear engineer father with a tinker¡¯s heart. That got him scouted into a Guild, an organization of classed individuals for the fighting and harvesting of monsters and dungeons. Killing dungeons the Guilds were farming, instead of eradicating, got him kicked out of said Guild. And blacklisted from trading within that Guild¡¯s territory, which was more or less a soft exile.


    Karma was a bitch. The joke, a cruel one, was on them, when the dungeons they were farming went critical. When a dungeon core absorbs enough of Gaia¡¯s mana, it ¡°breaks¡± or explodes in a transfiguration of the surroundings into the realm from which it was seeded. Then the monsters trapped inside come out in a mob, instead of a few at a time. The land transformed in that event is, as far as anyone knew, permanently changed.


    If the dungeon core becomes a Gateway, it opens a two-way path for a period of time between worlds.


    Nobody had ever come back out of a Gateway though, so who knew what the other realms were like? He did know that some of the beings that cross the dimensional space were sapient. Hell, some of them were friendly, and not so shabby neighbors. But life on the frontier was tense and good fences was often what made good neighbors, in the immortal words of one Mr. Frost. Falcon¡¯s Rest had a great big wall, and thus, most neighbors were tolerable.


    But his mind wandered. Again. Avoiding remembering the tragic end to the tale that was the town of Safe Harbor and its Guilds. And two thirds of its population of over three thousand souls.


    The hyper dungeon of Belfast Maine, all of its contributing cores, broke, and then the tide of horrors within washed over Safe Harbor and scoured it from Gaia¡¯s surface. Destroyed it utterly and drove its people, all that could run, into flight. Of three thousand three hundred or so people, half of them Matriculated, only a thousand and change lived to escape to the safety of Falcon¡¯s Rest and its fortified walls.


    Alexander and sixty-four brave colonists had built a home for themselves free from the Guilds and a neobarony kind of emerging governance there in Safe Harbor. They¡¯d elevated themselves to face the wilds and to take vengeance for an assassination of four of their number, meant to be many more, had not those brave souls laid down their lives to delay the murderers. Falcon¡¯s Rest grew strong that winter, and hard. As well they had, or they would have shared in their sister settlement¡¯s fate.


    Instead, they fought and killed the monsters that chased the escaping peoples and took them in. He hadn¡¯t been there for that, he¡¯d been with an expedition to cull a dungeon threatening the town with werewolves, Dracul, or vampires, and these eyeless, maggot skinned cultists. Black hearted inflictors of pain as worship to their pain god The Flayed One, a race of monsters called Xiptotec. Skin Peelers by common parlance, so you might guess how much fun they were.


    In any event, the citizens of Falcon¡¯s Rest protected and sheltered the evacuees, and took them in, gave them a home. Amongst those, Alexander eventually found the man who had coordinated the decision to let the dungeons break, as well as gave the orders for the assassination team that attacked Falcon¡¯s Rest earlier that year, and according to rule seven of the Contract, killed him, after months spent investigating, questioning, and following breadcrumbs left behind.


    That act of justifiable manslaughter and persistent gumshoeing got him elected Sheriff.


    Not really, there was no such official office within Falcon¡¯s Rest, but Alexander had garnered a sort of tacit understanding with the town¡¯s leadership. When a Matriculated broke the laws or circumvented them to do his fellow man harm, and the Adventurer parties either weren¡¯t available or weren¡¯t equipped to handle it, then Alexander was called on to act for the good of the region. He named himself sheriff because he had to joke about it or he grew annoyed, and a bit sad. Human life was precious. They were so few now. So very few. And every one lost was a tragedy. But, sometimes, cancer required surgery to save the patient, as painful as it was.


    Idly, since he had little better to do while chewing his food than brood, he called the blue scroll that Matriculated could summon that encapsulated their being.


    <table width="513">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td colspan="3" width="190">


    Alexander Gerifalte


    </td>


    <td width="189">


    Class: Entropic Venator


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    </td>


    <td width="40">


    </td>


    <td width="28">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Might


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    23(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Height


    </td>


    <td width="189">


    6''4"


    </td>


    <td colspan="3" rowspan="3" width="133">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Grace


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    32(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Weight


    </td>


    <td width="189">


    174lbs


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Impetus


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    33(+5)


    </td>


    <td width="58">


    Age


    </td>


    <td width="189">


    24


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Cogitation


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    27(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="248">


    Core: Black Fire Opal, brilliant


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    </td>


    <td width="40">


    </td>


    <td width="28">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Wisdom


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    25(+0)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="248">


    Origin: Gaia


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    </td>


    <td width="40">


    </td>


    <td width="28">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Ingenuity


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    26(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="248">


    Sapient Race:


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    </td>


    <td width="40">


    </td>


    <td width="28">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Durability


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    25(+5)


    </td>


    <td colspan="2" width="248">


    Human-3rd Tier (Outsider)


    </td>


    <td width="66">


    </td>


    <td width="40">


    </td>


    <td width="28">


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Valor


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    36(+15)


    </td>


    <td colspan="5" rowspan="3" width="381">


    Status: well clothed (lightly armored), healthy, mild exhaustion (resting), warm, reduced stamina from persistent weight loss, mild dehydration, hungry (eating), high strung.


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Soak


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    5%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Mana


    </td>


    <td width="57">


    91%


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Traits


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="439">


    Outsider¡¯s perception, Back from the brink, Gaia¡¯s child, Lethal, Warforger, Scholarship, Singular prominence, Fractal mindscape


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Skills


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="439">


    Baleful smite, Ruthless, Greater focus, Greater analyze, Stalk, Blindside, Broken silhouette


    </td>


    </tr>


    <tr>


    <td width="75">


    Arcana


    </td>


    <td colspan="6" width="439">


    Greater entropic aura, Chaos strike, Lesser wyrd edge


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Given his skills and abilities as Entropic Venator, as well as Outsider, Alexander was best able to function as a culler for the sickos that might attempt to abuse their powers to harm other people. Entropic magic that unraveled most spells or manipulations of mana and pierced Soak, the mana barrier that acted to buffer damage to the living things with cores. And skills and arcana that all seemed geared toward single minded stealthy pursuit, with a bitter end. An end that the folk of Safe Harbor, and Falcon¡¯s Rest, and all the other settlements, come think of it, had thought avoided by use of the Contract.


    Law mages, Classes who could impose a set of strictures on willing Matriculated, magical lawyers in effect, had very quickly emerged after the Pulse and society had gravitated around them to enact a set of bindings to prevent supernatural gifts from being used maliciously. A Contract, with its strictures and compulsions, was supposed to prevent such things as the assassination attempt from the Guilds, among other things. However, outside of destroying free will, nothing would stop evil men from doing evil. Except for killing them. Hence Alexander being here, not a day¡¯s hike from the ruins of Chicago, where New Chicago sprouted from its remains, and a maybe multiple, but definitely cannibalistic, murderer was on the loose.


    Fan-damn-tastic.


    On that note, the road weary young man huddled deep inside his cloak and, with the fire burning low now, closed his eyes to gain what fitful sleep was available to him. Three hours later, he woke, greatly refreshed, but not fully rested. That would have to wait until his duty was complete. In the dim predawn he ventured from the thicket and resumed tracking. Spacing between the target¡¯s mistakes was shrinking, broken branches or trodden limbs becoming more frequent as he ascended hills, skids where steps too hasty, too tired to be well measured on the downslopes began to appear.


    Finally.


    Alexander had wondered if the man, men, or something else entirely he hunted was immune to exhaustion. It appeared it was not, merely incredibly resilient. At least as much, if not moreso than himself. Troubling, that. Alexander was in the peak of his lifespan, with a tier three body honed by combat, training, and the energies of the dungeon cores he¡¯d slain. For something to outpace him meant it was no doubt going to prove gnarly once he¡¯d actually caught it. If he could manage, the sonofabitch would never know he was there before he¡¯d put a chaos infused arrow into it.


    An hour and change later, from the top of one last small rise and Alexander saw the terminal point to this phase of the hunt: the shoreline of the Great Lakes and the settlement that sprawled along its shores. This mission, the fourth like it in the three years since he¡¯d accepted the burden of culling rogue Matriculated, had taken him all the long way to the outskirts of New Chicago, one of the largest cities left in the North American Continent, and the biggest by far in the Midwest. He looked out over the expanse from between limbs growing fuller with budding leaves, and managed a smile at the returning prairie, grown wondrous with color in its spring bloom. The ugliness of the ruins of what had been a major metropolitan area detracted greatly from his view.


    Credit where it was due, he couldn¡¯t imagine managing to do much better to recover from the ravages of Gaia¡¯s apotheosis given the dense urbanity, the high rises, packed together buildings, and narrow streets. How goddawful would it have been to come out of a coffee joint to see a street with thousands of statues silently judging you, just before all hell broke loose from every direction? Pretty fucking, Alexander decided, while making careful way down from the incline toward the oft trod paths that led toward the settlement. The quarry¡¯s tracks were now devoid of attempt to obscure themselves, it had made all haste toward the city and merged with the foot traffic of those who lived in and around the capital of the Midwest.


    Weaker in the south though it was, where the magnetic Maridians of the planet had spread out the mana, the Pulse had done its work here too, had petrified the elderly and the young, and left a fair number of the in between Enshrined in stone. Alexander scanned the lake shore, the glittering golds and reds of dawn¡¯s light skipping over the wind driven waves of the water resplendent and wondered briefly what had happened to all those thousands of petrified bodies. He and his fellows had placed their Enshrined in a large vault to be kept safe until such time as a cure could be found. Or left intact in memorial if one could not. An idle thought, and he passed on, drifting his hands idly over the tall grass and flowered stalks, closer to the center of the one time metropolis.


    Still was, honestly, he realized. More people roamed around in squared off gardens, plying trades, and coming hither and yon from between clusters of structures like a web of small villages or homestead compounds that grew closer together the nearer they came to the huge wall that encircled the city proper than he¡¯d seen in his entire life. It made him vaguely uneasy, this many together in one place.


    No beasts, no monsters, no dungeon spawn or sign at all, as far as he could see. The kernel of peoples left must have been resilient, must have fought back against the monsters that spawned from Gaia¡¯s emptied wilds. A good sign, a reason for hope. With this many people out and about, many unarmed, the dungeons that manifested nearby must have been vanquished. These folk had ground out what made for a peaceful, bustling metropolis. Relatively speaking.


    Large populations had meant plenty of food for dungeon creatures, which had accelerated dungeon growth. According to travelers¡¯ tales, and the sights of his own eyes as he¡¯d gone wide around some of wrecks of Boston, New York City, and others, many of the old human cities had been completely destroyed and succumbed to consumption by the contested zones in the first great wave of dungeon breaks across Gaia. The same set of breaks three years past that had caused Safe Harbor to fall to ruin and Falcon¡¯s Rest to become the lone bastion of civilization in the North American continent, so far as its citizens had heard.


    Old Chicago might have suffered the same fate. The only difference was, that Old Chicago had been a conflux of many trade routes, had been a nexus for humanity, and, when a haven emerged thanks to those who had survived the initial fall of man, it drew survivors like a lodestone draws iron filings. Folk in smaller pockets gravitated toward it. Little villages of a hundred here, forty there, they packed up when traders and scouts came through with word of an actual city. New Chicago was born from these migrations.


    Alexander had to give these Flatlanders no small credit indeed, they¡¯d cleaned up the Midwest with a vengeance. He hadn¡¯t spotted a monster or Gaian spawned super predator since he¡¯d bypassed the clusterfuck of transfigured regions that bespoke a Cleveland hyper dungeon break. That had gotten hairy, and he¡¯d needed every trick in his tool kit to keep to the trail of his prey while harpies canvassed the skies for anything edible. But, since then, nothing to indicate that any dungeons had long lived to spew critters that belonged in a Brother¡¯s Grimm compendium.


    That was almost a pity, if there had been more hazards along the way, maybe the man or thing that looked like a man, would have run into trouble, maybe some nasty spook would have saved him some time. That hadn¡¯t happened, and Alexander didn¡¯t foresee it happening. His luck wasn¡¯t that good.


    No, unfortunately, his quarry had skills, and a class that was suited to covering ground, that was sure. They also had experience living off the land and doing it very goddamned well. Alexander could see through darkness as well as daylight, thanks to the disturbing black and green eyes that were a product of his Outsider lineage. Thanks to that, a tier three constitution, and the infusion of conquered dungeons, he pulled fourteen and sixteen hour days following the winding track and still could not close the gap. Worse, the killers left no fires. Made no camps. Left little spore. And they always found water where it was good and clean and easily had. As if they knew the landscape ahead of time. Maybe they did. Maybe they even knew where he was, which wasn¡¯t impossible.


    Bonnie Richards could use a hawk to scout the way for her, seeing through its eyes, covering hundreds of miles of terrain from the sky. Maybe these had some other way to scry their surroundings. He couldn¡¯t know, he could only try to consider the possibilities and prepare for them.


    Gaia¡¯s mysteries were many and she was loath to give them up. Especially unearned. You want Gaia to doll out her mind filling wisdom, you have to kill a dungeon for it. When he finally laid a Greater Analyze on the sonsofbitches he¡¯d probably just shake his head at the magical horseshit Gaia brewed up.


    That was enough though. He was here, on the outer edges of the city, two days behind his target whose trail vanished amongst the fresh foot travel of hundreds. Today he would try to find a needle in a stack of needles, with the added fun of doing it through the unfamiliar warrens of New Chicago

 Children of Gaia Chapter 2: New Places New Faces

    New Chicago reminded him of nothing so much as a sprawling monument to what was lost, with a dash of acid trip to keep things interesting. There had to be some thirty or so thousand people scattered throughout the city. Towering skyscrapers, the ones that hadn¡¯t fallen into ruin or been destroyed during the Pulse, still reared up over the skyline, with Lake Michigan a greenish blue for back drop. Those were inhabited, with laundry in windows, people visible to his sharp eyes crossing the thresholds of their apartments from time to time. Each fifty plus story building a neighborhood unto its own.


    Most of the old city had been ravaged by fire, consequence of so many structures so close together and ruptured gas lines there to feed the blazes. That and no fire crews to swiftly curtail the flames. Only the most resistant superstructures survived.


    Six years on, it was incredible how much of the rubble had been cleared away, replaced by much more humble construction in scale, if not aesthetic. An architect class, maybe a dozen, must have been involved, the newly built houses, shops, and whatever else had the appearance of a common theme, a shared design philosophy: distinctly gothic, to match the great towers of the old city.


    Alexander had to admit, he was a sucker for peaked roofs, arches, and buttresses, on account of they reminded him of the wall that surrounded Falcon¡¯s Rest.


    He picked his way through the gridded out streets, enjoying much less the feeling of being surrounded by thousands of strangers, amongst whom now blended a creature that killed and ate people. He was the hunter, presumably, but circumstances turned on a dime on Gaia. Especially where humanity was concerned. He¡¯d been prey before, many times, and did not care for it.


    As he looked around, Alexander noticed that here, in the outer circles of the metropolis, amongst the newest of construction, the most recent of cleanup efforts, a distinctly inhuman element of the population was prominent.


    That was the latest upheaval to life on Gaia, and, probably, the one with the most profound impact to the course of history, the greatest change to mankind¡¯s paradigm. They were not alone the unchallenged sentients of the planet. They hadn¡¯t been before, mind, but were too egocentric to admit that bees and ants had a well-established place, and couldn¡¯t be bothered to challenge the whales, dolphins, and octopi their rule of the seas.


    The land was different though! Or so they had believed for a time. When the first wave of dungeon cores broke, some of them, rather than replace one space with the terrain of the other, turned into bridges between. Gateways permitted an influx of what amounted to cosmic refugees, explorers, and nomadic homesteaders, by the thousands, thanks to the number of Gateways that opened when a mankind still reeling from the Pulse failed to curtail the dungeon cores. The result was a not insignificant number of Otherkin. Some right out of workaday fiction.


    Through one ghetto, congregating in neat wood and canvas stalls for business, operated by cleanly dressed, frequently bathed, and sternly implacable, Gnomes. Like Tolkienesque halflings, childlike hairless faces, thick, curly hair in many shades of brown, rust, orange, and crimson, and standing a waifish three to four feet high, with the hair thick on their remarkably tough hided feet and the backs of their relatively large hands. Order and neatness defined this area, despite the clutter of ruined buildings that, even as he watched, were being cannibalized by industrious Gnomes with picks, hammers, and prybars, broken down to useful components for incorporation into the clockmaker precision of their society. Children followed parents like ducklings, and Alexander received passive looks as he tried not to disrupt the obvious patterns of their lives in his passing.


    Immediately, as if defined by lines on the ground, ended the Gnomish neighborhood and it opened up to a wood, concrete, and slapdash leather tent bedlam were the Elves, towering, many taller than he, catapulted around in a tumble to get on with their lives, some in mad dash hurry, some drifting aimless. The Elves were lithe of limb, narrow of shoulder, with harshly angled facial bones, slightly too large slanted eyes, and hair that ran the gamut from platinum white to as black as his own feathers, with most of the shades of grey between represented. As many ran as walked, gabbling in their tongue like water running through a mountain creek. There were probably folk trading, plying their crafts, the usual activities of society, but Alexander couldn¡¯t tell who was who or doing what through the chaos.


    Volume dropped immediately as Alexander strode into the carefully placed almost circuit logic driven arrangements of squared off stone that was a Dwarven neighborhood. Dwarves, stockier than Gnomes, and taller, like full cheeked round nosed humans of a few thousand years ago, averaged a stumpy five feet, with back and shoulders like a powerlifter. Counter to his expectation, they were not all bearded, that was a social convention amongst them. Only older, successful, or high status Dwarves wore long beards with length in proportion to standing, meaning there were any number of clean shaven and goatee or mustachioed members in view. Patient and methodical, with outbursts of laughter and smiles from time to time as they chanted a rolling guttural language, they were all of them engaged in refining and expanding their settlement with steady hands.


    That was not the only subversion of expectation.


    Elves were supposedly structured, in many tales, but Alexander found them chaotic, without direction, their actions driven by immediate wants and desires and completely unpredictable in their whims. The Gnomes seemed almost east Asian in attitudes, with a rigid social hierarchy of public face and ritualistic behaviors, but they never lied to you, and they always kept their promises. Likewise, they always collected on debts. ¡°Go cheat a Gnome¡± was a euphemism for suicide nowadays. Dwarves, other than their facial hair, managed to stick most closely to expectation. They were industrious, dignified, but in an earthy way that left room for joviality. Gruff they could be with strangers, but once you had a Dwarf friend, you had a Dwarf friend for life.


    Altogether, the young man found the Dwarves the easiest to get along with.


    Otherkin were not always so¡­human¡­however. The fish folk Alexander had called Sahuagin, because that¡¯s what other people referred to them as, actually went by C¡¯thula. They were not, as he had assumed when killing a score of them to get to the dungeon core that spawned them, all murderous savages. Those were a dungeon manifested tribe, a darkened, corrupted caricature of the real creatures, led by their crystal heart bound guardian, created in that one¡¯s image. Such were not representative of the species.


    The more you know.


    He had also learned, over the years, that C¡¯thula sexual dimorphism was extreme. The males were the ones that looked like fish people, the females were Scylla, lushly beautiful women from the waist up, octopi from the waist down. Alexander shuddered when he imagined the reproductive processes involved. Not that he would ever find out, the female C¡¯thula never surfaced, always they remained beneath the waves, abstaining communication with the surface dwellers. He had a feeling the part about drowning sailors might not have been so mythical, and resolved to keep himself firmly on dry land around those.


    Fortunately, if they were present in New Chicago, they¡¯d be found in stone encampments along the coast. C¡¯thula could only breath air for ten minutes before their lungs began to burn for water. He didn¡¯t understand how they could be both salt and freshwater tolerant, but they were. Or perhaps there were different variants, and he was too ignorant of the races to know. It didn¡¯t matter, he had no intention of prying on that front.


    Not present here, but encountered in settlements farther north, Vampires, Dracul, were another unwelcome surprise, but only until he¡¯d gotten over the shock of meeting what had been intelligent and dangerous enemies within a dungeon of eternal night. Non dungeon born Dracul were actually just tier two versions of batfolk. They could metamorph, a commonality to creatures of Nut, to become more humanoid forms at tier three and were quite sensitive to sunlight, hence they were highly nocturnal. However, outside of being wholly nurtured from, and invested with, dark mana in a Nut dungeon, they were not prone to catching flame in the sun. Not immediately, anyway, it took a few hours for the trace dark mana of their bodies to ignite under Sol¡¯s glare, plenty of time to remove themselves to cover.


    Vampires did subsist on blood. Any blood. They enjoyed pork mostly. Beef commonly. But Moose was, for all, a prime delicacy, like a richly seasoned sauce. Which meant that he was going to have many Dracul neighbors when they found out where Moose were most known to frequent. The good news was that Dracul were shy, quiet folk who kept to themselves and were quite scholarly, enjoying the documenting of goings on. Almost all Dracul kept a journal a Life¡¯s Journy, in which they recorded their personal history for the edification of their children. The Dracul dungeon boss he¡¯d faced was another corrupted tyrant, invested with the power of the dungeon core and consumed by it. Such was the fate of any who leashed themselves to the aetherical madness of a dungeon heart, it seemed. While he was gladdened that Vampires were, generally, harmless herders, weavers of cloth, and rarely seen neighbors, the best kind, he was not going to go out of his way to interact with them. Just as well, they seemed happier to be left alone.


    Werewolves were also found skulking around in the wilds. Fortunately, werewolves were bloodthirsty shape shifters maddened by dark mana everywhere, so no readjustment of his entire world views necessary on that front. That they would drag a man or woman off to be twisted by dark mana was another reminder that some creatures were fundamentally not compatible with civilized society.


    Case in point: Skin Peelers, Xiptotec, had also come through Gateways as interdimensional travelers. But. There were no peaceful versions of a Skin Peeler. To a one they were callous zealots enthralled to their demon god, and Alexander would kill them on sight. Everyone, if they knew what was good for them, killed a Skin Peeler on sight. To let them establish a breeding colony was to invite disaster.


    Alexander was too temporarily lost in thought on those cruel perversions of the Human form to notice how his glare was encouraging people to keep their distance. Just as well, he was too busy to stop and chat, and his frustration was mounting. It was inevitable now, but the young man was still stewing because even the faint hints of scuffs and disturbed ground he¡¯d followed were impossible to track as the city outskirts encompassed him.


    The crunch of gravel and degraded pavement under his boots was mostly lost to the rustles of cloth, the thousands of footsteps around him, and the hum of New Chicago¡¯s various ghettos, all fully engaged with their lives at this daybreak hour. Now the hunt got tricky, his prey had broken their trail in the press of peoples, the movement of sleds, carts, draft animals, and food animals herded to their fate upon a butcher¡¯s block. It wasn¡¯t a surprise to him that they¡¯d elected to hide amongst the din and drum of people in the city; twice now his quarry, unable to shed his pursuit had done so. No, what was surprising was how far they¡¯d fled, bypassing other more convenient stopping points. They could have made for the city state of Baltimore, younger, smaller, east coast version of New Chicago.


    Those folk were kind of paranoid though, so maybe not.


    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    They¡¯d had trouble with Doppelgangers too, and that shit made you keep track of who came and went within the city.


    There were other towns though, smaller towns, less careful towns. Somerset Pennsylvania on one side of the mountains, Winchester Virginia on the other, with good roads between them, if impassable in winter. The killer hadn¡¯t even attempted to force him to choose a split in trails near the ruins of Philadelphia, one that took you south along the coastal side of the Appalachia¡¯s, the other along the western side. No, they¡¯d kept a hard west slant with the Great Lakes fifty miles on their right, essentially the whole way, and made straight for Chicago. An animal being chased only did that when it had a den.


    Alexander¡¯s helmet was on his belt, his weapons slung, as he was not trying to provoke the guardsmen or Adventurers of this place by being a stranger making aggressive spectacle of themselves. He kept his long Messer handy though, it¡¯s polished Fiend ivory hilt clear of the heavy cloak he wore. It was a slasher of a war knife, crafted himself of a complex alloy, a super metal enhanced by rune magic, of the spoils he gained by melting down the weapon of a Tech Duinn dungeon boss, a type of undead necromancer called a Reaper, dragon fang, as well as the remains of his old Messer, destroyed by a tier four Dracul in a separate encounter.


    The demon bone and starmetal scythe that Reaper had wielded had proved challenging to utilize, but he¡¯d worked with difficult materials before, and had the best help a man could ask for in his fellow townsfolk. Their alchemical skills and talents had been part of the reason he¡¯d hired and or convinced them to help him found the city to begin with.


    Singer, the bow on his back, was a warbow with enchanted limbs that slung arrows as hard as any crossbow. Mandrake poison on his arrow heads made sure that any hits he landed stuck. Alexander didn¡¯t want to appear overly hostile because he was already, clearly, not walking around on a holiday. Anyone not stone blind would see that the young Outsider was searching for something. Too bad he didn¡¯t know for what exactly he searched.


    Sure enough, he drew the sort of attention he¡¯d been avoiding not half an hour after entering the outskirts. A trio of Humans, two men and a woman, and a Gnome. Alexander couldn¡¯t distinguish the Gnome genders by facial feature yet, they all looked like kids to him.


    The quartet were all wearing the same indigo and orange uniform, which Alexander recalled from a time before the Pulse were the colors of the Chicago Bears, a football team. American football, of course, not soccer. It was funny how similar armor looked to football pads sometimes, they bore commonalities in design.


    Sleek and flexible, the armor the guards wore might even have been patterned from the thin plastic plates of sporting equipment, with clever straps to hold things just so, even in the violence of battle and there were some very slick interlocking design principles at work of which his Warforger¡¯s pride took note, committing the tricks to memory for later. Smithing arms and armor had come as a necessity, born from his learning to precisely shape plates for a steam engine and other technical machinery, but he never passed on a chance to learn.


    Better every day was a lifestyle, not a choice.


    The guards were led by a blond woman, middling height, short sword, flanked by a bigger, broader brown headed man similarly armed but with a longer blade, and a Samoan guy near as big as Benjamin Grisham, who himself was modeled after a pickup truck, bearing a huge battle axe. All the gods above, below, and in between, what are they feeding you? Alexander mused. The Gnome, fire red hair, came up to the pacific islander¡¯s thigh and carried a long dirk, a bola, a net, and a blow gun, unless Alexander missed his guess.


    ¡°Hold there! Stranger! I don¡¯t recognize you, traveler, would you mind giving me a few minutes of your time?¡± Asked the woman of the Humans, her melodious voice at odds with a plain, no-nonsense face, and she was clearly taking the lead.


    A slightly higher crest on her helmet, of something like turkey tail feathers rather than short dark starling pinions, must have been an indication of rank then.


    It was nice that she¡¯d posed the stoppage as a question, courtesy and civility went a long way in his eyes, especially when you were keeping a hand on your sword.


    Alexander stepped to the side of the wide street at her direction, with an easy ¡°Certainly! No trouble at all.¡± And a smile to back it up. He hadn¡¯t missed the too casual stances of the other guards, who placed themselves to cut off his retreat if he should run. Competent, he conceded, and was glad for it. Incompetent guards got a lot of innocent folk relying on them killed.


    ¡°What can I do for you Captain?¡± Alexander asked, letting the guardsmen do their thing.


    They relaxed, very, very slightly, at his passivity, and the Captain of the squad flashed a cool, practiced smile meant to put folk at ease.


    ¡°Just the usual. You¡¯re new to the city, yeah?¡± She queried.


    ¡°Certainly,¡± Alexander confirmed, ¡°Just arrived this morning.¡±


    There were no checkpoints on the outskirts, that was reserved for the inner ring walls around the city proper, where most of the Humans lived. Out here was where the newcomers were making do, the people who hadn¡¯t yet been truly accepted as citizens of the city. And the Otherkin. That kind of thing set his teeth on edge, but it wasn¡¯t his place, and these weren¡¯t his people. Alexander had problems enough without getting riled up at ghettos and gentrification based on race. He had questions for these guards too, and didn¡¯t need them getting defensive about all these people left, essentially, undefended.


    So, best to hold his tongue until after they¡¯d gone through their rap, otherwise they got cranky. He understood, it was the same protocol as guardsfolk pretty much everywhere nowadays, they were just doing their job.


    ¡°Gotta name there traveler?¡± He was asked by the man to his left, the brown haired one, without rancor, but with a bit more edge to his tone.


    The refrigerator sized Samoan guard and Gnome held their peace.


    ¡°Ayuh. Alexander Gerifalte, of Falcon¡¯s Rest, way up in Mainerland. I¡¯m here on business, chasing a murderous cannibal who fled Concorde New England, just a couple days ahead of me. Been forty-seven days on the trail, and they came right straight here.¡± The young man said, answering the next two questions in order for them.


    Who What When Where were the common lines of interrogation, and he wanted to go ahead and get ahead of a potential good cop-bad cop routine. Best to simply tell them what they want. If they got suspicious, how and why would come later, mostly on cross examination, since it was easier to catch someone up in a lie on the more abstract questions.


    The guards looked at each other, including the Gnome, and turned back to him with greater interest.


    ¡°From Falcon¡¯s Rest, you say?¡± The lady cop said, a hint of a question in her tone.


    ¡°That¡¯s a long trip, you said you made that in a month and a half?¡± said Bad Cop, obviously doubting.


    It was a long way, and Alexander had made good time. Relatively speaking. Of course, that tended to happen when you averaged sixteen-hour days on the move. They didn¡¯t know that, of course.


    ¡°Ayuh,¡± He confirmed, ¡°You guys and gals probably noticed, but I¡¯m a tier three. Got some dungeon cores under my belt too, so I move well. Thanks for not laying an inspection on me without asking, by the way. It¡¯s rude, or so I was told one time.¡±


    He had, in fact, been told that twice. The first time by his one day wife and Adventurer, Brig of the team of Adventurers Getsome, who had found him slowly going bush in isolation in his hometown. The second time by a Dracul Dungeon Boss who had slapped down his Greater Analyze painfully, before returning the favor with an analysis skill of its own that had felt disturbingly thorough.


    The guards relaxed even more, seeing as how their investigation was being abetted so openly. They¡¯d had their doubts when they first laid eyes on the strange guy informants had called a ¡°spooky one stalking around¡± that nobody recognized. Too many newcomers since winter, and there were some whispers of disappearances, they had to come see.


    ¡°Yeah, well, you know, comes with the job. We¡¯ll get to the inspection in a bit. For now, you said you were chasing a killer. Any details about that? We get a lot of newcomers through here, can¡¯t vouch for them all.¡± The captain inquired.


    Alexander was getting impatient now, he was tired, cranky from long, rough days with little sleep, but there were rules to the game and breaking them just got you in trouble, so he kept a lid on it. Part of that was the frustration that he couldn¡¯t actually answer their question with any satisfaction.


    His chagrin was obvious when he replied, ¡°I¡¯m really afraid I don¡¯t have much more for you. Concorde sent us a courier that said there were disappearances for a couple of days. Then somebody opened a root cellar that should have been locked, was funky smelling, and found three half eaten bodies. The killer had eaten the liver, heart, kidneys and guts first, then started on the large muscle groups and back. Brain was exposed but untouched, maybe they got interrupted, saving the best for last or something.¡±


    Slightly disgusted expressions met that grisly bit of detail, but he kept on, eager to get this show on the road.


    ¡°At that point the townsfolk got properly scared and called for me to come and see what nasty was hanging around. I thought it was dungeon spawn when I got word, but, when I got there, three people had disappeared the day before, three different men, only, nobody ever remembers seeing the three together, or even much about them, all three were recluses. That was how it started, and that¡¯s how it is now. I don¡¯t know what they, if there even is a they have in common. All I have is three poor descriptions of what might be victims or perpetrators and I know that the killer has a taste for human flesh.¡±


    As an afterthought Alexander added, ¡°That, and they¡¯re slick as owl shit at covering ground without leaving much trace, and can pace a tier three through the bush.¡±


    He knew he was dealing with honest peoples when the Captain grunted like she¡¯d been punched and said, ¡°Well, fuck me. That explains some things.¡± And the others nodded along with her.


    ¡°Got some people going missing?¡± Alexander asked, his easy smile gone now, all business.


    They looked a little less comfortable, now that he had his game face on, but he wasn¡¯t trying to make anybody happy now. He wanted to find this person, or thing, and end it so people could be safe again and he could go home.


    It was the Gnome that volunteered an answer, in clipped, precise English, ¡°Just recently. Six suspected missing. All Otherkin, living outside the wall. Reported yesterday evening by concerned relatives. Interviews produced no leads, nothing to indicate how or when they were taken. Otherkin do not like talking to guardsmen, if it weren¡¯t for the family we mayhap would not have known otherwise.¡±


    Yeah, he found himself nodding, that tracked. The target had gotten here two days ago, that meant it was already on the lookout for best eating. Six people though, that was, what? Over three hundred kilos of meat? The murderer must have been ravenous from running from him, tier threes could pack away the calories when they needed to. Maybe an Outsider with strange physiology.


    ¡°Shit.¡± Alexander remarked, ¡°That¡¯s a lot of food. No wonder I found so little sign, killer was running right straight out, not feeding as they went. I¡¯m now thinking we have a shape shifter bloodline, or a Class I¡¯ve never heard anything like, and I¡¯ve analyzed over a thousand of them, including the logs of every Matriculated in Safe Harbor. Whatever it is, it¡¯s dangerous, with a hell of a lot of gas in the tank. I chased it, hard, for over a month and found no evidence it had foraged or even stopped much longer than an hour a day, tops.¡±


    Nobody was willing to disagree with that assessment.


    ¡°This is over my pay grade,¡± the blond Captain decided, ¡°Come on Mr. Garifalte of Falcon¡¯s Rest, you need to talk to my boss.¡±


    He cursed inside his head, but couldn¡¯t honestly say it was a surprise.


    ¡°Sure thing, Captain, lead on.¡±


    She did and he followed, with the other guards on his flank to ¡°escort¡± him through the checkpoint and up to the monolithic skyscrapers that remained of the old metropolis. He was herded into one of the nicer ones and he figured it was going to be a long day as they hit the stairwell.


    ¡°Where we headed? Ten? Thirty?¡± Alexander asked, knowing it wouldn¡¯t be.


    ¡°Thirty? Would you listen to this guy? Boss¡¯s office is on sixty-eight.¡± The Samoan dude chuckled.


    Why in the hells hadn¡¯t the elevators been fixed? His luck was holding strong. Too bad it wasn¡¯t the good kind.

 Children of Gaia Chapter 3: The Outsider

    ¡°Surely you must be joking?¡± Alexander checked, incredulous that anyone in a position of authority would actually ascend sixty-eight flights of stairs.


    ¡°Nope. And don¡¯t call me Shirley, my name is Mary.¡± Retorted the lady leader of the guard unit.


    Alexander groaned at having walked into one of the oldest gags on Gaia¡¯s stony hide. How was it that, even after some seventy percent of the human population was decimated, people could still be found quoting Airplane?


    ¡°Gods that¡¯s so lame. Anybody else? We going to have some Ace Ventura slinky gags next?¡± Alexander scoffed, looking at the stairwell that went up, and up, and up.


    The Gnome pointedly glanced at a wound wristwatch and said, clipped tones, ¡°The stairs do not climb themselves, and we are still on duty, without relief for our slated patrol.¡±


    The guards nodded and the hulk of a guard coughed to hide a smile at the Gnomish obsession with punctuality before agreeing with his squad mate, ¡°Korin¡¯s got a point. Let¡¯s get our weary visitor up to the boss and get our asses back to patrol.¡±


    Bad Cop, the brown-haired guard from earlier grinned in a predatory way and addressed Alexander, pointing to the climb, ¡°Well? Hop to Mr. Troubleshooter. Don¡¯t worry, if you slow down, I¡¯ll push.¡±


    Hazing wasn¡¯t uncommon amongst the warriors and Adventurers. When your life depended on the guy next to you not to fold or bail when things got tough, you tended to put a newbie on the spot to see what they were made of before it was your ass on the hook. Apparently, the guards intended this to be his trial. Whatever.


    ¡°Whatever,¡± Alexander shrugged, dismissing the man¡¯s tone, ¡°See you there.¡±


    With that, he began a fast jog up the first flight, turning the corner to begin the second, with the staccato thud of his boots on the concrete broken by a voiced wager from Bad Cop, ¡°Over under we pass the tall bastard before he makes it half way?¡±


    The Samoan guard answered him without delay, ¡°You¡¯re buying the squad lunch, I¡¯ll take that bet. Tier three isn¡¯t just a number. Let¡¯s go.¡±


    Alexander won the guardsmen lunch on their doubting friend. He didn¡¯t run the sixty-eight flights, but he maintained a steady jog and arrived at the landing to this ¡°Boss¡± guy with legs burning, sweat stinging, breathing deep and even, and another thirty floors in him easy. Tier three was, indeed, more than a number. There weren¡¯t many more people he could count on his hands that could outpace him in Falcon¡¯s Rest. That ratio didn¡¯t get better outside it, in his experience traveling for ¡°work¡±.


    He had to give the guards credit, they made the climb only a couple of minutes slower than him, a testament to the rigor of their training regime. More sign of competence, Alexander was pleased to see.


    Huffing, redfaced, and with the Gnome riding the Samoan¡¯s shoulders unashamedly, the squad joined him.


    ¡°Damn,¡± Commented Bad Cop, trying not to show the strain of the climb and eyeing Alexander with slightly higher opinion, ¡°Falcon¡¯s Rest huh? They didn¡¯t send some candy ass after all.¡±


    The guard turned to his comrades and took his slice of humble pie more than gracefully, ¡°Where you lot want to snag lunch? Doris has steak sandwiches that¡¯ll knock your socks off, just so¡¯s you don¡¯t ask what she cut them off of.¡±


    Mary Nielson, as Alexander would think of her until the end of time, panted agreement ¡°Seconded, whew! Those stairs never fail to get the blood pumping. Doris is a magician on a griddle.¡±


    ¡°Steak sandwiches are an acceptable repast. We are not off duty for another four hours seventeen minutes.¡± Reported the Gnome as he or she climbed down from their perch on the huge guardsman and bowed in his direction in thanks.


    ¡°Told ya.¡± Was the big man¡¯s only reply to his comrades, showing least the effect of the ascent, despite his size, and his cargo.


    Definitely built of the same stuff as Ben Grisham, Alexander nodded to himself. When that guy tiered up he was going to be a hell of as asset, probably get poached by the Adventurers for something a little more exciting than guard duty.


    Now that that little byplay was out of the way, Alexander was ready to get this show on the road. The killer was out there, probably laying low after all that eating. Surely they hadn¡¯t actually eaten all six of those vanished people?


    He winced at repeating his vernacular misstep and resolved not to do it again.


    ¡°Can we get this over with?¡± the not so last Gerifalte asked, leaking his impatience, ¡°I¡¯m glad I passed muster, but I¡¯m on the clock until whoever is murdering folk is a done deal.¡±


    ¡°Sure, sure, keep your pants on Serious Business. Right this way.¡± Mary Nielson said, and stepped past him to enter the warmer space of the sixty-eighth floor of the tower, gesturing for him to follow.


    He rolled his eyes and stepped into her shadow, flanked by the others, as was the pattern.


    The interior was spacious, relatively open in places, but laid out in a multitude of cubicles and offices, with file cabinets forming distinct work stations. The glass windows however gave what was one of the most impressive views of Alexander¡¯s entire life since the day the Pulse had cooked his plane¡¯s engine and sent him plummeting to the tarmac. He had always loved the view from on high, the sight of all the glory the forests and lakes had to offer from above. Lake Michigan stretched on and on dark blue with the morning sun glinting off wind driven waves. Far, faint, even for his eyes, the Canadian shoreline marked the horizon. Absent the pollution of the pre Pulse automobile driven society the air was more than clear enough for him to enjoy this vantage to its fullest.


    ¡°Nice, ain¡¯t it? But the view¡¯s about the only good thing about this job.¡± Said a gruff voice to his left.


    Alexander turned to take in a man on the far side of middle age, one of the older he¡¯d seen since the Enshrining had claimed about everybody older than fifty-five. Square jaw, salt and pepper in close cropped hair and thick mustache, the slightly below average height man was lithe, moving easily despite his age. He was dressed in a well fit business suit, grey pinstripes with a black tie Windsor knotted, its tail end disappearing into the suit coat. He reminded Alexander of Clint Eastwood combined with Matlock.


    ¡°Well met.¡± the young hunter said, extending his hand, which was taken and given a vice grip squeeze ever so briefly.


    The steel blue eyes showed a slight humor, although the man was clearly not in the best of moods as he replied, ¡°Same to you. By your kit you must be the out of towner spooking people in the suburbs.¡±


    Suburbs? Alexander was briefly confused before he realized it was a joke. The suburbs were the warrens of the ghettos and shacks outside the wall that made up the city proper. A wry sense of humor, then, heavy on the sarcasm. They¡¯d get along swimmingly.


    ¡°Ayuh,¡± Alexander confirmed, and gestured to his escorts, ¡°Just got in this morning. I¡¯ve been two days behind one or more entities that are suspected of murder and cannibalism up in Concorde. Your people came to check me out and decided it was worth your time if we spoke directly, seeing as it looks like folk have started to go missing here too. I¡¯m Alexander Gerifalte, Entropic Venator, and, I guess you might call me a specialist at monster hunting.¡±


    A grunt from the man was his only answer and he turned abruptly and waved a hand in gesture to follow.


    These people were a bit abrupt, he noticed. City slickers and Flatlanders both had that reputation.


    ¡°I keep my ear to the ground and, when I started getting buzzing about Otherkin going missing in the suburbs, something tickled my memory.¡± Said the Boss without turning, or offering his name in return.


    They walked through the sparsely furnished office, segmented by file cabinets, writing desks for scribes, drafting tables for architects, and the slight dishevelment of papers to indicate that they had, up until a few minutes ago been working here. The faint smell of them still lingered in the air to Alexanders nose. Which meant that they had been sent out so that they wouldn¡¯t hear the discussion he was about to have.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to like this, am I?¡± Alexander checked.


    A bitter laugh short and sharp preceded the Boss¡¯s answer, ¡°Probably as much as I did when the pieces came together five minutes ago. My fucking ulcers are gonna get ulcers.¡±


    They marched into a cubicle formed by file cabinets and floor to ceiling book cases in the southwest corner of this layer of the tower. Paper, fountain pen cast aside, and an open ink well sat where they¡¯d been discarded when he¡¯d entered. Hurried last minutes notes were still drying on one piece of paper. Alexander scanned the document momentarily. It was dates and names, in clusters of a dozen or so, going back three years. Each cluster of dates spanned from August to October, for each of the years.


    ¡°This is a list of reported missing persons never resolved.¡± The Boss answered the question written on his face.


    ¡°Times are dangerous, you look like you know that pretty well.


    The Boss said, gesturing to Alexander¡¯s kit


    ¡°The thing is though, New Chicago, we got our shit sorted pretty nicely. Peacekeepers, they wiped out the dungeons early and have kept them cleared out for about three hundred miles in every direction, except for Cleveland, cause fuck that place and the hyper dungeon that puked up hades all over it. It hasn¡¯t been easy, keeping a lid on twenty-five thousand, six hundred, thirty-two people, and, as of three years ago, another eight thousand, seven hundred, eighty-nine Otherkin refugees.¡± He continued in a smooth basso voice that sounded like a kettle close to boiling to Alexander.


    This was a man under a hell of a lot of pressure if Alexander had ever seen one.


    The Boss looked up from the document he¡¯d been working on and said without heat, ¡°Jacobs, grab me a goddamn coffee, would you? One for our guest too. Black, no bullshit, you know?¡±


    ¡°That fine with you? Coffee¡¯s too rare to go fucking it up adding milk and sugar like some kind of woman.¡±


    A cough from Mary Nielson made the stressed man rub his face vigorously.


    ¡°Sorry, Mary. Old habits. You got bigger balls than everybody in here, if it makes you feel better?¡± He tried.


    ¡°Keep working on it, Boss, but I don¡¯t need balls to be squad leader. And as long as you keep putting ice in your liquor, I¡¯m not going to take you seriously when you tell people not to cream their coffee.¡± Replied the guard captain in tones that said teaching an old dog new tricks was a thankless task.


    Alexander Gerifalte, as a defacto diplomat for his settlement, couldn¡¯t help but do his part to ensure their prosperity, despite the nature of what had spurred his being here.


    ¡°You know, we grow and roast coffee beans, and produce honey, both by the ton, in Falcon¡¯s Rest. A small trade caravan runs every June, after the spring harvest and we arrange winter stockpile. Every September, the big caravan makes rounds with the summer and autumn harvest. They could come this far, if there¡¯s incentive to do so.¡± He informed his host.


    At the mention of fresh grown coffee, the Boss¡¯s expression lightened somewhat.


    ¡°You serious? How the hell you grow coffee all the way up in Maine? If I remember where that settlement sits. And I do.¡± The older man asked, glad to be distracted from the reports and his recent conclusions for a moment.


    Alexander was proud of this achievement, because it was mostly his wife Annita¡¯s project. Her class allowed her to harvest, preserve, and coax from seed just damn near anything, as well as aid in growing it. Entling blood infused soil into ultra potency and her green houses served as climate-controlled environments to grow in almost any condition. She¡¯d tailored several to include environments not native to Gaia, such as the volcanic conditions of Muspelheim or the near arctic cold of Niflheim or the sunless night of Nut.


    Harvesting and cultivating plants taken from dungeons seeded by those realms or from the Gaian regions converted into slices of them by the dungeon breaks were Annita Nguyen¡¯s passion. That and doing her witch arts to convert them into potions, salves, medicinal tinctures, infusions, antitoxins, and lethal poisons. Between her and the premier alchemist of Alexander¡¯s home, Wynona Saki, a former professional chemical engineer, they were spearheading rapid advancement in Gaian pharmacy.


    ¡°We have agricultural and harvester Classes that are highly specialized and damned good at their jobs. And we include them in dungeon culls to help their Classes mature whenever we can.¡± He answered.


    Too often, settlements made the mistake of not including their crafting and harvester classes, often the back bone of the settlement in drinking from the Dragon Pulse. A master armorer and weapon smith could make arms and armor from the purified, enhanced metals obtained by a mineral mining class, that would make a tier two rival a higher tier in combat potential. Add an artificer or rune carver to imbue them with the magic of monster cores and even noncombat classes could clear low tier dungeons, thus strengthening this cycle and pushing the combat classed Adventures to even greater heights. Infrastructure was always worth investing in, that was Scott Kaczynski¡¯s motto, and, as a permanent member of the settlement¡¯s council of leadership, he made sure they didn¡¯t neglect the efficiency gains of better food and equipment.


    Falcon¡¯s Rest¡¯s productivity had grown almost exponentially under the cryomancer architect¡¯s guidance, so Alexander wasn¡¯t going to second guess him.


    ¡°Huh. Good call.¡± Admitted the Boss, whose role and name Alexander still did not know, only that the responsibility was probably eating the older man alive.


    The Boss took up his fountain pen, dipped the nib in ink and inscribed in immaculate penmanship a note to present a shift in strategic resource allocation toward development of infrastructure and procurement talent. Another went to put aside funds for a trade caravan and road clearance routes for their Adventurers. Alexander took pride in helping his home thrive.


    Rich odor of fresh brewed coffee filled the somewhat isolated cubby as Bad Cop, the guardsman formerly known as Jacobs, returned.


    Alexander took his mug with thanks and blew on the scalding hot surface. No way he was going to put that in his mouth, it¡¯d raise blisters.


    Apparently, just the smell was enough to calm the older man¡¯s nerves, he relaxed somewhat while he nursed his mug in both hands, some of the strain leaving his features.


    ¡°Okay. Back to our shared problem. What you read there is what I¡¯m certain now is evidence of a seasonal killing of the residents of New Chicago that has gone on for three years now.¡± The Boss narrated, he raised an eyebrow in Alexander¡¯s direction and spoke on, as if letting the younger man in on a joke, ¡°Suspicious timing, that¡¯s when the dungeon¡¯s broke. Things were wild for a bit there, until the Peacekeepers managed to kill off the horrors that came crawling out of the transfigured regions.¡±


    Ah. Alexander saw immediately the implication, and the reason why the office had been emptied: when folk learned that something was hunting them and had evaded capture, or even detection, for three years, they¡¯d panic. Panic made it vastly harder to manage the population, especially for a city as large as New Chicago. For a city with more than thirty thousand residents, it would be, effectively, impossible to stop information from leaking or to halt the spread of misinformation that inevitably resulted from scared people feeding on each other¡¯s anxieties.


    ¡°The killer migrates.¡± Alexander said, shifting gears from being on the trail of some whack job with a cannibalism fetish to an unknown type of monster.


    ¡°Your murders happen in the fall, ours up north happen in the spring. Like a whale, it has big gaps in its predation. Gorges itself, then makes itself scarce, traveling to another feeding ground to fatten up for winter. Then it goes back to its spring feeding grounds.¡±


    Brigitte, his second wife had been a huge national geographic nerd before the Pulse. These days she enjoying reading scouts¡¯ journals about the behaviors and habits of predators and their prey, or whatever else she could get her hands on. She was a deep well for knowledge about wildlife and ecology. For a lady who ninety percent of the time acted like a meat head, the other ten percent of the time she was sharp as tacks. He listened to people smarter than him, most of the time, and picked things up. It paid dividends understanding predatory behaviors when you had to hunt them.


    ¡°There are such predators in my home¡­what was my home.¡± Korin the Gnome said, the stiff words slurring slightly from a haunted expression.


    That marked the first break in the tiny humanoid¡¯s business fa?ade.


    Alexander sympathized. He¡¯d learned all he wanted to know about loss from the Pulse and the events soon after. But he wasn¡¯t going to pry with questions, it wasn¡¯t his business, or his place.


    The Boss coughed into his hand, looked at the result with a frown, and wiped his hands on his suit pants. Can Matriculated actually get ulcers? Wouldn¡¯t they heal? But that wouldn¡¯t stop the body attacking itself under stress, the shifts in stomach acidity and immune robustness that might let an H. pylori infection set up, robust enough to not be purged when Gaian magic restored the man on the Phoenix sunrise, healing his damaged stomach lining as the planet healed all of her children every three days. Could a bacteria become mana soaked and bypass the healing magic that normally killed infections?


    His musings were interrupted by the put upon Boss asking the dreaded question, ¡°Doppelganger?¡±


    The guardsmen frowned, but their leader shook her head to dismiss those terrors as a vector for their issue.


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t fit,¡± She said definitively, ¡°Doppelganger¡¯s don¡¯t feed inside the settlements, they lead victims outside, replace the fed on person, and multiply rapidly. The infestations work like plague, growing quickly, spreading. This pattern doesn¡¯t grow, it has a more or less discrete number of victims. We¡¯re not dealing with a doppelganger situation.¡±


    A sigh of relief went up from the Boss.


    ¡°Blessed Christ, at least we¡¯ve avoided that.¡± The suited manager rubbed his hands over a gritty five o¡¯clock shadow while he described the horror aloud, ¡°Having to pull children from their parents¡¯ arms, who don¡¯t know their kid was eaten and replaced by a little hellspawn mimic a week ago, wives losing husbands, husbands their wives, what a fucking mess.¡±


    Bad Cop echoed Alexanders thoughts, saying, ¡°Yeah, well, we¡¯re still fucked. How did this whatever slip into New Chicago and start vanishing people for three years without being found out?¡±


    Boss answered that, bitterness loud in his tone, ¡°Because the whole fucking world came apart. A third of folk fucking statues, nightmares stalking around from whatever the fuck a dungeon really is, and we¡¯re using a bunch of zip ties trying to put it together again. Then, about the time we catch our breath we get kicked in the nuts by the Big Break. Why aren¡¯t there more of them is the better question.¡±


    That kind of pessimism never occurred to Alexander before, but the old man was right. Why weren¡¯t there more?


    Competition, he¡¯d decided years ago. The answer came from Brig¡¯s nature show rants and encyclopedias. The dungeons didn¡¯t arise from one monolithic realm, there were many, he had reason to believe there were, in fact, one hundred and eight of them. Those realms, when they formed dungeons, were called contested zones. Nothing said that the contest was one versus one, Gaia versus the spawning realm. It was a free for all, the dungeon spawn might be as hostile towards each other as they were towards Gaian life. Which meant competition and a net reduction in the number of creepy crawlies preying on human settlements.


    Monsters feeding on other monsters, dungeon spawn clawing away at each other, maybe even killing each other¡¯s cores made Alexander¡¯s hopes rise a bit. Until he considered that his abilities and powers grew stronger as he hunted the creatures and nothing said that the same wasn¡¯t true of these otherworldly agents or their crystal nexus. What if a dungeon started feeding on other dungeons?


    A shudder ran up his spine at that hypothetical and he shelved it to lose sleep over later. He was on the job, with a murderer that needed stopping.


    ¡°Assume camouflage talents of some kind, or shapeshifting, if it¡¯s a monster. It¡¯s common enough amongst dungeon spawn, hell, some of the critters in there look like people close enough. Like Skin Peelers. Or high tier Dracul. Or pick something from mythology that likes to mimic humans to cause trouble, I¡¯m sure there¡¯s precedent.¡± Alexander said, bringing them back on task.


    Nods went around the gathered folk. Yeah, best to assume the worst.


    ¡°You¡¯re the monster hunter expert then,¡± the Boss said glad to shed some of his responsibility, ¡°What do we do about it?¡±


    Alexander considered the protocols adopted in Falcon¡¯s Rest, and formerly Safe Harbor after their own doppelganger infestation.


    ¡°You got a Guild? An Adventurer organization? I need to speak with them to get a wider net cast, this place is too big for me to canvass alone, even if my gifts are best suited to do it.¡± Alexander asked.


    It was one of those things that had developed in parallel throughout the remnants of human settlements. Semi-independent of the civil government had almost always arisen an organized militia of combat capable people who served to protect the townships. They bore different names, but Guilds had become common parlance, adopted from the terminology of nerds and their games, as well as popular culture just prior to the Pulse. Most Guilds were mercenary jobs, with a scratch my back relationship kind of relationship with government.


    There was good money and perks being in a Guild of good standing. You were a little bit professional athlete, a little bit celebrity, and a lot bit Karls, the sub land owning warrior and farmer strata of Viking society.


    Alexander had, briefly, been in a top Guild in Safe Harbor, courtesy of his crafting and analysis abilities and class equipped to efficiently slay even boss class monsters with high stats and heavy Soak, given that entropic magic mostly ignored that bullshit and was extremely difficult to heal from. He¡¯d sipped from the cup of the superstar and that was a sweet nectar. Too sweet, it had stalled his progress, made him too comfortable, too distracted to Walk the Path with the devotion such required.


    But the allure of privilege, wealth, sexual partners, and a comfortable life tended to draw the best talent, pooled it under the Guild¡¯s umbrella. Independent Adventurer parties were mostly composed of highly idiosyncratic folk who had specific circumstances for not being ¡°Guild Material¡±. Alexander was definitely such. So were his wives. So were most of his friends. The most definitively odd ones had fallen under his banner when he left Safe Harbor to found Falcon¡¯s Rest. Ignoring the potency of Adventurers in tight knit parties was foolish, but Alexander didn¡¯t have time to hunt them up and acquaint himself with each and every party, he needed the centralized structure of the Guild to get shit done quickly.


    Boss responded to his question after looking at his guards and getting a nod from Mary Nielson.


    ¡°Yeah, I guess you¡¯d want the Peacekeepers then. Bunch of stout bastards, martial classes mostly, a pretty tight-lipped group of crafters and gatherers. I¡¯ll warn you though, they can be a little rough to deal with, especially if you aren¡¯t a local.¡± The Boss cautioned.


    ¡°Here!¡± said the older man, and he turned to his pens and papers, printing impeccably neat letters to write a letter of introduction, ¡°Take this with you. It¡¯ll let the sonsofbitches in charge over there know you¡¯re on my orders, and my dime, and they¡¯ll be less likely to fuck with you.¡±


    Alexander tucked the missive away in his belt pouch, and nodded his thanks.


    Soldiers tended to be close knit groups, averse to outsiders. He understood the dynamic. They wouldn¡¯t appreciate him sniffing around, like a pack of wolves resisting the intrusion of a strange lone hunter.


    ¡°Much appreciated.¡± The young Venator told the Boss, whatever his actual name and role might have been, and he offered his advice, ¡°I think I have ideas for where and how to look for our target. You probably already have contingencies, but I recommend a curfew, nobody out past dark, a buddy system, folk ought to be traveling in threes, and town criers letting people know that a murderer is about, but no more details than that.¡±


    They needed to limit the exposure of targets of opportunity. Whether it be a psychopath cannibal or some predatory creature from the dungeons, it was hungry. Six more victims in two days. Its normal feeding habits interrupted, forced to its wintering grounds prematurely. Who or what, it was probably going to be feeling cornered by now.


    Alexander didn¡¯t like the feel of this, not at all.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah kid, I got this. I been herding cats since Chicago went tits up.¡± Grumbled the old salt, before addressing his guardswomen with an apologetic ¡°Sorry Mary, Korin. Habit.¡± And continuing to Alexander with a barked, ¡°You got my writ, you got my blessing, go do whatever the fuck it is you do, as fast as you can do it. There¡¯s tension enough with the Otherkin, I don¡¯t need a riot on my hands when folk start pointing fingers from panic. I put directions to the Peacekeepers in that message, go on man, we¡¯ve got shit to do.¡±


    Thusly dismissed by rant, Alexander Gerifalte gave a slight salute, and took his leave, with the Boss growling instructions to his guards to start applying Alexander¡¯s suggestions, as well as a few that indicated that the old guy had, in fact, been herding cats long enough to be good at it. Competency again, it was good, and Alexander found reason to hope that, maybe, this hunt wouldn¡¯t turn into some nightmarish fiasco.


    He would learn, someday, to not give the Irony gods reason to turn their attention to himself with such thoughts.


    A few minutes later, with legs reminding him that he¡¯d been abusing them and a Phoenix sun not to rise until tomorrow, Alexander strode out into the air of New Chicago, its sprawl, its sheer scale giving him pause. The vantage point he¡¯d enjoyed above drove home the enormity of the task. Somehow, he had to track down the killer in a six mile wide, twelve mile long rectangle up the Lake Michigan coastline. That was a seventy-two square mile zone, roughly divided in half. Outside the wall were the ghettos and slums of the Otherkin and the not quite accepted newcomers of the city. Inside the wall were the citizens proper of New Chicago, living in the renovated or rebuilt structures that sat atop a warren of ruins of a city that had been rebuilt over itself at least twice that he knew of.


    Alexander was certain that his quarry had gone to ground, literally. There were enough tunnels from the subways, sublevels of collapsed towers, maintenance tunnels for the roads and utilities, and sewars to provide plenty of places for a lunatic cannibal or whatever else to hide in. The trick was gridding out the city to methodically cover ground, to avoid backtracking, and to keep an eye on where people had gone missing. Because they would, Alexander was certain of it.


    Those six Otherkin, that was an emergency ration situation, his instincts told him. The bastard was starving from its spring feeding being interrupted, and the subsequent chase Alexander had put it through. It would slow down now, adopt its conventional tactics, its cautious predation. A man would seek a dry place. More likely to be the subbasements and utility tunnels. A creature made things harder, it would have its own particulars, suited to its true form, which Alexander couldn¡¯t even begin to know. It was about the size of a man or looked like one though, and its stats had to include high Grace and Impetus, because he hadn¡¯t been able to run it down through the wilderness. So, he wouldn¡¯t have to crawl through tunnels only a snake could get through, unless its shapeshifting was extreme, in which case, this might be damned near impossible a mission to complete without catching it in the act of killing.


    ¡°Fuck.¡± Alexander commented to the air, which held that curious blend of musty, fishy, damp odors particular to lakesides.


    Bitching wouldn¡¯t get him home though, so he took off at a steady clip down a sidewalk recently repaired, fresh stone different in hue and texture from the older concrete. By its look, much of the repair done had been assisted by Oreads, whose classes and abilities tended to be aligned toward stone and metal manipulation. Whatever the case, smooth, even terrain let the young man hustle along with long legs eating up the distance toward the Peacekeepers guild hall.


    While he went, Alexander was already carving up the mental map of the area he needed to cover into grids. Outsider¡¯s Perception didn¡¯t just enhance his visual acuity to inhuman levels, it amplified his visual processing abilities, let him generate three dimensional maps with high fidelity. The spatial awareness had use in combat, permitting him to judge attack angles, to predict movements, since joints had only so many degrees of freedom, and a clawing stroke only had so many angles where it could hit. Coupled to his speed and dexterity, Alexander was a difficult man to land a hit on.


    He¡¯d better be, his five percent Soak was nothing, no shield of mana did Alexander have to escape harm. He had to fight the monsters on more even terms. The young man hated fighting things on even terms, it was always better to stack the deck with poison, traps, damage from long range, ambush, whatever else gave him the first and only strike of the conflict. That was particularly important when you didn¡¯t necessarily know what the abilities of the critter you were hunting might be. Most of them had at least one trick, one ace up their sleeve to gut the unwary.


    A hand rubbed his stomach unconsciously, where he¡¯d been ripped open by a Yeti on his first winter after the Pulse. He¡¯d been a much younger and far more foolish boy then, who¡¯d failed to understand the stakes, who¡¯d failed to prepare adequately for his prey, only to have it become the hunter instead. Alexander learned. He did not repeat the mistake of the Yetis. When you build traps, you build them in front of the engagement, not behind. Let the monsters come through them, let the damage stack up without risk, then engage while they¡¯re weak.


    Those were the thoughts that occupied him as he strode through relatively clean swept, orderly streets within the walls of New Chicago.


    Wool gathering was one of the ways he dealt with being uncomfortable, and he was very uncomfortable. There were people everywhere. All around. Strange folk wearing strange clothes, speaking in an unfamiliar accent, and they crawled like ants. He¡¯d never seen thirty thousand individuals together in real life and found it was not to his liking. At all. Who knew you¡¯d have a social phobia? He wondered. Hell of a time to find out, Little Falcon.


    The semi derogatory, playful diminutive came from his mother. She¡¯d enjoyed teasing him, joking and challenging at once, quick to laugh quick to find the humor in life. He missed the sound of her voice quite a bit, especially in those early days.


    A brush of shoulder against him from a less graceful person who did not enjoy Alexander¡¯s love of social distancing interrupted his thoughts. Black outlines from the form came to awareness in his eyes and he flashed a hand to grab the wrist that had just tried to steal one of his belt pouches. That pouch contained three poisons that would kill a man almost instantly if they got to your blood, most of them too rapidly to administer the antivenom that also lived in that pouch. The others could induce paralysis through the skin, and a host of insidious effects, from hallucinations to crippling vertigo and migraines. Alexander took the antidotes before he deployed the toxins, just in case.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    A grip strong enough to break the bones of a Normal he tempered by control, and he held the arm despite the weakly pulling struggles of the pickpocket, directing his attention to the face of the person it was attached to. Lips pressed to a thin line and a hot gaze said everything Alexander needed to about what he thought of thieving, boosted by very real anger about what would have happened to them if he hadn¡¯t caught them before they opened that pouch.


    ¡°What are you doing you freak! Let me go!¡± Railed the captured pickpocket in feigned outrage, high pitched voice piercingly loud.


    ¡°Hey! Help! This weirdo freak is hurting me!¡± They yelled, and Alexander had the displeasure of noting that they were female and young enough to have been barely fifteen when the Pulse had enshrined the early adolescents, making them about two years younger than himself, the youngest demographic of pulse survivors.


    Nearby citizens stopped and looked at the scene of a tall, somewhat menacing figure in armor, armed, holding a younger, and much smaller woman¡¯s arm.


    Alexander barely stopped himself from cursing, but he could do nothing about the scowl he leveled at the girl.


    ¡°You almost killed yourself you little idiot!¡± He spat at her, ¡°That pouch is poisons, nasty ones, and if you¡¯re so clumsy you can¡¯t pick pocket correctly, you can¡¯t open the vials to check without exposing yourself.¡±


    The struggling woman stopped when they realized that they hadn¡¯t managed to even slightly budge his hold. A bead of sweat appeared when she met his eyes.


    A guy dressed like a brick layer, approaching Alexander¡¯s height jogged up with a hard look on his face directed at the young man.


    ¡°Hey! Buddy! The fuck you think you¡¯re doing stranger?!¡± The man started, and Alexander ground his teeth at the smug tilt to dark brown eyes in his assailant.


    With displeasure, the young Outsider watched the flannel vest wearing man slap at the belt holding his jean to his narrow waist, a face that bore the appearance of early thirties tightening when the details of Alexander¡¯s bloodline became obvious.


    ¡°He won¡¯t let me go! I was just passing by and he said he¡¯d poison me!¡± She called.


    ¡°What the fuck?!¡± Alexander said, unable to process the ridiculousness of that lie.


    Why would anybody walk up to a stranger and tell them they were going to poison them? If you¡¯re going to poison somebody, the last thing you do is tell them you¡¯re going to poison them. Otherwise, they might survive. In his outraged confusion, he almost missed a clenched fist balling up to hit him in the temple.


    Almost.


    Using his only adequate Might, Alexander pulled the thief in front of him, drawing a startled yelp from her as he placed himself behind a would be criminal shield.


    His white knight attacker stumbled trying to avoid socking the girl in the face and Alexander took that opportunity to kick the man¡¯s left ankle through his right, clearing his legs from under him. A knee extended just so, clipped the falling man¡¯s jaw and the fresh new stone finished the job of relieving him of consciousness.


    Around him, the frozen crowd began to murmur.


    This is just what I fucking needed, Alexander told himself, the shock of this ordeal turning into anger.


    ¡°He used that girl as a shield, did you see that?¡± An incredulous woman asked.


    ¡°Frank busted his head when he tripped, he¡¯s bleeding, let¡¯s get him away from that freak looking screwball!¡± from somewhere behind him.


    Yep. We¡¯re headed for fiasco at Mach fuck it, Alexander noted.


    The pick pocket that started this whole thing started crying, crocodile tears falling from windows to a cold, calculating soul, bawling loudly to sell the story to these na?ve nincompoops.


    ¡°Hey! You asshole, what are you doing to that girl. Boys! Let¡¯s show this Otherkin prick what happens when you come to Chicago and stir shit!¡±


    A group of about eight of the stalled bystanders started toward him, following a dark-haired man, none of them with any of the phenotypes that indicated they were tier threes. Which meant that, if they had Matriculated, they were making a mistake. If they were Normals, they were committing suicide. But the course was laid in, and they had riled themselves into a righteous, probably racist froth at the chance to beat on an Otherkin that was harassing ¡°one of them¡±. By all the gods above and below, he wished this brand of nonsense had not survived the pulse. But here they were.


    Alexander shoved the thief girl away from himself, less hard than he wanted to, but harder than she was ready for, and she staggered to her knees, catching herself on her hands. That smug glare faded under his wilting stare.


    ¡°Okay. I am done now.¡± Alexander announced aloud, being completely done now.


    ¡°Thief girl,¡± He snarled at the cause of this ridiculousness, ¡°I want you to remember that this is your fault, and that I won¡¯t forget what you look like.


    Toward the oncoming group he tried one more attempt at diplomacy, the low edge in his tone telling all that he was without humor, ¡°Flatlanders? If you try to touch me, I¡¯m gonna have to hurt you a little bit, but you won¡¯t die, so do what you think you have to.¡±


    Thusly was Alexander Gerifalte¡¯s position made clear. And, also thusly, did this last plea to avoid needless violence go unheeded.


    Eight Normals waded in, three armed with tools they¡¯d been carrying to their day¡¯s trade, a carpenter¡¯s hammer, held low like a knife, a crow bar hefted two handed, a long Pittsburg aluminum level that might as well have been a club raised overhead.


    ¡°We¡¯re gonna cave you in freak.¡± Spat the dark-haired leader, whose friends nodded along their agreement, and chanted, ¡°Fuck yeah¡±, ¡°Kill this fucker¡±, and other witty enjoinders.


    Grim faced, Alexander stood his ground, scanning briefly the crowd for guards, for any sign that someone, anyone, would exercise judgment or civility. There were none. Most watched with dispassion, indifference, suspicion toward his person, and, a few, with a kind of malicious glee.


    ¡°Of all the stupid fucking¡ª¡± Alexander started, and he bit off an oath as he moved.


    To the approaching men, the Otherkin with the evil eyes and feathered scalp vanished and reappeared suddenly in their midst.


    Arm cocked back, Alexander lead with the weight of his charge and drove his palm into the chin of the dark-haired ringleader from below. The momentum of his attack lifted the man skyward, a clack of teeth breaking joining the cutoff yell of the man¡¯s shock at his initial movement.


    Time dilated under adrenaline¡¯s frenzied pulse. He was no Georgia Stephens, he could not loosen time¡¯s hold on him the way the Chronous Bulwark could. The Entropic Venator made do by being merely viperishly fast, and inhumanly graceful.


    While the first man¡¯s feet left the ground from the uppercut delivered, a path sailing him into two of his comrades, Alexander stepped sideways to smash an overhanded elbow into the forehead of the crow bar holding man, the slashing blow instantly lacerating him. The man¡¯s knees were buckled and Alexander wasted no more attention on an unconscious enemy, instead spinning tightly in place to low kick the level wielder on the inside of his knee, whose tendons snapped audibly.


    Eight was now five, and the screaming of the man with the ruined knee cut off when the leg Alexander had used to cripple him cannoned into his solar plexus, stealing his wind. A few ribs gave, removing the assailant from Alexander¡¯s concern. Within his mind was an image of the melee, Outsider¡¯s perception, a three-dimensional spatial map of his surroundings showed him the hammer lifted to swing down on his skull from behind.


    A flowing step under the swing his shoulder into that one¡¯s chest, who grunted at having the vicious swing awkwardly hyperextend his elbow. Alexander snatched the burly idiot¡¯s coveralls and slung him tornadically into a hip throw that smashed the spine against the pavement, he hammer fisted the man¡¯s temple instantly, turning out the lights in the bearded man¡¯s eyes, before his body finished bouncing from the throw.


    Benjamin Grisham¡¯s training to finish a downed enemy had been drilled into him through ruthless practice. His wife, Granny Nguyen, had taught him the throw. A tiny woman, who used all of herself to make larger opponents regret facing off against a low center of gravity coupled with a Dryad¡¯s rooted strength.


    Eight was four, two men still untangling themselves from the body of the first. Alexander was in a fighting stance now, hands raised into loose fists at his temples. All of the men who had held weapons were down now, bleeding, broken, and unconscious. It had been three seconds since Alexander had begun, and fear now replaced self-righteous fury in their faces, they had pulled up, barely having reacted to the pace of the combat.


    These weren¡¯t fighters, Alexander knew. They were tradesmen. Laborers. Schmucks. Alexander concentrated his will on the men and Greater Analyze swept over them, each in turn, and they grew uneasy at feeling the Outsider prying loose the blue scroll of their being to reveal to the Venator what he already knew to be true. Tier twos, the whole bunch. Minimal abilities, at low tier, barely matriculated cores. They¡¯d been walked through a dungeon, had touched a core, maybe, but had done little to nothing in the doing and were thus rewarded by Gaia the least of her gifts. They were not Worthy.


    Alexander Gerifalte would show them what it was to be, what rewards courage to face the dungeons earned you from Gaia¡¯s will. Consider it a gift, motivation to join the fight against the tides of the dungeons that threatened to overwhelm this world. What could be a better carrot than power? Or what more fearsome stick than powerlessness? Today, they would learn.


    He hadn¡¯t drawn his Messer, his bow was still on his back, and he had used none of his chaos magic. Until now. Greater entropic field rolled out from him like a grey and black blast wave, wrapping the men in its magic rending grip. Each shuddered when they fell under the shadow of his mana, faces wincing as they felt even their minimal mana disjointed inside their weakly developed cores. That involuntary flinch cost them.


    Alexander launched himself into the four remaining bullyboys mercilessly, and he crushed them with laser precise strikes to their heads, livers, necks, and mangled two more knees. The mauling took only another few seconds, these men could not follow his movements while he pounded them.


    The Entropic Venator was not a front-line warrior. His was the role of the flanker, the stalker from behind. But he was also amongst the fastest humans he¡¯d ever met, with that combination of Impetus and Grace that made his speed appear fluid. Brutal combat training and years of fighting dire wolves, cougars, werewolves, and any number of vicious things from beyond turned his raw stats into more than mere numbers. Beating these almost Normals was effortless. Most of the citizens, let alone fighters of Falcon¡¯s Rest would have whipped these men, maybe not all at once, except for the Adventurers. However, only Ben using his metal calling powers, or Georgia, and Zainabu using their time manipulation, could have done it faster.


    Unlike those warriors, his velocity was innate to him, it did not require the burning of his aetheric might. If not for their trying to use weapons, he¡¯d have felt little guilty.


    Sighing at the senselessness of it, he watched the stunned expressions around him turn to aversion, not a one of the gathered almost-mob dared to meet his gaze. The thief girl, eyes rolling from sheer terror, threw herself into a sprint and fled. As rapidly as they¡¯d gathered, the crowd dispersed, hasty glances over shoulder signaling that they were in full retreat. At least nobody except the thief actually fled running.


    Alexander shook his head at the scene. Men fighting men. Over nothing.


    ¡°Not nothing. Over ignorance.¡± He muttered angrily aloud to himself, now alone in the street, except for the vanquished would be vigilantes.


    Freak. Otherkin. The stigmata of being a tier three did more than make him stand out. It made him inhuman to those idiots. He wasn¡¯t just a stranger, or out of towner to many of these people. He was an alien. That sort of burned his biscuits, even though he should have seen it coming. Life in Falcon¡¯s Rest had spoiled him, where all were tier three, where the stigmata of awakened blood lines were worn by all, without judgment, without prejudice. Well, they¡¯d find out for themselves how things were in another few years, when their cores had been kindled long enough to advance to tier three.


    But there was nothing to be done for it presently, he decided. Alexander¡¯s job was to hunt down whatever was eating people, whether they liked him or welcomed him was completely besides the point. So, after dusting off his coat, which didn¡¯t particularly need it, he continued to make his way north through the scattered towers of New Chicago.


    By midday he had reached the northern edge of the city, and its wall. There was another gate here, slightly closer to the coast, similarly guarded as the south had been. Alexander was met by suspicion, but not hostility, and the guards had been made aware of his presence in the city. The writ from the Boss held weight with New Chicago¡¯s guard force, which was nice. Fortunately, none of them mentioned the fracas earlier that day, so neither did he. Word traveled slower than his rapid egress through the remains of a jungle of towering concrete.


    Alexander made his inquiries quickly, and the guards were forthcoming. No reported disturbances, killings, muggings, or general curfluffle. Traffic was all business, and business was booming. Yes, there had been many folk in and out of the gate, of all kinds, and the spring thaw had permitted hunting and the inaugural activities of the farmers, all escorted by Peacekeepers. No, there had been no reports of strange sightings, nor had the Peacekeepers issued any writs or warnings of hazards outside the walls, other than the usual edicts for caution when leaving the protection of the city.


    It was impossible to be completely safe, but things were, according to everything he was able to learn, well in hand. The guardsmen were even so accommodating as to escort him up their tower to survey the agricultural projects, the diligent labors of the farmers from on high. Fields outside the city gates were being prepped, their winter cover cleared, the ground broken, and organic compost tilled into the soil to rejuvenate it for planting in a month or so. Long were the days for the agricultural classes, only by their gifts could so many thousands be fed through the efforts of so few. They plied their gifts with gusto, oft accompanied by songs to the cadence of whatever task occupied them. New Chicago would have starved without these Matriculated.


    ¡°All hail the farmer, the herd rider, the fisherman.¡± Alexander intoned, with a remnant of humor.


    Speaking of fishermen, he had asked about the docks and received the expected answer: yes, there were fishing vessels active, no there had been nothing unusual from the lake, nor any sign from the C¡¯thula that anything was amiss, not that the fish folk were doing much in the way of talking. Notably, however, the carapace-like material the females extruded to create their submerged cave-homes were renovated recently. Alexander looked out into the lake and saw sharpened rebar stakes jutting from crab shell rooves. Scrap metal fences ringed those clusters of underwater civilization, and swirls of water followed shadowed forms of patrols, with who knew what other fortifications around their communities.


    Actions spoke louder than gill-garbled words, the C¡¯thula knew something was amiss and had readied themselves.


    It wasn¡¯t much to go on, but Alexander had to take what he could get. Other than circumstantial behavior of a race with whom he was not over familiar, he¡¯d come up dry. Damn.


    ¡°Thanks for the help gents.¡± He directed to the guards at their gate post, and he turned to make his way to the Peacekeepers compound.


    He¡¯d been putting it off as long as possible. Not that he had a particular problem with Guilds conceptually, but they¡¯d screwed him over badly in the past, and had nursed a calamitous program to permit dungeons under their control to go unculled. When those dungeons had broken, the things that exploded from them wiped out Safe Harbor in a matter of hours, taking two thousand survivor¡¯s lives with it. So, maybe he wasn¡¯t exactly looking forward to dealing with a strange guild again. There were often other challenges associated with Guildies, especially for foreign Adventurers, but he¡¯d cross that bridge when he came to it. Odds were, his strained patience was going to fray, it was nearly always so when he had to interact with the arrogance, sometimes even well deserved, of combat classed Guildies.


    Today, day forty-eight since leaving his family and home, Alexander was not in a mood for entertaining the whims of fools.


    The directions to the Peacekeepers were clear, follow the coast past Hyde Park, paralleling interstate ninety, then bang a left around Bridgeport, follow ol¡¯ fifty-five west until you hit the asphalt and petroleum plant, cross the canal on highway fifty north. When you get past the old race track, you¡¯re there, the guild hall sits in the renovated mott and baily castle where a Walmart supercenter used to be.


    Alexander had to adjust those instructions, having gone all the way to the north side of the neatly dismantled, largely burned out, old metropolis, but the idea was the same: follow interstate ninety until you hit the fifty-five junction. Even at his ground eating pace, it was ten miles legging it, so he did the trip at a jog. An hour later, he pulled up from his loping run to take in the guild hall.


    Gothic architecture was one thing, but somebody had done a replica of Notre Dame behind a sturdy looking thirty-foot-high curtain wall, bastions, crenellations, and all. They¡¯d also diverted the canal to wrap around the open green the track facilities and their damned impressive fortress-cathedral. The road leading into the Peacekeeper¡¯s Hall passed through a heavy steel gate much akin to the ones in Falcon¡¯s Rest. So. These Adventurers took security seriously.


    Armored men on horses thundered around the horse track, lances low and level, and they were practicing putting the shining metal tips through pumpkins on stakes. To their credit, they didn¡¯t miss much, keeping pages or squires or junior Adventurers busy replacing the targets from a heavily laden cart. Alexander saw men and women sparring with padded weapons. He could tell from the speed and the sound of the thudding strikes that they were going full contact; these were serious fights, by serious people. Shouted orders accompanied mistakes. Drill instructors haranguing lapses in technique or judgment. Alexander¡¯s hopes lifted, the Peacekeepers were running a real outfit, by the look of things.


    ¡°Okay, Alexander, time to talk to these so called Peacekeepers.¡± He psyched himself up, adjusting his bow string slightly on his chest.


    Actions practiced to thoughtlessness saw his hands absently clearing knife, belt pouches, and quiver, in case any of them were needed. Chance favored the prepared mind, and Alexander hadn¡¯t lived this long by being inattentive or sloppy.


    Confident steps made with intentional loudness, as he didn¡¯t want these people to even dream of his attempting to sneak around their compound, reminded him that the soles of his boots were worn thin. Another piece of kit that needed maintenance. Maybe he could purchase the services of Peacekeeper armourers and cobblers if things went well, it had been hard going this damned job. Soft steps were almost certainly unnecessary, sentries posted atop the guard towers should have seen him coming from a mile away.


    Absent many of the obstructing buildings lost to fire and reconstruction, New Chicago was flat as a board. Alexander found in himself a deep dislike for the south lands and their plains. Him for the mountains.


    ¡°Heyo! Peacekeepers!¡± Alexander shouted to the armored men on their tower perch, raising the missive with the Boss¡¯s supplication high overhead, ¡°My name is Alexander Gerifalte, and I¡¯m here on official business from the north country! Bastian Meadows sends his regards!¡±


    The two looked two each other and shrugged indifferently.


    ¡°Since when does Second District Governor Bastian give the Peacekeepers orders saying who comes and goes to our guild hall? You can wait right down there until we have time for you, outsider!¡± The left one called, more than condescending.


    Outsider. If only they knew, Alexander remarked to himself. If he were being entirely honest, the rudeness of these flatlanders was getting under his skin. Four settlements in the north he¡¯d visited, across most of New England, and not a hitch. He was in New Chicago less than a day and he¡¯d been treated like a sailor fresh off a plague boat at about every turn.


    ¡°Ayuh! Just so we¡¯re clear, I¡¯m here tracking a murderer that has already killed six people in two days in your settlement, with recommendation of the city leadership, and you two pissants are up there with your thumbs up your assholes while number seven is probably on the butcher¡¯s hook right this second. That sound like a good time to wave your pricks around?¡± Alexander shouted back, contempt dripping from his voice as he stowed the Boss¡¯s letter.


    Disdainful stares turned into hostile squints. Alright, evidently, he might have been underselling his frustration to himself Alexander admitted to himself. But he couldn¡¯t take it back, and he didn¡¯t want to, these men were playing games while folk died. Alexander wasn¡¯t playing at being a monster hunter and the lack of professionalism irked him.


    ¡°You want we should let the pretty boy run his mouth like that Howard?¡± The scraggly bearded man with a mouth turned like he¡¯d chewed lemons asked.


    ¡°Nu-uh Gibbons, I think we ought show¡¯em how to eat mud.¡± Replied the other from a square faced visage criss-crossed by two nasty looking scars, piggish brown eyes burning from behind the bars of his helmet.


    Alexander was curious about the scars, most wounds healed perfectly well, no matter how heinous, under the effects of the Phoenix sunrise. Were there injuries that resisted even that gift of Gaia? Or had he had those before the Pulse? He shelved the natural curiosity and got his mind right. Unless he¡¯d missed his guess, he was going to have to hurt these men, his sight had not missed the tightening of fists around weapon hilts.


    Violence was almost casual in the post Pulse world of Matriculated humans, those granted powers strange and fantastic, and compelled to use them to survive. With Soak around to limit the damage in most cases to a substantial degree, fights and confrontations were a fact of life amongst the warrior classes. Alexander Gerifalte, who as a side effect of his entropic powers had almost no Soak to speak of, did not treat combat as a game or contest. Battles were a matter of life and death, only a fool fought without all their powers at the ready. But that was not the case for most warrior Classed, and so, typically, fights were just another way to demonstrate prowess, gain rank, answer insult, and oft held demonstrations of personal strength at arms were considered a common component of social hierarchy.


    Amongst the survivors of Gaia¡¯s awakening, this seeming wild west of civilization, barely held in check by the tenets of the Contract, where such existed, that was the best-case scenario.


    Where no Contract held sway, anarchy was the rule, most commonly resulting in small baronies headed by warlords holding their seats only by ruthless might, where their domain extended as far as their ability to hold the other tier one and two humans in thrall. Twice Alexander had passed through territory controlled by one of these, and twice he¡¯d had to evade squads of combat classed folk acting as jackboots for their overlord. It was the worse-case scenario for Matriculated versus non-Matriculated, the sort of abuse the Contract was meant to prevent, the natural outcome for those without power subject to the whims and wills of those with.


    The helmeted faces framed by their tower window vanished and Alexander heard the tromp of armored feet on stone as they stomped down the spiral stair, appearing at the barbican gate. Together, the pair worked the geared pulley that lifted the portcullis, heavy steel rising slowly by their combined effort. All the while, the pair holding him fixed with brazen, furious stares, promising retribution against the stranger that dared challenge the authority of the dominant Adventurer¡¯s guild of the region.


    A disappointed sigh whispered from Alexander and he shook his head as he reaffixed his helmet. Violence. Conflict. Dominance. It was a shame to see folk turn so easily aside from peaceful alternatives to settle disputes, common rabble and Guild alike here in New Chicago. A lot of places weren¡¯t so much better than the warlord, sometimes, in his estimation. That, mostly, was his aggravation and cynicism speaking.


    Once, Falcon¡¯s Rest¡¯s leading council had gotten their heads together and discussed deposing the would be tyrant. They had sided against, barely, on the basis that the man wasn¡¯t an actual threat to humanity and thus didn¡¯t qualify for elimination under the Contract. That left a formal duel as the only way to rectify the situation and nobody wanted to risk one of the Adventurers from the township over a bunch of strangers. Ben would have gone. Or Brig. Or Cervantes and a dozen other Adventurers of renown, veterans in combat against the dungeons. They¡¯d even discussed unleashing Zainabu, the most dangerous classed in a one versus one death match Alexander knew of. If it were her, with her powers to scry through time, to project her attacks, if only ever so briefly into the future, a victory was nearly guaranteed. But nearly wasn¡¯t enough to risk a friend, a precious citizen of the town, and none were willing to birth a war whose outcome was almost certain to be only maybe better for those folk held under the despot¡¯s thumb, so the matter had been set aside as an unfortunate reality of life upon Gaia.


    Falcon¡¯s Rest wouldn¡¯t be some kind of hegemonic police of their neighbors, they hadn¡¯t the inclination nor the power to spare. That meant people had to figure out civilization in the new world on their own, they could be shown a better way, but not coerced.


    A final ratchet clacked into place and the mechanism holding that mass of metal forged to hold against monsters and men who were as monsters locked. The loud clang of the portcullis latch catching to hold the tremendous weight of it in place announced an end to his musing on world police and justice by empire. His personal safety was now top priority, since if he was out of action, the killer got to keep on keeping on and more innocents would fall to its predation.


    The two gatekeepers began their march on the smart mouthed Adventurer outsider that didn¡¯t know his place, waving papers signed by the civic leadership that didn¡¯t wield true authority in their minds, because it wasn¡¯t backed by the only kind of strength that held any worth to them.


    Features placid, the Entropic Venator wondered if they would threaten first or simply attack him. Past experience with Guildies said it was a coin toss. In his mind, the real question was, was there any good reason to give the meat heads interfering in his business of catching a monster the first swing?


    Alexander had wanted to believe that an organization sprung from a jewel of the continent was better than the half mercenary thugs of the minor settlements. So much for his high hopes for the Peacekeepers being an efficient, competent outfit too. His disappointment was immeasurable, and his day was ruined.


    And here they come, boots thudding across the timbers of the draw bridge, gate now thoroughly unsecured, since the pair had not called for relief before abandoning their posts, which aggravated the patriarch of house Gerifalte even more! Here they were, breaking security so they could be assholes! By all the gods above, below, and in between, where was the discipline? The gravitas? What kind of fucking gate watchers open the fucking gate to a maybe hostile stranger? Ludicrous! And also, sort of funny. Not the ¡®haha¡¯ kind though.


    Both the watchmen Guildies shared a nasty grimace in his direction and drew their arms and he couldn¡¯t help the slow grin that spread on his boyish features. Since today was going to be one of those days, he might as well embrace the stupid. This was good, in its own way, a silver lining to the cloud that was pissing on him. One of the problems dealing with Guildies is that they liked to test strangers. Beating a few asses tended to circumvent a lot of the heckling you might otherwise endure. It would appear that Alexander would get to skip a few steps in the usual song and dance. Core alight with entropic mana, Alexander was ready to share his lousy mood.


    ¡°Alright then, you gangly fucker,¡± the scarred one started, as the pair of them separated to be able to somewhat flank him on the short draw bridge across the diverted canal moat, ¡°How¡¯s about you apologize by wrapping that mouth around my sweaty di¡ª"


    <table style="width: 7.79854%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="102">


    Chaos strike


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Black and Gray, chaos flame sprung to life in front of Alexander¡¯s upraised palm and sleeted into the speaker¡¯s groin, before he could finish his crude suggestion. Entropic magic condensed into a dense, fiery dart dissolved the organization of cloth and flesh, randomizing connections, bonds breaking, as Alexander¡¯s entropic mana consumed itself to shred Soak, rendering the man unprotected by the buffer so many Matriculated took for granted.


    ¡°Haaaagh!¡± screamed the scarred one, slapping at his crotch, which now smoldered, leather leggings falling apart and flesh looking like strong acid had eaten deeply into the flesh.


    ¡°Maybe later.¡± Alexander told the screaming man, who had fallen to curl defensively around his ragged genitals.


    Entropic magic had a side benefit to penetrating Soak and resisting nearly all types of regeneration: it was pure agony.


    His partner¡¯s cries and sudden grotesque wounding paralyzed the second Guildie for a moment, until his wits caught up with the situation. Shouting curses, the armored man lifted high a great hammer so recently freed from its leather hip harness and charged the final twenty feet between them, heavy sabaton issued metallic reports from his pounding steps.


    Alexander kept wary watch. The reckless charge would have a kicker. Combat classes always did. His time amongst the Guilds of Safe Harbor served him well here, with its experience of Classed abilities and mana enhanced combat maneuvers.


    Black outlines sprang away, showing the Venator a figure leaping into the air, a class enhanced jump with a great hammer poised to crush him, a half second before the clenching muscles unleashed superhuman strength. Half a second was long enough for Alexander to pull from his bag of tricks a retort against unbridled aggression. In the moment the Peacekeeper launched, Alexander concentrated on erasing his presence, obscuring his enemy¡¯s sight into a blurred half impression while the armored warrior¡¯s eyes could not keep up with his own suddenly accelerated movement, a weakness of most melee fighters¡¯ dash abilities.


    <table style="width: 11.3729%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="138">


    Broken Silhouette


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    A single quick step forward and the afternoon light briefly eclipsed as his airborne enemy passed overhead, allowing the pouncing attack to arc harmlessly while Alexander¡¯s combination of ability and timed motion allowed him to vanish into what was about to be the attacking man¡¯s blind spot.


    Armor rattled with the force of the Peacekeeper¡¯s landing, his hammer¡¯s stroke terminating in a savage blow to empty stone. Flung fragments of pavement shrapnel pinged off the man¡¯s own armor as they stared at the empty ground where they had been certain to crush the unknown attacker, but Alexander was safe from the pelting standing where he liked to be against an enemy: in their shadow.


    ¡°Where the fuck?¡± The Guildie asked, refusing to believe his attack had missed.


    A smooth draw pulled his Talon, and he stepped into the counter, his Armorer sub-trait from being a Warforger and experienced maker of protectives, coupled to immaculate vision, showed him where to strike, as if a glowing beacon sat along a seam in the plates beneath the Guildie¡¯s left arm. The man himself was momentarily stilled by combination of his target¡¯s seeming disappearance and his hammer head being briefly stuck in the stone beneath his smashing leap and the gatekeeper didn¡¯t feel the presence at his back. Alexander¡¯s Venator gifts included an amplification of attacks delivered to foes that he¡¯d flanked or who couldn¡¯t see him. The poor idiot with the hammer was both.


    <table style="width: 6.41755%">


    <tbody>


    <tr>


    <td style="width: 100%" width="102">


    Blindside


    </td>


    </tr>


    </tbody>


    </table>


    Alexander resisted infusing the blade with entropic energy, the lethality of chaos magic inside the body was severe, and he couldn¡¯t guarantee it wouldn¡¯t kill the man when he punched the war knife¡¯s tip through a small gap in armor plate below his armpit, skewering a lung before the blade halted on the well-made breastplate covering his freshly perforated chest, missing carefully heart and aorta on its way.


    His target gasped at the wounding pain, but Alexander wasn¡¯t going to let him suffer overlong. He pulled the Messer free from the reflexive arching of the stabbed human and smashed its hilt against the warrior¡¯s temple, the metal denting under the full arm hammer blow. While brute force wasn¡¯t his forte, he¡¯d received Gaia¡¯s blessing for subjugating more dungeons than any other one person he knew, and he had few doubts a critical strike like that would fail. A quick flip to reverse the blade and a casual drop of his hand slid the knife back into its sheath while the concussed Guildie fell limp.


    Raptorish concentration faded from his face now that the foes were neutralized and Alexander allowed himself a bit of pride at how little blood ran from the precise stab of the downed warrior.


    A neat little hole, no major blood vessels damaged, just a collapsed lung to inconvenience the man for a few days until the third sunrise healed him. Just like the young hunter wanted. Alexander Gerifalte did enjoy a job well done, and he smiled slightly at the quality of the work.


    Turning to the chaos stricken Guildie, he was presented with a group of six Peacekeepers just now exiting the open gate in a confused charge that halted short. Heavily armored, like their downed comrades, each with weapons drawn they surged forward until they were standing in a line in front of the gate that led into their domain. They held their weapons at the ready, all wore the focused intent of those who had their combat class abilities in preparation. None of them looked pleased behind the visors and bars of their helmets. Especially not in comparison to a still grinning Alexander.


    Kicking the shit out of a bunch of day laborers goaded to a frothy, kind of racist mob by a clever thief held no pleasure for him. However. Bitch slapping sense into two men who had great power and exercised poor judgment, judgement that bordered on malicious incompetence, was good clean fun. Screams from the stricken man had turned into tooth clenched growls as he hauled himself to his feet, assisted by his fellows, his hands still protectively held over a gnarly chaos flame touched wound. Whatever else happened, that one would think twice before offering insults to strangers and threatening them with harm without knowing their abilities.


    ¡°Afternoon! Who else wants to attack a government sanctioned Adventurer while they carry out official business?¡± Alexander called, a little more cheerful now that he¡¯d gotten to relieve some of his frustration on the Guildies.


    If the warriors before him had been dour before, they¡¯re eyes went positively flinty at his sally. A few started forward, and Alexander wondered if maybe he¡¯d pushed his luck a little too far, until an ear-splitting shout of ¡°WHAT IN THE GOOD GODDAMN IS GOING ON HERE?!¡± stopped everyone cold in their tracks.


    What a set of pipes, Alexander conceded, slightly startled by the auditory impact of the shout, with a finger in his ear to check for tinnitus.


    ¡°GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU LOT! I wanna see what¡¯s got my fucking lunch cooling before it¡¯s dead!¡± declared the incredibly loud voice that trailed off into an angry growl, its owner a young female, if he were guessing by the timbre of it, if not the volume.


    True to suspicion, the six Guildies parted and through them marched a lady for whom Alexander, a tall man, only stood to her shoulder. Giant-sized, she was clearly a tier three. An Oread by the sheer scale of her. Only Oread bloodlines got that big. He was certain of it, even without Greater Analyze. Ben and Brig were Oreads too, and they¡¯d both grown significantly in the years following their tier up, particularly his wife who had a frame larger than even Ben¡¯s, much to Brig¡¯s amusement. Her short jokes about her fellow party member, sister wife Granny, and husband Alexander kept her endlessly amused, as did the raw power with which she could wield her lance against dungeon spawn.


    Hair like spun gold tied in a bun, coifed immaculately, and a face and figure fit for a fashion magazine, her blue eyes glittered like ice at the source of her displeasure. Which meant she was staring daggers at Alexander. Her armor was of the same sort as her underlings, plate and chainmail, with a visored great helm hooked on her belt. The long cloak clipped over her armor was red though, instead of white. The sword she carried looked like it was made to carve elephants.


    ¡°Wow!¡± Alexander remarked, impressed at the physical presence of the plate armored Peacekeeper Captain, ¡°What is lunch? Half an ox?¡±


    Anger turned to careful study as the officer took in the scene, one of her men cradling his balls, with the entire front of his pelvis looking like raw hamburger half grilled, and the other unconscious with a single stab wound in his side, his hammer still buried in a small crater in the stones before the drawbridge. Their assailant was, as far as she could determine, untouched. He was also, to all appearances, completely unphased by being stared down by seven combat classed Matriculated.


    Surprisingly enough, the woman reared back and smiled a Hollywood smile of perfect teeth, before the giant woman replied ¡°Fee fie foe fum, I smell the blood of a mercenary puke! What the fuck are you doing here, beside making my men chew rocks?¡±


    He relaxed a little, now that proper dialogue had commenced. A pro like her would have given orders to paste him already if that was the plan.


    ¡°Ah! One sec.¡± Alexander answered and he fished the missive from the Boss out of his belt pouch, raising it so all could see the official seal of the city official.


    ¡°I¡¯m working.¡± He continued, relaxing now that things were approaching normality.


    ¡°My name is Alexander Gerifalte, of Falcon¡¯s Rest, on a contract from Concorde for a serial killer and cannibal on the loose. I tracked them forty-seven days through wilderness, and they made for this settlement like a salmon swimming to its home river. As of yesterday, six of your countrymen have gone missing, likely thanks to the same killer, since I interrupted their gravy train up north. The Boss, er, Second District Governor Bastian, has reason to believe that this is the culprit for a spate of yearly murders since the Big Break three years ago. He sent me to liaison with the local Guild, and these two knuckleheads decided they wanted to abandon post to fuck around and find out. I found myself in the mood to let them.¡±


    Her face darkened as he spoke and she turned to the wounded Guildie and snatched him by his collar. One arm lifted him from his feet so she could stare through his skull and she snarled, ¡°That how it went?¡±


    A mark of her men¡¯s respect for their officer, the Guildie didn¡¯t even attempt to lie to cover his ass, he nodded, and gasped, ¡°More or less.¡± with his feet dangling freely.


    A nod of her head and she dropped the soldier, who staggered but attempted to come to attention, despite the gruesome injury.


    ¡°Okay,¡± the giant Peacekeeper officer declared, still quite a bit louder than Alexander was ready for from so lovely a face, ¡°First! Until further notice, Howard and Gibbons are relieved of sentry posting in favor of latrines, stable keeping, and whatever else anyone can think of that has them covered in shit, since they like to stir it so much. Second, we are, all of us,¡± and she directed that glare toward Alexander at that last bit, ¡°Going to sit down and not put holes in people while we talk like reasonable human beings about the common good of New Chicago.¡±


    Music to my ears, Alexander quipped to himself, but he didn¡¯t say anything. Just because he was vaguely irritable didn¡¯t mean he had to cut his nose off to spite his face. Besides, he was getting serious Benjamin vibes from the giant lady, and she¡¯d been pretty fair handed, all things considered.


    ¡°Well, come on in then, my lunch isn¡¯t getting warmer while I fucking stand here. And somebody COVER THE GODDAMNED GATE! What are we, Peacekeepers or amateur hour greenhorns playing doll house?!¡± The Oread waved, impatiently, before addressing her subordinate ¡°Vasily, you wanna grab Gibbons? I don¡¯t think he¡¯s awake yet.¡±


    The officer chivvied everyone to motion. The Peacekeeper addressed directly put away his longsword, and, as if on cue, the rest of the warriors also sheathed their weapons, coming to attention. Vasily, who had the same dark hair and Slavic features as Oleksiy, Shiv, the former surgeon and primary healer of Adventurer Party Getsome, strode forward to pack his comrade in a fireman¡¯s carry without so much as a glance Alexander¡¯s way. Which was fine by him, he didn¡¯t need any more trouble than he¡¯d already managed to find.


    As his worn boots trapped soundlessly over the wooden planks of the drawbridge, following the troop of Peacekeepers into their grand cathedral Guild Hall, Alexander figured he was way over quota on trouble for one day.