《New Cthonic》 Chapter 1 New Cthonic I Salem Cooper had too much energy to do anything. He was pent up, worried that he might explode into a massive ball of fire. It had happened before though not to him of course. But there had been that girl who turned into a giant mythical phoenix and burnt down the Mall of America. He tapped his foot, refreshing the page again on his laptop. Consensus on this forum was that it was a government op, but what choice did he have at this point? Every few minutes a heartbeat would feel so violent and hot that he thought his blood would burst from his veins like red seafoam.
Topic: [Help] [Urgent] Do I have superpowers or am I dying? There¡¯s something wrong with me. I feel feverish and I¡¯m in pain, but I¡¯m also wired. I didn¡¯t sleep last night and I doubt I¡¯ll be able to tonight. For the past few days, I¡¯ve been seeing different bizarre vistas when I close my eyes a lot. It used to be every few months or something, but now it¡¯s almost more often than not. To me, my friends seem to be acting strange, but logically, when I think about it, considering that they all are being weird in the same way it seems more likely that actuallyIam the strange one. Although one of them has definitely changed ¨C she went from courageous to acting like a 1930¡¯s Adventure comic. Also, I got sent home from school yesterday because I kept saying things to people that I couldn¡¯t remember. No one would tell me what I said either, but the way they looked at me, they 100% think I¡¯m cursed. This is the country so they¡¯re prone to that way of thinking, but still. I¡¯m eighteen, so I know there¡¯s a lot that it could be. Or I could just be going crazy? Anonymous 2007/03/04 11:00:43
The first post had been less than helpful and had almost brought him to tears.
I¡¯d hazard your going through a strong psuchic awakening. Gigahertz described something similar in his autobiography. You should probably isolate yourself from all people until you get your powers under control because iot kind of sounds like you did mind crimes. Anonymous 2007/03/04 11:02:15
Had he mind-controlled Ginny Ennis to be bolder and slightly more manic, or was he being vain in thinking it was related to him? Maybe she had lost her mind on her own. Her father was the voice of the second most popular shortwave radio Appalachian news specialty station in the country. All that fame was sure to get to someone¡¯s head. Why did this have to happen to him now? He had just started to get consistent commissions for art. Granted, they were all, tasteful, fursona portraits, but it was reliable, paying work, the end goal of every artist. Salem refreshed the page again, doing so every few seconds now. It was dawning on him, as the vertigo mounted and the visions of the spectacular began to linger after every blink, that things might not be okay, and that he might be, in fact, about to die. He was saved. A verified user and a Licensed Special Responder had replied to his post.
Hi, don¡¯t panic. Lift-Off here, Stunt Actress, LSR, and Bridge to specifically the air part of the Elemental Plane. You are 1000% a Bridge. I don¡¯t know to which Meta-Plane, but we all pretty much go through the same thing. You didn¡¯t do any ¡°mind crimes¡±, you were speaking a tongue local to your particular Plane ¨C it can sound very jarring if you don¡¯t speak the language, but it''s not harmful. Also, that girl might just be going through it. You don¡¯t have to isolate from all people forever, but you should get clear for now. When I ¡®Bridged¡¯ I blew the roof of my parent¡¯s house off, when the Satrap Nasramin ¡®Bridged¡¯, to the same Plane, she kicked up millions of tons of dust into the upper atmosphere. You¡¯re going to be fine, this happens to 1-6 people a year. You don¡¯t usually hear about it because we¡¯re rare among Supers, and don¡¯t generally cause that much fuss. Last year a Bridge summoned a few million butterflies over Madrid and didn¡¯t escape the local news cycle except to our small circle. If you want to DM me some personal information, I can try to help as discretely as I can in case anything does go wrong though. Welcome to the family! Lift-Off (Verified, LSR) 2007/03/04 11:05:39
He was thirty minutes into the State Game Lands before he realized he didn¡¯t need to be running full bore. Salem had never been an athletic youth; his body was meant for perching in front of a desk or hunching over a sketchbook. Yet he felt fine, if anything the half-hour sprint through uncleared bush had leveled out his other symptoms. His thoughts were clearer than they¡¯d been for days. The woods were quiet as he slowed to a walking pace apart from the crunching of dead leaves beneath his sneakers. With only two roadways in and out of Dudlin, Pennsylvania, the quiet came quick once you were in the woods proper, andthe sounds of civilization were lost to the Appalachian wilderness. Hopefully whatever superpowers he was coming into would give him some means of finding his way, because he was very lost. Salem had made for the woods nearest his house, but that meant very little in Dudlin. The forest was making a concerted effort to reclaim the once-thriving rail town. He could¡¯ve been anywhere this side of the river ¨C there were even roads he could have crossed without noticing, ones so far gone to disrepair that entire sections had been washed away by torrential rains years ago. He was shivering. While he may not have felt the strain, his body had still drenched itself in sweat and the early March chill was biting. After reading the post from Lift-Off, he had the forethought to make a pack before running off. Unfortunately, his panic meant that all he had brought was a single change of clothes and two granola bars ¨C no water, no jacket, no boots. With a sigh, he trod on. A powerful headache was beginning to crest up his temples where it weighed him down, forcing him to stare at the ground. He noticed his steps looked like they were stumbling. A little valley between two hills or a crook between three would be perfect. The earth could soak up anything he might be about to do, like nature¡¯s bomb shelter. Yes, all he had to do was find a little nook and then he could rest. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. A bed of moss to lay down on. Let it swallow him into the loam. Down, into the ground. Down. ```` A six-foot cube cutout of the forest floated on its own in a vast dark expanse. He recognized the rocky ditch as where he had collapsed moments ago, though it was sans his body. Salem was sans his body too. As far as he could tell, he was nothing but the total comprehension of this particular cube of space as it hung motionless in time. Beyond ¡®moving¡¯ the angle with which he was observing the space, he couldn¡¯t seem to do anything at all. He hoped something would change soon because he could already feel the monotony of this current existence.
[Tutorial 1/5] 1. You have formed a Bridge to the Origin Axis, Ovum Mundi, the Egg from which all realities were born. Your mind has constructed this Game-like system to parse these new alien sensations. In your parlance, you have become a Dungeon, a physical location through which the power of Creation and Change flows into this world. Within that broad constraint, you are free to design yourself as you see fit. This tutorial will teach you the basics of building yourself and maneuvering through life as a Living Location. To do anything, you must expend energy. You will naturally draw in energy from the world around you over time. By affecting change in your surroundings and bringing the world more in alignment with the Origin Axis, you¡¯ll be able to draw power directly from the other side as well. Anything that dies within you will also grant you whatever spiritual and physical power they may have possessed as well.
His world shifted in an instant to include a floating series of menus and information placards, the time of day, and a little map of the six-foot cube for example. Without human hormones flowing through his brain, Salem was finding it hard to panic. He could feel his mind trying to click the switch on, however. Out of habit, he assumed.
[Tutorial 2/5] Let¡¯s get started on making your new body. Don¡¯t worry, you¡¯ll be able to redesign and rearrange everything we¡¯re about to do at any time you aren¡¯t being observed by a sapient intelligence. Start by making your entrance. This can be a cave, a root tunnel, an old mausoleum entrance, etc. Until you gain more power, this will determine what kinds of creatures and treasures you can create though, so choose carefully.
Salem felt the mental equivalent of a deep exhale. There were worse fates than playing a base-building sim for the rest of eternity. It killed him though, to know that he would forever be stuck less than an hour¡¯s hike from his hometown. Maybe he could worm a tunnel out toward State College given time. Not exactly his idea of a destination town, but at this point, he¡¯d take what he could get. At least his powers afforded him a tremendous amount of creative freedom. As he flickered through designs in his head, they appeared instantaneously, translucent in place before him, like perfect 3-D models at the speed of thought. The most energy-efficient entrance was a cave. The least was a root tunnel, but only because it suddenly expanded his awareness to include a copse of old growth trees that framed the opening. He went with a cave entrance, modified to include an excavated entrance complete with enormous, carved stones keeping the way wide enough for the average man to pass with a comfortable stoop. Salem hoped they would transfer an element of mystery to what lay inside, make a visitor ask, ¡®Who made this, and why?¡¯. For the hell of it, he included thousands of differently sized eyes carved into the walls. The moment he finalized it and made it real, another room appeared just beyond, empty save for a ten-foot-tall glowing, red crystal shard.
[Tutorial 3/5] Well done. You¡¯ll notice that you automatically created a Heart Room. This contains the vital magics keeping you alive and is the only way through which to truly harm you. Make a few rooms to put between your entrance and your Heart. Again, you can always rearrange these later.
Time was frozen, but Salem was curious to finish the Tutorial. For now, he focused on a framework he could fill in the details on later. The first room was made of more stone, to be made into a little temple to some long-forgotten god, he was thinking. At the far end was a crack in the wall leading into a tall but narrow tunnel, tight enough to tear at clothing. That in turn ended in a natural cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Amidst the spikes was hidden a sheer drop thirty feet down into his Heart Room. Just those two relatively small spaces used up a surprising chunk of his starting energy.
[Tutorial 4/5] Now it¡¯s time to populate your halls with life. To do so, you must design a creature, and designate a space as its spawning area. Creatures will spawn at a rate that depends on how much energy is required for their creation. There are many ways to increase the spawn rate for your creations. Granting them the ability to sexually reproduce, or to corrupt visitors into monsters, as examples. Currently, you are limited to designs that could feasibly be found within the animal and plant kingdoms and can only imbue sub-sapient intelligence. But as you grow in power and your mind gets better acclimated with the alien extremes of the Origin Axis, you¡¯ll be able to create truly fantastical beasts and servants. If your creatures expand to fill your space completely, they will wander out into the world to fulfill their natural desires. This can be a great way to affect Change and gain energy from the Origin. However, they won¡¯t naturally want to leave your expanse until they¡¯ve filled the space. The lives taken by your creations outside of your halls also go directly towards generating more power as well. Conversely, people who kill your creations gain a small amount of their energy, growing stronger ¨C much like experience in an RPG.
Was he the bad guys? His powers sure seemed to incentivize havoc. Well, if Salem ever wanted to amount to more than a hole in the ground, he would have to play the game. Plus, before all his friends who played moved away, he¡¯d spent most of ages nine through fourteen designing monsters for his favorite collectible card game. Some of the better later sketches were what had gotten him his first commissions. Again, he marveled at the speed and ease with which he could freely develop his creations. He quickly translated an old monster of his into the game-like, mental library, the first of potential beasts he could start spawning, titled ¡®Tunnel Wolf¡¯. The concept had come from an old drawing in which a creature looking like a mix of a moray eel and a weasel was dragging a knight¡¯s body into a crack along a cliff path. It was a long, lanky thing, capable of whipping itself around to attack at any angle with a long, viscous maw, or strangling its prey like a python. Salem placed its spawning location amidst the stalagmites and watched in awe as two living creatures appeared in a bed of dead leaves and old bones. His menu system said they would spawn another every day, and two juveniles every week for every breeding pair of adults. The juveniles would grow into adults a week after spawning. In many ways, his creations were closer to video game summons than actual living organisms, but perhaps that could change in time.
[Tutorial 5/5] Almost done. Just three more basic fundamentals you¡¯re capable of making. You don¡¯t have to have all of them to be complete, but each can go a long way to making sure you¡¯re successful in the long term. First, Traps. Traps use energy to create, place, and to reset after being triggered. Currently, you¡¯re limited to Traps that rely on mundane, terrestrial physics. Your own created beings won¡¯t be in any danger of triggering your Traps. Secondly, Lures. This broad category of additions increases the rate at which you draw attention to yourself and how much energy you passively draw from Ovum Mundi. These can be anything from a gold vein, rare herbs, salt licks, and more. Currently, your only limitations on Lures are your imagination and how much energy you have to spend. Finally, Treasures. You have very little control over your independent Treasures to start. These are vessels or small areas that you¡¯ve created to draw in various forms of metaphysical energies, Life, Lust, Ki, Magic, etc., and call on the Origin Axis to transform those energies into incredible, miraculous items and boons. A stronger one of these getting into the outer world is a guaranteed huge source of Change, and just the knowledge of their existence escaping could be monumental. Place one of these three to finish your Tutorial.
Creating the Tunnel Wolves and their spawning location had used almost all of the energy he had remaining, leaving him little he could do. Anything that could be found in the local area normally seemed to cost him almost a negligible amount of energy though, so he settled for adding a salt lick at his entrance. He could also designate a crack of a certain size as a Black Widow spider hotspot Trap, which he added to both the tunnel going back into the Stalagmite Forest as well as interspersed between individual stone spikes. And then time resumed, and Salem was alone, save for his two new tunnel wolves, contentedly grooming each other as though they hadn¡¯t just popped into existence a second prior. 2.1 Mary Cooper was going to shoot the Sheriff. She didn¡¯t care that he was her cousin. Swear to Christ, she was going to rip the damn pistol off his damn belt and put two between his eyes if he saw fit to roll them at her one more damn time. ¡°What, Jimmy, what,¡± she spat, ¡°is so damn funny about all of this.¡± He tucked his thumbs into his pockets with a smirk. Her Cousin Jimmy, or Sheriff Murphy to the rest of Dudlin, was a handsome and naturally charming man, infuriatingly so. Mary had watched him grin his way through life, failing upward at every step. Now the entire town was cursed to have the Murphy clan¡¯s prettiest, most empty-headed buffoon as its lead law enforcement officer. ¡°Mare, are you kidding? I said your boy¡¯s probably at a girl¡¯s place, and you said, ¡®No, Jim, sum¡¯ins afoot. I¡¯m telling you. He left here with only one change of clothes and a few granola bars.¡± He chuckled. ¡°I mean, listen to yourself, woman.¡± She grit her teeth. ¡°No, I said¡ª¡± Jimmy continued, interrupting her. ¡°And by the way, I¡¯d hate to say it, Mare, but the kid¡¯s probably been doing this for a minute, because the granola bars? Let me tell you, that¡¯s a pro move, right there. I mean, my man¡¯s brought snacks.¡± He laughed loudly. ¡°He might be a Cooper in name, but he¡¯s a Murphy when it counts!¡± She clenched and unclenched her hands in rage. Dale, her sweet husband, had the presence of mind to speak up, saying calmly what she couldn¡¯t. ¡°Sheriff, Salem ¨C he, he doesn¡¯t do this. His room looked like he¡¯d left in a tornado, the kitchen cabinet was still open, the front door was unlocked. This is a kid who¡¯s read a book called Organizing for Creativity twice. He has a job on the internet. I mean he makes near as much as Mary does full-time at the diner. He¡¯s more a man than a boy, really. And he¡¯s definitely not the sort of man who¡¯d run off like this.¡± ¡°Dale,¡± said Jimmy, ¡°you were the most boring teenager I ever met, and at Salem¡¯s age, you¡¯d already knocked up my cousin.¡± Mary started crying. The sobs bubbled out surprising her with their force, racking her thin frame with spasms as she tried to fight them back. Dale tried to wrap her in a hug but she had other plans, lunging for a vase to throw at her bastard of a cousin. Jimmy caught the vase out of the air with ease even as he jumped back in surprise. ¡°Woah, woah! I¡¯m sorry, alright, I¡¯m sorry. I crossed the line, that¡¯s my bad, alright? I get it, your son is missing. You know I love that boy.¡± He awkwardly set the vase down on the floor. ¡°I didn¡¯t know he was making money on the internet. That¡¯s sick as hell.¡± She let Dale pull her into him, almost going limp against his barrel chest. ¡°But it is nighttime, there is still a State of Emergency, and I am sheriff for the whole town, not just my kin. Now, my boys will be rolling around checking up on curfew anyway, and they will obviously know to be on the lookout for Salem.¡± Jimmy¡¯s reminder that there was an active State of Emergency hit her like a punch to the gut. ¡°Uhh, and uh, you know,¡± said Jimmy, floundering in the face of a crying woman, ¡°if he¡¯s not back tomorrow, say, noon ¨C you know to give him time to wake up late and get breakfast ¨C we¡¯ll do a big, proper search party.¡± It took two or three minutes Jimmy-free, weeping into the floral print of their couch to calm down enough to function. Dale had dutifully been rubbing her back, kneeling alongside her the whole time. Her sweet man, he deserved a better woman. ¡°Dale, it¡¯s only 6:30. I¡¯m not waiting for noon to do something.¡± ¡°Okay,¡± he said in his even keel. ¡°What do you want to do?¡± ¡°We called everyone we could in town,¡± she said. ¡°Dale, what if he ran into the woods?¡± Dale thought silently for a moment. ¡°The closest Helcat sighting was 150 miles from here. The Hunting Lodge would have noticed if it was near.¡± The blood fled her face. She looked through him, into the middle distance. Dale had no idea what she was talking about. And he never would. ¡°The Hunting Lodge¡­they must have ways of finding people who got lost,¡± she said. Dale nodded. ¡°I know they keep dogs. Couldn¡¯t hurt to ask.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Mary watched him as he got ready. She could barely contain the contempt as he took the time to properly lace up his boots. He had lost his sense of urgency after Jimmy¡¯s banter. It was unbelievably disappointing. She waited until they were in the car to say sharply, ¡°He has an online girlfriend.¡± ¡°Hmm?¡± asked Dale. The streets of Dudlin were all but empty and the town near pitch black. Once upon a time, Penn State University had operated an observatory atop a nearby hill and paid the town to not use its street lights. The University had long left, but Dudlin remained dark. Someone had done the estimates on how much it would cost to modernize the gas lights and that had been the end of that. ¡°Salem has an online girlfriend, so what Jimmy was saying was completely ridiculous.¡± ¡°Really?¡± he said, surprised. ¡°Salem is dating? Who is it?¡± ¡°Another artist he met on a forum. And our son¡¯s not a cheater, so¡ª¡± ¡°Ah.¡± Dale let on the gas some more, accelerating to ten above the speed limit, a sprinting pace for the man. ¡°Sorry,¡± he said. ¡°Fucking Jimmy.¡± Mary laughed. Dale swearing could always get a titter from her. ¡°It¡¯s okay.¡± She petted his arm to let him know she meant it. ¡°He told you about this?¡± ¡°I asked him who he talked to for two hours every day at the same time.¡± ¡°Oh. Ha, yeah.¡± Dale coughed. ¡°Did he show you a picture of her? Is she¡­pretty?¡± ¡°Dale!¡± she scolded with a smile. He laughed. They sat in companionable silence for the rest of the drive. Oak Crescent Hunting Lodge was a hundred years old, a grand estate once the summer home of a steel millionaire. It sat perched upon a ridge, one side overlooking Dudlin and the river, and the other a view of the vast Game Lands and State Forests, and the rolling hills of Appalachia beyond. After a hundred years, it remained one of the few profitable businesses left in the area to still be growing. As the folk of the country crowded into major cities, the desire to escape back into the peace of it grew. The Lodge provided a way for rich men to embody a fantasy in an idealized version of the woods, where they could partake in traditionally masculine blood sport with talented hunters to ensure the trip was worth its exorbitant cost. Mary grew worried at the sight of the place, looking so much prettier than everything around for miles. She had heard stories of the sort of work this place offered young women in the surrounding county. The sort of things they expected from their staff ¨C it was why she¡¯d never tried waitressing for them. Dale reassured her as they neared the wealthy retreat, parking a few spots down from an Italian sports car worth more than their home. ¡°I know the man who trains their dogs, Mary. He¡¯s a good man, whip-smart. He¡¯ll find Salem. I know it.¡± ```` Salem was delighted to find that he could freely speed up his perception of time. Or slow it to a crawl or a halt should anything interesting happen, as unlikely as that may have sounded to him at the moment. He had extended little air cracks out to surrounding hills to stimulate a breeze, with the hope it would carry the smell of salt to some nearby deer. It was just a waiting game now. Perhaps sensing his boredom, his tunnel wolves took turns hopping over one another, playing tag through the stalagmites. It was cute, but could hardly hold his attention. Sped up, at least, they looked like spiraling blurs, making an entrancing pattern. If he wanted to, he could experience time millions of times faster than normal, and let entire years pass by in a blink of an eye. It made sense, he supposed. He was a place now, after all. In kind, however, accelerating time too much made him feel inhuman, and made the world feel too much like a video game. An hour of real time in a subjective ten minutes was the most he felt comfortable with at the moment. He had spent the remainder of his energy ¡®carving¡¯ an elaborate statue of Samiah, his girlfriend, and turning it into a Lure. Salem had realized shortly after completing the Tutorial that he hadn¡¯t remembered to message her what was going on before he ran into the woods. He¡¯d forgotten to leave anything for his parents as well, but they could feasibly figure out what happened on their own. Samiah lived in Tehran. Hence the statue; if he could get a lifelike replica of her to go viral on the internet then she¡¯d have to know he was still thinking of her. She knew where he lived, it would be impossible for her to believe it was just coincidence. Salem felt confident the Lure built into the statue would make waves. From her eyes flowed a small but steady stream of water, dripping down her face into her cupped palms and then into the cracked earth at her feet. Where the water touched, it left a visible golden streak, fine dust in enough quantity that it looked like paint at first glance. Gold drove people insane. He had lacked the energy to add in a full vein, but this pittance every day was within his budget and people had still killed for less. It had also increased his daily power draw by over five percent. Salem didn¡¯t understand why making himself more valuable increased how fast he accumulated energy, but he was happy to oblige his new ¡®biology¡¯. If he had to be a cave, he wanted to at least be the coolest one. Two dogs at his entrance snapped him out of idly sketching scenes into the walls of his cave through cracks in the rocks. They were hunting dogs, he¡¯d seen enough growing up in the area to know that, and wore tear-away collars. Each stopped for a moment to lick at the mineral crystals spread about the entrance, but quickly moved into the cave, sniffing with a purpose. That was odd. Dudlin was exactly the sort of place to have hillbillies who¡¯d leave their dogs out unattended or locked up at night, but he was a way out from the town and publicly available land. Maybe someone was out here poaching ¨C he had no idea when the hunting seasons were. Salem briefly contemplated setting his tunnel wolves to ¡®Subdue only¡¯, the best he could do to limit their violence, but a Dungeon had to eat, and they weren¡¯t his dogs. Besides, if he ever wanted to communicate with his family again, he needed to race to unlock higher-level intelligence in his creations ¨C and that meant obliging his new nature. The dogs ignored the statue completely, tentatively sniffing at the crack at the far wall. They were low enough to be able to ignore the dense field of webs that clogged the top half of the crack. He could see everything within him perfectly, as though it was lit flawlessly at all angles, but the dogs were operating in total darkness. The first cautiously navigated the crack, narrow enough to traverse with ease but blind to the danger lurking within. His tunnel wolf had propped itself between the stone walls at an angle, holding its body almost completely vertical to the ground. The moment the dog wandered underneath, the monster lunged down, snapping its maw around the animal¡¯s neck, and dragged it upwards into the crack until its torso was lodged trapped between two jagged, jutting rocks. Its dying whines and wails were horrifying. Once it was fully caught in the stones, the tunnel wolf was quick to disengage from its thrashing prey. The sound of its extended agony was soon drowned out by frantic barks and yips from its companion. It began to sprint back and forth through Salem¡¯s tunnels and out from his entrance, trying its best to summon help. Salem watched as his tunnel wolf began to devour its prey while it was still alive but too tired to fully resist. He was filled with a mix of horror at the event and pride for his creations, who could do no wrong in his eyes. That said, he did have to speed up time until the dog finally died after almost ten minutes of agony. The burst of power from its death was far greater than he had expected, almost ten percent of everything he¡¯d spent the whole day. It was more than enough that whatever discomfort he felt over the creature¡¯s death was quickly lost to the fun of planning out further expansions for himself. First thing to do was prioritize luring in more visitors. His appetite had been whet. 2.2 Ever since the Forestry Service had adopted their experimental ¡®radio perimeter¡¯ around the Helcat¡¯s assumed range; the Hunting Lodge¡¯s satellite phones had been worth their weight in shit. Why the government didn¡¯t just take everything they spent on the year¡¯s new bullshit tech and put it fully into the Special Response Bounty, was beyond him. He guessed relying on superheroes was considered too Ottoman now. Moose didn¡¯t even disagree with the principle; he didn¡¯t want the state to rely on one person with weather powers for irrigation. But a truck-sized mountain lion? Surely that fell squarely under the Special Response System¡¯s purview. He cursed and contemplated winging the bulky metal box into the dark woods, right off the hill he¡¯d hiked up to try and make a call. But the Coopers needed to know he¡¯d found their son¡¯s backpack. Next to a knee print in the mud as well, a sign it had been dropped out of exhaustion. The kid had been sent home from school with a fever and for ¡®saying strange things¡¯ yesterday ¨C had temporary psychosis driven him out here? Damn, there was nothing for it, he was going to have to climb a tree. He sighed taking off his shirt and twisting it tight like a rope. They had made him do something similar in the Army, and the Rangers had even made them practice at night. That said, not like he was fucking nostalgic for those times. ¡°Mr. Troyer ¨C ah!¡± he said. He had managed to prop the phone between his chest, his arms occupied by pulling around the tree for leverage. ¡°He¡ª¡± Static cut in and out. ¡°¡­you alright?¡± ¡°I¡¯m up a tree,¡± he said gruffly. ¡°¡ªsee. What¡­you found? ¨Ca ping earlier.¡± ¡°Good, it came through. Those were the coordinates where I found the kid¡¯s backpack. We need to get those to the Forest Service.¡± There was a pause before Troyer said anything. ¡°Are¡­sure that¡¯s wise?¡± Moose had known Zachariah Troyer to be a cold, pragmatic man, since the day they¡¯d met, but he wasn¡¯t seriously suggesting they¡¯d cover up a teen¡¯s disappearance, was he? Howling echoed through the trees and leaf-covered hills. Moose quirked his head. They had found the end of the trail. One of the dogs, Welly, was dead. An ambush predator. ¡°The dogs found something. I have to go.¡± Moose didn¡¯t think very highly of his superpower most days. Generally, dogs had very little to communicate that they couldn¡¯t effectively do with just their normal behaviors. Being able to talk to dogs was a bit like being able to say ¡®fuck you¡¯ in any language ¨C most people could basically make the same claim. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. He¡¯d found it so underwhelming that sometime in his late teens he¡¯d made the decision not to confess it to his girlfriend at the time and had never bothered to change his mind on ¡®coming out¡¯ ever since. As far as anyone else was concerned, Moose was an ordinary man who happened to be quite good with dogs. What a bad idea, he realized now, in the middle of running as quickly as he could towards Decker, his still living companion. He probably should have insisted on bringing dogs with him to every mission he ever went on as a Ranger. Decker was better than night vision if you had the time to parse his panicked barks. The dog bounded up to him when he crested over the ridge hiding the cave they¡¯d tracked the scent to. He was shaking and near to crying, clinging to Moose¡¯s legs for comfort. Poor thing was a bird-hunting dog, meant to rouse and retrieve, not to tangle with predators. ¡°Shh,¡± said Moose. Instantly, the dog stilled, all business again. Snapping on a headlamp and pulling out his handgun, the woodsman made his way down into a crook between hills. To his disbelief, massive carved stones framed the entrance to a cave large enough for two or three people to enter standing abreast. It was one thing to have the place described to him by a dog, and another to see it in person. The statue of the girl inside was so lifelike that it gave him a start. Without a living smell, he supposed it hadn¡¯t stuck out to the dogs to be worth mentioning. But by god, it was beautiful. Even knowing the threat the cave contained, Moose couldn¡¯t stop himself from running a finger through the golden lines on her face. ¡°Gold,¡± he muttered to himself with a mental sigh. People were going to lose their minds over this. And the whole thing reeked of the dark arts. Ignoring the probably cursed statue, Moose leveled his gun at the crack in the wall his dog was whining at. Spider webs shone in the headlamp. There were no signs of a struggle, no trail of blood leading into the tunnel. If the kid had entered the tunnel, then he still had the wherewithal to crawl under the worst of the webs, which were unbroken starting two feet and up. He got close enough to verify the type of spider, before taking two huge steps back. Of course, they were Black Widows. ¡°Hey, kid,¡± he shouted. ¡°Salem!¡± Moose waited for a reply. There was silence and then a quiet chitter that grew louder and higher pitched, almost mocking to his ears. Decker whined, taking a step behind him. He clicked the safety on his pistol off. The chittering stopped. The sensible thing to do would be to leave and return in the morning with help, but if the kid was still injured, still alive on the other end of that tunnel¡­ Taking his shirt off for the second time tonight, he stepped forward and whipped it down and through the dense webs, clearing the worst of them before flinging the shirt away. He used a trick he learned as a Boy Scout, lowering his headlight so it was level with his eyes. Spider eyes reflected straight back at the source of light, twinkling helpfully for him. He stomped the worst of them away and pulled a flare from his belt. The spiders fled from the light ¨C the best he could do with what he had at the moment. Holding the torch forward, he swapped his gun for a knife and started to carefully make his way forward. The smart thing would have been to send Decker in first, but Moose couldn¡¯t bring himself to make the dog suffer like that. A shadow rapidly shifting under the red light of the flare gave him just enough notice to yank his body back, ripping bad gashes across his abdomen, but saving him from the furry eel-like creature from dropping down onto his skull. Instead, it caught his arm holding the flare on his forearm and immediately started to yank him forward into the crack. Moose tried to stab the creature, but it kept his arm between it and the knife. It wasn¡¯t that it was stronger than him, looking at it now, it couldn¡¯t be much larger than his hunting dogs, but it had all the leverage in the world while he was fighting just to keep from falling forward on his stomach. He dropped the knife and pulled his gun out again. Placing the muzzle against his arm, he aimed through himself into the beast¡¯s maw and unloaded, shooting through his own flesh and bone. The first shot deafened him completely, the fifth, its muzzle flash almost pointed straight at his face in the melee, blinded him. After that it was a panicked rush to get out, a mindless scramble back and away from the danger. When he came to, he was on his back at the entrance of the cave. He could hear Decker¡¯s pained whines from inside, the occasionally heightened yip as something bit into it, eating his good boy while he was still alive. There was a noticeable series of pinpricks on his neck he was all but certain were spider bites. He sat up, the distant flare light from within the cave was the only real light anymore. A hint of gold shone in the dark, two streaks that he knew belonged to the weeping girl statue inside. Where he had run his finger through could be seen in the negative space, as dark as the rest of the statue¡¯s face. Moose made a note to not disturb the gold next time ¨C bad luck, clearly. There would be a next time, that was for sure. It was personal now; he had two dogs and a kid to avenge. 3.0 Teen, 18, Missing, Presumed Dead Outside Dudlin, Mysterious Cave to Blame? By: The Mountain Prophet Editors 03/10/2007 The Mountain Prophet grieves for its neighbor, three-time magazine cover contributor, and dear friend Salem Cooper, aged 18, of our Little Town by the River, in the Gentle Rolling Hills of Pennsylvania, missing since March 04, 2007. Our hearts go out to him and the Cooper Family. The Prophet will be hosting a silent auction for all three of Salem¡¯s original watercolor covers on its website: here, with all proceeds going to the Coopers to cover funeral expenses. Tragedy struck Dudlin, Pennsylvania on the first Friday of March, when Dale Cooper came home from working at the mill to find his front door partially open and his son nowhere to be found¡­. Marina stared at the words ¡°Presumed Dead¡±. Her news app hadn¡¯t appeared to have made a mistake. The article hit all the criteria: Dudlin, PA, check; Salem Cooper, check; Special Response, check. But, ¡°Presumed Dead,¡± no, that must have been a mistake. The Bridge couldn¡¯t have died. His symptoms were in the top 1% for pre-Bridging shock responses according to Dr. Morris. The researcher had said over the phone when consulted that she¡¯d correlated those responses with a category of effects she labeled ¡®visible-over-1000-kilometers¡¯. Both of them had been excited to see what his first power use would be. Dr. Morris had suggested buying stocks in nearby companies, citing evidence of powerful economic resurgences following the introduction of empowered individuals in depleted, poverty-rich regions. The article didn¡¯t even connect superpowers to the boy at all. According to them, Salem had wandered into the woods in a fever haze, fallen into a mysterious cave, and been attacked by its monstrous residents. There was no mention of his reaching out online for help, nor anything about his use of a Meta Language the day prior. And they thought he fell in a hole and died? Preposterous, he would have been on par with Satraps and Zaibatsu Kensei ¨C No, she would confess that she hadn¡¯t considered he lived in the country nor how dangerous telling someone experiencing hallucinations to go outside alone could be, but she certainly had not sent him to die in a cave. Right? The aforementioned ¡®Special Response¡¯ only appeared in the article at the end: Zachariah Troyer owner of the Oak Crescent Hunting Lodge, has paid to expedite a Special Response Bulletin for further information on the mystery cave and the beasts that lurk within, and has sworn not to operate any hunting trips until it is settled. Mr. Troyer has additionally attached a bounty on the creatures that badly maimed his employee and are suspected of killing Salem Cooper, of $10,000 for a pelt. Five grand was about the average amount of money she made on an SR Bulletin for a thirty-six-hour shift of forest fire rescue. She was obviously going to go investigate anyway, she owed it to the young Bridge, but it would be nice to make ten thousand dollars without spending three days fighting superheated gas and smoke. Her phone started to blow up with more news notifications. Other outlets were picking up the story now, all recycling the same information included in the Mountain Prophet. Why had it taken so long for the information to get out anyway? She scrolled through the rest of the website looking for more information. Ah, the website only updated every Thursday. Jesus Christ, so if something happened in Central Pennsylvania on a Friday, it took the rest of the world six days to find out about it. How was that still possible in America in 2007? Marina shoved the laptop off her in a huff. She should have just hopped on the first plane over the next day after he didn¡¯t respond to her DMs. How much good was she going to be almost a week late? She did a lap of her apartment. It didn¡¯t take very long. This was the nicest place she could find while also saving up to buy a place outright. Banks didn¡¯t include Special Responder pay when calculating mortgage loans; the mortality rate was too high. And if Marina was forced to rely on her income from stunt acting she¡¯d still be living in the same size apartment, but in a nicer neighborhood. Although, what was a bad neighborhood to a Licensed Special Responder? She was legally allowed to throw a mugger through a wall, as established by court precedent. God, how she wanted a penthouse. It didn¡¯t matter where or how tall, but she really thought she deserved permanent rooftop access. She was Lift-Off! She could fly! She¡¯d worked almost seventy fires since she¡¯d started six years ago, and put in well over a hundred of those thirty-six-hour shifts. And she was still a few hundred shifts away from even a modest penthouse apartment. What did it say about the American Dream, if one could work in both Hollywood and Super-heroics and still be struggling to break out of the middle class? Plus, if she tried to take off on her current balcony, she¡¯d shatter her and the neighbors'' sliding glass doors, and she knew from experience that renter¡¯s insurance didn¡¯t cover those damages. Marina stepped out on her balcony, stucco railing covering up the fact she was wearing only panties below her tank top, and lit up Throne Medicinal¡¯s newest line of artisan herbal cigarettes. The company promised the equivalent of a forty-five-minute deep-tissue massage over a five-minute smoke and had managed to deliver, but at the cost of $600 for a pack of ten. A benefit of living in a roach-ridden vice-den far beneath her means was the ability to spend money guilt-free on exorbitant luxuries. Taking a deep, chemically relaxing drag, Marina called her agent. Danielle handled both her acting jobs and Special Response Bulletins. Enough people with superpowers moved to Hollywood that every major agency offered the service. ¡°Danielle,¡± she said. ¡°Lift-Off!¡± came the cheery reply. ¡°Congratulations on landing the new Holzhauser film! Are you excited? Flying in the Alps! You¡¯d better take me some pictures.¡± Her heart skipped a beat. She¡¯d heard the director was filming his next billion-dollar action extravaganza but didn¡¯t even know when they¡¯d be starting. ¡°Wait, what? This is the first I¡¯m hearing about that.¡± There was a long silence on the other end. ¡°Um,¡± said Danielle, very stilted, ¡°never mind. What did you want to talk about?¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. The awkward attempt to move on offended her. ¡°No, no,¡± said Marina. ¡°Why did you think I¡¯d gotten a job on the Holzhauser movie?¡± ¡°Sorry, I¡¯m really sorry about that,¡± said her agent quickly. ¡°I can definitely see why you¡¯d be upset by that.¡± ¡°Danielle. Why did you think,¡± she repeated slower, ¡°I¡¯d gotten a job on the Holzhauser movie?¡± She heard a deep breath on the other end. ¡°It¡¯s nothing. I just ¨C another of my clients got ¨C and I got mixed up, but¡ª¡± ¡°Which client?¡± she cut in. ¡°Miss Serova, I am so, so sorry.¡± ¡°Which client, Danielle? Who do you represent that could also take a job flying in the Alps?¡± ¡°Uhh¡­I¡¯m not supposed to tell you,¡± she said meekly. ¡°Danielle.¡± ¡°Jane Take¡¯emUp!¡± A gust surged up around her, only the threat of losing her $60 cigarette kept her from allowing it to grow stronger. ¡°You. Traitorous. Bitch.¡± ¡°I am so sorry¡ª¡± ¡°How long?¡± Dejected and audibly on the verge of tears, Danielle replied, ¡°Four months. Sorry. They said it made the most sense and wouldn¡¯t hear me out.¡± ¡°How is that not a major conflict of interest?!¡± she shouted. No wonder work had been slow. ¡°It is. It obviously is,¡± said Danielle. Marina continued to vent. ¡°She¡¯s just me but younger and worse at flying!¡± ¡°Yes, I know.¡± ¡°And her black belt is in Taekwondo, which is just worse Karate!¡± ¡°Well, I¡¯m not super familiar¡ª¡± ¡°And she¡¯s not even a natural blonde!¡± Marina paused. ¡°How much is she making on the Holzhauser job?¡± ¡°Miss Serova, I don¡¯t think this is healthy.¡± ¡°Healthy?! It¡¯s legally actionable, you bimbo! What do you think is going to happen when this hits the trades?¡± Danielle was wholesale crying now. ¡°I-I-I don¡¯t know what to say.¡± Marina took a deep drag, the physical effects on her tense muscles doing a great deal to calm her down as well. She sighed. ¡°You¡¯re lucky I¡¯m smoking a massage at the moment.¡± She heard a sniffle. ¡°Wh-what? Oh, the Thrones. Do they work?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said tersely, taking another hit. ¡°Tell you what, after you find a way to make this up to me, I¡¯ll buy you a pack.¡± ¡°Make it up to you? Yes! Of course, thank you, Lift-Off. I will, I swear. I¡¯ll find a way to make this right.¡± ¡°Good. You¡¯ve got some time, I¡¯ve got something to do on the other side of the country,¡± she said. Marina had little confidence that the woman was capable of putting their working relationship back together, but she didn¡¯t have the time to get another Special Response agent. ¡°How easy is it for you to assign me a Bulletin in another State?¡± Danielle returned to her normal cheery self. She¡¯d probably gotten used to being yelled at and threatened, reasoned Marina, being a useless cunt and all. ¡°Not very, we use them to promote book tours all the time. I¡¯m surprised we never set you up with a little paid vacation job. There must be fires in Hawaii, besides the volcanos, which I suppose are very large fires, when you get down to it.¡± ¡°Great. I need you to look up a job in Dudlin, Pennsylvania.¡± Marina heard the tapping of keys. She wondered if the woman was by her computer at home or still trapped at the office at nearly eight at night. Endless high-rise apartment blocks stretched on until the haze obscured horizon, each light in the sea of smog most likely a family or group of people splitting rent, none of whom were saving up for a penthouse. She hoped she wasn¡¯t being a diva about all of this. All told, she still lived a vastly superior life to most people. Oh god, she was absolutely being a diva about this. Marina took a long drag of the cigarette. ¡°Okay!¡± said Danielle. ¡°It looks like we have lots, wow! Would you look at that, most of these are Bounty Bulletins. Wow, when the news tells you the countryside¡¯s getting more dangerous you don¡¯t expect this. There¡¯s a loooot of escaped supervillains and monsters in the woods it turns out.¡± ¡°Huh. Forward me that list. But, I¡¯m looking for something specific¡ª¡± ¡°Op! I found it. Yeah, ¡®Exterminate hostile creatures and investigate their source. Potential Body Recovery. Spelunking.¡¯ One hundred thirty thousand dollars, not bad.¡± ¡°Not bad! That¡¯s outrageous. Why is it so high?¡± Danielle listed, ¡°Spelunking. Body recovery. Extermination. Monsters. It¡¯s also flagged for the Occult and venomous spiders. And then it gets its rural multiplier.¡± ¡°What¡¯s the rural multiplier?¡± ¡°Oh you know, they have to pay people more to want to move out there. I mean, just consider the ratio of Special Responders to threats. They must be desperate.¡± ¡°But I fight fires in the middle of nowhere all the time. A hundred and thirty thousand dollars is what I made on all of those fires last year!¡± Her agent laughed nervously. ¡°Well, you know, there¡¯s, um, not a small amount of Special Responders in the area willing to work for mostly publicity, so naturally the market adjusted¡­¡± ¡°We need to unionize,¡± she grumbled, throwing the pack of smokes under a chair before she had another. ¡°Anyway, tag that Bulletin for me. I¡¯m headed there tonight.¡± ¡°Are you sure? This is really out of your comfort zone. A part of my job is making sure you don¡¯t get yourself killed.¡± ¡°Danielle,¡± said Marina sharply, ¡°I am a Bridge to the Elemental Air. I know the Words to the Song of Storms. I have spent literal days flying people through superheated columns of smoke, I can handle a spooky cave.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right. Haha! What¡¯s the worst that can happen?¡± Marina didn¡¯t respond, opting for steely silence. The audacity of this bitch. ¡°Alright, you¡¯ve tagged it. Is there anything else? Other than the forwarding you the¡ª¡± ¡°No, that¡¯s all. Goodbye, Danielle.¡± ``` Lift-Off picked the lock to the roof with a wave of her hand. She had opened this particular door so many times it was an effortless expenditure of will. Outside, Los Angeles was muggy and warmer than usual for early March. Smog hung stale and stagnant over it all, especially cloying at this altitude. Marina lifted a hand to her hair and shook it out, imagining little fairies falling out of the strands. It was the same ritual she¡¯d used to summon her Breezes since she was a child. One by one, sprites fell about the cape of her neck and began to dance about, invisible to most, churning the local air, making it easier for her to manipulate. Simple elementals with no greater than animal intelligence, they clung to her out of affection and devotion, utterly pleased to do her every bidding. Once her team had banished the smell of brake dust and stale fryer oil, Marina fell backwards into a current and let it carry her straight into the sky. Off the ground, she was all but silent, enveloped in a tightly wound bundle of hyper-dense air. This was the power of a Bridge ¨C the air around her was as much a part of her as her flesh and blood, and she could wield it with the same casual dexterity as the muscles in her hand. Others, elementalists and the broad category of ¡®wind users¡¯, could spend their lifetimes working to achieve her level of control and never do so. Los Angeles stretched like a sea of stars past the horizon, endless concrete and cracked asphalt as far as the eye could see even from two thousand feet high. Twenty million people crammed into a city only kept from crumbling through the use of commercially available super science, unevenly distributed between the rich and poor. Marina hadn¡¯t intended to stay so long when she moved back. She would stay with her parents for a year or two, save up, and get back to traveling the world. The plan had been to fly north into the deep wilderness of Alaska and across the Bering Strait to Asia and beyond. The journey was to be a great test of endurance, meant to push her powers past the limit into new strata. Now here she was, six years into two moderately promising careers and a connoisseur of, legal, high-end recreational pharmaceuticals. Why had she badgered that poor woman? She didn¡¯t give a shit about stunt acting; her only marketable skills at the time had been Karate and acrobatics, and her superpowers let her walk onto the job. It had been as much about proving to her parents she didn¡¯t need to go to college as it had been about the work. The talent agency had suggested picking up fire rescue work ¨C it tested well across all demographics and was a guaranteed in with daytime news shows. Marina had nearly died four times during her first three-day, and had saved fifteen people, six cats, and eight dogs. She had felt like an angel diving down upon hell flying through those billowing black clouds of burning ash. The experience was somewhat soured now that she knew the State of California was taking advantage of her clout-hungry peers to lowball her out of a reasonable paycheck. What really stung was knowing she was no different than them. Looking down at the city like this it was easy to pretend she was above the hustle and grind, but the moment she had moved into her own place instead of setting out on her travels, Marina had been the same as any other ambitious and insecure C-list celebrity she disdained. Twenty-year-old Marina would have left for Dudlin the moment she got Salem Cooper¡¯s DM. She flew straight up. At about five kilometers she could safely enter the Elemental Plane without fear of rattling windows or disabling commercial aircraft. More importantly, every occultist and wind user in East LA wouldn¡¯t know her coming and going by her spiritual ¡®wake¡¯. Gradually, a cyclone formed around her, hitting a gentle speed and staying there. She bundled the winds about her like blankets, the air growing thicker. As the cyclone shrunk, she floated first in pudding, then in silk, and finally the smoothest of wood as the pressure increased past anything that could be found naturally outside of a gas giant. Then with a great bang, wreathed in a protective layer of hyper-dense air, she punched a pin-prick hole in the threads of reality and entered the Elemental Plane. By the time the echoes of her exit reached the city below to be lost amidst cacophony, Marina Serova was far, far away. 4.1 Jake Quigley and his father walked in a tight single file, their headlamps dim and pointed down at the dew-covered ground. A Code Orange hung heavy over the pair, spoiling what would have otherwise been an ideal Friday morning hunting trip. Less than forty miles away, a National Guard drone had spotted a Helcat stalking through the canopy last night, about eight hours ago. That could mean nothing or everything; the beast could be in New York by now, or, it could be here, prowling silently amongst them. Jake strained his ears with every step, listening for the creaking of trees followed by a heavy thump, the sounds of a Helcat leaping down from its perch to the forest floor. From there, he would draw his single fancy super-tech arrow, a Christmas present from his parents, while his father loaded two depleted uranium slugs into his shotgun. Together, they¡¯d have but three shots between them and certain death. It was wishful thinking. Even the runtiest of the enormous mountain lions currently terrorizing Appalachia could pounce at over a hundred miles an hour, tear through steel, and survive dozens of rifle rounds to the body. But the pair were rednecks through and through, and every redneck had a plan. Said plans weren¡¯t often sensible, but they were had regardless, and that had to count for something. Neither man would be out here today but for a combination of the ten-thousand-dollar bounty on tunnel wolves and a surprisingly thorough blogpost by self-described intrepid reporter, Ginny Ennis. The Quigleys had decent farming jobs and had been content to let the bounty pass until the teen girl had come out of the woods yesterday morning, huffing and puffing with one slung over her petite shoulders. It had been eighty pounds, lean and sinuous, and around five feet long but narrow, akin to something between a monstrous eel and a weasel. Ginny had been the one to name it: tunnel wolf, implying that there were more and that they were social creatures. Her description of a trapped rabbit and its screams echoing out from a crack in the ground as it was eaten slowly had carried over into his dreams last night. Horrifying yet evocative, the scene seemed to stick to the insides of his skull. The town may have gained a new fear to linger over them when out and about, but he''d bet her story had sparked something in every hunter in Dudlin. They were all, he was sure, full of clever ideas and not-so-sensible plans for how they''d have done it if they were in Ginny''s shoes. The Quigleys came to an abrupt stop. The sound of hammering echoed out through the trees ahead. What tweaker would be putting up a hunting blind during a Code Orange? Merrit Quigley glanced back at his son, careful not to blind him with his headlamp. ¡°What do you reckon? Keep on ahead, or leave the fools be?¡± Jake thumbed the string of his compound bow pensively. It was probably one of the more hillbilly-ish families, those bold enough to put up an illegal hunting blind on State Game Lands with a potential Helcat about. ¡°Should at least see who it is. I wouldn¡¯t mind coordinating with the Springfields or the Cassidys.¡± They may have been dumb and drug-addled, but they were agreeable enough in short bursts. His father nodded and turned around, switching his headlamp to high so as not to surprise a group of armed men on high alert. The woods were still stripped bare by winter, spring just now beginning to return some color and brush to the hillside. They made their way quickly across the dead leaves and broken branches to Salem''s Cave, favoring haste instead of stealth. To Jake¡¯s surprise, whoever had beaten them here wasn¡¯t building a hunting blind after all. The hammering came bellowed out from past the massive carved stone blocks that framed the entrance to the cave. A distorted, clashing chorus of echoes bounced back and forth across the wooded hills, surrounding them on all sides. His father grumbled and scratched under his thick fleece. ¡°Excavating¡­this is going to be a headache and a half.¡± They carefully made their way down to the cave, following the paths freshly cleared of leaves by recent visitors; men dragging tools, it looked like. The entrance slabs were bigger in person and had an air of impossible age, as though they were older than the hills they sat in. Eyes of different sizes and styles had been carved across every inch, some with incredible detail, veins visible and each lash distinct, and others crude, looking to have been hacked violently into the walls. Jake ran his fingers across them, his stomach sinking. He couldn''t help but feel like they were warnings. You are being watched, perhaps.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. His father stuck his head into the cave, illuminating a cloud of dust and the silhouettes of four people. "''lo, there! It''s Merrit Quigley and son! Mind if we come inside?" The sounds of work ceased, and three headlamps turned to regard them. A deep, silken voice that sent shivers up his spine responded, "Free country, Quigley." His tone was a mix of dry and mocking. Ah, Christ, the Laponte Clan were excavating the cursed cave out ¨C as if Dudlin needed something else to worry about. Merrit flashed his son a meaningful look before leading the way in. Through the dust, they saw three Laponte men, including the Clan''s pale and ominous patriarch, Charles Laponte, at the far end of the cave. They had hammered planks of wood in place around the formerly thin crack in the wall to act as bracing and were using chisels to cleave it wider. The Laponte men were as gaunt and unwelcoming as usual, their hard eyes glinting in dusty darkness at him, silently bidding him to depart. The looks were wasted on Jake, though, pointless while there were two strikingly feminine figures present. The first was the stone statue he''d seen pictures of on Ginny Ennis''s blog, a pretty girl a little younger than he, carved to appear like she wore thin, damp robes that clung to her body. Down her eyes, dripping off her face and into her palms was a steady stream of water that left gold dust in its wake, painting her tears and weeping hands that radiant color. Ginny had deemed this statue ''The Maiden of Infinite Sorrows.'' He''d found it needlessly dramatic on first read, in person, however, Jake could think of no better name for her. The Maiden was haunting, her anguish devastatingly lifelike. Word around town was that it was bad luck to disrespect the statue, and potentially fatal to go so far as to steal her gold. This, too, he could no longer doubt while in her presence. Jake found himself doffing his hat and nodding to the statue out of respect. The gesture earned him a single raised brow from the other woman in the cave, Charlotte Laponte, who was knelt by the statue''s feet. The rail-thin, pale woman wore a modest handmade dress in a style common to the women in her family, and had the same pitch-black hair as the rest of the Clan. She was around his age, a little older but close enough that they''d have gone to high school together if the Lapontes hadn''t opted to homeschool. She had been arranging candles, flowers, and wreathes at the base of the statue when they''d interrupted, making a shrine to the Maiden. Jake had grown up hearing tales of the reclusive Laponte Clan and their dark, occult ways, but this was the first time he''d taken the rumors seriously. There seemed to be a purpose to the candles and wreathes, an uncomfortable geometry to their placement that simultaneously drew and repelled his gaze. ¡°You sure about this, Laponte?¡± asked his father, waving some of the dust cloud away. ¡°More hazards to mining here than just a cave-in.¡± The tall and angular patriarch was unusually still, his voice slow and melodious. ¡°If you could hear the Call, Merrit Quigley, you would save your breath for labor and take up a pickaxe. The Lord has delivered to us this great earthen treasure, and we work now to show it its proper due, our sweat and pain a sacrifice made in earnest. Glance the statue, Quigley; her golden tears vanish into cracked earth below. She promises us wealth and sustenance in the Cave yet weeps for what must be given to attain it. Your son understands. Don''t you, boy? These shadowed halls awake a greater curiosity in you." Charles Laponte stared at him expectantly. Between the dust and the man¡¯s own headlamp, Jake could barely make out his face, and yet his gaze cut through the light-stained haze. He nodded at his question, only realizing after his head was already moving that, yes, something was stirring in him. Jake wasn¡¯t sure he¡¯d go so far as to help the Lapontes mine the Cave out, but for some inexpressible reason, he did need to know more about what lay deeper. "She weeps for you," said Charlotte Laponte, tone utterly devoid of emotion. She had her father''s grey, piercing eyes. "She weeps for those foolish enough to seek their fortunes within this place." The woman held out a white flower to him, its petals dyed gold by the statue''s tears. He felt his mouth go dry. God, she was pretty, though. Merrit grunted noncommittally. "Right. We''ll let you get back to it." Putting a firm grip on his son''s shoulder, he walked the two of them outside and kept going until they were a hill away before stopping with a shudder. Dawn was starting to break, thank the Lord. He released a great, relieved exhale and shook his head. "Something wrong with them folks." ¡°Yeah¡­¡± Jake winced at the renewed sounds of mining. He knew that they ought to be making haste away from here ¨C Helcats associated construction with food ¨C but he couldn¡¯t shake the sensation that he¡¯d left something important back in the cave. ¡°What now? We shouldn¡¯t be within half a mile of the hammering.¡± ¡°Mm, almost daybreak. Let¡¯s see if we can¡¯t track one of these new bats back to its home and find another way into the cave complex. Make a note of it and maybe return on a Code Yellow or Green with some traps.¡± Jake looked around, confused. His father pointed up at a pine tree nearby where, sure enough, three palm-sized bats with grey-and-black mottled fur were gnawing on infected nodules from a rust fungus. No wonder his old man had spotted them; White Pine Blister Rust had wreaked havoc on the farm their family managed. ¡°I seen them feasting on elongate hemlock scale, gypsy moth eggs, and spotted lanternfly eggs on the way here. Don¡¯t care much for Laponte¡¯s preaching, but that Cave might of given us something alright apart from monsters. Think they''d let us name them if we bagged one? I like the name Cooper''s blightguards, poor kid." His jaw dropped; now that he knew what to look for, Jake could see the little bats throughout the canopy. Not far above them, one was silently combing through the undersides of an eastern hemlock''s branches. Its hair-like teeth flashed, reflecting his headlamp as it delicately worked to pick scale insects off the tree. Incredible, it was an honest-to-God miracle. They fed on at least four separate invasive species, and he had a strong suspicion that they ate more than that, too. Something¡­something was happening here. Maybe Laponte was right - they were just so inexplicably intentional, as if they really were gifts from God. By themselves, the bats could permanently alter the trajectory of Appalachia ¨C and they were only one of the new creatures emerging from Salem¡¯s Cave. Who knew what else lay within? He had to find out. 4.2 Salem was feeling quite chipper, as much as he could be without human biology, at least. The future seemed much brighter now that people were visiting him daily! Granted, they didn''t know they were visiting Salem Cooper, but they were visiting all the same, and that was all that really mattered to him. For as much as he loved his own creations, nothing could relate to having actual humans around. He didn''t even care why they came or what they wanted from or for him, just that they came and stayed. Even the Laponte Clan were welcome. They were still odd and somewhat disturbing, even as a living cave system, but the occultists were growing on him. The men came after midnight on most nights to sacrifice chickens to him, cutting off their heads and throwing the still-twitching bodies into the entrance fissure for his wolves to eat, and the women liked to adorn the statue of Samiah with flowers while quietly praying to her. He was beginning to understand why Gods demanded sacrifices and adoration ¨C both were incredible sources of power. Each chicken willingly given granted him an order magnitude more energy than the deaths of other similarly sized animals, and the worship raised his passive power gain measurably. But more than all that, he was just glad for the company. He''d been in a rough way emotionally after his first night as a dungeon. Watching that man crawl away after losing two dogs in an attempt to rescue him had sent Salem into bit of a spiral. He didn''t want to terrorize Dudlin ¨C his family and most of his friends lived here ¨C nor did he want Samiah''s statue to sit at the entrance to some wretched and accursed hole in the ground. At least his would-be-rescuer managed to kill one of his tunnel wolves and gained some Experience out of the mess; that made him feel marginally better about killing his dogs. Salem wasn''t sure what it actually meant to gain Experience or what it was exactly, but hopefully, it could make a difference in the man¡¯s life. That hope and desire had been what he¡¯d latched onto in the aftermath. Salem was powered by capital-C Change, and while chaos and havoc accomplished that goal, he didn¡¯t have to represent negative change. He could at least try to make a positive difference in the world. Salem wanted to be the kind of dungeon that people could build a civilization around. It was an ambitious goal. People had fled from places like Dudlin because of the danger, for the danger, or what it promised, to suddenly become the draw to bring them back was a tall order. As super-tech made it easier to support and build megacities, Americans had, over the course of decades, slowly abandoned the countryside for major population centers. The consequences formed a negative feedback loop. Fewer people meant fewer supers and fewer resources to manage the various threats that inevitably congregated on the outskirts of society. More threats meant more people fled to better-protected cities, and on and on until you had a nearly perpetual state of emergency across wide expanses of the rural United States. Ottoman agricultural tech and good old American superplastics had killed this once-prosperous town. Every farm left abandoned created more once-tamed wilderness on which problems could fester. Penn State had shut down its research stations and observatory in Dudlin due to the risk, and the lumber industry across the world had been in a slow collapse for decades. If nothing changed, there would be yet another ghost town dotting the mountains of Appalachia. He could fix all of that. Dudlin, Pennsylvania needed a reason to exist into the twenty-first century, and he would be that reason. Salem would create new resources and drive a gold rush, one both literal and figurative. There would be gold, yes, and other precious minerals ¨C they were cheaper to add than much of what he''d already done ¨C but they would pale in comparison to what his imagination could make. For the first time in his life, he had a real vision for what his future as an artist looked like. He would turn himself into an entire ecosystem, ripe for plundering and eternally explorable, filled with never-before-seen wonders, strange alloys and organisms, and monsters packed full of more than simple Experience.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Salem had left the cave entrance he''d made during the tutorial untouched. Its aesthetics were broad enough to work with whatever he came up with in the future, and more importantly, he could sense that myths were beginning to pop up around the eyes and the statue of Samiah. He couldn''t intuit them, the rumors appearing like fuzzy, vibrating clouds that hung around the objects to his perspective, but many visitors had been kind enough to speculate aloud. It was ''bad luck'' to touch Samiah and her gold, and the carvings were a warning that ancient entities watched over the cave. He found both myths charming, and they generated a little energy each time they proliferated, so Salem had decided to keep the entry. Beyond that, though, things were completely different. Past the fissure at the back of the entrance was a Room of Respite. There were only two ways in or out of the room, both of which would be easy to seal with a bit of ingenuity, and in that relative safety, Salem had placed a pool of crystal clear, potable water, and ringed it with smooth, stone sleeping nooks. Above, for natural lighting, were curtains of glowing, poisonous silk strands hanging from the backs of glowworms. These insects were of his own creation and harmless to mammals, but deeper within himself, he had placed their much larger, much deadlier cousins with webs capable of ensnaring humans and clogging machinery. The ones here served as ambiance and as contrast for those so that a man, upon his return from the deep, could look up and shiver at their memory. Past the Room of Respite was a worked hallway that opened into a natural, one-hundred-foot-deep pit with thin rough-hewn stairs carved in a spiral around its sides. At the bottom of this treacherous climb was his masterpiece, a massive cavern that sloped unevenly into the flooded depths a football field away. Beyond those lay only his Heart Room for now, the cavern and its ecosystem having exhausted his energy and focus. At the core of the great cavern was the interplay between two weak Lures. In one of the hot springs that crowded the entrance, he had placed a very mild Source of extradimensional energy, a connection to an ephemeral dimension rich with Life Magic, and set the springs to bubble forth irregularly. Every few hours or so, the water would churn and spill out over the edge, trickling down the stepped natural terraces until it soaked the section of the cavern that was like a swampy forest. The soil for the plants came from the sporadic gashes and holes in the ceiling far above, and was fertilized by his second Lure, the enriched guano of his Source Bats, which nested among the thousands of stalactites. The small magical creatures were his gift to the mountains around him; they fed on almost exclusively invasive species of fungi, insects, and plants, and converted them within their digestive systems into a potent Source of Earth Magic. With time, as they grew in enough number to spread beyond his caverns, they would return the ragged woods of Appalachia to mighty, dense forests. It was atypical dungeon design, he knew, to focus on a single massive chamber, but Salem thought he''d knocked it out of the park. By soaking the room with the ultimate magical fertilizer and Life-touched water, the energy cost for all sorts of in-theme monsters and living Lures had fallen precipitously. As long as something could plausibly exist within what was already there, it was easier to create, and with every organism he added, his understanding of their regulatory feedback loops expanded, giving him more ideas. The source bats had a symbiotic relationship with the giant glowworms; they spared their eggs and larvae, and the adult glowworms protected their roosts from tunnel wolves while they slept. The glowworms also ringed the holes in the ceiling, helping keep external Pennsylvania insects out and the bizarre and incredible breeds he was making in. And below, within the wetlands of the cavern, plants rich with Earth and Life Magic fed solar bees, which processed the pollen into glowing, golden honey. Their hives, in turn, nurtured said plants with their light, giving rise to more magical vegetation ¨C and so on. Yes, the cavern was coming together nicely, and once he had people coming in and out and taking his bounties into their world, there would be energy in spare to take it to the next level. All of the hot springs would be tied into Sources of Magic, the plants that processed the water and guano would be improved, and every niche that could exist in this ecosystem would be filled with awesome and bizarre creatures. Fortunes would be made within this grand chamber, lives changed for the better. Unfortunately, his tunnel wolves had thus far kept people from pushing deeper, either out of fear or, in Ginny''s singular case, because she''d been too excited by her kill to keep going. Charles Laponte had commanded one of his youngest to wriggle through the fissure, and the boy had made it to the cavern, but the Clan was notoriously reclusive. Salem doubted they''d told a soul what they''d seen. It was reasonable, he supposed, the animal sacrifices they performed for him regularly were extremely illegal, but still, he was dying to see some real action. He just had to take it on faith for now that his efforts weren¡¯t in vain, and that somewhere out there, real adventurers were on their way. 5.1 V The world tore asunder to a deafening orchestra of gales foreign to the skies above Pennsylvania. From the low, mournful howls of the Mojave to the humming of Saharan dunes and the relentless fury of the North Sea, a thousand winds sang together to presage the coming of glory of their champion. Hark! They said, Hark and bear witness! She comes! Marina wobbled her way through the hole in reality at a jogging pace, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Adding insult to injury, the sun was past its zenith ¨C her jaunt through the Elemental Air had taken her longer than flying commercial, longer even than buying a ticket, getting to the airport, and waiting for a flight. ¡°You get free first-class seats, Marina. Please, girl,¡± she said, wanting to scream. It had been a confident, driven Marina Serova who¡¯d left Los Angeles behind. She may have been a mediocre acting talent in LA ¨C yet another flying blonde ¨C but Hollywood was always meant to be a side thing. Before she¡¯d ever been Lift-Off, she¡¯d been a Bridge, a living manifestation of Storm and Thunder. That was her calling, not acting, and those were the skills that mattered to her. She''d done the bare minimum in the way of networking and acting lessons, of course, but she could never commit to training for the camera like she could for firefighting. Being able to lift a van full of people out of the way of a raging wildfire would always rate higher than learning to toss her hair just the right way. And yet, she''d gotten lost. It was humiliating. Before she''d settled down in Los Angeles, Marina had made a hobby of making trips to cities across North America just for the sake of traveling. At her height of navigating extradimensional shortcuts, there were days she would start in a Montreal caf¨¦, take in a movie with friends in New York, and end at a Miami nightclub. The Elemental Plane was a shifting, chaotic place, and the Domain of Air more so than most, but she had prided herself on her ability to shift and change to match its ephemeral currents. That was what it meant to be a Bridge. It was more than just wind manipulation; it was an esoteric connection to something greater than human comprehension. A dog or a snake could taste a breeze and know from where it had come and what scents it carried; Marina could tell you where it was going, what its thoughts were, and to which spirits it owed debts. To be a Bridge was to carry a sliver of your unique dimension within you. Marina was the Elemental Air, and it should have been more a home to her than Earth. Four hours into searching the Cloud Sea for the correct eastward current, the realization that her skills had atrophied had come on heavy and was followed by a deep sense of personal shame. It made sense. What did she think would happen? You couldn''t take a half-decade break from something and expect to be as good as you were, but still, it hurt, especially so with the fate of Salem Cooper hanging over her head. One week late for a rescue mission was not the time to find out how unprepared you were. And the hits hadn''t stopped coming. In order to get her bearings, she cast away the remainder of her pride and asked for directions, which was yet another mistake. Marina had filled her balance sheet with quite a few owed favors over the years. It wasn''t usually an issue if you were in and out of the Elemental Plane regularly ¨C your creditors felt no urgency when they knew they could easily track you down, but she''d only been sparingly of late. There had been neither need nor desire. Airlines offered different benefits to LSRs depending on how useful they were in an emergency, and Marina was in the highest tier. They gave her free seats, free drinks, special lounge access, etc. ¨C basically anything and everything short of actually paying her to fly with them. There were other reasons to visit the Elemental Air, of course, but in general, she''d been too burned out from Hollywood networking to do the same with fickle spirits and Wind Gods on her off days. Word of her arrival made its way to an Ifrit she owed for the fire-resistant hair wax she used liberally during her missions. The djinn, in turn, waylaid her on the route out of the Cloud Sea, demanding that she act as an unaffiliated mediator for two of his friends/hated rivals who were locked in a heated argument over the possession of two human souls and a fancy magic dagger. As a Bridge, she was considered nobility of sorts, and along with the respect and adoration of elementals, came certain expectations. There was no way to refuse the request. She''d tried to be quick, not particularly concerned with the fate of two fire elementalists'' souls ¨C the maddest of an already insane group of occultists ¨C but the Ifrits weren''t having it. Their argument had been going on for years, and if she was to arbitrate, then she would hear both sides in detail or they would freak the fuck out. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. It had gone on and on and on, only coming to a halt after she threatened to summon a hurricane wind, fling them to the border of Water and Air, and find a nice glacier to trap them in for a few centuries if they did not shut up and let her speak. Unfortunately, by then, the hours-long public arbitration had drawn a crowd of curious spectators, including a Sylph Marina had persuaded to clear the rain at her sister''s wedding for a minor favor. Said Sylph delightedly requested her presence at a party she was throwing, eager to make waves by having a visibly busy and annoyed Bridge take time out of her schedule for her. In short, it had been a mess and one firmly of her own making. If nothing else, today, or however long she''d been at this by now, was a wake-up call. She didn''t know where she was headed after she settled this Salem Cooper business, but it sure as hell wasn''t going to be Los Angeles, not for a few years at the very least. Every humiliation she''d suffered could be directly attributed to LA and its promises of luxury and recognition ¨C the siren call of that gilded cage would not ensnare her again. Marina let out a long, calming breath; the certainty in that statement was like a balm for her overstressed soul. She felt lighter, freer. Now, just where the hell was she? The rounded slopes of the Appalachians stretched on in either direction beneath her, a carpet of brown and green for as far as her eyes could see, the forests just beginning to rise from their winter slumber. A hundred million or more years ago, these mountains had stood like giants, but to her eyes, more accustomed to the sharp, towering peaks of the Rockies, they were barely more than hills. It was empowering in a way ¨C wind had been one of the forces to wear them away ¨C and inspiring as well. Perhaps the next time Marina went exploring the Elemental Air, she¡¯d go looking for a spirit who could paint for her what they¡¯d looked like oh so long ago. Marina pulled out her phone and descended into cell tower range. She had five percent battery and no service, but that was fine. All she needed was a glimpse of her location in relation to her destination on a map, and she would be able to follow the landscape from there. Five percent with no service was followed by four, then three, and finally two percent with no service, at which point she turned her phone off, giving it up as a lost cause. Instead, she switched tacks, ascending and heading east to look for signs of civilization. Marina would find herself somewhere with coffee and a croissant, and if she was lucky, somewhere quiet she could charge her phone and close her eyes for a cat nap. The mountains looked like green waves cresting in slow motion over the first valley town she found, forever frozen in time before the devastating moment in which they swept its meager buildings away. It wasn''t until she was a hundred feet or so above the ground that she realized many of the creeks she''d seen peeking out between the canopy were, in fact, roads that had been swallowed by nature. Broken and segmented chunks of asphalt, not water, had reflected the afternoon light back at her. The town, connected only by abandoned roads, was likewise empty, its buildings giving off the distinct odor of mildew and rot as she approached the main street. Marina landed at a crossroads and stared helplessly around her, soaking in the eerie silence. It was as though even the birds and insects were in quiet mourning here, only the banging of swaying branches against windows cutting through the ambient noise. About a quarter of the buildings had been boarded up, but the rest were untouched, implying either that those who left last had no dreams of returning or that they''d been in a hurry. The latter theory was aided by the ominous fact that the locals had left what looked to be still serviceable cars behind, some with tires that had yet to sag flat. God, that was an abandoned 1999 Mayweather Palanquin ¨C her sister had the same model in blue. This town had died recently. That seemed incongruous with the rot and advanced state of disrepair that afflicted many of the buildings. It felt, not impossible, but unlikely and maybe¡­unnatural. She knew she should keep moving and that there was nothing here for her, but morbid curiosity pushed her to approach the car, hoping to find what, she couldn''t say, a clue, perhaps, as to what might have happened here. The hairs on her neck rose as she neared, and she found herself rubbing at her suddenly teary eyes, stinging from weariness or unfamiliar allergens. Strange, with her vision hazy, the green of the Palanquin looked almost exactly like the blue of her sister''s. Her reflection in the dust-caked windows looked rough, older and greyer in pallor, wrinkled and haggard, thinning hair hanging loosely around a strangle-bruised neck, a black drop of coagulated blood dripping from her nose, clothes stained brown with¡ª From behind her came a rhythmic rattling from a window, a tap, tap, tapping against a pane of part-broken glass. Something wanted her attention, for her to turn and look. Marina paused mid-step, her mouth going dry. The sounds had not been sounds in the traditional sense. She didn''t know how they''d appeared in her head, but she could say with one hundred percent certainty that they were not vibrations carried by air. As if sensing her hesitation, muffled and ragged wheezing joined the tapping, and when that too failed to turn her gaze, there was a distant, high-pitched whimper. She closed her weary eyes, rejecting any sense that was not rooted in her powers. The spell was broken. Nope. She shot straight into the air and didn¡¯t dare to glance back for a second, the backblast shattering every window on the street in her wake. Leave the ghost towns for the ghosts, Marina. 5.2 After she''d put a mountain ridge between her and the haunted town, Marina slowed her flight to a hover and performed deep breathing exercises to slow her heart rate. She shivered, thinking back on the few interactions she''d had with the occult. Occasionally, at the end of her thirty-six-hour shifts, when her mind was frayed by exhaustion, Marina would start to see the restless spirits of the freshly dead, suffocated by ash and reduced to unrecognizable cinders, standing woefully over their still-burning corpses. They could capture you, not intentionally, she didn''t think, but their despair could act like a snare around your heel, keeping you still when you needed not to be. She''d nearly died twice like that, once frozen by the sight of one mid-flight, only managing to dodge out of the way of an explosion of gas seconds before it would have been fatal. Another time, she''d heard the wails of a terrified mother screaming for her child in the way only a mother could. The sound had cut through the roar of flames coming from inside an active inferno past a wall of flames. Her physical exhaustion had saved her that day; her mind was almost seized by the need to help, but she''d simply not had it in her to keep pushing. She''d made a hard call then ¨C the hard call ¨C the kind no firefighter wanted to make. The next day, after a night''s rest, she realized that any woman who could have survived in the flames would not have needed her help to escape, and that it would have been impossible for a human voice to be louder than the wildfire in that instance. Returning to the spot, she''d found a grim sight ¨C an incinerated car with two melted lumps in the shape of infant car seats in the back. She''d worked with an illusionist friend for weeks after that, training herself to recognize auditory hallucinations purely so she could know when not to engage. Surviving as a Licensed Special Responder meant knowing your limits and staying in your lane. Ghosts? Not her lane. Once the pounding of her heart was no longer deafening, Marina closed her eyes and focused her attention on the shifting currents interacting with her ears. She''d developed this trick to navigate when blinded by clouds of black smoke, but in the past she''d only had to isolate CAL FIRE sirens. This was a bit different. Instead of sorting through the noise, she amplified everything, searching for anything that could only be attributed to civilization, cars, voices, or¡ª Helicopters - military, if she wasn''t mistaken. Perfect, military pilots were usually accustomed to working with fliers. Hopefully, they''d have a few seconds to give her directions, and if not, she could follow them somewhere populated. Marina rocketed towards the choppers, quickly hitting her max speed of just below Mach 1. She was tired, physically and emotionally, but the idea that she might finally have somewhere to sit down soon was better than any warm cup of coffee. Had the sound of heavy caliber machinegun fire accompanied the initial sounds of the helicopters, she might have reconsidered approaching, but it was too late ¨C Marina could see the choppers now, and her pride wouldn''t let her leave them to their work. This very much was her lane. There were two of them, big, fortified, and heavily armed gunships in pursuit of, hopefully, something and not someone. Marina had never had an actual super fight before, and she wasn''t trying to pop her cherry in her current state. One of the choppers was flying in a jagged line behind its quarry, firing off thunderous quick bursts, while the other circled ahead to try and cut whatever it was off. The latter started liberally laying down suppressing fire, the tracer rounds intermixed in its ammo looking almost like a red-hot laser beam shredding the tree line apart. Lift-Off found herself clenching her jaw at just the sheer noise of the guns. She could feel them in her bones, and she was still a good ways off. Getting closer, she was, in short order, relieved and then horrified to find that the target wasn''t human after all. She still couldn''t see the thing, even as it knocked trees down in its haste, but after another quick burst of machinegun fire, there was an angry YOWL of a cat. If the guns had been loud, this was unthinkable. The sound alone almost batted her out of the sky, and the raw psychic rage of the creature temporarily whited out her vision as the most ancient parts of her brain threatened catatonia. She wasn''t alone, either; both helicopter pilots reacted chaotically. The chopper that had struck the cat pulled up and away. It veered and tilted to one side with such violence that the soldier operating one of the smaller mounted machine guns was thrown clear, left dangling out of the vehicle by a tethered harness. The other dove down almost straight down to only two hundred feet or so above the canopy before the pilot managed to get control back. That was close enough, unfortunately. A goddamn bus-sized mountain lion cleared the distance with such speed that it blurred ¨C no, amended her brain in the scant few seconds it had, it was a blur; some kind of super-camouflage, she assumed. The monster came into focus moments before the strike, visibly pregnant, claws extended, and yellowed fangs flashing in the afternoon light. Marina, still reeling from the psychic yowl, watched in horror as the lion sheared through the bottom fuselage like paper and caught briefly onto a section of landing gear, dragging the helicopter down twenty feet and sending it into a wild tailspin before ripping the steel clean off. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Instincts honed by years of working side-by-side with firefighting aircraft kicked in, clearing the remainder of the mind-warping fear from her brain. Marina rushed forward, gathering a dense pocket of air as she did. She used the almost liquid-thick air like a pillow, cushioning the blow as she bodily tackled the side of the gunship. The ''air-bag'' maneuver did the trick in that it kept her alive and sensate, but even still, the force of a spinning and falling armored helicopter slamming into her was keenly felt across her side and face. More than a few bones broke on impact. The plummeting gunship was heavier than she could comfortably pick up, but she didn''t need to; she was well accustomed to how these machines generated lift. Gritting through the pain, Marina mirrored, corrected, and then amplified the force generated by the spinning blades. Together, she and the helicopter produced an incredible updraft, taking them higher with such speed that she felt more than heard steel fittings groan in protest. Behind and below her, the roar of machineguns splintered apart living wood as the other chopper covered their retreat, spitting everything it had in the approximate location of the mountain lion. One of the soldiers was gracious enough to help pull her inside once she''d stabilized their flight. Her body protested her continued refusal to sit down and get some sleep, and she could actively feel the bruises forming on her entire right side. Seeing the shape she was in, two soldiers wasted no time in manhandling her into a seat and strapping her down. Another attached a spare headset to her. "She''s on comms," said the man with the headset. "You good?" he said to her, looking concerned at her left cheek. "I''m alright." Marina coughed and clutched at her ribs. "Nothing serious, at least." The men were skeptical but sagged with relief at her words, simply glad she was okay enough to speak. There was a pause as the crew of the helicopter looked around, double and triple-checking that despite all reasonable expectations, everyone was still alive. The realization of what had just happened struck two of them to the floor. "WOOO! Ho-ly shit! Hahahahaha!" The pilot burst into laughter, throwing her head back. "Oh my fuck, I thought that was it for us! Did you see that thing? Jesus." She turned quickly to look back at Marina. "Are you real? Hey, someone tell me she''s real, and this isn''t some kind of fucked up purgatory!" "I''m real. Can she make it back to base?" asked Marina, nodding to the various lights flashing red in the cockpit. The pilot licked her lips and steeled herself. "She''ll fly¡­Might need your help to land, but she''ll fly." "No problem." "My queen. You''re a fucking angel. You an LSR? Wait, dumb question, don''t answer that." The pilot paused. "Hey, hang on, you ain''t Lift-Off, are you?" Marina reeled, herself double-checking that she was alive and awake. She could count on one hand the number of times she''d been recognized in California, and she lived there. Not only was this the middle of nowhere, but there was already a much more famous Lift-Off on the East Coast in New Hampshire. There should be no way this was happening. "Y-Yeah. What¡ªhow the hell¡ª" "Holy shit, that''s crazy! They were talking about you on the radio when we were fueling up. What a fucking world, man." The pilot introduced herself and the crew, though only her name, Stecyk, managed to stick in Marina''s head, too rattled to fully take anything in. "And, of course, you already met Big Momma." "The mountain lion?" "Yes, ma''am. Queen Bitch of these hills. Helcat numero uno, the fecund cunt from whence they all came. She''s a beauty, ain''t she? Thirty thousand pounds of hate and hunger, and a pretty face to boot ¨C some girls got it all, huh?" Marina hadn''t known much about Helcats until she''d started looking into Salem Cooper''s situation, but she hadn''t heard of them being quite that bad. "I thought they were truck-sized and more¡­manageable. Saw a story about a hunter taking one down." "The rest are, thank fuck. But Big Momma, well, she''s something special. Capable of something called parthogenesis or some shit. Got a wild power; each cub she pops out makes her stronger." One of the men who''d helped strap her in shook his head. "Parthenogenesis, Stecyk. And calm down. You''re going to stain the seat. I can smell you leaking." "Fuck you, Doonie." "Here," said the man, handing Marina a water bottle. "Recuperate a bit; you look like you could use it. And feel free to take your headset off if you don''t want to hear Stecyk yap. We''ll shake you when we''re close." 6.1 VI The Mountain Prophet was the only station broadcasting from close enough to be listenable these days. The Forestry Service¡¯s horseshit radar grid rendered everything else static from dusk to dawn and scratchy at best during the day. Not that Moose minded; the music was to his taste, and Walton Ennis¡¯s voice was like comfort food for the ears, smooth, rich, and reliable ¨C just what you needed when times got rough. Moose took a series of deep breaths and weighed the medicinal patch in his hand, working up the courage to slap it on. Every US Armed Forces Regenerative Agent was its own special breed of nightmare, and RA-9 was no different. Sheila huffed from the passenger seat, ¡°Are you okay?¡± Her ears twitched with worry. He shot the hulking Tibetan Mastiff-Husky mix a pained smile. They were parked by the side of the road next to the Game Lands, the back of the Jeep crowded with gear. ¡°I¡¯m alright. Just medicine ¨C you know how it is.¡± ¡°You should put peanut butter on it.¡± ¡°Yeah. If only we had some.¡± She barked her agreement. Fuck it ¨C wasn¡¯t going to hurt any less a few minutes from now. At least it wasn¡¯t The Juice; he¡¯d have preferred death to riding out a dose of that again. Literally, he¡¯d added a stipulation to his living will that if the only available treatment was RA-17, then they were to let him die. That was a good point, actually. Moose had taken bags of Juice before; what was he doing dreading a measly patch of RA-9? He pressed the wet side of the regenerative agent onto his forearm, right above where he¡¯d shot through it to kill the tunnel wolf, and turned the music up before his muscles started to seize. ¡°Sing me through it, Chris Isaak.¡± Moose pulled the lever of his seat and leaned all the way back. Thirty minutes and he¡¯d be fine, he reminded himself. Just half an hour of hell, and vengeance would be his to take. Sheila whined in distress at his pain as the burning started to come on, laying her head on his lap. As happened every time he used one of these patches, he marveled at how distinctive the sensations were, like microscopic, electrified needles being inserted slowly millimeter by millimeter up and down the nerves from the point of contact. There was nothing quite like a USAF Regenerative Agent for fucking your whole day up. Even after the pain dissipated, he''d be nauseous until tomorrow, and, of course, there would be the sleep paralysis ¨C another long night with dead men standing at the foot of his bed. It was a bit concerning that there could be no doubt he was using real-deal RA-9. Moose didn''t know where Troyer had sourced the highly controlled compound from, and he didn''t want to know. Whatever the explanation, it was a problem firmly outside of his tax bracket. Either Troyer had a legitimate source for the patches, and he was an active-duty spook, or he''d bought them from the black market. It called for willful ignorance either way. A man didn''t live long and well in this world by asking questions. ¡°Ooh! Voice of an angel. That was Blue Hotel by Chris Isaak, and you¡¯re listening to The Mountain Prophet, the second most popular Appalachian shortwave specialty station in the country¡ª¡± ¡°Y¡¯all still ain¡¯t cracked that number one spot? Well, hell, no justice in this world, I tell ya.¡± Moose let out a sigh of relief, the jovial banter taking some of the edge off. The aged speakers of his Jeep could do nothing to diminish the rich baritone of Walt Ennis and the pleasant Kentucky drawl of his guest. He loved when TomTwain was on; the man oozed charisma. Walt chuckled. "That''s right, folks, you already know that voice! We have a very special guest hailing from the hollers of Kentucky but calling in from West Virginia today, ready to fill us in on the rash of Mothman sightings. It''s medium extraordinaire, Licensed Special Responder, novelist, private investigator, and sometimes field reporter, Thomas Clemens, better known as TomTwain¡ª" ¡°Don¡¯t forget mediocre poker player and excellent lover; the two things every man ought to aspire to be.¡± ¡°Why, those go without saying, don¡¯t they, Thomas?¡± ¡°Shoot. Probably right about that, Walt. But just in case, if there¡¯s any ladies or card sharks that would like to call in and let the people know, the number is 582-6¡ª¡± ¡°Hey! That¡¯s my personal number, Tom!¡± ¡°Is that¡ª¡± Both men burst into laughter. ¡°Oh, man, it¡¯s good you stopped me, Walt. That was not a bit; I would have said the whole thing. My bad. It¡¯s been a long week of investigating and interviewing, in my defense.¡± "Quite alright, Tom. If leaking my phone number is what it takes to hear that delightful drawl, then I''d take it every time. It''s a pleasure and an honor, sir." ¡°Please! The pleasure an¡¯ honor is all mine. I¡¯ve been listening to your dulcet tones since I was a wee lad, wanderin¡¯ ¡®round, throwin¡¯ rocks at wasp nests. The thought that I can share these airwaves with one such as yourself is a real treat.¡± ¡°Tom, you would have been twenty when I got my start in radio.¡± ¡°Yes, sir, but I was young o¡¯ heart back then, as evidenced what by the throwin¡¯ rocks at wasp nests and all.¡± The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Back then? No longer young of heart, eh, Thomas?¡± ¡°Alas. I¡¯m old everywhere save up top. That¡¯s right, folks, breakin¡¯ news from the Mountain Prophet, your man TomTwain¡¯s got a baby brain. Ya heard it here first.¡± Walt chuckled. ¡°Speaking of breaking news, I believe you have updates for us from the scene of these newest Mothman sightings.¡± ¡°Listen to you wranglin¡¯ me back on topic; that¡¯s why you¡¯re a pro, Walton. But that¡¯s correct, and unfortunately, it¡¯s bad news.¡± ¡°Oh, Heavens, really? So there¡¯s a calamity on the way, then?¡± ¡°No, no. It¡¯s bad news for you and me, what with us bein¡¯ huge Moth-heads. It¡¯s great news for West Virginia! I ain¡¯t finished doin¡¯ my business, but it¡¯s sure lookin¡¯ like a bad case of mass hysteria down here. Me and you, though, we¡¯re just goin¡¯ to have to keep on believin¡¯, ¡®cause far as I can tell, we won¡¯t be gettin¡¯ any hard or fast confirmation on whether or not the Big Dusty One is real. Not this time, at least.¡± ¡°Ah, rats! Well, got to take the good with the bad, hm? Break it down for us, though. What exactly have you found so far?¡± Moose tried to keep listening, but the burning needles had made their way into his inner ear, making a crackling sound as the compound worked to heal whatever lingering damage was left from the fight in the cave. He kept himself from checking the time. The clock would only confirm that he was far from the zenith of pain and would stretch the experience into subjective hours. Instead, he sank his hands into Sheila''s thick fur, kept his eyes closed, and tried to make out what he could of the radio. Frankly, it was just nice to hear the chatter of the two men; it could get lonely out in Dudlin, more so than ever now that half the town had moved away, and the Helcats had killed most business at the Hunting Lodge. He had to force himself to lean forward and turn the volume up when the topic turned to Salem Cooper, though. ¡°Am I correct, Tom, in that you¡¯ve confirmed with the Cooper family that they want you to look into their missing son here in Dudlin?¡± "Yes, sir. Wish it was under better circumstances, but I will be headin'' up to the gentle, rollin'' hills of Pennsylvania soon as I''m done down here. There is a¡­minor complication, guess you could say. The Bulletin to look for the young man has been taken up already. Now, that''s fine ¨C I wasn''t lookin'' to get paid for the work. It''s just a bit of a professional faux pas to edge in on another LSR''s job. People get hurt that way. Too many chefs, see." ¡°Oh. Wow, I thought it would be months before that happened.¡± As did Moose. ¡°Do you have any information on who took the Bulletin?¡± "I do, and that''s why I said it was only a minor complication. She seems like a pretty stand-up lady, a firefighter out from California way, name o'' Lift-Off. Major league super, big, big-time heavy hitter, got a whole bag o'' tricks. And I don''t know if you''ve been close to a wildfire, but it takes a special kind of person to make a livin'' out of them. Anyway, our powers don''t got any overlap, so I can''t see her puttin'' up a fuss about me, but regardless, Dudlin''s in good hands, I''d say." ¡°Gosh, I¡¯m sure the town¡¯s breathing a sigh of relief hearing that. You mentioned her powers ¨C I don¡¯t suppose you could elaborate on just what she can do.¡± "Hey, for you, Big Walt, no problem. Got the LSR database pulled up right now. Let''s see¡ª" Moose tore the keys from the ignition and threw his door open with a growl. Lift-Off may or may not have been territorial, but he was. Like hell, was he about to let some Californian tourist avenge his dogs and Salem Cooper before he could. It took so long to suit up in his current state, partially paralyzed with paroxysms of pain every few seconds, that halfway through, Sheila ended up pushing him over and laying her body over him until he stopped trying. That was fair; he''d been being stubborn. She was a good girl. Once the thirty minutes on the patch were through, and all he had to deal with was the near-crippling nausea, Moose pushed her off him and returned to putting on the elaborate, multilayered Japanese all-terrain warfare armor he¡¯d had the Guns&Ammo in State College order for him. He would have moved on the cave sooner ¨C there were an uncomfortable number of amateurs poking their heads in ¨C but he wanted to wait for this specifically. It was slashing-resistant, piercing-resistant, reinforced around his spine and knees, chemically sealed from the neck down, came with a built-in harness, and could regulate his body temperature so long as it was charged. He¡¯d spent over half his savings on it. He might have asked Troyer to pick up the check, but technically Moose was supposed to be convalescing at home for another week. His arm still hurt. According to the doctors, it was a miracle it was still attached, but he was sure it would be fine. The Rangers had asked more from him than this, and the RA-9 had already taken it to mostly functional. There was some loss of dexterity, but Moose could shoot and fight with both hands. He¡¯d make do. There''d been a Code Orange in the night, and there was currently a Code Red, yet he could still see fresh signs of people everywhere he looked. Unbelievable ¨C Sheila informed him that there were at least five still out here soaked in sweat and stinking of construction equipment. Did no one in Dudlin have a survival instinct? He could only hope that none of the locals had found the new entrances into the cave system that he and Sheila had yesterday, but that was probably wishful thinking. Rednecks could be dangerously competent when properly motivated. Moose couldn¡¯t say why he cared about being the first to explore the cave, only that he did. Perhaps it was a psychological effect from his superpowers, or perhaps it was masculine pride, but either way, he had to do it. He¡¯d told Dale Cooper that he¡¯d find his son or at least give his wife confirmation of his death, and until he did ¨C him, personally ¨C then his failure the night of the boy¡¯s disappearance would haunt him for the rest of his life. A brisk hike took him and Sheila to the other side of the hill where the ''formal'' entrance to Salem''s Cave sat. Did it make more sense to breach the cave system through there? Maybe, but he wasn''t eager to set eyes on that accursed statue or the way she guarded again. Besides, the Army had made him learn to trad climb; he might as well get some use out of the skill. The ''informal'' entrance to the cave was a gash in the earth at the bottom of a sinkhole. Coming through it, was a faint blue glow and the occasional dull flapping of bat wings belonging to the creatures Sheila had sniffed out to lead them here the first time. He hadn''t been able to see how deep the cavern below was ¨C even the sinkhole had been too treacherous to attempt without gear ¨C but Moose had brought two hundred and twenty feet of rope with him. If it was deeper than that, then, well, he''d just be back tomorrow, he supposed. "Alright, darling," he said after triple-checking everything was in place, "find somewhere to hide if a Helcat comes, but otherwise guard the hole." Sheila huffed an affirmative. Many dogs didn¡¯t take well to compound orders like that, but she was a clever girl. Saying a quick prayer to a God he couldn''t say either way if he believed in, he got to it. He tied off the first anchor point through the thick roots of a living tree. That probably wasn''t going anywhere, but for good measure, once he was halfway down the sinkhole, he stuck a friend in a crack in one of the freshly exposed boulders and clipped himself to that as well. Fear wormed its way into his head as soon as he hit the bottom of the sinkhole. A surprising number of soldiers had died rappelling before, and here he was, about to do it into a one hundred percent cursed cavern that he hadn¡¯t inspected in the least. ¡°Come on.¡± He slapped his cheeks a few times. ¡°You¡¯ve got this.¡± 6.2 Beginning his slow descent, the first thing he saw upon entering the cave was a curtain of glowing silk strands that hung from the backs of long, segmented, armored bugs pressed flat against the stone all around him. He noted with horror that some were longer than he was tall, and all had mandibles that looked like they could take a finger in a single bite. The gash was not wide, either; any serious swaying in one direction or another would see him entangled with their silk. And, if these were anything like the glowworms of Australia, then the droplets he saw clinging to the strands were not dew, but poison. He contemplated briefly firing on a few of the bugs, but they weren''t reacting to him in any way, and if there was to be a defense response, then he didn''t favor himself while surrounded on all sides as he was. Instead, he opted to leave the patient predators alone for now. Holding his breath, Moose delicately ¨C very delicately ¨C lowered himself the miserable twenty feet it took to get clear of the worst of the strands. "God damn it," he said, getting his first real look at the cavern, "it''s gorgeous." It was like something from an old adventure movie. Mist came wafting up from the swampy forest below, lit irregularly by holes in the ceiling, the glowworms, thousands of bright red blinking fireflies, and some of the trees and shrubs themselves, which emitted a golden light from beneath their branches. The place was massive and overfull of life, sloping from where he knew the formal entrance was into what appeared to be an underwater lake on the far other side. Moose was less than a quarter of the way to the lake, which was very lucky; he wasn''t sure his rope would have reached the bottom had he entered at the lake-end, and the swamp seemed denser the further you went. Below him was a thatch of oaks and maple trees, their seeds presumably having entered here through the hole he was now dangling from, and the last of the stepped terraces that made up the start of the cavern. The further down he went, the luckier he realized he''d gotten with his choice of entrance. It was not the trees and shrubs that were glowing gold, but the beehives built on them. Fortunately, the oak under him had been spared ¨C though that did make him a little concerned as well. The red fireflies seemed to cluster around it more than they did most of the other trees, and definitely more than they did near the beehives. Maybe they competed with the bees in some way. Once he was at the top of the oak, he was relieved to see that other than their size, about the length of his palm, and color, the bugs seemed as harmless as their surface cousins. They did seem to like flying directly at him, but they either bounced off and trundled away in a different direction, or landed for a few seconds before taking off again. He did his best to ignore them, reminding himself again of the glowworms ringing his rope above. As he descended through the branches to land on the muddy soil at the base, he confirmed that the fireflies competed with the bees for space, at the least. They had laid their bright red eggs underneath the boughs of the oak. The curious, nature-loving child in him wanted to collect a few of the eggs to bring back to the surface, maybe to send to Penn State, but he was ill-equipped to do so. He''d come prepared for a fight, not science. That brought to mind an important question: What exactly was he here to do? Before he''d seen what it looked like down here, the plan had been simple. He would kill as many monsters as possible while trying to find any evidence of Salem Cooper''s passing. But what the hell was he supposed to do about all this? There was an entire ecosystem down here, and worse, it was a swamp broken up by labyrinths of stalagmites and full-on thickets of mangrove-like trees ¨C it could take weeks, if not months, to explore this fully. Moose carefully unclipped from the rope and started in the direction of the entrance to the cave. There was little chance the boy had made it into the swamp, little chance even that he''d made it past the crack that had taken Welly and Decker, his birding dogs. It made more sense to work in reverse. He sniffed the air ¨C smoke and burning rubber. Looking down, he saw that the bottom of his boot was smoking; there seemed to be a slimy fuel clinging to it, burning with the same bright red color as the fireflies. "Shit." Moose wiped the sticky flame off on a rock, watching as the substance continued to burn for a good while. Thankfully, his shoes were hardy and new, as armored as the rest of his gear. As long as he avoided whatever had set them alight, they would be fine. He had a bad feeling about what that something was, though. Taking one of the fireflies that had landed on his chest between his thumb and forefinger, he flicked the thing hard at the same rock. His eyes went wide. The moment it splattered against the stone and the sac of glowing fluid on its abdomen was exposed to the air, it burst into flame, leaving a fiery trail as it ran down the side of the rock. "They''re¡­they''re full of napalm," he said with a strangled voice, calmly observing the thousands of the bugs gently bobbing through the air around him. They''d seemed cute just seconds ago. Napalm!? Fucking napalm? Really? He took a deep breath and started slowly walking away from the oak. Panicking in this situation would only get him killed. At least this had clarified his mission for today. Moose was here to assess dangers ¨C recon, essentially. He would get as much information as he could, and then he would get the fuck out of here. The former ranger got no further than fifteen feet before encountering yet another quandary. In order to get to the entrance of the cavern, he had to traverse the stepped terraces, which were full of water and life. Lotus flowers and other water lilies obscured much of what lay beneath the surface, but he could see tons of little fishes swimming underneath the pads. There were stones throughout the pools that he could step on, but they seemed¡­suspicious. He couldn''t put a finger on why, but they were oddly uncanny in a way, like they''d been planted there deliberately. Nothing to it but to do it. Moose reached his foot forward and tapped the closest stone. It felt firm and stable, but still, he couldn''t shake the feeling of wrongness. His boot couldn''t give him the tactile feedback he needed. Leaning down, he patted the stone with his gloved hand ¨C still normal, still off somehow. He felt around its sides, his thumb breaching the surface of the mostly still pool, small ripples scaring away a few of the smaller fish. The instant that happened, the very second he had disturbed the peace of the fish, the stone he''d been touching surged up, holding aloft two massive pinchers in defense of its chosen home, and snapped one down on the center of his hand. "Agh, shit!" Moose retracted his arm, but the thing clung on, the crushing force of its pinchers putting the relatively thin armor on his gloves to the test. He caught its other pincher with his left hand before it could likewise latch on, slammed the crab to the ground, and placed his boot on top of its shell for leverage. The thing felt more like a stone than ever. Stomping on it did nothing, and trying to pull himself free was like testing his strength against a table vice. Quickly opting for another strategy, he moved his boot to the crab''s free pincher, pinning it to the ground, and drew his pistol, a reliable nine-millimeter loaded with sub-sonic rounds this time so as to not deafen himself again. The first bullet dented ¨C dented ¨C the body of the crab, ricocheting off with a dull metallic clang. He directed the next bullet at the joint just below the pincher crushing his hand. That did the trick, severing the pincher cleanly. Moose kicked the crab away, sending it just eight feet away, where it landed with an enormous splash in the next terrace up ¨C a terrible, terrible mistake, he realized. From the small pool he''d first disturbed had emerged eight or nine of the stone/metallic crab monsters, all of which were currently scurrying at him, claws forward. From the larger pool behind them came dozens of the things, the largest as wide as his torso. That number included the one he''d shot twice, its shell notably dented from the point-blank shot. He took one look at that, turned around, and sprinted towards the oak, practically throwing himself up the first branch he could see without red eggs on the underside. The tide of crabs was fast behind him; once they finished gathering around the base of the tree, he would have to jump over them and make his way past them and the terraced pools. Moose was willing to bet he''d be fine as long as he didn''t disturb the water or the tiny fish again. Hopefully, there would be a way out from this enormous cavern to the surface there, or else he''d have to stall until he had the space and time to loop back around and clip into the rope. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The first crab reached the tree, paused, turned around, picked up the nearest crab, and lifted it above its head. Another crab swiftly climbed up the other two before it was locked into a rigid position by the one beneath. A fourth struggled for a moment to climb up before two others came from behind to give it a boost. "Oh, what the fuck, man." Of course, the crabs could work together down here. Why wouldn''t they? Everything in this goddamn cave existed solely to torment him. Still not panicking, he made his way as quickly as he could to a bough nearest to the rope. There was no time to properly loop the rope through his belay device and the various safety measures, but Moose could do a hundred-thirty-foot rope climb up thin nylon while being pursued by intelligent monstrous crabs ¨C surely. Any small hope he had of juking the crabs was immediately lost the moment he was dangling from the rope. The tide turned as one to pursue, using a similar strategy to chase him up the rope. The first crab grabbed the rope with one claw and then picked up the crab at its side, lifting it up so that it could grab the rope and lift it in turn. "Fuck you, God." He raced up as fast as he could, muscles burning with effort, but the things were, somehow, just slightly faster. Moose had a lead to begin with, meaning that they caught up some fifty feet up. One immediately latched onto his boot, but these were not like his gloves; they''d been specifically made for fighting the various mutated sharks that littered the waters of Japan''s coasts. The claw cut through the rubber and cloth shell but was halted by the steel wire mesh underneath. Moose instinctively tried to kick it off him or to at least knock the tower of crabs it was on top of down, only to realize his error when the rope began to retract upwards on its own. Sparing a glance up, he saw that in the commotion, it had tangled itself with the strands of silk hanging from the back of a giant glowworm. The man-sized bug was now pulling its silk into its body slowly as it began to stir from its slumber. If that thing took its mandibles to the threads of the rope, then he was about to go crashing down fifty or sixty feet through an oak tree filled with sacks of living napalm. Biceps burning, he hung from one hand, drew the nine-millimeter once more, and made the greatest shots of his life. He fired once up, striking the thin and thankfully relatively unprotected body of the glowworm. It had mostly finished pulling in its silk, so when it died, both it and the rope dropped. As it fell, the few inches of silk stuck to the rope caused the whole thing to jerk as the glowworm''s body momentarily caught there before ripping free. Then, while the corpse of the bug was still falling and the rope was now swinging wildly, he fired again at the crab on his boot. The second bullet struck the crab at the seam of where the top and bottom of its shell parted for its eyes and mouth, killing it instantly at the same time as the glowworm was splattering against the branches of the oak. Moose held on with his thighs as the rope swung into contact with another dozen silken, poisonous strands. The singular positive was that the crabs were more impacted than he was, the chaotic movements pushing their tiny brains past the limit. He had to imagine they''d evolved the ability to climb in response to tunnel wolves pilfering their underwater gardens, not to chase men up ropes. They froze, clinging to each other and the rope as best they could, unable to react to what was happening. That gave him an idea. It was awful, but it was the only one he had. Holstering the pistol once more, he took advantage of the crabs'' confusion to continue sprinting up the rope, something that was made easier by the fact that multiple glowworms were now slowly pulling it up. Their gooey poison was dripping down sporadically, occasionally landing on his head, rendering whatever it touched completely numb. But thankfully, there was still plenty of Regenerative Agent still in his blood ¨C he had to trust that he''d be fine. There was no room in this situation to also worry about the poison. Nothing to it but to do it. He could feel the toxin working its way through his scalp and into his bloodstream, but all he could do was push himself harder in response. The crabs were making minimal progress, at least, freezing each time they moved a little further up ¨C perfect. Above him, the slow pull of the rope stopped as the silk strands of multiple glowworms became tangled up with each other. The silk didn''t stick to itself, but the wild swinging of the rope had looped the strands together. The bugs seemed to realize this at a staggered pace, awakening from their complete stillness to crane their segmented bodies down to examine what had occurred. The first bug to realize that it was competing with its neighbors for a meal reacted mercilessly. Before the others could react, it turned and cleanly severed the head of the one next to it, yanking it off the stalactite with a quick jerk. It didn''t fall, however - too many of its strands were still entangled with the rope. Instead, it simply dangled like a weight from it over his head. Christ, okay, if he was going to pull this off, it would have to be now. Moose reached down with one arm, grabbed a hold of the rope beneath his feet, and started to swing it deliberately. Above him, two glowworms locked their jaws and started to wrestle one another, trying to drag the other off from its perch. Below, the crabs came to a complete stop, simply holding on. They were heavy, but he had adrenaline and momentum on his side. The seconds felt like hours as each swing got closer and closer to bringing the section of the rope with the crabs to the curtain of silk ringing his exit. Finally, with one great heave, he did it, whipping the rope up over his head and into the glowworm threads in the immediate vicinity of the hole. As one, they began to pull their silk up almost exactly as one of the two above him put a mandible through the other''s brain. It joined its brethren in dangling over him, rendering the climb up now fully impossible. He''d counted on that, though, and was already shuffling over, one hand at a time, toward the other side of the rope. There, the crabs had ceased their pursuit and were battling instead with the poisonous silk they''d been captured by, as well as the creatures lassoing them in. The fight seemed equally matched. When a crab could orient itself properly and get an idea of what to actually attack, it would more or less instantly kill the glowworm on top of it. But that was a rare occurrence; most were simply trying to attack the strands and seeing their pincers get glued together for the effort. One of the glowworms was already gnawing at the eyes of a still-wriggling crab. In the chaos, Moose was able to get fairly close to the hole, the rope now anchored at a number of points around it by various glowworms. Luckily, none had taken to attacking the rope itself. The one that had killed its neighbors seemed to have sussed out the nylon wasn''t good eating and was mindlessly cannibalizing the corpses dangling from it instead. Unfortunately, this was the part of his plan where he now had to swing off the rope to dyno onto one of the loose stones around the exit or else fall a hundred-plus feet to his death ¨C not something he would have considered himself capable of prior to now. But there was no room for doubt; he had to believe in himself, or he was as good as dead. Like sent from heaven on high, as soon as he had the thought, another rope came through the hole, this one thick and old, hempen and potentially hand woven as unbelievable as that seemed. He was grabbing it before his brain could finish recognizing that it was real. "Heave!" came a thunderous and deep voice from above. It was like a dark mirror of Walton Ennis'' ¨C the same baritone and the rich timbre, but somehow cold and imperious where the radio man''s was warm and welcoming. Four pale, gaunt Laponte men hauled him to safety. They wore tool belts and were covered in dirt and wood dust, clearly having just finished a hard day of labor. They rolled him onto his back and let a happy Sheila greet him. He pushed her away before she lapped up any of the poison covering his face. Charles Laponte leaned over him, a half-smile on his face; more joy there than he''d ever seen the man wear before. "The Lord is not finished with you yet, Finneas Blyde." One of his younger sons added, "There are stairs down, moron."