《Voltsmith: Apocalypse Engineering 1 [LitRPG]》 1: Going Off the Rails My headlamp panned around the guts of an old Ford Explorer. My sore, oil-soaked fingers worked across the half-disassembled transmission---everything else under the hood was pitch black. I¡¯d been working on it for almost ten hours over two days. This was my third time taking it apart. And it just. Wouldn¡¯t. Work. The other bay¡¯s lights were all out, and my boss, Cindy, wouldn¡¯t stop tapping her foot at me, but I had her on ignore. I could only hear the pulsing beat of classic rock on my earbuds and the sound of tools banging on steel. But when she kicked my work boot¡ªlightly, but insistently¡ªI couldn¡¯t keep ignoring her. I slid out from under the Explorer and pulled an earbud out, carefully tucking it into my work jumpsuit¡¯s breast pocket. ¡°Yeah, Cindy?¡± ¡°It¡¯s time to go home, Hal. The job will be here tomorrow,¡± she said, annoyance plain on her wrinkled brow. For a second, I wanted to argue. I was close. Another half-hour, and I¡¯d have the transmission figured out. Something about that Explorer reminded me of my old station wagon. Maybe it was the rust. Or the fraying timing belts. Or the lady who, despite Cindy¡¯s best efforts to tell her that it was a lost cause and needed more work than she could afford, was still hoping she¡¯d be able to nurse it all the way to Wyoming. Thirty more minutes. That¡¯s all it¡¯d take. But the oil, gasoline fumes, and the caffeine headache I¡¯d been fighting for a solid hour were winning. I needed to call it a day. If I hurried, I¡¯d make the next Red Line train back to Andersonville. I¡¯d be able to crash in my attic apartment. Then, I¡¯d beat the unsolvable transmission tomorrow and move on to the next vehicle Cindy threw at me. Then I¡¯d get to do it again. And again. And again. This had been my life for the last three years. Before Cindy¡¯s Automotive¡ªthe best job I¡¯d had since I came to Chicago¡ªit had been small engines. I hadn¡¯t quit that job. I¡¯d quit that boss. And before that, I¡¯d been a dishwasher and a barista. I liked the automotive job, even though I technically wasn¡¯t certified. It scratched an itch the food service gigs hadn¡¯t. But it still didn¡¯t pay enough to move out of Mrs. Faren¡¯s attic, especially since I technically wasn¡¯t certified. Some nights, I wondered if I should have stayed in Cozad, Nebraska. This was starting to be one of them. So, with a ¡°Yes, Ma¡¯am,¡± I threw the filthy towel in. Cindy said good night, looking relieved, and locked the garage door behind me as I left. Chicago was a big city, but my station was only a couple blocks away. I started walking. I couldn¡¯t go back to Cozad, though. Mom blamed me for my sister, Beth, disappearing. That wasn¡¯t entirely true, but I couldn¡¯t exactly call her up to ask after she blocked all of our numbers. Going back to the farm wasn¡¯t an option at the time, so I¡¯d stayed in the big city. A clean break looked like the only solution. I even sold the station wagon to pay for the trip, selling off my proof that everything was a puzzle to solve. Everything except Beth, at least. That puzzle¡¯s only solution was to move on. The easiest solution to my biggest problem would have been to walk away and go home, and I could any time. Mom had¡­forgiven¡­me for Beth. Dad would have me elbow-deep in tractor guts or pig shit in a minute, and I could start saving up money instead of living paycheck to paycheck. It¡¯d just be a couple of years. I could try making my own way again later on. The thought was always there, taunting me. But if I went back home to Cozad, something in the back of my mind told me I¡¯d never leave again. And unlike odd jobs in Chicago, I couldn¡¯t walk away from the farm when Dad¡¯s micromanagement got overwhelming. Once Mom got her claws in me, I¡¯d never leave. So, no, I couldn¡¯t go back. A rat scurried down the stairs and across the platform as I hurried to catch the Red Line. I ignored it. Instead, I scanned my L-Card, stepped onto the train, and tried to find a place to stand where my body odor and oil-drenched clothes wouldn¡¯t offend the other riders too much. I¡¯d gotten used to dirty looks and being filthy, but still¡ªI¡¯d been taught to be polite. The digital woman¡¯s voice said, ¡°Red Line, Chicago to Clark,¡± and the train lurched into motion. The closest stop to Andersonville was a decently long ride, so I tried to shut my eyes, doze off, and ignore the familiar-looking high-school girl standing next to me and giving me the look¡ªthe one that screamed I was just labor, a background person, and that I shouldn¡¯t be in her space. Her mom shot her a look of her own, and she rolled her eyes, then shifted to face away from me. No big deal. I smelled like oil and sweat, that was all. Besides, no matter how much she looked like Beth, I had canned soup and a mattress calling my name, and some fifteen-year-old¡¯s wrinkled nose couldn¡¯t take that away from me. It wasn¡¯t much, but hey, Mrs. Faren charged a price that was almost fair. The train¡¯s lights flickered off, flashing even through my eyelids. A short, maybe? But that wouldn¡¯t have shut the train¡¯s engine down, and I couldn¡¯t hear that either. If the Red Line had lost power between Chicago and Clark stations, they¡¯d shut down the whole line, and that canned soup would be a distant dream. A glowing box popped into my vision. System Initialization in Progress¡­ The box hung there even when I opened my eyes. I blinked, trying to make it disappear; it had to be from my headache. Was it going full migraine? Then, the train¡¯s lights flickered again and the brakes slammed on. I lurched forward, narrowly avoiding hip-checking the girl like a pro hockey star. System Initialization Successful. Beginning Terraforming¡­ Generating Dungeon Seeds¡­ The brakes stopped squealing. The train stopped suddenly. I didn¡¯t.
Congratulations! Your planet, [Earth], has been classified as a [Category Six: Death World], and your species, [Homo sapiens], is unfit for immediate Integration into the Universal Order. By failing to meet the Integration requirements and succumbing to its filter event, [Earth] has begun its inevitable descent into chaos. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. But do not despair! The Consortium offers you an opportunity to ensure your species¡¯ survival. Simply survive a short tutorial dungeon, then advance through the remaining phases of our system integration program, and [Homo sapiens] will be uplifted and ready for immediate Integration. I¡¯d hit something. Hard. I could barely read the words hanging in front of me through my watery eyes. And the too-cheerful voice accompanying them wasn¡¯t helping my headache, either¡ªespecially because it sounded like a pre-recorded message with the details filled in later by a second, less happy-sounding voice. I blinked and got my bearings. The earth rumbled around the Red Line train as I pushed myself to my feet. What the hell was happening? Had we hit something? I turned to help the girl--she''d hit the car''s floor almost as hard as me. Her mom was already on it, though. ¡°Alright, Tori, up you go,¡± she said. Once the girl¡ªTori¡ªwas standing shakily, her mom glanced at me. ¡°Thanks for trying to help.¡± ¡°What¡¯s going on, Jessica?¡± The girl asked. She was dressed like one of those scene or emo kids, with black hair swooshed over one eye and a fishnet top under her T-shirt, but her scared, wide-eyed look clashed with the black and neon outfit pretty badly. ¡°Train¡¯s stopped,¡± I replied. ¡°Are you seeing all this too?¡± ¡°Yeah, something about the Universal Order, right? But it¡¯s got to be a joke or something, right? Right? That doesn¡¯t even mean anything!¡± the girl blurted. She was working up a full head of steam. ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s a joke,¡± I replied. A joke didn¡¯t make sense. Maybe a gas leak into the subway line? That¡¯d make people hallucinate, right? But would it make them hallucinate the same things? The whole train car? No, that didn¡¯t make sense at all. ¡°I think we should take it seriously until we know what¡¯s happening. I¡¯m Hal.¡± ¡°Jessica,¡± the older woman said. ¡°Tori¡¯s my daughter.¡± ¡°Step-daughter,¡± Tori said. Jessica winced behind her bent glasses. ¡°Not the time, Tori.¡± The earth stopped rumbling. Terraforming Complete. Populating Dungeons. Beginning Phase Zero: Tutorial Dungeons. It¡¯s decision time: Option One, the Casual Tutorial, will transport you to a basic tutorial dungeon with all the support needed to make it through Phase Zero: Option Two, the Hardcore Tutorial, is more challenging¡ªmuch more challenging¡ªbut the rewards match the increased difficulty: Failure to choose will result in automatic placement into the Hardcore Tutorial. Objective: Choose (30 seconds remaining) Jessica¡¯s face went pale. ¡°We¡¯re really taking this seriously? This is real?¡± she asked, looking at me. She laughed nervously. I had no clue why she thought I had the answers, but I nodded. ¡°Yeah, I think it might be. Go with the Casual Tutorial, okay? Whatever it is, it¡¯ll be easier.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± She turned toward Tori and cleared her throat, putting on her best stern, parental voice. ¡°Tori, pick the first option. Got it? The first one, okay?¡± Tori nodded, wide-eyed, and Jessica relaxed. She dropped to one knee and started looking for something under the train seat. I relaxed, too. Then I saw Tori¡¯s face. She wouldn¡¯t make eye contact with me, and something about her seemed¡­off. I couldn¡¯t tell what¡ªI didn¡¯t know her¡ªbut something was wrong. ¡°What did you do?¡± I asked. She shook her head, looking away toward her mom, but I was completely on edge now. Something was wrong with the kid. And I had a bad feeling what it was. ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°I picked Hardcore as soon as it popped up,¡± she whispered, keeping her eyes on her mom, who was halfway under a row of seats. ¡°It looked like my kind of game, but no one¡¯s acting like it¡¯s a game.¡± Objective: Choose (5 seconds remaining) ¡°Shit,¡± I said, eyes narrowing. Had Tori really thrown herself into the Hardcore Tutorial? Jessica emerged with a textbook, shoved it into the teen¡¯s hand, and flashed a shaky grin at her. My mind spun. There wasn¡¯t time to warn Jessica. And I couldn¡¯t let Tori go it alone. I¡¯d done that before, with my sister. I couldn¡¯t let that happen again¡ªnot after what that had done to my mom. I picked Hardcore and confirmed it. Choices Confirmed. Initiating Tutorials. Relocating Casual Tutorial Participants to Casual Dungeons. Relocating excess Hardcore Tutorial Participants to starting locations. A second later, Jessica vanished. So did everyone else on the train.
Dungeon Seeds Generated Tutorial Dungeons Activated Welcome to Phase Zero, [Hal Riley]! Team: Hal Riley, Tori Vanderbilt, Calvin Rollins Tutorial Dungeon: Redline Tunnels Objective: Kill the Tunnel Lord (0/1) Objective: Kill the Redline Wyrm (0/1) Objective: Reach the Dungeon Exit (0/1) Objective: Survive (0/1) Completion: 0% Time Limit: 72 Hours The second every other passenger disappeared, I closed my eyes. This couldn¡¯t be happening. But it was. I¡¯d been pretending this was all happening up until now. Now, I knew it was real. That didn¡¯t seem like a big deal for most people, but for me, it was the difference between imagining problems and working toward solutions. Everything was a puzzle to be solved, a machine to be fixed. This Hardcore Tutorial wouldn¡¯t be any different. So, first thing. The earth was rumbling again. So was the whole train. Something was coming. Fast. My eyes snapped open. I had to get off this train. I had to leave. Now. The doors were folded half-open and half-crumpled from the train¡¯s crash. I slammed a shoulder into them. Then again. They gave on the third hit. So did something in my shoulder. I hit the gravel hard, rolling as the rest of the door fell next to me. A white light filled the tunnel behind us, and I ducked through an open maintenance door as the oncoming train bore down on the one I¡¯d been riding home less than two minutes ago. There should have been a crash. My back should have been shredded by broken glass and steel. Instead, the sound of metal tearing and ripping filled the air. I turned to face something that looked like a subway train but wasn¡¯t. The Redline Wyrm: Level Twenty Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Impossible It¡¯s a worm! It¡¯s a train! It¡¯s the Redline Wyrm! This massive train terrorizes the tracks, keeping the exit stairs sealed off and gradually expanding its route as it consumes metal, earth, and the flesh of anything unfortunate enough to stand in its way! It wasn¡¯t a worm. And it wasn¡¯t a train, either. It took me a moment to figure out what it was, though. A snake with parts of a half-dozen Red Line trains stuck around its scales. A massive god-damned snake, moving impossibly quickly, with milky-white eyes that reflected light into a single brilliant beam in front of it. The maintenance door sheared off as the Redline Wyrm¡¯s steel-scaled body flashed by, glassy windows illuminating the maintenance tunnel we¡¯d hidden in. The wind and rotten-smelling air blew in my face. After almost a minute, the monstrous train passed, and I peeked back into the subway tunnel as the rumbling slowed. My stomach tied itself in knots as I stepped back onto the gravel. My train back home was gone¡ªnothing but a few scraps of steel and some shattered glass remained. I stared at the Redline Wyrm¡¯s glow as it faded away in front of me, trying not to shake. The twilit train tunnel loomed behind me, the electric lights replaced by a faint glow that barely broke the darkness. No matter how hard I squinted, I couldn¡¯t see more than about a hundred feet. ¡°Alright, Hal. Let¡¯s go find that kid,¡± I muttered. Then, without waiting for the Redline Wyrm to return, I started jogging after its fading lights. 2: Things Are Going Wrong For Me As I looked around, I realized that I wasn¡¯t standing in a subway tunnel. The walls weren¡¯t tile or concrete, for one thing. They looked like they¡¯d been hacked out of the stone around them with a pickaxe¡ªor scraped clean by a giant armored snake. For another, the light was way too uniform, and I couldn¡¯t figure out where it was coming from. After looking for an answer, I decided the light was coming from everywhere and nowhere. That explained my missing shadow, at least. My headache had gotten worse, and I could barely think; even so, I started talking through it all. ¡°Okay. There¡¯s a three-hundred-foot snake in the subway. That¡¯s something out of Men in Black, right? Or was that a worm? But this one¡¯s different. It was using a train as armor. The text said that fighting it¡¯s impossible right now, so let¡¯s not worry about it yet. ¡°One problem at a time.¡± Before I could think about the gigantic dungeon boss, I had to find Tori. She¡¯d been on the train with me, and then, just like everyone else, she was gone. I¡¯d jumped into this Hardcore Tutorial to keep her alive, so until I found her, nothing else mattered. I knew she was here somewhere¡ªher name had appeared on that message. But where to start? I was halfway back to Chicago Station before I realized what I was doing¡ªautopilot. I had to start thinking through this puzzle, or Tori would be in trouble. I breathed deep to steady my mind, slowed down, and started using my brain. The Consortium, or whatever had stuck us in here, wanted us separated. That had to be part of what made this dungeon hardcore. I¡¯d keep moving south, from Chicago to Grand to Lake, until I ran into someone. And then¡­ And then, I¡¯d do whatever it took to figure out how to kill the Redline Wyrm. That had to happen. According to those messages, I had to kill it and the Tunnel Lord¡ªand I was willing to bet that the giant snake guarded the way out. If I wanted to get Tori and me out of here, it had to die. I didn¡¯t see a way to kill it yet, but we had time¡ªalmost three days. I could solve anything in three days. The Red Line usually took almost an hour to get to my stop. Even if the Redline Wyrm was moving twice as fast, I figured it¡¯d take it over twenty minutes or more to get to the end of the line, turn around, and get back here. That¡¯d be enough time to walk to the next station. I put on a little speed, though, just in case. As I hurried down the tunnel, I kept my ears perked for any sign of the Redline Wyrm¡¯s return, but all I could hear was the near-constant sound of wind blowing down the tunnel and right into my face. The lights were out, but I could still see the sparking third rail on the ground below them and the freshly shredded, scraped tunnel walls in the faint, uniform light. Was that part of the dungeon? I almost couldn¡¯t believe this was happening. An hour ago, I¡¯d been fixing the Ford Explorer. Was it still on the jack at Cindy¡¯s Automotive? Did Cindy¡¯s even exist anymore? My heart sank as I thought about it. Terraforming¡ªwhat had the Consortium changed? What hadn¡¯t they changed? I tried to puzzle through that as they walked, and before long, Chicago Station appeared, a bright space in the semi-darkness ahead. The tunnel opened wide up ahead into a cavern a football field¡¯s length and half its width. The rough walls were covered in cave art, but as I stared at it, I realized what I was looking at¡ªterraformed posters and advertisements. Those stalagmites? They were right where the turnstiles had been¡ªturnstileagmites, I thought¡ªand a pair of cave entrances loomed where the bathroom doors had once stood. ¡°This is weird. Really weird,¡± I muttered. I crept forward. It was definitely the Chicago station, exactly the same one I¡¯d just left on the train, but irreversibly changed. And I could smell smoke. Smoke meant something was alive¡ªor that something was on fire. If they were alive and friendly, maybe they¡¯d help me find Tori. If not, I wanted them gone. If it was a fire, I¡¯d deal with that when I saw it. I hadn¡¯t been much of a hunter. Some of the other guys back in Cozad went every fall, but Dad had too much to do on the farm. I knew the basics, though: light on your feet, don¡¯t look right at the target, move slowly and calmly. I ducked through the turnstile stalagmites and saw movement. The movement saw me, too. It wasn¡¯t more than half my height and maybe a third of my two hundred and five pounds. Its body looked like an impossibly thin man¡¯s, but its head looked exactly like the rat I¡¯d seen disappearing into the subway tunnel. It was covered in mangy-looking fur and, other than that, completely naked, and it glared and chittered at me as it pulled a crude, stone-tipped spear back for a thrust. Rat Man: Level Three Monster ¡°What the hell?!¡±
The spear punched into the meaty part of my left forearm, and I yelled in agony and jerked back away from my attacker. My arm felt like it was on fire. I screamed again as the Rat Man readied another thrust. This was a problem. I¡¯d fought a little, of course. Most boys in Cozad had. But I¡¯d never done any boxing or wrestling. Nothing formal. So, as the Rat Man stabbed again, I did the one thing I knew how to do. I grabbed the haft, one hand inside the Rat Man¡¯s claws and one outside them, and pushed. A surge of pain ripped up my arm to my shoulder, and I bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste blood. The rough stone spear-tip scraped against the tunnel wall behind me. Sparks lit up the Rat Man¡¯s face for a second; a sore on its snout oozed pus inches from my face. Its shoulder slammed into my chest, and something crunched in my pocket. My music player! Had this asshole broken my iPod? It was a piece of crap, but I¡¯d had it for fifteen years! I choked down fury as I turned my attention from the spear tip to the Rat Man himself; I needed to stay focused, not lose my shit, but the thought of never hearing Lynyrd Skynyrd or The Rolling Stones again was almost unbearable. I was bigger than the monster. I had to be stronger, too. I¡¯d rarely been the stronger fighter when the other boys stick wrestled, so I¡¯d learned ways to compensate. But right now? Right now, I could overpower my opponent. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I jerked the spear left, then right, forcing the Rat Man off its feet. Then I slammed the spear shaft down as the monster flailed through the air. It hit the ground a second later. A squeal of pain filled the subway cave, but the damn thing clung to the shaft. Then, it bit me right in my left arm. I shoved my arm into the Rat Man¡¯s mouth, pushing it in. I¡¯d used that trick on the farm. Most animals didn¡¯t expect their prey to move further in, and they usually let go. The Rat Man did, and I punched it in the face. A sucker punch like that should have stunned it, but its jaws snapped shut inches from my wrist. I pulled back, dragging the fight back toward the stone benches. I couldn¡¯t keep this up forever, and the monster ripped at the spear with both clawed hands. It put its feet into my chest and pushed. It was all I could do to hang on, and I had to get my hurt left hand on the spear to do even that. I kneed it in the thigh. The damn thing wouldn¡¯t let go, even when its head smacked against the concrete with a wet thud and left a red splatter behind. This thing was tougher than it had any right to be! I couldn¡¯t just overpower it like I¡¯d thought. Strength against strength, we were probably matched. I needed leverage. That was the solution. It was like popping a stuck lug nut for a tire rotation. I slammed the Rat Man into a turnstile stalagmite. Then I twisted my body and pulled my arms in opposite directions. The spear levered around. It scraped the floor, and I threw my weight into the Rat Man. Its claws popped free from the spear. I spun it around and jammed the tip into the monster¡¯s chest. It hissed, a rattling sound filling its throat as pink foam pushed between its teeth. Then it went still. I¡¯d won. My hands wouldn¡¯t stop shaking, and my injuries burned, but something else filled my chest. Pride. I¡¯d solved the problem. I¡¯d won the fight. I tore the sleeve off my work jumpsuit and wrapped it tightly around my bicep, hissing in pain and gritting my teeth as I tied it tight. Then I turned to stare at the fallen Rat Man. It had vanished. Not even its blood remained; my work coveralls looked like I¡¯d just left the shop instead of like I¡¯d been fighting for my life. In the monster¡¯s place was a small glowing orb, yellowish-green in color, that slowly drifted toward me. I tried to stand up and get away from it, but before I could, it touched my chest.
Congratulations! You¡¯ve leveled up by killing your first dungeon monster and unlocked your status menu. Monsters live both inside of dungeons and in [Earth¡¯s] overworld. They exist for one purpose: improving System users like you, [Hal Riley]. As a reward for your victory, you have reached Level One. You have been awarded two Stat Points to spend on the following three stats in whatever way you choose: Body, Awareness, and Mana. Your stat layout and actions during the Hardcore Tutorial will determine your class options for Phase One, so your choices will inform your future! Body: Every point spent on Body improves your physical strength, speed, and toughness by a small amount. Awareness: Awareness improves your perception, intuition, and reflexes by a small amount. Additionally, your self-control will increase slightly. Mana: Mana governs the power behind your magic, including casting spells, learning new ones, and your resistance to magical effects. Choose wisely! Before I could question what the box of text meant by stat points, the text disappeared and replaced itself. This time, it wasn¡¯t a description. If anything, it looked a lot closer to the objective list I¡¯d seen earlier. [Hal Riley] [Class - N/A] [Level - 1] [Stats] ?Body - 7 ?Awareness - 7 ?Mana - 3 Stat Points Available: 2 [Class Skill - N/A] There was a lot to unpack here. According to the System, my strengths were Body and Awareness. That made a lot of sense. My work as a mechanic had been physically demanding, but once Cindy realized I had the best problem-solving mind on her staff, she¡¯d started giving me the problems no one else could figure out. I had a knack for noticing things, too; I¡¯d seen Tori¡¯s panicked expression on the train and figured out what was wrong with her. But I had just fought a Rat Man, and I¡¯d come out of it injured but victorious. A level-three Rat Man, but still¡ªI couldn¡¯t fight like that every time. Maybe if I¡¯d been stronger or tougher, I wouldn¡¯t be hurt right now. But really, the problem was that I¡¯d walked right into an ambush. Had I just not been paying enough attention? Or was it that my Awareness wasn¡¯t high enough to notice the monster and react to it in time? I wasn¡¯t sure. Either way, if I¡¯d had access to some magic¡ªwhich, apparently, this Tutorial did¡ªthe Rat Man probably never would have gotten in range to stab me in the first place. And I had another consideration. If I got too hurt, Tori wouldn¡¯t be able to take care of me even if I did find her. I had to keep myself together, both for myself and for her. That meant I couldn¡¯t risk getting caught out like that. All three had advantages. Body would give me the strength and toughness to survive fights, while Awareness could give me the skill to avoid the ones I couldn¡¯t win. And as for Mana? A few spells could shift whole fights, right? I thought about putting both points in Awareness, then confirmed that was what I wanted. The stat ticked up to nine, and a moment later, a new message popped up, replacing my status menu. To call up your status menu, think ¡®Status¡¯ and confirm. You may do this any time you are out of combat. The earbuds were totally destroyed; they¡¯d shattered, and I could see the wiring inside them. The iPod¡¯s screen was busted, too. Part of me wanted to throw them away; they wouldn¡¯t help me in his new world. Another, angrier part wanted to kill every Rat Man in the dungeon as retribution. In the end, I tucked them back into my pocket, careful not to lose any parts. Maybe someday, I¡¯d be able to fix them. I turned and started walking back toward the station¡¯s platform¡ªas far away from the two bathroom caves as possible. I needed to take a second to think. As I did, I discovered a problem I couldn¡¯t do much about right now. Even if leveling was the way to survive and keep us both safe, my levels were only half of the problem. Hopefully, Tori was powering up, too.
This whole mess reminded Tori of the time she and her friends had gone to Tammy¡¯s place last summer. Her parents hadn¡¯t been home, and all four of them had been curious, so they sat on the couch, turned on some vintage The Used on Tammy¡¯s laptop, and ¡®partied¡¯ for a few hours while Helen¡ªprudish, straight-edged, no-drugs-or-booze-but-I¡¯ll-watch-you-do-them Helen¡ªmade sure everyone stayed safe. They¡¯d only tried that once. So far. This? It felt exactly like that¡ªout of control and impossible to figure out. Everything about it was seriously screwed up. Mom¡ªJessica¡ªwas missing. Everyone was missing¡ªexcept, apparently, that mechanic and some guy named Calvin. She bit back a nasty comment about herself¡ªpicking Hardcore was something she always did in her games, but this wasn¡¯t a game. It couldn¡¯t be a game. This felt way too real, even for her VR set-up. Something was in the station with her. Rat Man: Level Three Monster ¡°What kind of horror game shit is this?¡± she whispered under her breath as the Rat Man sniffed at the air and meandered toward her hiding spot. She¡¯d ducked behind the ticket kiosk, but that wouldn¡¯t work for long as a hiding spot. Especially not if the Rat Man could smell her. She resisted the urge to check her pits. No. She¡¯d be okay. She¡¯d be okay. This was just like avoiding the Clickers in that one game. The sniffing stopped. The Rat Man¡¯s face turned toward her, and she pulled back behind the wall. Too late. This was way, way worse than getting drunk on Tammy¡¯s parents¡¯ fake leather couch. She reached for a length of pipe. It was heavier than the softball bats she¡¯d swung around in middle school¡ªthat was good, right? Heavier was good. Then she took a deep, loud breath, readied the pipe to swing, and pushed herself out of her hiding place. 3: You Gotta Listen to My Words The subway station-turned cave ended in two tunnels where the bathrooms had been, just beyond the turnstileagmites. If I remembered right, there wasn¡¯t much space in the men¡¯s room, so there shouldn¡¯t be much danger in checking it out first. As I got closer to the two cave entrances, I slowed down. The stone floor leading into what had once been the men¡¯s room was worn smooth. That meant traffic¡ªwas it a leftover from when this had been the Chicago station, or was this a sign of Rat Men? I gripped the Rat Man¡¯s spear and crept forward into the cave. It was time to avenge my lost headphones. Something shifted in the semi-dark ahead of me, and I turned the corner as fast as I could, stabbing in front of me just as the Rat Man jumped forward. My spear caught the monster in the stomach while its weapon grazed my side painfully. I pulled it out and readied myself. Something else was moving inside, and the yellow-green orb was floating toward me again. This Rat Man had only been Level Two, so if the progress was anything like I expected, it wouldn¡¯t give me a whole level, but it might get me close. I stepped toward the orb, swinging my spear upward to block a second Rat Man¡¯s strike and thanking God that my Awareness was so high. The second Rat Man¡¯s spear butt caught me in the stomach, driving the air out of my lungs. I blocked one attack, then another, but the Level Three Rat Man had me on my back foot, and I couldn¡¯t get control of the fight. It was all I could do to keep the Rat Man¡¯s spear out of my face, and I took a couple of grazing cuts. I needed to change something. Defense wouldn¡¯t work; neither would weak, probing spear thrusts. But something unexpected might. I caught the monster in the face with the spear butt. The Rat Man staggered, and its leg glowed an orange-ish color for a second. It drew my eye toward it. A moment later, I thrust my spear right into the meat above its leg. The monster snarled, recovering a little, then took a second thrust¡ªto the shoulder this time. It staggered again, squealing, and I took advantage of the moment, stabbing the Rat Man and finishing it off. As the orb floated into my chest, I groaned; my bite wound was starting to hurt, and I needed to find something to patch up my scrapes and bruises¡ªplus something that¡¯d help me take hits. The rest of the men¡¯s restroom looked bare¡ªthere wasn¡¯t much around except for a pile of charcoal from a fire, a few half-burned-out torches, and some rotten-looking scraps of what was either a hamburger or shawarma. My stomach growled. I hadn¡¯t eaten anything in¡­a while. Since lunch¡ªand that¡¯d just been a sandwich. But I wasn¡¯t hungry enough to eat that. I readied my spear and turned to the women¡¯s restroom.
The cave that¡¯d once been the women¡¯s room was empty. No Rat Men, no crazy monsters¡ªI couldn¡¯t see anything except a pile of what looked like leather. Some of it was cut into strips, but four nearly complete hides sat in a messy stack. They weren¡¯t mange-covered, filthy things like the Rat Men¡¯s fur, either. These looked like deerskins that¡¯d been freshly tanned. They were tucked into one of what used to be bathroom stalls near the entrance in a neat, folded stack. That was odd. But then again, this whole thing was odd. I sat on a toilet-sized rock in one of the dozen alcoves lining the cave wall. The station was silent¡ªI couldn¡¯t even hear the wind in the subway tunnel. It would have been easy to forget what was happening around us and focus on the leather¡ªand on what I wanted to make. But I hadn¡¯t forgotten. The cut on my side and the puncture wound in my arm¡ªnot to mention the bite that definitely looked red around the edges¡ªwere constant reminders that I was in serious trouble. I had to do something to even the odds. The pile of hides, my Leatherman multi-tool, and a basic knowledge of how riding chaps and horse saddles worked were my best bet at doing that. The patterns were easy to see; my Awareness made shapes all but pop out of the hides with light blue outlines. I could see every hide''s strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities: shoulder pads, skirts to cover our legs, and even gauntlets. I¡¯d never done much with leather, but I felt like¡­not an expert, but maybe a solid journeyman? If I¡¯d had this kind of Awareness at the auto shop, I could have solved that Explorer and had that woman halfway to Wyoming by now. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. I felt a rumbling as I worked, cutting out the patterns for a leather shirt about my size and boring holes in it to stitch it together. It started in my feet, then my rear, and before long, I could hear the Redline Wyrm coming around again. The screeching, crushing sound pressed down on me like a vice, and I couldn¡¯t move until it passed. For the next hour, I cut leather, stitched it together, and added layers. Layers were the key, I decided; anywhere I didn¡¯t want to get stabbed, folding the leather over itself or adding another section could only help distribute impacts and catch spear tips. I¡¯d have killed for some Kevlar chainsaw chaps, but I didn¡¯t have those. For the first time, my mind wandered from trying to find Tori. But it didn¡¯t wander far. Why had I thrown myself into danger like this for a stranger? What was so special about Tori? It took a few minutes to figure out. Jessica reminded me of my mom. That woman was obviously working hard to connect with Tori, just like Mom had with Beth. Her relationship with Tori was probably closer to my sister¡¯s and mom¡¯s than mine. I didn¡¯t blame Tori for not warming up to her. It had to be tough to adapt to a new mom. But at the same time¡­ She was trying. Mom had tried, too. I shook my head, clearing it, and tossed a ruined scrap of leather aside. I needed to focus; leather wasn¡¯t exactly abundant, and even with the patterns jumping out of the hide at me, I couldn¡¯t afford to waste it¡ªor waste time. The train passed by two more times, and each time, I got jumpy and had to talk myself out of panicking. Eventually, though, I finished two suits of armor¡ªone for me, and one for Tori, when I found her. They weren¡¯t pretty. But they¡¯d work. The armor looked nothing like I¡¯d hoped it would. I¡¯d wanted something that looked like movie armor. I¡¯d gotten two tightish, crude suits of leather armor. Both looked like a cross between a Roman legionnaire¡¯s armor and a mountain man¡¯s makeshift warm clothes. It wasn¡¯t what I¡¯d intended, but it would solve the problem. Mine felt a little loose, like it¡¯d buckle with a blow instead of redirecting it or absorbing the force. The stitching wasn¡¯t built for looks. It was built to be easy to fix if I needed to. When I needed to, rather¡ªI¡¯d definitely need some repairs. But it did cover my whole body, from my neck to my knees, in linked leather sections. Tori¡¯s was a little smaller, but I¡¯d helped fix plenty of clothes her size. I couldn¡¯t get Beth out of my head. She was always the family¡¯s troublemaker. Mom said she was a rebel. Dad thought she was a free spirit. I just figured she wanted to get out of work. She¡¯d go missing early in the morning, and I¡¯d have to track her down¡ªonly to find her barefoot out in the cornfields singing with the crows. We¡¯d both be behind on our chores, and Dad didn¡¯t like that much, so I¡¯d end up having to work extra hard to catch us up. Beth and I had fought a couple of years ago, just before she graduated. I didn¡¯t go home to see her commencement. She¡¯d been so pissed about it. I forced my thoughts back to Tori and the armor. Hopefully, she wouldn¡¯t drown in it when she put it on. ¡°This might actually work. If it gives me enough of an edge to get a couple of levels, I can get my Body stat up. Then, it won¡¯t matter if the armor¡¯s bad and falling apart. I¡¯ll find Tori, and then we can ditch it and still be okay. Or maybe we¡¯ll find something else in the tunnels. Something better.¡± The leather was so out of place in the former bathroom that I couldn¡¯t help but think there¡¯d be other discoveries in the Redline Tunnels. Maybe another cave would have better materials, or something left over from when it was a subway station. But before I could explore, I had one more piece of business to cover. I needed a plan. The stats were easy to think about. I needed to invest a couple of points in Mana because the Redline Wyrm¡¯s level¡ªTwenty¡ªmade me think that the Consortium liked fives. I had an idea about how Mana and Awareness worked together, and I wanted to raise my mana to confirm it. If I was right, I wouldn¡¯t need a lot of Mana¡ªjust enough for one or two spells. I hoped it¡¯d be like breaking nuts and bolts to pull an engine, where you could either push hard or use the right tool. After that, I¡¯d split between Body and Awareness until one of them started looking more useful than the other. I could already see things I shouldn¡¯t be able to¡ªit¡¯d only get better from here. I hoped. The other plan was harder to figure out, but eventually, I decided to wait for the Redline Wyrm to come around. It wasn¡¯t moving back and forth¡ªit was on a circuit¡ªso the best way for me to move was clockwise, with it instead of against it. That¡¯d give me the most time to get from station to station. An ex in high school had been into video games¡ªDark Souls and MMOs, mostly. She was serious about World of Warcraft, but mostly for the collectibles. I¡¯d never gotten into the games myself, but sometimes, I¡¯d see if she wanted to go get pizza or a burger, and she¡¯d be too busy grinding for rare mounts or levels or digital pets. I¡¯d never understood that mentality. Grinding wasn¡¯t a puzzle to me. The solution wasn¡¯t ever clever. It was just busy work. But now, I understood. Once I got to the next station, I was going to grind. 4: Inheriting Troubles The next station south was Grand. I rarely went farther south on the Red Line than Chicago Station. There wasn¡¯t much need to since everything I needed was in Andersonville, and my job was a station north of here, but Grand was one of the larger stations, and I figured that if I was going to find something that might help Tori and me, I¡¯d find it either there or at Lake. My money was on Lake, but Grand was on the way, and I needed to get off the rails before the Redline Wyrm returned anyway. As I jogged down the tracks, I hummed some Led Zeppelin riffs. I missed my old MP3 player and broken headphones. The rails themselves were odd. The Redline Wyrm was slowly consuming the entire tunnel, one layer of rock, dirt, and concrete at a time. So why were the rails still there? I couldn¡¯t figure it out, but it felt like an important detail to note. The moment I pulled myself off the tracks and onto the platform, I knew I was right. The wide, curved station was filled with the signs of Rat Men. My plan was pretty simple; I¡¯d find lone monsters, try to pick them off, and thin the pack out until it was manageable. If things got bad, I¡¯d try outrunning them; Lake wasn¡¯t that much farther, and if I could get there, the Redline Wyrm might take care of the monsters for me as they pursued. Or it might take care of me instead. I dumped Tori¡¯s armor on one of the stone benches near the platform. I¡¯d come back for it later, but for now, I needed to be light and fast. Then I crept past the stone benches, keeping my head down. All the signs pointed to a much larger population of Rat Men than the three I¡¯d fought at Chicago Station, and I wasn¡¯t any stronger than I had been. As I rounded the first storefront, something made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I froze, spear tip a few feet from the gaping cave entrance. A second passed. Then another. And then, a Rat Man stepped through the door. Rat Man: Level Three Monster It didn¡¯t even look toward me, and I jammed his spear through the thing¡¯s back. The second I made contact, the monster started screeching in pain. I pulled the spear out, stabbed again, and stepped into the cave. There were four more¡ªall in various states of surprise. The one in the back let loose with a deafening screech. I was too busy charging the closest Rat Man to respond. I hit it before it could reach the spear it had propped against the head-high stone wall that ran the length of the store, driving it to the ground with my good shoulder before bashing it in the head with my spear. Level Up! One to Two. The orb hit me as I spun to fight the next monster, but the Rat Man lunged toward me teeth-first before I could get set. Its jaw clamped around my shoulder; its teeth punched into the leather armor I¡¯d cobbled together. The armor pressed into my older, tender bite wound, and I bit back a scream. But it held. I punched the monster, holding onto the spear with my other hand. Its jaw¡¯s grip loosened, and I kicked the thing away, stabbed it, and picked up the next orb as I pulled up my status menu. Just like I¡¯d planned, I dumped both points into Mana. Three names appeared. The first and third were both a light blue, while the middle was pinkish. Power Surge Inertia Ball Lightning Bolt For a second, I thought about picking Inertia Ball. On the other hand, Lightning Bolt would probably give me a ranged attack¡ªand I was really missing not having one of those. But the real pressure wasn¡¯t to have the best spell but to have one that¡¯d get me out of this. I wished I had more time to think about it¡ªor even to read the spell descriptions¡ªbut as the Tutorial¡¯s info on magic popped up, one of the remaining Rat Men rushed me. I picked Lightning Bolt, hoping it¡¯d be strong. I¡¯d done some electrical work at Cindy¡¯s, and more on my station wagon, so I knew enough about it to not fry myself. Hopefully. I swiped the tutorial message away and held out my hand as the first monster surged into the room. An aura of blue-white energy formed around my fingers. It looked like plenty to take out the Rat Man, but how did I fire it? Could I punch the monster with it? Or did it need to be a ranged attack? Maybe it was as simple as willing it. I made a finger gun, pointed it at the onrushing Rat Man, and fired, feeling ridiculous. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The blast arced in the air, and I shut my eyes against it, but the dozens¡ªhundreds¡ªof forks burned a tree pattern into my eyelids. They seemed to form loops and circuits in the air, but I couldn¡¯t make heads or tails of any of them. Then, suddenly, everything went dark, and I opened them again. The monster froze in place as sparks arced across its charred, mangy fur. It wasn¡¯t dead, though, and I hefted my spear. I channeled the electricity still dancing around my hand toward the spear tip, then thrust into the monster. The Lightning Bolt fired a split second before the crude stone tip punched through the Rat Man¡¯s chest. It screeched. Then it faded away, and its orb floated toward me. I didn¡¯t feel ridiculous about the finger gun anymore. The last Rat Man rushed me, too, but I saw it in the corner of my eye and spun. I blasted it with my magic, and a moment later, it, too, was dead. I backed off and took the last orb. Level Up! Two to Three. ¡°Okay, magic¡¯s pretty cool!¡± I said to myself as I put a point in Body and one in Awareness. The last sparks went out on my hand and spear, and I looked down the row of storefronts. I felt drained all the way through, like my whole body had given its all for those two attacks. ¡°Let¡¯s check these out. Maybe I¡¯ll find something as useful as the leather.¡±
I got to Lake Station just as the earth started rumbling again. The central platform shook as the Redline Wyrm ripped by, shredding concrete and rebar as it passed. I squeezed on the straps of the cheap backpack I¡¯d filled with odds and ends from the stone-shelved convenience store I¡¯d cleared at Grand. When the boss vanished, I headed toward the main station to see what I could fight. Lake was supposed to have stairs. But it didn¡¯t anymore. Where I remembered them being was a massive cave. Its dark maw loomed over the whole station, and I hurried to get off the platform before something inside saw me. As I ducked into one of the smaller storefront caves, a raspy smoker¡¯s voice greeted me. ¡°What the hell you doing here?¡± I froze. A second later, the smell hit me¡ªa stale, boozy stink, but also something underneath that was a lot more pleasant, in a familiar way. My eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness in the store cave, and I saw a pile of rags stand up. A second later, I realized what I was seeing and lowered my spear. The L¡ªthe sometimes-elevated, sometimes underground light rail line in Chicago¡ªhad lots of long-term riders. They¡¯d beg a couple of bucks, get on the train, and ride the lines all day to stay warm, cool, or out of the wind. This guy looked like one I¡¯d seen today, except that he¡¯d camouflaged himself in scraps of clothes so he looked a little like one of the scattered supply piles I¡¯d been finding. The Level One over his head was a dead giveaway, though. He¡¯d killed something, but he didn¡¯t seem to be in a hurry to kill anything else. As my eyes adjusted to the bright torches burning around the cave, other signs of life became more obvious. Open cans of food, a burned-out fire in the corner, and even a pair of rolled-up, tattered sleeping bags¡ªin the old reality, this guy would have been a bum. In the Hardcore Tutorial, he was rich. I stuck out a hand. ¡°Hal Riley,¡± I said in my best Nebraska accent. The Midwest farmer schtick wasn¡¯t my favorite, but it was disarming. Mechanics had a reputation for being swindlers¡ªnot at Cindy¡¯s, but in general¡ªbut no one mistrusted a farmer. Sure enough, the man stepped across the room, carefully not kicking any of his cans over, and offered a hand in return. ¡°Calvin. You¡¯re the other guy on my team, huh?¡± This close, the smell was a lot stronger. I kept my face together, but just barely. One pump, release, nod¡ªa polite, firm shake¡ªthen disengage. I glanced at the food longingly, even the half-eaten, no doubt cold can of baked beans. My stomach rumbled, but I ignored it. I pointed at the cave entrance. ¡°Listen, you know what¡¯s going on, right?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Calvin said. His hand dropped to his waist, and I stiffened up, gripping my spear. He pulled out a lighter. ¡°You¡¯re a little jumpy, huh?¡± I lowered the spear and laughed to try to break the sudden tension. ¡°Sorry, Calvin, I¡¯ve had quite a day.¡± ¡°I bet.¡± He blinked once, lit a cigarette, and popped it into his mouth. ¡°Where you from, Hal?¡± ¡°Cozad. Little town in Nebraska.¡± ¡°And do you know who Tori is?¡± Could I trust this guy? ¡°We¡¯re¡­friends, but we got separated when this all started. Listen, we¡¯re all on the same team, right? You¡¯ve got food. I¡¯ve got stuff. Maybe we can work out a deal.¡± I shrugged off my backpack. Calvin stared for a moment, one eyebrow raised. Then he nodded slowly. ¡°You¡¯re talking my language, Hal. Sit down, pull up a rock, and tell me what the hell you two are doing in the Hardcore Tutorial. I got beans, beans, and¡ªget this¡ªa half-can of green beans. No booze, though, and no silverware except the can opener. The System giveth, and the System taketh away.¡± I ended up trading one of my water bottles from the convenience store I¡¯d fought my way through for some of his food. He handed the two cans of beans¡ªone baked, one green string beans¡ªover. ¡°No fire, so it¡¯s gonna be cold.¡± I didn¡¯t mind. Calvin just laughed. It wasn¡¯t a polite laugh. It was genuine¡ªthe laugh of someone who¡¯d had nothing to lose and now had something to share. ¡°We¡¯re all in the nightmare together, right? Why¡¯re you here, though?¡± ¡°I followed her in,¡± I said honestly. ¡°We were between Chicago and Clark and Division when the train crashed. She picked the wrong tutorial, her mom picked the right one, and I followed her here to make sure she didn¡¯t die. She¡¯s a good kid, but she¡¯s too impulsive and rebellious. You know how that phase is,¡± I finished. Calvin looked over my still-hurt arm. The Body levels had helped with the injuries, but the infection was slower to heal. ¡°And how¡¯s the not dying goin¡¯?¡± ¡°Badly,¡± I said frankly. ¡°But I¡¯ve got some levels now, and that¡¯s helping. The last few fights weren¡¯t too bad. If you¡¯ve got something to deal with infection, I¡¯d trade my whole pack for it.¡± ¡°Got nothing. I¡¯ve only killed one thing,¡± Calvin said. ¡°It was in here¡ªsome kinda slime monster. Maybe from the river, but I dunno. It sucked. I lit it on fire eventually¡ªused the last of my fuel for the stove, but the stuff wouldn¡¯t burn. Nothing bigger than my lighter will. Plenty of food behind it, though, and a level.¡± ¡°What did you put your points in?¡± I asked as I fished out some stringy green beans from the can. I really was hungry¡ªif I was back at Mrs. Faren¡¯s, I¡¯d have had a pack of ramen with eggs or that can of soup, and I¡¯d probably be in bed. ¡°Don¡¯t have to tell you, and I ain¡¯t gonna.¡± Calvin¡¯s face closed up for a moment. ¡°What I am gonna tell you is that there¡¯s something in that cave, and it¡¯s not a slime or a rat¡ªat least, not from what I¡¯m guessing. I¡¯ve seen some of them, but they don¡¯t go too far in. I got as close as I could, but couldn¡¯t see inside past the smoke and fog. I think it¡¯s the first boss.¡± 5: Dropouts Who Make Their Own Rules I wanted to check out the Tunnel Lord¡¯s lair right away, but I¡¯d been pushing all day, and my gear wasn¡¯t ready for it, so I couldn¡¯t exactly commit to a tough fight. Besides, I was Level Three. That was a lot for fighting a Rat Man, but if the Redline Wyrm was Level Twenty, the Tunnel Lord could be almost as powerful. So, once I¡¯d finished shoveling beans into my mouth with my bare hands, I walked out of the storefront and took a long look at the cavern across the tracks. My ten points in Awareness were enough to make out a few figures moving around inside but not enough to tell levels, what kind of monster, or anything else. After a few minutes, Calvin joined me. ¡°You¡¯re really gonna go for it, huh?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to, but I think I have to. The System didn¡¯t say what¡¯d happen when time ran out, but it¡¯s been, what? Four hours? Five?¡± As I asked, the System helpfully provided the remaining time. Time Limit: 66 Hours, Twenty-Two Minutes Longer than I¡¯d thought. ¡°I need to get this boss out of the way. That way, I can keep looking for Tori if I find her on the other side of the tunnels and we have to fight the Wyrm there.¡± Calvin rolled his eyes and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a cigarette and let it hang from his mouth while he flicked his lighter. It lit up anemically. ¡°What you need to do is slow your ass down some. We¡¯ve got three days, and it hasn¡¯t been that long. Come over here.¡± He was right. I was freaking out about nothing. We still had well over two days to get this puzzle solved. But even though I knew that, it still felt like a massive hand pushing down on me. I followed the long-term rider back to the platform. There, in cave art, was a map of the Red Line. ¡°Now, son, I¡¯ve rode this train every Thursday for eight years, and I can tell you right now, it¡¯s never been a loop.¡± As I looked at the map, it confirmed what I¡¯d suspected. Not only was the Red Line a rough circle now, but half of it, according to the map, was under Lake Michigan. ¡°So what are you suggesting?¡± ¡°You¡¯re a fighter. I¡¯m not. Fighting¡¯s a good way to get killed where I live, and I¡¯ve done enough of it for a lifetime. We¡¯re the only people on our team¡ªmaybe the only ones left in this tutorial. That means you¡¯re the boss, as far as I¡¯m concerned.¡± I wanted to argue, to tell him he had to fight, but he already knew that. He¡¯d killed something. He just wasn¡¯t going out of his way to power up. And the look on his wrinkled brown face told me arguing wouldn¡¯t help. I waited for him to go on. ¡°What I¡¯m thinking is, you make a full loop. It¡¯s been a few hours, right? If you clear stations until the timer hits twenty-four hours, I bet you a can of Bush¡¯s Beans you¡¯ll be close to where you started, and two Jolly Green Giants you find your friend. Then, you go after the Tunnel Lord and figure out how to handle the Redline Wyrm. Easy.¡± It sounded easy enough, but I couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that something would go wrong. After a second, I shook my head. ¡°I want to see the Tunnel Lord first. If I can¡¯t handle it, I¡¯ll try your idea.¡± Calvin didn¡¯t look disappointed. He raised an eyebrow, but nodded and puffed on his cigarette. ¡°Thought you¡¯d say that. How about you do me a favor and clear out the other stores before you try the boss?¡± ¡°You haven¡¯t checked the other stores?¡± I asked. I¡¯d assumed the old guy had made sure his corner of the station was safe. If that wasn¡¯t true, I definitely couldn¡¯t sleep things off. ¡°Nah. The first one I checked had everything I needed except the bag,¡± Calvin said, patting the backpack over his shoulder. ¡°You covered that. But if you find anything good, I¡¯ll do some more trading with you. Let¡¯s see that arm.¡± I stared at him. ¡°Ex-combat medic, Vietnam. Got the hat to prove it and everything.¡± He pulled a worn, tattered ball cap with the US Army logo and a division name from his jacket pocket. ¡°Been a long time, but I¡¯ve seen worse, I guarantee it. If not there, then on the streets. Get that armor off, and let¡¯s take a look.¡± On the one hand, I still had no idea if I could trust him. On the other, my arm was getting pretty tender, so after a second more to think about it,, I slowly peeled off my armor and rolled up my sleeve. He whistled. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s infected. Wish I could say I had something for it. Guess I could try cigarette lighter cauterizing, but that¡¯d be real slow¡ªand real painful.¡± ¡°No, I think I¡¯m alright. A few points in Body should take care of it. Did you check the other caves out at all?¡± ¡°Nah. I only checked the one I¡¯m in. Could be more good stuff in the others. Just be ready.¡± ¡°Watch my stuff. I¡¯ll be back soon,¡± I said. ¡°Wait, you¡¯re trusting me with it?¡± Calvin asked, eyes widening under his shaggy hair. Truthfully, I could see why he looked shocked. Most people didn¡¯t trust homeless folks, especially the ones on the trains. But so far, he hadn¡¯t done anything to earn suspicion except hide his stats, and could I blame him for that? No. I didn¡¯t want to share mine either; something about it felt weird. ¡°Why not? We¡¯re on the same team, right?¡± He nodded a few times, looking back at his store cave, then at the next one over. ¡°It¡¯s probably more slimes. Fuel ain¡¯t lighting up, though, except in small, slow burns, so good luck with the fire plan.¡± I groaned, tightened the laces on my armor, and started toward the nearest storefront.
Slime: Level Eight Monster Calvin had warned me about the slime monsters, so I was ready for a level difference, but this one was bigger than I¡¯d expected. The second I stepped into the hardware store¡ªwhich was weird since there hadn¡¯t been one here before¡ªmy spear was set, ready to thrust into the thing, which oozed between two stone shelves loaded with hinges and doorknobs about ten feet away. I took two steps forward and stabbed. I didn¡¯t expect the first attack to be my last. As I pulled the spear back, the dark purple blob in the middle of the aisle slurped the stone tip right off the wood. The shaft I got back looked corroded, bleached, and fragile, and when I swung it like a club, it fell apart mid-arc. So, stabbing it wasn¡¯t the solution. I backpedaled. The ooze didn¡¯t pursue at first. Was it too busy digesting the sharp rock tip? It looked like it; the thing was cracking and crumbling. The store¡¯s cave entrance was right behind me. Lightning covered my fist, and I made a finger gun. A second later, the store lit up through my closed eyelids. The air smelled like baking soda, chlorine, and ozone. I cracked my eyes open just as the slime pulled itself together around the hole my lightning had blown in its side. When it was finished, it looked completely intact, and it slid slowly toward the door, forcing me out onto the subway platform¡ªand away from the room full of tools I might be able to use. I took another shot with my lightning, but it did nothing¡ªjust filled the air with the stink of burnt baking soda. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. I tried to bite down a surge of panic as the ooze pulled itself together again and started moving¡ªthis time, toward Calvin¡¯s hide-out! I couldn¡¯t let it get to him, but I also didn¡¯t see a good way to stop it. Maybe something in the store? I didn¡¯t have time for a real search; even with the ooze¡¯s slow speed, it¡¯d be inside in just a few seconds. I had to have something, though. But what? Another whiff of baking soda caught my nose, and I had my answer. I¡¯d never been interested in science fairs as a kid. My interests were less in writing down the results of some experiment and more in tearing apart the remote control car Dad got me for Christmas to see how it worked¡ªthen in putting it back together under his supervision when he found out I¡¯d done it. But every year, our class walked the science fair. And every year, someone built a vinegar and baking soda volcano. If this thing was anything like baking soda, I just needed a strong enough acid to dissolve it. And I did have two batteries I¡¯d looted¡ªnine volts, but they were something. If I could overload them at the right time, surely that¡¯d do it, right? I got ahead of the slime as it slurped toward Calvin¡¯s hide-out, tossed the first battery on the ground, and waited. Just before it reached the battery, I took a deep breath and made another finger gun. This time, I didn¡¯t aim at the slime. Instead, I shot the battery. It overloaded with a tiny pop, shattering upward into the monster. Even from twenty feet away, the effect was shocking. The slime erupted. It had been large before, but it geysered upward in a fountain of foam that hardened mid-air into a tower, then collapsed under its own weight. This splashed out even more foam, which also went solid before it could hit the ground. It shattered like glass, mixing even more until a quarter of the platform was covered in it. The whole place smelled like the chemicals I¡¯d used to clean up the farm¡¯s processing machines as a kid, and the sound was almost deafening. Then, suddenly, it was over. ¡°What the hell?¡± Calvin asked, peering at the pile of slowly vanishing foam outside his cave. I ignored him. I had other things on my mind. Level Up! Three to Five. I had four stat points to spend; the first two went into Awareness, getting it all the way up to twelve. The second two were split between Body and Mana. I felt satisfied with myself for the first time since I¡¯d been forced into this Tutorial. The fight hadn¡¯t been a fight at all; I¡¯d been approaching it the wrong way. It was just another puzzle. If I could make the other fights something similar, I¡¯d be unstoppable. But if I wanted to treat fighting like solving a grumpy engine, I¡¯d need tools. Luckily, I¡¯d just cleared out a hardware store.
I learned a lot from the store. Most of it was disappointing. My first target was the power tool section. I needed something better than a stone spear if I wanted to handle the Tunnel Lord, and sure enough, this place had everything: circular saws, pole saws, and even a few gas-fed Stihl chainsaws. But when I fueled them up and started them, I got nothing. Not even an engine turn-over. Just a couple of clicks as I pulled the cord, then silence. Calvin had said fuel wasn¡¯t burning except for his lighter, but I¡¯d been hoping. Next, I tried the electric tools. Surely, one of those would start. But, once again, I got nothing. It was like every battery had been completely drained in the whole store. The stone shelves and cave art on the walls were evidence that this place had changed during the terraforming part of integration; maybe they¡¯d gotten rid of all the power tools, too. Electronics¡ªwhat little they had¡ªwas no better off. I¡¯d hoped to find something so I could start rewiring my headphones¡ªnot that they¡¯d work without a CD player or a phone, or something to play music on. The damn store didn¡¯t have any other pairs either, or anything I could use to fix my own. My fist tightened as I looked at the empty shelves. Did that mean the Consortium¡ªwhoever they were¡ªhad also gotten rid of guns? That¡¯d be a shame, but it made sense. They wouldn¡¯t want people blasting their way through their tutorials. No chainsaws, no guns, no power for trains or cars¡­the world had changed. For the first time, I thought about the world above us. How had it changed? What would we find if we made it out of here? And who was to blame? The Consortium, whoever they were. But who were they, anyway? And what did they want? Too many questions, not enough working¡ªthat¡¯s what Dad always said. I wouldn¡¯t find the answers to any of those questions in a hardware store. If I couldn¡¯t rely on power tools, I¡¯d have to improvise something. So the first question was what I did have. And what I did have was batteries. Lots and lots of batteries. The plan I came up with was pretty simple. I needed a weapon that could easily take out a Rat Man, that was effective against slimes, and that I could rely on to deal with unknown monsters. The spear wasn¡¯t going to cut it¡ªbut the batteries and my Lightning Bolt gave me a lot of flexibility, and it looked like the Consortium hadn¡¯t removed all the chemical reactions from Earth. Just gasoline being combustible and electricity being storable. I spent the next half-hour stripping the rechargeable batteries out of every tool I could find¡ªand with my Awareness at twelve, that was a lot of tools. When I¡¯d finished, I had a good pile of long rechargeables for Makita power drills, clip-on handle batteries for DeWalts, and heavy-duty electric chainsaw batteries¡ªnot to mention a hundred double-As that I doubted would do what I needed. Then, I spent five minutes gathering up an unholy-looking mix of hex nuts, washers, and finishing nails. The theory was simple. If a 9-volt battery had enough pop to throw acid into the baking soda slime monster, these should be a lot bigger¡ªmaybe big enough to throw metal all over the place. It¡¯d be like a land mine¡ªexcept I¡¯d have to trigger it. It took a good hour to assemble the first bomb. It should have been pretty simple, but I had no idea how much pop a given battery might have, so once I had a single bomb built, I grabbed a shovel and headed down the platform to the next cavern entrance. Sure enough, inside was another slime. This one was a little more pinkish and only Level Five. I got its attention, put the bomb down, and waited while it oozed its way toward me. When it got close enough, I fired a Lightning Bolt at the battery. This time, it wasn¡¯t a pop¡ªit was a bang. The cave filled with foam as the battery acid and slime mixed. But even as I pulled back and started running, the cave wall sparked with shrapnel. Between the foam and the dozens of nails, nuts, and washers, the inside of the store had to be shredded. I wouldn¡¯t find anything intact and useful there¡ªbut I¡¯d confirmed my theory. The slime¡¯s orb wasn¡¯t enough for another level, but I could practically see how close I was. Right now, I had work to do. I stuck my head in Calvin¡¯s lair. ¡°Help me out. I¡¯ve got a way to take down the Tunnel Lord and get to Tori faster all at once.¡±
Tori ran. She¡¯d never ran this hard, not in any of the pacer tests or mile runs in PE. Her foot slipped on the Red Line¡¯s smooth metal rail, and she picked herself up and kept running, even though her knee wouldn¡¯t stop screaming in agony with every step. She couldn¡¯t keep from stumbling, and her muscles ached. But she couldn¡¯t stop, either. The Redline Wyrm was coming. Behind her, Rat Men she¡¯d aggroed screeched and screamed as the rumbling, shrieking subway snake rocketed down the tracks. She put on a burst of speed as the white light filled the tunnel. The station was right. There. She just had to keep going. A few more feet, that was all. Her hands grabbed the half-devoured platform¡¯s edge, and she pulled with everything she had left. It almost wasn¡¯t enough. The Redline Wyrm¡¯s train-car armor bumped the rubber sole of her Doc Martens, and she screamed. It roared past, thundering off into the distance. She stared into the semi-dark tunnel, licking her lips greedily at the half-dozen yellow-green Minecraft experience orbs. Then she shook her head. She was too tired to walk back and pick them up; besides, they¡¯d be there later¡ªafter she full-cleared this station. You can¡¯t keep doing this, Tor. It¡¯s too much. She was right, but it wasn¡¯t like she could stop fighting, either. She picked herself up, groaning, and thought about summoning up an Inertia Ball. Physics had always been her favorite subject, so when she¡¯d put her first stat points into Mana, Inertia Ball had beaten out Fire Blast and Knit Flesh. The first few times she¡¯d cast it had been easy: summon a pink ball of energy, throw it at the Rat Men, profit. Simple and effective. But god damn, was phenomenal cosmic power draining?! She had nothing left in the tank. ¡°Alright, Tor, you¡¯re at¡­where?¡± she whispered to herself. ¡°Last time, it was Jackson¡ªbut that doesn¡¯t make sense. You should be at the elevated stations by now, not more subways!¡± And yet, here it was. A full-on subway station. This was probably Roosevelt or Cermak-Chinatown. But why the fuck was it underground?! Tori shivered. Then she looked down the tunnel. If she started now, she could get to the next station. Maybe it¡¯d be better than this one; something about it gave her the shivers. Then something moved overhead. She broke into a sprint with the last reserves of her energy. She needed somewhere to hide! The women¡¯s bathroom was close; she dashed toward it, ducking as the huge monster flew overhead. Huntsman Bat: Level Seven Monster It hit the ground with a thud, four wings the size of Tori¡¯s arms beating on the smooth stone. She slid to a stop. The women¡¯s room wasn¡¯t an option¡ªbut the men¡¯s was. The door was hard to move, but she got the steel barrier closed just as the Huntsman Bat got airborne again. It thumped into it, and Tori burst into tears. She threw her weight against the door, then slid down it until she sat on the cave floor next to the stone sinks. She was so goddamn tired she barely felt it shake as the monster slammed against it. She stared at the stone urinals, trying¡ªand failing¡ªto hold back tears. I wish Mom was here. 6: Heirs of a Cold War By the time morning came¡ªor what felt like morning based on the fifty-six hours we had left, anyway¡ªI was as ready as I¡¯d ever be. We¡¯d stuffed my backpack full of battery bombs, each wrapped in paper screw bags filled with bits of hardware. I had twenty or thirty of them; we hadn¡¯t bothered counting since half ended up getting ripped apart and rebuilt. Calvin was many things, but precise under pressure wasn¡¯t one of them. Still, I¡¯d had time to build a couple of other weapons¡ªnothing as spectacular as the bombs, but functional, solid weapons I¡¯d be able to get some mileage out of. The sharpened shovel looked like some kind of medieval weapon now, even if the balance wasn¡¯t great. It reminded me of a curved-bladed slicing axe. Calvin had opted for a crowbar. He kept insisting he wasn¡¯t a fighter, but he was part of the team, and he was going to be armed, even if he refused to go monster hunting. I didn¡¯t even poke my head into Calvin¡¯s cave. Instead, I crept forward, eyes on the two Rat Men I could see just inside the Tunnel Lord¡¯s lair. When I felt like I couldn¡¯t get any closer without them spotting me, I broke into a sprint. The sharp shovel blade went up, then down, and the first Rat Man¡ªa Level Two¡ªdied almost instantly. Then I spun and sliced through the second one¡¯s arm. It screamed, but a quick chop cut that off, and a moment later, both of their orbs floated into me. I didn¡¯t bother hoping for a level out of them; the real prize was further in. As I hurried down the tunnel, the darkness pushed around me until I could hardly see a thing. Then, hanging in front of me, I saw a wall of thick gray fog. It looked like something out of one of my ex¡¯s video games, and based on the stat screens and messages I¡¯d seen so far, that didn¡¯t surprise me. She was probably thriving in her Tutorial Dungeon¡ªthis kind of thing was her jam. I¡¯d watched her play enough to know what I had to do, though. I shifted the backpack so it hung off my side, with the opening at chest height for easy bomb-pulling. Then I stepped into the room. Welcome to your first Dungeon Boss Battle! Dungeon Boss Battles are no-retreat, winner-take-all tests of power against an elite monster! Each boss has certain rules that change how the fight works. Here are the rules for this one: Arena Battle - The Barrier seals behind you, making it impossible to leave. Party Exclusive - Only members of the challenger¡¯s party can join the fight. I glanced over my shoulder, and sure enough, the fog wall was gone. In its place hung a massive iron gate with spikes that jammed into the ground. In front of me, the cave spread out in a roughly circular stone-floored arena, with a dozen or so wide lead pipes leading into it from every side. Water dripped from a few pipes, and the normal semidarkness was a touch brighter. Something smelled familiar. I¡¯d smelled it before, but couldn¡¯t place it. It smelled a little like death. My first bomb already sat in my throwing hand, shifting the shovel over to my hurt arm to compensate. Then I braced myself for the boss. What I got instead was Rat Men. Lots and lots of Rat Men. They weren¡¯t high-level¡ªa good mix of Level Ones and Twos. But there were so many of them. Still, the shrapnel bombs had shredded an entire store. One or two of them should turn this crowd into most of a level-up. I tossed the bomb toward them, then finger-guns¡¯d it. It was a Makita rechargeable drill battery, and the pop was a lot louder than the 9-volt battery, but nothing compared to shooting a gun. Still, nuts and screws flew everywhere, and a half-dozen Rat Men hit the ground, already dissolving into nothing. The first orbs hit me a second before the wave of Rat Men did. I managed to get another bomb off, but not to shoot it. Then I was backpedaling and swinging with the shovel-axe. I took a spear thrust to the stomach; it hurt, but not enough to knock me down. Then I whirled. The shovel-axe lashed out, and Rat Men fell back screaming. In the half-second of space I¡¯d bought, I shot the second bomb. It ripped into the Rat Man horde from behind. Level Up! Five to Six. Another spear punched through my armor into my shoulder. It didn¡¯t go far, but I couldn¡¯t keep tanking hits like this. I put both points into Body, and my wounds closed up. The Rat Man horde had thinned a lot. I counted six left where there¡¯d been at least fifteen before. But they¡¯d also figured out the bomb trick¡ªwith so few of them, they could stay spread apart, making my improvised explosives less useful. I grunted; the closed hole in my shoulder wasn¡¯t too painful, but my infection hadn¡¯t quite gone away. Then I hefted the shovel-axe and rushed the first Rat Man. The others piled in as soon as I made contact. Fifteen seconds later, it was all over. I breathed heavily, surrounded by orbs that slowly drifted toward me. I could practically taste the level, and I¡¯d need it; if the slime outside was Level Seven, I¡¯d have my work cut out for me with anything much bigger. I breathed heavily to clear my lungs, fished out another bomb, and readied myself for whatever was next. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I didn¡¯t have to wait long. The Tunnel Lord: Level Twelve Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Extreme Even rats have kings. The Tunnel Lord rules over the Redline Tunnels¡¯ stations with an iron paw¡ªor twelve of them! Fight for your life!
I¡¯d seen Rat Kings before. Only once or twice, but we¡¯d get them on the farm sometimes. If a group of rats got tangled up in each other, say, in the grain silos, and their tails got knotted too much for them to pull free, they¡¯d die like that, all stuck together. The first time, Dad made me shovel it out into the field. The second time, I¡¯d just done it without telling him. They weren¡¯t a big deal, other than how much it had to suck to die like that. This one was made of Rat Men, though. They were bigger than the ones I¡¯d been fighting. And they were alive. Not only that, but they moved as one, they moved impossibly quickly for a half-dozen monsters all stuck together, and they seemed focused on one goal¡ªkilling me. All their eyes snapped toward me as I dropped the bomb. It rolled toward them, and I pulled my finger gun¡¯s metaphorical trigger. The bomb detonated. Shrapnel flew everywhere, and I caught a whiff of acid. But when I looked, only one of the six rats had taken any damage¡ªand it was mostly shrugging it off. The rest of the Tunnel Lord crab-walked toward me, a half-dozen spears ready to stab into me. ¡°Well, shit,¡± I said, reaching for another bomb. I had plenty, so I tossed this one ahead of me and started running. I figured I¡¯d have enough time to get some distance. But no. The crab-walking rat king accelerated, paws pounding the cave floor in unison. I looked over my shoulder; there had to be a gap. There. The one I¡¯d bombed was maybe a half-beat slow. Its spear was a little out of sync, leaving a moment when I could get through if I was fast. I leaped for it. Then everything was a whirlwind of spear-thrusts. I hit the ground hard right next to my bomb. A spear punched into the stone, burying its whole tip. I rolled, grabbing the bomb. Another spear punched through it. Bolts leaked out onto the ground. Then I scrambled clear as the Tunnel Lord turned. It reared up, looming over me, and I threw a Lightning Bolt at the stuck bomb. It detonated in the Rat Man¡¯s face. The spear splintered, and the stone head punched into the cave wall three inches from my eye. For a second, I dared to hope. But the Tunnel Lord hardly seemed to notice that one of its members was bleeding from an arm stump, missing an eye, and sporting a dozen shrapnel wounds. Even that Rat Man was still moving with the group. There had to be a solution, but up-front damage wasn¡¯t it¡ªand I didn¡¯t have time to look for it. The Tunnel Lord was on me again, and this time, it made contact. I screamed as the spear punched through my back and out of my stomach. Even with my Body score over ten now, it felt like fire being slammed through my guts, but without my stat points, it would have killed me. As it was, I saw stars, and my vision went black for a second. Then, the spear ripped out of me, and a second wave of pain rippled across my body. My reflexes took over. I¡¯d been in similar places while stick-wrestling; the next blow would be to the back of my head, and eleven points in Body or not, I wouldn¡¯t survive that. As the blow came in, I rolled, and through the pin-prick I could still see clearly, the Tunnel Lord¡¯s tangled tails hung overhead. The spear thrust missed. It stuck in the cave floor next to me for a moment, and I looked up at the rat king¡¯s tail cluster. It was glowing orange. So were all the rats men¡¯s tails. I¡¯d seen this before, in my ex¡¯s games¡ªa weak point. Awareness had paid off! In the few seconds I had, I grabbed my shovel-axe and sliced into the tail cluster. My stomach screamed from the motion, and I screamed with it. But the axe caught one of the tails, and a second later, the Tunnel Lord¡¯s hovering text changed as the Rat Man separated from the amalgam boss. The Tunnel Lord: Level Ten Dungeon Boss Rat Man Brute: Level Four Monster The Tunnel Lord staggered back, but the brute rushed me. I blocked its blow, swinging my shovel-axe to counter its spear, and chopped a leg hard enough to knock the monster to the ground. Then I slammed my weapon into it over and over. Its screams filled the cave. They cut off after a few seconds and a final, crunching blow¡ªthis one to the thing¡¯s neck. Level Up! Six to Seven. The two points in Body stitched up my stomach wound and finished recovering my shoulder, and I faced the Tunnel Lord. It still looked stunned, but I had no idea how long that would last. It had a weak point now, though. If I could sever the rest of the tails, I¡¯d be dealing with a handful of less powerful enemies. I could handle that. I rushed toward the Tunnel Lord. It recovered in time to whirl and protect itself, but it felt a beat slow. Still, I wasn¡¯t getting under it again¡ªnot without taking another punishing wound, and I wasn¡¯t close enough to a level to use Body points to fix myself again. But another plan came to mind. I shrugged off the backpack¡ªone of the rat king¡¯s spears had all but broken the strap, and it snapped as I pulled it off. Bombs spilled all over the floor. Then I started running. The Tunnel Lord followed me, and I smiled a predatory smile as its first set of paws stepped into the bombs. The Tunnel Lord had taken bomb hits on its front sides. None of them had done anything useful for me, but every rat king had to have a tail tangle, and when I¡¯d cut the one loose, I¡¯d realized that this one¡¯s nerves were all connected. It had only shrugged off the damage to one Rat Man at a time because it represented a tiny fraction of the whole. But if I separated them, I was willing to bet all that damage would add up. I fired a Lightning Bolt at my backpack¡ªand at the dozen bombs still inside of it. The pop ripped into my ears. Nuts, screws, and washers pinged off every surface. I threw myself to the ground but still took a couple of hits from bolts that felt like bullets. But when the dust cleared, and the acid smell faded enough for me to risk looking, the Tunnel Lord was gone. In its place were four greenish-yellow orbs that floated toward me and a single Rat Man with the words Tunnel Lord: Level Two Dungeon Boss over its head. It was down, struggling to push itself to its feet. As I limped closer, I realized why; it was missing one. The shovel-axe came down on the Rat Man¡¯s neck, and a moment later, another set of words popped into my vision. Hardcore Boss Defeated: The Tunnel Lord Level Up! Seven to Ten. Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team¡¯s experience. I breathed a sigh of relief as the fight ended, then turned and started limping back to Calvin. I needed to get to him before he spent his points. But before I could go, the System continued. Congratulations! For defeating your first boss, you have unlocked Magical Items and the Inventory System. 7: Listened to Preachers, Listened to Fools Congratulations! You¡¯ve found a Magical Item. Magical Items are powerful tools that can shift the balance of a fight, pushing you beyond what your level and race should be able to accomplish. From flaming weapons to unbreakable armor, the possibilities are limitless¡ªbut beware. Once you equip a magical item, it cannot be used by another person. Magical Item Slots Available: 3/3 Congratulations! By defeating the tutorial dungeon¡¯s sub-boss, you¡¯ve unlocked your basic interspatial inventory. This inventory can store up to [1.23781 metric tons] of crafting items. Simply think about storing an item to place it in storage, and think about withdrawing it to retrieve it. The magical item sat on the ground, right in the middle of the room. It looked a lot like a glowing pillar of light; this one was a sickly green color not too different from the experience orbs the monsters kept dropping when they died. Since I couldn¡¯t see what it was from here, I reached out and touched it. You received Lock-Grip Gloves (Common) +1 Body The wearer can lock their melee weapons to their hands, preventing disarmament and dropped weapons until unlocked. Equip? Yes/No My first instinct was to equip it. The locked weapon effect felt pretty mediocre, but the stat point in Body¡­that was worth it. I¡¯d really felt my stats in that last fight¡ªespecially when the Tunnel Lord had skewered me like a marshmallow at a cookout and I¡¯d been able to keep fighting. Pre-stats Hal wouldn¡¯t have been able to handle that. Not that it didn¡¯t still hurt. But it wasn¡¯t life-threatening, and it didn¡¯t feel infected. Still, the more I thought about the Lock-Grip Gloves, the more of a plan I made for them. I didn¡¯t want to use any more stat points on Body if I could help it; now that I was tough enough to take hits and keep fighting, I needed more insights into my enemies¡ªand into the tools I was making. I put four of my six points in Awareness. The other two went into Mana. When I opened my stats, they¡¯d changed to the following: [Hal Riley] [Class - N/A] [Level - 10] [Stats] ?Body - 13 ?Awareness - 16 ?Mana - 8 Stat Points Available: 0 Spell: Lightning Bolt [Class Skill - N/A] Items ?Open Slot ?Open Slot ?Open Slot I hadn¡¯t learned a new spell. That was both disappointing and unsurprising since it wasn¡¯t a base-five number. But when I readied my Lightning Bolt, the storm around my hand looked more animated. I grinned; between the weak spot highlight and the increased magic power, things were looking up. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Wherever she was, Tori had just gotten a bunch of stat points, and so had Calvin. I might be able to direct him toward something useful for us all. If he wouldn¡¯t fight, I needed to make sure he¡¯d pick something that could help us out of combat¡ªlike healing magic or a map. I was worried about Tori, but she¡¯d do what she did, and I¡¯d have to deal with it later. If she was still alive. I grabbed the Lock-Grip Gloves and shoved them into my inventory, then turned to leave the cave. The portcullis was gone. So was the fog wall. I didn¡¯t see a single Rat Man waiting in the tunnels leading to the boss arena, either. In fact, I didn¡¯t see much of anything until I left the cave. Calvin was waiting outside. ¡°So, you got it?¡± I nodded. ¡°Did you spend your points?¡± ¡°Yep. Don¡¯t worry about me¡ª I can take care of myself,¡± he said. ¡°Listen, I was hoping¡ª¡° Calvin cut me off. ¡°You were hoping I¡¯d go back to being a medic. That ain¡¯t happening. I¡¯ve had enough of that, magic or not. You ever had someone die in your arms? I have¡ªover and over. It ain¡¯t fun. If you want to avoid that, you¡¯d better get moving.¡± I opened my mouth, ready to argue. But¡­he was right. Instead of fighting, I closed my mouth. ¡°Alright, good kid,¡± Calvin said. ¡°Why don¡¯t we spend one hour getting your gear together? See if there¡¯s anything other than bombs that¡¯s worth taking from that tool shop. They¡¯ll be great until they run out, but you don¡¯t want to be out of ammo in a firefight. You need something reliable.¡± ¡°I should get going,¡± I said, falling back on the farm accent and Midwest politeness again. ¡°Tori¡¯s out there, and I¡¯ve got to find her. ¡°No, you don¡¯t. Not yet. Instead, focus on making sure that when you find your friend, you¡¯re good to go until you¡¯re both safe.¡± Calvin shook his head slowly. ¡°You can¡¯t just be a hero. You¡¯ve got to survive first.¡±
The new Inventory system was going to be a lifesaver¡ªassuming that I could convince Calvin I had everything I needed and get moving before Tori got herself killed. Calvin might not have been military since the ¡®70s, but as it turned out, those instincts didn¡¯t ever go away. ¡°You¡¯ve got plenty of space in your inventory, Hal. Take a second sledgehammer.¡± ¡°Hal, focus. You¡¯re going into unknown, hostile territory, so you¡¯re going to bring 1.2 metric tons of crap you might need.¡± ¡°At least you¡¯re not carrying it all like I had to.¡± Right now, we were working on unwrapping table saw blades; Calvin thought they¡¯d be good weapons, or parts of weapons, or something. In addition to the sledgehammers, I had another sharpened shovel, a couple of wood-splitting axes, and a half-dozen different spears we¡¯d made by lashing an iron spike to a rake handle with wire. They didn¡¯t fly well at all, but they¡¯d let me save my energy for Lightning Bolts when I needed them most. I¡¯d also had an idea, and so an electric brush trimmer sat in my inventory, too, along with a half-dozen knives. Once I found a power source that actually worked, I¡¯d be in business. If I found a power source, that was. I was itching to head for the door and get moving; I only had two days to track down Tori, and right now, I didn¡¯t even know if she was still alive. Every minute might count. ¡°Alright, listen up,¡± Calvin said as I tore the last blade¡¯s packaging open and shoved it into my inventory. He held the filthy Army ballcap in his hands, wringing it like a wet rag. ¡°You¡¯re on a rescue mission. That means you¡¯ve gotta be thorough, but quick. Hit as many stations as you can, as fast as you can, but don¡¯t worry about clearing every single monster. Just figure out if she¡¯s there. If she is, get her. If not, move on.¡± ¡°Got it,¡± I said. ¡°The biggest thing will be finding her without getting hurt yourself. If she¡¯s hurt, that¡¯s not a big deal. If you get hurt, no one¡¯s coming for you. I don¡¯t have the levels, and there¡¯s no one else. So move fast, but be careful, soldier. Check your back, don¡¯t rush into anything, and get your ass back here in one piece.¡± Something about his body language had shifted. He still looked like a long-term rider, but he wasn¡¯t acting like one. ¡°Hal, I¡¯m going to be honest with you. You might not find her. If it gets down to a few hours, you¡¯re gonna have to take a shot at the Redline Wyrm¡ªif you want out of here, that is. I¡¯ll get things organized back here in case you find her. That way, we can put together a battle plan. But getting out of here should be your priority if it comes down to it, not finding your friend.¡± ¡°Thanks, Calvin,¡± I said. I held out a hand, and he grabbed it. One shake, firm squeeze, release¡ªjust like Dad had taught me. ¡°No problem. Now, get going, soldier.¡± I nodded. The Redline Wyrm had just passed, so if I was fast, I could get to Monroe Station before the next cycle. 8: Maybe Its Not Too Late Something about Monroe Station was off. It wasn¡¯t that it was a small station, though it only had one blocked exit, a ticket kiosk, and a pair of restrooms. It reminded me a little of Chicago Station, though that had felt empty even before I¡¯d killed the Rat Men who¡¯d camped there. But Monroe had never been a hub station like the big ones. It was a single-line station with a bus stop but no other trains¡ªa place to board or get off, but not to make a transfer. No, the strange part was that Monroe was empty. It was the first station I¡¯d found without anything. No monsters. No people. Nothing of value to take with me. And because it hadn¡¯t always been. I looked around; a single bloody spear sat near the kiosk. That felt like a sign that I was on the right track. So did the bloody track on the ground¡ªthe bottom of a boot-print. Had Tori been wearing boots? Those were popular with the scene crowd when I was a kid, so maybe. If it wasn¡¯t her, I had no idea who it could be. The blood was concerning, but maybe it was monster blood, not hers. And the abandoned spear gave me hope that she was fighting¡ªand leveling.
Team: Hal Riley, Tori Vanderbilt, Calvin Rollins Tutorial Dungeon: Redline Tunnels Objective: Kill the Tunnel Lord (1/1) Objective: Kill the Redline Wyrm (0/1) Objective: Reach the Dungeon Exit (0/1) Objective: Survive (0/1) Time Limit: 14 Hours, Seven Minutes The weirdest thing about Fullerton wasn¡¯t that it was crawling with oversized bats that were all Levels Six to Eight. It wasn¡¯t even that they¡¯d been so easy to beat. It showed just how much the System¡¯s stat points were helping me¡ªthat and two solid days¡¯ experience at fighting. It was that it, like most of the other stations, was supposed to be above ground. The second weirdest thing was that it connected to Roosevelt, which was also underground¡ªand which also wasn¡¯t supposed to be. Whatever the Consortium had done with their terraforming, it had not only sunk this station completely, but it had also built a copy of some other station to replace it. They¡¯d also cut off about a third of the line on either side when they made their loop and put the whole thing well under Lake Michigan. At some point, I needed to figure out how they¡¯d done that, along with a hundred other questions I already had¡ªand probably a thousand I hadn¡¯t thought of yet. But for now, I just wanted to take a breather and wait for that damn Wyrm. I had almost finished the circuit; I was about to hit Level Fifteen, and only a few stations remained. I¡¯d fought Rat Men, slimes, and tentacle-covered things called Minor Reversed River Elementals. They fought with tentacles covered in acid; I¡¯d had to cut every one of them off the squid-shaped things before they died. Right now, I was breathing hard¡ªI¡¯d been pushing my Body and Mana to the limit. I¡¯d spent two points in Body¡ªboth to fix battle damage against a River Beast that had attacked me at Harrison¡ªand six in Awareness. The last two went to Mana. I was still saving the Lock-Grip Gloves, just in case I needed a Body boost mid-combat. My new spell was running¡ªPower Surge. As I slammed the sledgehammer I¡¯d looted from the hardware store cave into the last bat, the iron head flashed blue-white, and a surge of electricity rushed into the monster. Its experience orb was a bright purple. I stopped near the edge of the platform, which was well over three-quarters gone and being eaten faster with every pass. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. I¡¯d found a couple of magical items. The best piece I had was the Surge Protector. The shoulder pads made me look a lot like one of the Haymakers¡¯ football jocks, but they gave me two Mana and one Body. My other magical item was¡­less immediately useful, at least for fighting. The Imbuing Rod was great for setting up tools, though. It could imbue a single weapon with my Power Surge, and it didn¡¯t have to be my weapon, either. That¡¯s how I was powering the Weed Whacker. My Awareness was through the roof at twenty-two, and I was starting to see things¡ªlike how I could use my lightning magic to power all sorts of stuff. I blinked. The sweat stung my eyes, but I resisted wiping it off; my hands were even filthier, and I had long practice at not wiping my face when I¡¯d been working. Power Surge was the key, it turned out¡ªand the Imbuing Rod. If I cast it into a weapon quickly enough, I could keep the buff up indefinitely, and with some wiring I¡¯d ripped out of a wall, that led to something that felt a little like how electricity used to work. I could probably use it to power one of those electric chainsaws back at the hardware cave, but I hadn¡¯t seen another shop like it since leaving. It had some other drawbacks, too. I could only put Power Surge on one weapon at a time. I¡¯d been keeping it on my sledgehammer when I could, since the bats weren¡¯t a big enough threat for me to pull the Weed Whacker out of my inventory. I¡¯d built a few new weapons in the few minutes of downtime I let myself have¡ªthe battery bombs were all but used up, and I wanted to save the last four for the Wyrm itself. But the one I was most proud of was my Weed Whacker. It had started out as a brush trimmer, but now it only looked vaguely like one. There wasn¡¯t a motor, for one thing, or hand-grips. For another, the safety guard was gone. It was a long pipe with a bit of wire running through it, along with a magnet and a spinning series of what looked like copper hammers for the Imbuing Rod to¡­imbue. Rotationally. On the far side, I¡¯d attached a bunch of knives to the end of the pipe with some ball bearings out of someone¡¯s skateboard. The Imbuing Rod and Power Surge kept it running well enough, and it kicked serious butt, but using it was a trade-off; the spell tired me out faster than Lightning Bolt at the power level I needed to run the Weed Whacker, and the machine wasn¡¯t too well-built. Even so, it was my best weapon¡ªmy ace in the hole, for now. As I waited for the Redline Wyrm to pass by, I worked on it, adjusting the knives¡¯ angle slightly and tightening bolts. I had to be getting close¡ªthere weren¡¯t many more stations to go. She¡¯d either be at North and Clybourn or Clark and Division. Either that, or she¡¯d be in the area I¡¯d already cleared.
North and Clybourn was a bust. Just like Monroe Station, I found some evidence that Tori had been through here. But unlike the bat stations or the ones with slimes, there didn¡¯t seem to be any monsters to fight¡ªjust Rat Man spears. She¡¯d definitely cleared this station out. I was gaining on her, and if she kept ahead of me, she¡¯d run into Calvin. Unlike at Monroe, Tori hadn¡¯t looted everything that¡¯d been nailed down here. The highlight was a convenience store¡ªno food, but duct tape, a bunch of oil, and outside, a full rack of propane tanks. The damn things were still full, and I couldn¡¯t carry them all, even in my inventory; I thought about venting the gas but decided I could do that any time. They were still pressurized, and I couldn¡¯t put gas back into them later. I took what I could. I sat down to wait for the train to pass again¡ªit seemed to be getting faster as it ate more and more of the tunnel walls, but something about that convenience store rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn¡¯t stop fidgeting. After a minute of thinking and thinking and puzzling, I stood back up. ¡°Alright. What¡¯s wrong in there?¡± I couldn¡¯t figure it out. All the shelves were right where they should be. Sure, they were stone, and sure, the ones where food should have been in a convenience store were empty. So were the coolers; there wasn¡¯t a single water bottle here. I headed toward the cash register, stepping over a rubber-bottomed mud rug. No Rat Men hiding back there, either. No, there wasn¡¯t anything off about this. It had just been my imagination. If I was right, though, the train would be here soon, and I¡¯d be able to get to Clark and Division.
The Redline Wyrm was definitely speeding up. I barely got to Clark and Division Station before the snake¡¯s headlight filled the tunnel behind me, and it sheered off the last of the central platform and started working its way toward the caves nearby as I headed into the caves. At the rate it was growing, it wouldn¡¯t take long for it to eat into the stations. I watched it pass by, breathing hard. The ground rumbled under my feet, and the snake disappeared into the semi-dark tunnel. The Redline Wyrm: Level Twenty Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Extreme Extreme. Extreme was better than Impossible. We had a shot at this. I just needed to find Tori. I had one station left to check¡ªplus the ones I¡¯d already cleared out¡ªand just under thirteen and a half hours. We were running out of time. 9: Mentally Numb Tori gasped as she used Shockwave to throw the monster off of her. Her head spun, and her chest and stomach felt like a giant had squeezed her in its fist. She tried to crawl away, but her lungs screamed and burned as air poured into them. Everything had happened so fast. The last station she¡¯d checked¡ªNorth and Clybourn¡ªhad only had a couple of Rat Men that she¡¯d been able to take care of with no trouble before waiting for the subway snake to pass. She¡¯d only had to use a single Inertia Ball on them, and she figured she could clear this one without magic at all. She hadn¡¯t even thought about the shag carpet she was stepping on¡ªor how out of place it was in the subway cave¡ªuntil it was too late. The monster coiled up around her like a flat, square snake made of ratty, filth-covered carpeting. Her arms and legs churned on the floor as she tried to crab-walk away and summon up an Inertia Ball at the same time. Floor Mimic: Level 12 Monster How was it so much stronger than her? She was Level Seven! It wasn¡¯t fair! She rolled, trying to dodge as the Floor Mimic engulfed her again. Then, the squeezing started. This time, it started around her arms; something in her shoulder popped, and she screamed. It tightened around her before she could shut her mouth, forcing all the air out of her lungs. She tried to cast another Shockwave, but the magic wouldn¡¯t come. Every wriggle¡ªevery struggle¡ªjust made the Floor Mimic¡¯s stranglehold tighter. She couldn¡¯t breathe. She couldn¡¯t breathe! Her heart pounded in her ears, and her vision went gray. Everything was so hot. This was it; she¡¯d sob if she had the air for it. She screamed¡ªshe didn¡¯t have any air left, but she screamed anyway. A roar cut through the pulsing in her ears. It sounded like a ceiling fan on steroids, and a burning electric smell forced its way into her nose. Something ripped into her calf, and she tried to scream again. Her lungs burned. The Floor Mimic shrieked. Then it parted, and Tori sucked in a grateful breath and vomited from the pain. She rolled onto her side and looked up. Chunks of carpet rained down around her. The mechanic from the train finished shredding the monster.
The weed whacker hit the ground¡ªhard¡ªas the Floor Mimic¡¯s body disintegrated around Tori. Blood rushed from her leg. I dropped to my knees next to her. The orb hit me a second later, and I leveled up again. Level Up! Fifteen to Sixteen. ¡°Damn it,¡± I said under my breath. That wasn¡¯t supposed to have gone to me. It was supposed to be a catch-up orb for Tori. But¡­¡±Jesus Christ.¡± Tori¡¯s leg looked awful. I grabbed my leatherman, cutting away her shredded pants at the knee. A half-dozen deep, jagged cuts ran up the back of her calf¡ªI hadn¡¯t had time to be precise with the Weed Whacker¡¯s spinning knives. ¡°Deep breaths, Tori. I¡¯ve got you. I¡¯m Hal.¡± She nodded, white-faced and wide-eyed. She was breathing, but they were shallow, pain-filled breaths. I looked at the Lock-Grip Gloves, then pulled some torn cloth strips out of my inventory instead. Calvin had said they¡¯d be useful as bandages. ¡°This is gonna hurt,¡± I said. ¡°I know,¡± she managed to say between gritted teeth. I could see the strain in her neck from how tight she was clenching them. ¡°Scream if you have to.¡± I grabbed the first cloth, bunched it up, and shoved it as far into her wounds as I could. She screamed. I didn¡¯t stop shoving. As my filthy fingers grew wet with her blood, I kept pushing until the flow slowed, then stopped. Even then, I kept the pressure on with one hand. ¡°Alright, Tori, I need you to listen to me and follow my directions. All you have to do is get a bunch of cloth strips ready for me and lift your leg when I tell you to. Can you do that?¡± She nodded again. Over the next minute, I jammed even more cloth up against her sliced leg, then wrapped the cloth strips around it and tied it all in place. Then she handed me the next strip, breathing fast and hard the whole time. It wasn¡¯t pretty. But by the time I was done, I felt pretty sure that I¡¯d gotten Tori¡¯s bleeding under control. I finally looked her in the face. Now that her make-up was worn off and her hair wasn¡¯t so much styled as tangled and matted, Tori didn¡¯t just remind me of Beth; she could almost have been my sister. Her cheeks were a little thinner, and her eyes weren¡¯t the right color, but without all the emo style, I could see exactly why she¡¯d looked familiar. ¡°Hal,¡± she said, still trying to catch her breath and blink away tears. ¡°That¡­that really fucking sucked.¡± I stared at her for a second. This girl was nothing like my sister. Beth was a troublemaker, but she¡¯d never sworn at me. Then, a second later, I burst out laughing. Tori¡¯s eyebrow raised. Then, a shadow of a grin passed over her face. A minute later, she was laughing, too¡ªand wincing as every laugh shook her leg a little.
¡°They¡¯re Floor Mimics,¡± Tori said after I propped her up against the cave wall. ¡°I stepped on it, and it wrapped me up. I didn¡¯t think¡­I didn¡¯t think about why a rug would be in the middle of Clark and Division.¡± The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I held back a shiver; I¡¯d almost stepped on that mud rug one station back. ¡°Did you see any other monsters here?¡± ¡°No. I pulled some Huntsman Bats back at Fullerton and some of the others, and I didn¡¯t even think about clearing the water squid things, but this station seemed empty. I figured that maybe you or Calvin had farmed it already.¡± ¡°Calvin secured one store cave and called it good, and I started at Chicago. Most of the dungeon¡¯s cleared, though. Just have to take out the Redline Wyrm.¡± ¡°I saw.¡± Tori winced and looked at the wall. ¡°Thanks. Those levels gave me a new spell and let me break out of the bathroom at Roosevelt. Any ideas about the last boss?¡± ¡°I¡¯m working on something, but it¡¯s still in the planning stage,¡± I said. It was less a plan than an inkling of one, though¡ªa rough idea that the whole fight had to do with the Wyrm¡¯s speed and how to turn that into an advantage. That was as far as I¡¯d gotten, though. The biggest problem was Tori¡¯s leg. She definitely couldn¡¯t walk on it, and we didn¡¯t have time to wait for it to heal. I had a solution; I¡¯d been ready to use the gloves if I had to, and the extra point in Body would help get her moving. But before I tried that, I had an idea. ¡°I¡¯m going to check out the bathrooms. Watch my back, okay? I¡¯m counting on you.¡± She looked at me, then nodded slowly. Luckily, all I needed her to do was stay awake and yell if something showed up. That was about all I could expect in her current state. The men¡¯s room looked about like I expected it to. Sinks, stalls, urinals. Nothing out of the ordinary. I double-checked the floor, poking it with the Weed Whacker¡¯s blades. Nothing shrieked. Nothing jumped up to attack me. So, the Floor Mimics all looked like rugs or carpets, then. ¡°Tori, do you know why these things aren¡¯t called carpet mimics?¡± ¡°No.¡± When I glanced into the women¡¯s room, I couldn¡¯t help but smile. A pair of Rat Man spears sat near a round rug in the middle of the cave; it had formed around the stalls so closely it looked like it was under them, but I wasn¡¯t fooled¡ªnot even by the lack of level and name over its head. I pulled back and rejoined Tori. ¡°There¡¯s a second Floor Mimic in there. I¡¯m going to kill it. Keep an eye out. Everything else should be safe, but I don¡¯t know for sure, so keep focused.¡± Then I pulled the Weed Whacker and returned to the women¡¯s room. I fed a Power Surge into the Imbuing Rod, then into the Weed Whacker, and the blades started whirring and tearing at the air. I swung it toward the Floor Mimic; the second I made contact, the whole thing pulled back into a bunch far away from me, then coiled like a spring. Floor Mimic: Level Fifteen Monster This one was a lot stronger than the one I¡¯d torn off of Tori; it was almost as strong as me, and I was pretty sure I¡¯d soaked up more than my share of experience from the dungeon. On the other hand, I knew what to expect since Tori had told me all about her fight with it. As it sprang toward me and unfurled, I braced the Weed Whacker against my hip and poured another shot of Power Surge in. The blade whirred. The Floor Mimic wrapped around me and tightened. My shoulders strained as I held the Weed Whacker away from me, and as the pressure built, the blades started breaking off. A knife ricocheted across the bathroom, sparking as it hit one wall. I watched it rebound and stick into the Floor Mimic¡¯s ¡®back.¡¯ Then another blade gave, clattering off into a corner. The air rushed out of my lungs, and the Floor Mimic tightened. As it did, the Weed Whacker found a grip and ripped itself out of my hands. It tore across the Floor Mimic, punching jagged holes across its center. The tightening did the rest; it ripped itself apart like a notebook paper torn from a binder. I barely had the breath to roll away from the experience orb, but I managed to get far enough away. Then, as I recovered, I pushed myself to my feet and left the bathroom. ¡°Tori, I¡¯ve got an orb in there with your name on it, but you have to¡­have to promise me that you¡¯re going to use it how I tell you to. I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯ll level you at least once. Put both points into Body.¡± She narrowed her eyes and squared up. I¡¯d seen that before with Beth, but I couldn¡¯t understand why she wanted to fight me on this. Then I got a better look at her. I¡¯d been completely focused on her leg and hadn¡¯t seen the other injuries. ¡°You haven¡¯t put a single point into Body, have you?¡± ¡°No. Mana¡¯s the right choice, obviously. I¡¯ve got incredible powers,¡± she said. ¡°Do you really think that?¡± I asked. ¡°Look, I¡¯ve been putting most of my points into Awareness, but if you put some into Body, it¡¯ll help patch you up after fights. Right now, you need some healing if we¡¯re going to walk back to Lake Station, so put both points in Body.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± she said. She went silent. The gears were turning; I could practically see them. Then, it clicked. ¡°It¡¯s a stat synergy game, not an individual stat one. I¡¯ve been playing it like I could stack Mana, ignore everything else, and be a ¡®concentrated power of the sun¡¯ glass cannon, but that¡¯s not how it works. Everything works together, and if I don¡¯t balance things out¡­¡± Tori pushed herself to her feet and half-hopped to me, then threw an arm around my shoulder. She was a lot shorter than me, but it worked well enough. ¡°Two points in Body, then?¡± ¡°That¡¯s right.¡±
A few minutes later, Tori and I sat on the station¡¯s edge and waited for the Redline Wyrm. The orb had gotten her two levels. She¡¯d put two into Body, one into Awareness, and one into Mana, and her leg had healed up enough to walk on. She¡¯d have scars, but those had been a guarantee the moment my Weed Whacker hit her. I¡¯d shoved what was left of the Weed Whacker into my inventory, but it was pretty much done. I¡¯d need a new weapon, and a design was already pretty much formed in my head. It¡¯d be something stronger, more capable of punching through armor. Something with weight and torque. It was a concept right now, but once we got back to Lake Station and I could start building it, it¡¯d make the Weed Whacker look like a kid¡¯s toy. But first, we had to wait for the Redline Wyrm to come by again. So, instead of moving or grinding, Tori and I were wasting time and twiddling our thumbs. ¡°We could fight it here,¡± Tori said halfheartedly. She was Level Nine or Ten now¡ªstronger, but not strong enough. I shook my head. ¡°No, I don¡¯t think we will. Something¡¯s fishy about that train.¡± ¡°You mean snakey?¡± I stared at her for a minute. Over the last three days, she¡¯d lost some of her prickly, emo-girl facade. In a way, it mirrored the fading makeup and the rats-nest that had once been hair carefully combed over one eye. Then, I let myself laugh. ¡°Sure. Something¡¯s snakey about that train. Why isn¡¯t it ripping up the ground, too, for example? I want to get a good look at it, and then I want another shot at the hardware store back at Lake. We need to group up with Calvin anyway. ¡± ¡°Alright. We¡¯ll wait.¡± She seemed relieved, even though she tried to hide it, and I wondered what she¡¯d been through in the last couple of days. Her eyes had lost most of that wide, shell-shocked look. Now, they just looked exhausted. I shrugged. We¡¯d have time to talk about it later. We didn¡¯t have to wait long. As the Redline Wyrm rumbled toward us, filling the tunnel and then some, I held out a hand to keep Tori back. She shot me a look, the kind teenagers always give when they think they¡¯re adults. Beth and I had both shot the same one at Mom and Dad a couple of times¡ªher more than me¡ªso I recognized it for what it was. Then, neither of us could look at anything but the steel-covered snake as it whipped by, shaving off a full foot from the concrete. A brief flash of orange flashed by, mostly covered by the train car armor, as it roared through Clark and Division. An almost feral grin split my face. I knew how to beat it. And between my inventory and the Lake Station shop, we had everything we needed. 10: All Aboard Time Limit: 10 Hours, Forty-Eight Minutes By the time we got back to Lake Station, Tori and I were both exhausted and covered in dust and dried blood. We¡¯d been walking along the tracks for the better part of two hours, and we¡¯d also re-checked Chicago and Grand for rugs. There were a few. Without the Weed Whacker, I couldn¡¯t solo them, but Torrey needed the levels, and we figured out a strategy that used her Shockwave to buy us time while I set them up for self-tearing like the one I¡¯d killed. She was Level Twelve now. I hadn¡¯t asked, but she¡¯d told me anyway. And her Body and Awareness weren¡¯t at her baseline anymore. But she was still a kid, and I didn¡¯t want to include her in the upcoming fight more than I had to. I¡¯d have to, though. She¡¯d learned a new spell, and that spell had immediately become a core part of my plan. I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep, but the whole plan¡¯s shape was still in my head, and if I slept on it, I was afraid it¡¯d be gone. Magic was like an engine¡ªsort of. I¡¯d been close to that revelation with the weed whacker, but with my Awareness skyrocketing, I could almost see the circuits in my mind even without thinking about them. The design was simple, really. At least, it was in theory. I grabbed Calvin and Tori, then stepped into the mostly empty hardware store. ¡°We¡¯re going after the Redline Worm in eight hours. It¡¯ll take me three or four to build my weapon for the fight. Calvin, you¡¯re sitting the boss fight out.¡± ¡°Thank god,¡± he said. Then he glanced around the store. ¡°Why am I here, then?¡± ¡°Because I need a third set of hands. I¡¯m going to be holding the whole design together, and Tori¡¯s going to help me manage the magic. You¡¯re going to hang around and grab whatever I decide we need.¡± He nodded. I stuck my unbroken earbud in my ear, and we got to work. The next hour was a blur. Force magic operated completely differently from my lightning, and also differently from the air-shocks and trunk-lifts I was used to at the auto shop. We had something that could almost work after thirty minutes, but against the thing¡¯s armor, it wouldn¡¯t punch hard enough. That was okay, though; that idea had been proof of concept and building an understanding of how my design interacted with Tori¡¯s spells. My second idea was the one I was banking on. The one that had to work. It also used Tori¡¯s force magic. In fact, I didn¡¯t see any way around using it. But this device was a lot simpler. It didn¡¯t need to throw anything hard enough to punch through a train door. All it had to do was lift a ramp a couple of inches and then lower it slowly under a ton¡ªor twenty¡ªof weight. In the end, the thing looked a lot like a skateboard ramp. It was about three feet long and made of solid steel with a gap in the middle. Two of the heaviest bolts Tori could find held it tight to a platform that rested on Lake¡¯s concrete concourse. I¡¯d lashed two landscaping irrigation tubes to the sides and put every joint we could scavenge onto it, forming a maze of connections that branched and connected to a pair of plastic tanks under the ramp. Calvin had spent almost an hour carrying tank after tank of compressed air, propane, and anything else that looked like it was full of something over. The branching tubes led to the tanks; besides the propane, they all had basically no pressure, but that was okay. We didn¡¯t need pressure. We had Tori. The whole thing looked like a real mess, but, in theory, it¡¯d do what it was supposed to. In practice, it¡¯d only work once, and it¡¯d have to work perfectly. We wouldn¡¯t get a test fire, and we definitely wouldn¡¯t get a second shot. I spent the next hour or two working on my own weapon. I had no illusions about whether Lightning Bolt could so much as scrape the Redline Wyrm¡¯s scales, and the Weed Whacker wouldn¡¯t stand up to its armor even if it hadn¡¯t torn itself apart. I¡¯d beaten enough dents out of cars to know how to punch through the train¡¯s body, though. Latent electrical magic flowed up and down wires as I wrapped them around a solid piece of steel pipe I¡¯d lined with electrical tape. They led to a pair of ratchet wheels, one to each side of a table saw¡¯s motor. The blade was useless to me. So was the table. But the motor ran on electricity, and even though the station didn¡¯t have any, I did. The tests had worked; the motor spun the ratchet wheels for about three seconds per Power Surge. I¡¯d bolted a sledgehammer to each ratchet wheel, then used my Lightning Bolt to ¡®weld¡¯ the hammerheads to claws from some nail hammers to their heads. They both hung down on either side of the pipe handle. It looked no better than the weed whacker had, but I felt confident it would do the job. When the thing was done, I poured electricity into it with Power Surge. The second the lightning ripped into the motor, it started whining and revving. A split second later, both ratchet wheels clicked, and the hammers spun one hundred and eighty degrees before jerking to a stop and ripping the whole hammer out of my grip. It clattered on the ground as the hammers kept spinning. I picked it up, looking at Tori. ¡°Let¡¯s see what it can do.¡± She nodded and pointed at the nearest shelf. ¡°Rock¡¯s pretty tough.¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Calvin and Tori stepped back as I hefted the thing over my shoulder. It was horribly unbalanced and weighed way more than I¡¯d have been able to swing around a couple of weeks ago. Now, though, the weight was almost nothing. I poured another Power Surge into it, and the hammers spun back down to firing position, jerking my arms again. I went into my inventory and equipped the Lock-Grip Gloves; I needed the extra grip more than the point of emergency Body for healing. Then I swung the hammer. It hit the limestone shelf, shaking it, but not knocking it to pieces. The ratchet let go, and both hammers turned into blurs. The two claws hit the stone like a Mike Tyson punch, and the whole shelf exploded in a cloud of dust, gravel, and force. Tori jumped at the cracking sound. I didn¡¯t. Even with the Lock-Grip Gloves and the extra point in Body, my arms shook and tingled. Without them, the whole hammer would have thrown itself back into my face. It hurt to lose my emergency heal from the point in Body, but it¡¯d been worth it. It did the job I wanted it to do. ¡°Trip-Hammer,¡± I said, holding it up. New Creation: Trip-Hammer, by Hal Riley The Trip-Hammer uses electrical energy and salvaged parts from woodworking and landscaping tools to apply massive force to a small area. First created by Hal Riley of Earth. I blinked the System message away. Was I the first person to think about using lightning magic like this? And if I was, why hadn¡¯t the Weed Whacker gotten a System message? I didn¡¯t have the answers, but I did have a hammer and a boss to fight. ¡°Okay, we¡¯ve got a few hours. Rest up as far from the tracks as you can. I¡¯ll wake you up when it¡¯s time,¡± I said, shouldering the Trip-Hammer again and walking back toward Calvin¡¯s cave. ¡°Amen to the rest,¡± Tori said, yawning.
Despite the mad dash around the whole Red Line circuit and my dead-tired arms and legs, sleep wouldn¡¯t come. I tossed and turned on the cave floor for a couple of hours, then got up quietly. Calvin was a dead-silent sleeper, but Tori snored. I didn¡¯t want to wake either of them, so I crept toward the door and sat down, watching the tracks. The last few battery bombs were still in my inventory; I dumped them on the floor next to the Trip-Hammer and our mess of a wyrm-slaying contraption. A few hours ago, it had seemed like enough. Now, I wasn¡¯t so sure. The whole plan was riding on those tracks, and on the fact that they were still there even though the Redline Wyrm had expanded the tunnels out a dozen feet to either side as it grew. If the tracks were still there, it needed them. And that was our line of attack. But what if I was wrong? What if the ramp didn¡¯t fire correctly? Too many things could go wrong, and with only one shot at this, we were gambling on whether my theory was right. I was right a lot when it came to machines¡ªthat was one of the big reasons Cindy kept me on her staff even though I wasn¡¯t a certified mechanic. But I wasn¡¯t always right. That damn Ford Explorer was probably still up there with its transmission torn apart because I hadn¡¯t been able to figure it out. It had only been a matter of time before I¡¯d solved it, but I¡¯d run out of time. Now, we were running out of time to deal with the Redline Wyrm. ¡°Hal?¡± I glanced at the door. Tori stood there in her beat-up black pants and band shirt. ¡°You couldn¡¯t sleep either, huh?¡± ¡°No.¡± She sat on the wreckage next to me. ¡°I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about Mom. About whether she¡¯s still out there or whether she¡¯s going to pass her Tutorial.¡± Tori hadn¡¯t called her Jessica or step-mom. I raised an eyebrow questioningly. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m talking about Jessica,¡± she said. ¡°This time.¡± ¡°She will. She didn¡¯t pick Hardcore like us. She¡¯s probably already out there, looking for you,¡± I replied. My parents weren¡¯t. They¡¯d be in Nebraska, and I was hundreds of miles away. They were probably trying to hold the farm together¡ªif it still existed. I tried to push them out of my head. I couldn¡¯t get to them right now, and if there was anyone who could survive the end of the world, it was Mom. Dad was tough, but Mom? Surviving with her wouldn¡¯t be fun, but she¡¯d get anyone willing to toe the line through this or die trying. ¡°So¡­¡± Tori trailed off. I recognized that one, too. ¡°Subject change, huh? That was fast.¡± ¡°Yeah. We¡¯re really going to do this, huh?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see what choice we have.¡± She went quiet for a minute, and the Redline Wyrm rumbled past again. I resisted the urge to reach for the Trip-Hammer. Tori fidgeted on her seat until the shaking stopped, then brushed dust off her face. ¡°Are we going to win?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I said. I didn¡¯t tell her that we didn¡¯t have a choice, even though that was the truth. We both sat there on the hardware store¡¯s cold stone floor and waited as our timers ticked down until, eventually, she stood up. ¡°Alright, I¡¯m going to try to sleep again.¡± ¡°Good luck,¡± I said absent-mindedly. The Trip-Hammer looked right, but as I stared at it, places where the mana flowed poorly stood out in a blue-black glow. But she didn¡¯t leave right away. I could feel her standing at the door for almost a minute before she turned around. ¡°Hal, you¡¯re not gonna tell Jessica I stayed up worrying, right?¡± I shook my head. ¡°I already forgot you said anything. Get some rest.¡± I listened to her walk away, and to the tell-tale rumbling getting closer. The answer hit me as one of the Redline Wyrm¡¯s passing collapsed the turnstilagmites. The problem with the Ford Explorer¡¯s transmission wasn¡¯t its transmission at all. It¡¯d been so sooty in there, and I couldn¡¯t figure out why, but I¡¯d be just about willing to bet my job it was a fuel system issue. The inflow probably wasn¡¯t matching the gear¡¯s needs, so it felt like the transmission was messed up. That didn¡¯t help me or the woman who¡¯d been trying to reach Wyoming now, of course, but it did confirm what I already knew. If I had the time to work on a problem, I could solve it. I fished my music player out of my pocket. The screen was shattered. It didn¡¯t turn on, but that wasn¡¯t a surprise. But the buttons clicked right. That was a start. I set it and the headphones out on the concrete and got to work. The problem wasn¡¯t the damage; I couldn¡¯t fix that. The real problem was the lack of power. I pulled the Imbuing Rod out, looked at it, and tried to find a switch or something¡ªanything that might turn it down. If I fried the iPod¡¯s electronics, that¡¯d be the end. I found it eventually and slid it down to the minimum power. Then I put the unbroken earbud in my right ear, plugged it into the bottom of the iPod, and carefully put the smallest Power Surge I could into the rod. The tip of the rod touched the iPod, and for about five seconds, I heard Motley Crue¡¯s ¡®Kickstart My Heart.¡¯ I couldn¡¯t help it¡ªa shit-eating grin plastered itself across my face. I spent the next half-hour pouring every ounce of my energy into the iPod, blasting through a dozen or so songs. Finally, as the last notes of ¡®We Will Rock You¡¯ faded and the next song began, I couldn¡¯t keep it up anymore. I¡¯d been working on the Hardcore Tutorial problem for over two solid days¡ªlonger than I¡¯d worked on a single machine since the station wagon. This was going to work. It had to, because I¡¯d seen the whole dungeon, and with our skill sets, this was the only solution. The next song was ¡®We Are the Champions,¡¯ but that¡¯d have to wait until tomorrow. 11: Crazy Train Time Limit: Two Hours, Seven Minutes I sprinted away from the contraption we¡¯d laid across the gravel and between the wooden ties. The tunnel wall that was once a platform loomed over me¡ªthe Redline Wyrm had been carving it bigger and bigger over the last three days. One garden hose bundle hung over my left shoulder, and one over my right. Tori grabbed them both, and I nodded at her as she started fastening them to the pile of metal and plastic tanks in the pit. We¡¯d added some gas cans¡ªwithout the gas, which at this point was less explosive than water. But they¡¯d all add to the fun. According to our most recent check, the Redline Wyrm would be here in less than five minutes. Calvin and Tori were both plugging hoses into tanks as fast as they could. I pulled the Trip-Hammer out of my inventory, made sure my Lock-Grip Gloves were on, and piled in to help. We finished just in time. The now-familiar rumbling feeling started in my feet, and before I knew it, the cans and tanks were all shaking. ¡°Alright, wait for it,¡± I said, climbing over the jagged concrete edge and hanging my head out into the tunnel. The snake¡¯s headlight flicked as it came around a corner. I pulled back, counting off on my fingers. ¡°Ten seconds.¡± Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. The wyrm¡¯s snout passed over the glorified skateboard ramp harmlessly, two seconds faster than I¡¯d budgeted. If we waited the full ten, we¡¯d lose our chance. ¡°Do it now!¡± I shouted. ¡°Now? It¡¯s too early!¡± Tori yelled back. ¡°Now!¡± Tori nodded and used Crush on the dozens of containers. Joey, the kid one farm over, had a Stomp Rocket toy. It was just a plastic bladder filled with air, a hose, and a plastic rocket that attached to the hose¡¯s end, but when he jumped on it, the damn thing would take off on a one-way trip to the moon, then back to Earth. Or at least a little way there. The fun had lasted until I¡¯d used Dad¡¯s tractor to drop a hay bale onto the air bladder, which sent the rocket onto the barn roof and broke the bladder. Tori¡¯s Pre-Class Ultimate spell, Crush, did the same thing. Every tank, bottle, and can we¡¯d filled imploded instantly, sending a wave of gas down the tubes¡ªway more than they could hold. All that air rushed into the two plastic barrels, which¡ªin theory¡ªwould inflate and throw the Wyrm off its tracks. In practice, the barrels inflated in slow motion, almost like a movie. Then, as they started lifting the steel ramp, the first one blew out with a bang so loud it drowned out the Redline Wyrm¡¯s rumbling. The second one gave out a moment later. For an awful three seconds, I thought we¡¯d failed. The Redline Wyrm rocketed down the track, wobbling a little as it went. Then it hit the far tunnel¡¯s edge, and the whole damn snake came off the rails in a deafening screech. Rails and train-car armor sparked against each other, and I got my first look at the bottom of the damn snake. The crash as it piled up against the wall felt like a massive hand slapping me, but I hardly cared. I¡¯d been right. It was wheels¡ªhundreds of wheels and dozens of weak spots. The Redline Wyrm had been riding the rails¡ªand hiding its fragile belly¡ªthis whole time. That was why the rails never disappeared, no matter how much platform it ate or how big it got. The Redline Wyrm: Level Twenty Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Extreme Status: Derailed The boss thrashed back and forth, trying to right itself and get moving again. Tori hurried into position, using her twenty-four points in Mana to keep it pinned down with Inertia Balls. But as she got closer, the snake¡¯s tail lashed out, launching her onto the rails. She hit with a crunch, and I winced; she hadn¡¯t wanted to put points in Body, and the two impacts looked like they¡¯d hurt. I didn¡¯t have time to help her, either. I dashed toward a glowing-orange weak spot near the Wyrm¡¯s middle, where its armor had peeled into jagged-looking strips. The scales were already bleeding there, so I figured that was the best place to start. I swung, firing a Power Surge into the Trip-Hammer as it started its arc. The motor whirred and screamed. Then, an instant before the whole contraption slammed into the Wyrm¡¯s exposed wound, the ratchets released, and the two spiked hammers split the air. They hit home. Last night¡¯s tuning paid off. The wyrm roared, flailing its body wildly across the station as I pulled the Trip-Hammer back and sprinted toward Tori. She was up but wobbly; I shoved her onto what was left of the center platform. ¡°Get to it!¡± ¡°Got it!¡± she said, turning shakily toward the wyrm. The Redline Wyrm: Level Twenty Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Extreme Status: Derailed, Sundered It gave up on trying to get back on the rails. Instead, it rushed me, mouth scooping up concrete as it did. Tori fired another Inertia Ball toward it, and I dodged the other way, but it still clipped me. The pain was unbelievable. It was like standing between a sow and her trough. Like taking a horse¡¯s kick to the chest. Like being crushed beneath a half-gutted truck as it came off its lift. And that was just a glancing, thrashing blow; the damn boss had reared up over my head like a tower of train parts and scales. I rolled toward the out of control train-snake and pulled out the Trip-Hammer again. As its weight came down on me, Tori Crushed another part of its armor right over me. I held up the Trip-Hammer. The Redline Wyrm came down on it as I Power Surged electricity into my weapon. The motor revved for a second before sliding inside its body with a squelch and a torrent of dark, oil-slick-colored blood that covered me from head to toe. Then the hammers fired, and the Wyrm screamed. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. One thing did go exactly according to plan; the Lock-Grip Gloves didn¡¯t let go. I wished they had, though. They stayed on the damn Trip-Hammer as the Wyrm reared back suddenly, and I went right with it. It jerked me through the air, back and forth, as I shouted. ¡°Tori, help!¡± ¡°Help how?¡± she screamed back. I looked at her; she was too busy running back and forth on the platform while trying to avoid the Wyrm¡¯s armored coils to help me. I¡¯d gotten into this mess, and the only way out was through it. I fired the Trip-Hammer again and again, arms aching as the shockwaves rippled through me. The Wyrm dragged me across the ground, through the air, and wherever else it wanted me to go. Then, at least, it started slowing down. I fired it one more time, and it stopped for a moment, its maw facing Tori. ¡°Now! Hit it now!¡± She threw a single Inertia Ball at the thing¡¯s head. It hit dead-on, and a second later, the headlight exploded. Then she followed it up with another, final Crush that caught something in the snake¡¯s head. Blood cascaded from its massive mouth, filling the tracks and swelling over the ruined center platform. I pulled the Trip-Hammer out of its side and ran as blood fountained down around us. It took the Wyrm almost a minute longer to die, but eventually, its massive bulk stopped moving. I sucked in a breath, hands on my knees, as the System messages rolled in.
Hardcore Boss Defeated: The Redline Wyrm Level Up! Sixteen to Eighteen. Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team¡¯s experience. Congratulations! For clearing your Tutorial Dungeon, you have unlocked Class Selection. Congratulations! For clearing the Hardcore Tutorial, you have unlocked Rare and Epic Classes. I glanced at Tori; she was getting the same messages I was. She had a smile plastered on her face, and her eyes sparkled. Classes imbue their user with more focused powers, increased statistics, and modifications to their spellcasting. Your class represents a significant increase in your personal power. Classes range from the common Rogue, Fighter, Healer, and Mage classes all the way to epic and even legendary ones. Due to surviving the Hardcore Tutorial, your party has been awarded a number of rare and epic classes to choose from. Your class choices are based on your achievements in the Hardcore Tutorial and your current stat point distribution. Please select one of the following classes: I half-ignored the Fighter, Rogue, Healer, and Mage classes, as well as a handful of non-combat classes that didn¡¯t feel like they¡¯d be useful for anything the Consortium had planned. The rest of the phases of Integration, or whatever they called it, weren¡¯t going to be any easier than this, and I wasn¡¯t Calvin. I wasn¡¯t going to wait around for the fight to come to me. Then, finally, the System got to the choices I¡¯d earned during the Tutorial. Skirmisher (Uncommon) Skirmishers are jack-of-all-trade fighters, combining traits from the Rogue, Fighter, and Mage classes. With great flexibility comes an answer to every problem you¡¯ll face in your quest for integration. Requirements: Kill unique monsters in the Tutorial Dungeon in a fight, by surprise, and with magic. +5 Body +5 Awareness +5 Mana Class Skill: Flexibility - Adopt the basic Class Skill for either the Rogue, Fighter, or Mage. Can switch every five levels. Demolition Man (Rare) When the going gets tough, the tough get explosive. The Demolition Man class is built to bring the pain, with an affinity for explosive solutions to problems. They gain proficiency with improvised explosives and can use their mana to re-arm or repurpose inert explosives. Requirements: Use explosives to kill at least ten Tutorial Dungeon monsters. WARNING: By default, your class-created items will be unidentifiable by others. You may choose to allow others to identify them on an item-by-item basis. +10 Body +5 Awareness +5 Mana Class Skill: Bomb Squad - Tinker with defused explosives to re-arm them or to repurpose their parts Thunder Mage (Epic) You¡¯ve been¡­Thunderstruck! The Thunder Mage trades toughness, speed, and flexibility for massive power in its lightning-charged casts. One of the highest-damage mage classes out there, the Thunder Mage excels at solving a problem before it even knows it¡¯s a problem! Requirements: Use lightning magic to defeat a Tutorial Dungeon boss. WARNING: This class sacrifices your toughness and speed for power. -5 Body +10 Awareness +15 Mana Class Skill: Super Cell - Build spells like a storm, then unleash them in a single burst of lightning. Voltsmith (Epic) Magic is power. But magic can also provide power. The Voltsmith knows this all too well; they use magic to power their creations rather than cast spells. Drain power from magical equipment and mundane power sources. Use this energy to feed your Charge stat, increasing the number of creations you can keep empowered at once. Requirements: Create a unique invention powered by magic and use it against a Tutorial Dungeon boss. WARNING: This class will fundamentally alter your relationship with Mana and spellcasting. WARNING: By default, your class-created items will be unidentifiable by others. You may choose to allow others to identify them on an item-by-item basis. +5 Awareness +15 Maximum Charge Class Skill: Decharge/Recharge - Drain the charge from magic items to power your own creations. Skirmisher didn¡¯t feel any better than the common classes had; I tossed that one in the ¡®Definitely Not¡¯ pile. That left me with three good choices, but before I could choose, something popped behind me. I whirled, ready to fight. Tori glanced at me, then looked down guiltily. ¡°I chose Telekinesist. It sounded badass, was Epic, and it¡¯ll let me do what I¡¯ve been doing, but better.¡± ¡°Did you look at any of the other options?¡± ¡°Not really. I know what I want to do, and Valkyrie sounded dumb.¡± I wanted to say something, but I shrugged it off. What was done was done; I¡¯d try to get Tori to slow down on the next big decision she made, though, for all our sakes. So, Thunder Mage. It could be a powerful combination, depending on what Tori did as a Telekineticist. Grab an enemy, hold them still, and blast them. But the drawbacks were¡­painful. Less Body could be worked around, but the slowed casting to use its power? Did I really want to rely on someone else to protect me? I put Thunder Mage on the ¡®Maybe¡¯ stack and turned toward Demolition Man. Now, that class could be strong! It didn¡¯t have a drawback, either, and as I¡¯d learned from fertilizer left out on the farm, almost anything could be explosive. Plus, bomb-making had been like a puzzle. What could I do with a dozen or more different ingredients? Another pop echoed in the cavern; Calvin had picked his class, too. I sighed. All three classes looked solid, but my mind had been made up the moment I saw Voltsmith. If it worked anything like I thought it would, it¡¯d be the perfect class for me. I¡¯d already built bombs, the weed whacker, the stomp-rocket skateboard ramp, and the Trip-Hammer, and I¡¯d done it without a consistent power source. Sure, Thunder Mage might be able to copy some of that effect, but for flexibility, I couldn¡¯t see a better class in my list. With the right creations, Voltsmith would let me do anything, from up close fighting to ranged damage to scouting. And I¡¯d loved tinkering with stuff ever since those remote control cars. I¡¯d fixed my station wagon and turned it into my pride and joy. And I¡¯d never let a car get the best of me at Cindy¡¯s¡ªnot until the Explorer, at least. Was I ready to throw that away for phenomenal cosmic lightning powers or bombs? No. Besides, that class might let me fix my iPod¡ªreally fix it. I picked Voltsmith. Something popped, and a moment later, the next System message appeared. Choice Confirmed. Congratulations, [Hal Riley], on selecting [Voltsmith] as your class. Now that your party has selected their classes, proceed up the stairs and prepare for Phase One of Integration. A gold-lit iron staircase appeared in the center of the station as Calvin joined us. It circled up in a tight spiral before disappearing into the concrete and steel that hung precariously overhead. I took a deep breath; up there was Chicago¡ªor what was left of it. Then I waved Tori ahead. ¡°Come on. Let¡¯s get you to your mom.¡± 12: Everything You Want Phase Zero Complete. Time Until Phase One: One Hour, Fifteen Minutes Please Wait. The staircase led us through what might¡¯ve been a manhole cover once. Now, it lay on its side like an overturned bank vault. As I opened it, I saw the Chicago skyline in the distance, with the gigantic black skyscraper that everyone still called the Sears Tower, even though it hadn¡¯t been called that in a couple of decades, dominating its center. Everything looked transparent blue, and the whole skyline was covered in hundreds of faintly glowing hexagons. So, that was weird. Lake Station should have been under Downtown, just a few blocks south of the Chicago River. Instead, the shimmering water of Lake Michigan greeted us to our right, along with an Igloo cooler and a couple of beach towels on the sand. We were well north of where we should be. When I pointed that out, Calvin nodded matter-of-factly. ¡°Not a surprise. That whole dungeon shouldn¡¯t have been a loop, but it was. Figures this Consortium would have messed with the whole city¡¯s layout to suit their needs. They said something about terraforming, right?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Tori said. She kept looking south, her brow wrinkled. ¡°Hal, if Jessica¡¯s anywhere, she¡¯ll be at the Field Museum.¡± ¡°How do you figure? Wouldn¡¯t she go home?¡± I asked. She shook her head. ¡°No. She¡¯s an assistant curator. The plan was always to get to the museum if there was an emergency. She¡¯ll be there, taking care of that stupid T-Rex or the Native American exhibit or whatever she does.¡± I¡¯d never been to the Field Museum¡ªor the aquarium or planetarium that were also right there, for that matter. I had been to Soldier Field once, though, so I knew roughly where we¡¯d have to go to get there. ¡°Alright. Calvin, you still with us, or do you want to make your own way?¡± The long-term-rider turned Hardcore Tutorial survivor shrugged. ¡°I¡¯ll stick with you two for a while, ¡®til you do something I ain¡¯t up for. If we get separated, I might aim for the museum, too. Never been there¡ªmight be worth seeing.¡± When I tried walking toward the skyline, though, I only made it a dozen yards or so¡ªnot even off the sand¡ªbefore hitting that glowing wall of hexagons. ¡°I think we¡¯re going to have to wait a bit, like it said,¡± I muttered. ¡°I guess so,¡± Tori said. She sat down in the sand, facing the waves. I joined her, pulling up my new stats. [Hal Riley] [Class - Voltsmith] [Level - 18] [Stats] ?Body - 16 ?Awareness - 33 ?Charge - 0/25 (0 Used) Stat Points Available: 0 [Class Skill - Decharge/Recharge - Drain the charge from magic items to power your own creations] Items ?Surge Protectors ?Lock-Grip Gloves ?Trip-Hammer (Inoperable, Charge 0/10) I had 25 possible Charge, which I got from draining magical items. According to the stat sheet, I couldn¡¯t use my Trip-Hammer. That made sense; I¡¯d traded my magic away when I picked up the Voltsmith class. But it was my creation, so I should be able to fix that. I just needed ten Charge. The Lock-Grip Gloves felt surprisingly useful, given what the Trip-Hammer did, and I didn¡¯t want to take the Surge Protectors apart quite yet. But I did have the Imbuing Rod¡ªand I couldn¡¯t use it without Power Surge. It¡¯d be the ideal item to experiment on. A message popped up as I stared at the simple metal rod. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Imbuing Rod (Common, Charge 12) User can transfer personal buffing spells placed in this rod to other people¡¯s weapons. I got the option to drain the item but chose not to¡ªat least for now. First, I wanted to know how the Imbuing Rod worked. Getting answers now, while there wasn¡¯t any danger or pressure, might help with problems later, and it wasn¡¯t like I had anything else going on. I set it down in the sand and started taking it apart carefully, letting my Awareness show me where the magic pooled inside of it and how it flowed. It glowed a bright, almost-white blue, just like my old spells, and the smell of hot wires filled my nose, but before long, I had it all figured out. The whole device was really three parts, all held inside the metal case. First, the battery. It wasn¡¯t anything like a lithium-ion battery, or even a Duracell. Conceptually, though, it was one¡ªa bronze sphere at the bottom of the rod, about the size of a lug nut. When I¡¯d poured a Power Surge into it, it filled up and held the magic. Right now, it didn¡¯t have a spell in it, but I could still see that blue-white energy pooling faintly around it. When the Imbuing Rod was used, the spell traveled through a series of mirrors and lenses, which I assumed helped to keep it from dissipating too early. I didn¡¯t bother with any of that; it wasn¡¯t like I wanted to use it. And, finally, at the rod¡¯s top was what looked like a showerhead¡ªan emitter. That was where I¡¯d empowered the sledgehammer and Tori¡¯s knife, and it looked a lot like a projector¡¯s lightbulb and lens. So, the whole thing was just a magical projector, huh? It could be useful, sure, but I needed the Trip-Hammer up and running. With my questions mostly answered, I drained the Imbuing Rod. It didn¡¯t disappear or even fall apart, but it did change. Where it had glowed white-blue, it now seemed flat and dull, like an unpolished hunk of metal. Instead, my palm glowed¡ªan orange glow that traveled toward my chest before settling over my heart. ?Charge - 12/25 (0 Used) ¡°Hey, Tori, you seeing this?¡± I asked. ¡°Seeing what?¡± She turned toward me, glanced at the spent Imbuing Rod for a second, and turned back toward the beach. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s kinda neat how it works.¡± She didn¡¯t look at my chest at all. Interesting. She couldn¡¯t see the glow. It had to be my Awareness. I grabbed the Trip-Hammer and disconnected the bronze battery from the Imbuing Rod. It took a minute or two to figure out how to connect it to an Earth-based electrical circuit, but when it was done, I had a place to put my Charge and a trigger to activate it. I dumped ten Charge into the hammer. ?Charge - 2/15 (10 Used) Trip-Hammer, by Hal Riley (Created Item, Charge 10) The Trip-Hammer uses magical energy and salvaged parts to apply massive force to a small area. First created by Hal Riley of Earth. I went through my inventory mentally, looking for anything else useful to make. It was full of chunks of train that Tori had ripped off the Redline Wyrm, but those weren¡¯t helpful right now. In the end, I had to stop; I didn¡¯t have enough Charge to power anything else, anyway. I pulled the Trip-Hammer and the broken, useless Imbuing Rod into my inventory. Then I joined Tori and Calvin, who were watching the waves come in off Lake Michigan and enjoying the contents of the Igloo cooler.
¡°Where do you live?¡± Tori asked between sips of Sprite. The cooler turned out to be full of soft drinks, pre-made Subway sandwiches, and all sorts of other picnic stuff. I wasn¡¯t sure about taking them¡ªthey might¡¯ve been someone¡¯s¡ªbut when Calvin grabbed an Italian BMT, a timer appeared over it matching the countdown to Phase One, along with the word ¡®Fleeting.¡¯ The System had put it there for us, so there wasn¡¯t any harm in eating it. Probably. ¡°Andersonville. I¡¯ve got an attic studio apartment there above this old lady¡¯s house. I¡¯ve been there for a couple of years,¡± I said. ¡°You?¡± ¡°Rogers Park.¡± This all felt like too much of an interview for me, but we had nothing else to do. ¡°Why¡¯d you pick the Hardcore Tutorial, anyway?¡± She stiffened, screwed the lid back onto her drink¡ªwhich only had ten minutes or so on the timer¡ªand stared off toward Lake Michigan. Then she sighed. ¡°It¡¯s a long story.¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got some time. Why don¡¯t you get started?¡± ¡°Okay.¡± She went quiet again. ¡°So, Mom¡ªMom Mom, not Jessica¡ªused to tell these stories when I was a kid. Heroes and villains, swordfights, magic, all that stuff. Then, later, I played a lot of games. A lot of them. Fantasy ones. I grew up with all that crap. You know how it is, right?¡± I shook my head. ¡°Pigs and chores here. Never got into it as much as some of my friends did.¡± I didn¡¯t mention Beth, even though she¡¯d played a few games like that. She hadn¡¯t been into the gaming and fantasy culture¡ªnot like Tori, at least. And I didn¡¯t mention my ex, either. ¡°That sucks,¡± she said. ¡°So, I grew up with it all¡ªit was part of my life. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, all of that stuff. I even had a sword and fencing lessons. But when Mom and Dad¡­when they didn¡¯t want to be together anymore, all that dried up. Mom got too busy. She couldn¡¯t afford the lessons anymore, and Jessica¡¯s too¡­¡± Tori paused, a cloud passing over her face. ¡°She¡¯s always pushing real history books at me, and she doesn¡¯t think my gaming hobby¡¯s productive or useful or¡­whatever. When the train crashed, I wasn¡¯t thinking about it as a real, serious thing. The messages reminded me of my games, and I saw a chance to be a wizard or something. I grabbed it before Mo¡ªbefore Jessica could talk me out of it.¡± She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring out at the slowly setting sun. ¡°Sorry.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything for a long time. The truth was that she was just a kid, and she¡¯d made a dumb, impulsive decision like one. ¡°You remind me of Beth.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s that?¡± ¡°My sister. She would have liked you.¡± It took her a second. Then, she sucked in a breath. ¡°Oh, shit. Sorry.¡± ¡°She always had her head somewhere else instead of in Cozad,¡± I said. I couldn¡¯t look at Tori anymore. ¡°Where does your mom live?¡± ¡°Wisconsin.¡± ¡°Shit,¡± Calvin said. ¡°Yeah. Dad¡¯s in New York on business, and Mom¡¯s in Wisconsin. Jessica¡¯s the closest thing I¡¯ve got to family here.¡± Time Limit: 0:00 Congratulations on surviving Phase Zero: Tutorial Dungeons! Phase One will begin after a few short messages. 13: Weve Got Fun and Games Over [five million] [Homo Sapiens] attempted the Hardcore Tutorial. Of those, [One hundred seventy-three thousand, eight hundred twenty-two] successfully defeated their Dungeon Bosses. The remainder of [Earth¡¯s] surviving population, [4.2 billion], chose the Casual Tutorial. [3.29 billion] of those were successful. The remainder were unable to clear their Tutorials within the allotted time. My stomach rolled, threatening to throw up the baked beans and canned corn we¡¯d eaten last night¡ªand my Italian sandwich. There¡¯d been at least eight billion people on Earth before this¡­whatever it was¡­happened. The System was telling us that half had died during the terraforming¡ªwithout even having a chance to complete the tutorial. And another nine hundred million had died since. My head wouldn¡¯t stop spinning. Even the Casual Tutorial hadn¡¯t been a guaranteed victory like I¡¯d thought¡ªnot if almost a billion people hadn¡¯t made it through. Tori was already on the ground, but she¡¯d started shaking and rocking back and forth, so I sucked in a quick breath before bile could surge up my throat and put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°She¡¯s gonna be okay,¡± I said. ¡°They¡¯re all gonna be okay.¡± The girl wouldn¡¯t look at me, but she stopped rocking quite so much. Now that you know the stakes and your Tutorial has taught you the basics, it¡¯s time to start working toward uplift and integration. There will be no Casual or Hardcore options. Your first objective is to advance and uplift. Similarly to your Tutorial Dungeon experience, [Earth¡¯s] surface is now populated by monsters and World Bosses. These are designed to be challenging to Tutorial Dungeon survivors, with rewards to match. Tier One, Two, and Three Dungeons will also become available over the next [two weeks]. These will offer more significant challenges¡ªas well as greater rewards. The Tier Three Dungeons also bar the path to Phase Two; you must clear all Tier Three Dungeons in your region to advance. The Consortium wishes all remaining [Homo sapiens] luck with Phase One. Okay. Alright. We¡¯d cleared the Hardcore Tutorial. How bad could finding and getting through a Tier Three Dungeon possibly be? I was already building a map of Chicago in my head; which landmarks might be dungeons, and which ones could I realistically get to? Sears Tower¡ªthat¡¯d be one. And probably Lincoln Park Zoo and Union Pier. Those were both on our way to¡­ The Chicago Field Museum. It sat at one edge of a cluster of attractions. The Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, and Soldier Field were all bunched together; they¡¯d all be dungeons for sure. And so would the Field Museum. All four would probably be Tier Two¡ªI didn¡¯t know how I knew that. It just felt right. They¡¯d be a hotspot for anyone who wanted to level up and get stronger. And Tori¡¯s mom was probably heading there, with a Casual Tutorial class¡ªalong with probably a quarter of the city. That wasn¡¯t good. But I couldn¡¯t let Tori know that, either. She needed her stepmom to be there. She needed her to be safe. Dungeon Seeds Germinating Tier One Dungeons Activated Welcome to Phase One, [Hal Riley]! Team: Hal Riley, Tori Vanderbilt, Calvin Rollins Objective: Advance and Uplift Objective: Clear Tier Three Dungeon (1,322 Remaining) Time Limit: Three Weeks Time until Tier Two Dungeons Activate: Forty-Eight Hours Time until Tier Three Dungeons Activate: Two Weeks ¡°You¡¯re sure she¡¯s going to be alright?¡± Tori asked. She was still in the sand, and as I looked her way, she wiped her mouth on her armor¡¯s sleeve. She looked pale, and her wide eyes kept flicking from my face to Calvin¡¯s. I reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯ll be okay. I bet she¡¯s not the only person heading for the museum, though. If we move fast, we might beat her there. It depends on where her Tutorial Dungeon was¡ªand where she came out when she finished.¡± The shimmering hexagonal barrier disappeared. A moment later, the three-week timer started ticking down. ¡°Yeah, I guess. Maybe her spawn point was in a good spot,¡± Tori said. ¡°Right,¡± Calvin said. ¡°The Field Museum sounds like a winning plan, and I haven¡¯t seen a dinosaur in decades¡ªnot since I was a kid.¡± Tori looked at him with narrowed eyes. ¡°Of course, I saw them when they were alive! Been around a while.¡± The girl¡¯s eyes narrowed even more, and for a second, I thought she might freak out at Calvin. Then she snorted, looking away from him¡ªbut I caught the grin before she could turn all the way away. ¡°Come on,¡± she said, obviously trying to be tough, angry, or just plain anything but a scared mid-high school girl. She started walking south. Calvin shot me a quick glance, and I fell behind to talk with him. ¡°You¡¯re sure her mom¡¯s alive?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯m not sure about anything, and I¡¯m definitely not sure we should be heading for the museums. But if thinking her stepmom¡¯s there keeps her going for a while, that¡¯ll be enough.¡± Stolen story; please report. ¡°And what if she ain¡¯t?¡± I shrugged. That was a problem that future Hal would have to solve, because I could barely handle everything that had happened to us so far. ¡°Maybe we¡¯ll find some other people, and she can go with them. I don¡¯t have a plan yet.¡± He shook his head. ¡°That ain¡¯t gonna work for her. You might want to start thinking about making one, just in case her mom didn¡¯t make it. And you¡¯d better have a plan for if she¡¯s not the only person there. Not everyone¡¯s as friendly as me.¡± Then he kept walking, shuffling along in his ragged clothes and the backpack I¡¯d traded him. After a few seconds, I did, too.
We hadn¡¯t made it across the beach when the first monsters attacked us. They looked like crabs, but in place of claws, two huge knives had been grafted to their front limbs like scissors. As they clacked their claws and scuttled sideways across the sand, the blades swung past each other with a metal-on-metal screech. It wouldn¡¯t have been so bad, except that each crab was the size of a small dog, and there were a ton of them. Knife Crab: Level 14 Monster The first crab rushed me, coming in sideways with knives slicing at about mid-calf height. I pulled the Trip-Hammer out, fired it up, and turned it into fresh, fading, pink-white tempura with a massive thud that sent shockwaves up my infected arm. But before I could recharge for another swing, another crab sliced a blade through my armor. It didn¡¯t bite deep into my leg¡ªthe handmade leather mostly held, and my Body was getting up there¡ªbut it was enough to send me skipping back away from the oncoming Knife Crabs. Another pair of scissors lashed out at my leg. I backpedaled even more, but before I could escape, the crab rocketed backward. It slammed knife-first into another crab, punching through its shell and tumbling both head over way too many heels. I looked over my shoulder; Tori was breathing hard, one hand up in a comic-book pose. I nodded and readied the Trip-Hammer again. ¡°Thanks,¡± ¡°No¡­no problem. That took a lot more energy than it should have, though.¡± I filed that away; we¡¯d need to work on her endurance, but I had an idea of her real issue. ¡°Later. Toss the crabs!¡± She picked up another crab and tossed it like a writhing, bladed bowling ball as I pulverized my second. Then, as I reset the Trip-Hammer, I backpedaled away. They weren¡¯t that fast; honestly, the Rat Men had been harder to deal with, despite the huge level difference. The rest of the fight devolved into the same basic pattern. Toss, Trip-Hammer, retreat, repeat. Sometimes, Tori picked up two or three crabs, but by the end, she was down to one again. It took less than two minutes to reduce the Knife Crabs into so many balls of glowing, green-yellow experience.¡°You want some of these?¡± I asked Calvin as Tori started picking up her experience. ¡°No, I¡¯ve got everything I need,¡± he said. ¡°You two go ahead.¡± As we picked up our orbs, I watched Tori. She was moving slowly, not so much limping as sort of half-stumbling. It felt like she¡¯d spent herself a lot more than she should have in a fight that short, and it wouldn¡¯t be sustainable. When she stopped picking up orbs, I cleared my throat. ¡°So, what happened, Tori?¡± ¡°That¡¯s such a Mom thing to ask,¡± she said, narrowing her eyes slightly. She was right, except that I¡¯d gotten that line from my dad. She couldn¡¯t stand up to the waiting, or to my raised eyebrow, either. ¡°I don¡¯t know. I got a lot of new spells, and I was trying one out. Push and Pull. I guess it uses a lot of energy, though.¡± ¡°You guess?¡± ¡°Yeah, I guess.¡± ¡°Have you spent the points you just got?¡± I walked toward the last orb, which zoomed toward my chest. Level Up! Eighteen to Nineteen. ¡°No, but I could have picked up seven or eight of them with the same amount of effort.¡± The girl crossed her arms, staring at the beach that had, just a minute ago, been covered in crab guts. ¡°You don¡¯t have to. Do you know how much magic you use on a given spell?¡± ¡°No. Do you?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I said. ¡°Awareness lets me see how much energy I¡¯m spending on magic. At least, it did before I lost all my Mana for this class. I bet it¡¯ll work for a Telekineticist, though. Put your points in Awareness.¡± She glared at me some more, but she did. ¡°I don¡¯t see it.¡± ¡°You will. Your Awareness is at, what? Seven? Get it to ten.¡± Tori nodded slowly as I put my two points into Awareness. The crabs hadn¡¯t left any loot behind, and there wasn¡¯t much to do, so we stood around awkwardly for a moment before I coughed. My arm was sore under the armor, and firing the Trip-Hammer had been painful. If I wanted to make it through this, we needed to find some medication. Either that or¡­ ¡°Do you think healers are pretty common?¡± I asked Tori and Calvin. ¡°I could use one.¡± ¡°Yeah, that cut looks pretty bad,¡± Tori said, staring at my leg. ¡°Uh, the orbs are out of Minecraft, and I¡¯ve seen a bunch of other gaming stuff, so maybe.¡±
We pushed into Chicago, heading southwest into the grid of old brick buildings south of Andersonville. I couldn¡¯t help but think about Mrs. Faren as we turned and walked away from my old house. Was she okay? Or was she still at home? Had she been put into a Casual Tutorial far away from Andersonville? Everyone on the train had just vanished except for us, but surely it wouldn¡¯t just be Hardcore players in Chicago. The whole world wasn¡¯t a Hardcore Tutorial Dungeon, after all. My stuff was back in Andersonville, too. It¡¯d just be a short detour, but I didn¡¯t have much, and very little of it would be helpful here. My tools were all at Cindy¡¯s Automotive, and other than a few changes of clothes, the attic apartment was pretty much just food, a burner, and my mattress. I decided I was okay with never seeing any of it again. Besides, we had other priorities. We had to hug Lake Michigan, or at least keep it in view. The further away we got from it, the darker the streets got, passing even the semi-dark of the Redline Tunnels. I got a bad feeling in my gut that only worsened as we closed in on Wrigley Field. That had to be one of the Tier Two dungeons. It wouldn¡¯t be open yet, but I didn¡¯t want to be anywhere near it when it finally did. A few Huntsman Bats found us, but we took care of them pretty easily with the Trip-Hammer and Tori¡¯s spells. While the fighting was going, Calvin discovered that most buildings were completely sealed. Not locked, either, but sealed off magically. I tried using the Trip-Hammer to open a door, too, but it didn¡¯t even leave a dent. ¡°This has to be part of the terraforming,¡± I said. ¡°Yeah. No idea why they don¡¯t want us in the buildings, but it looks like not heading for your houses was the right call,¡± Calvin said. I kept moving, with the others following me. As I did, the trees lining the streets between the brownstone buildings and us grew thicker until their canopy blocked out the stars. Then, suddenly, they weren¡¯t just thicker. They were an impenetrable wall of twisted brambles and knotted trunks. We turned left on Fullerton, toward Lincoln Park.
A half-hour later, I spotted a glass-and-steel building. Unlike the skyscrapers surrounding Lincoln Park on three sides, this one stood one story tall. Also, unlike them, a gray wall of fog sat between it and the next building. A sign on the far side read ¡®Lincoln Park Zoo: For Wildlife, For All,¡¯ and a massive iron lion sat in front of the fog wall like a sentinel. ¡°Well, what do you think?¡± I asked Calvin. He pointed at the entryway. ¡°That? That¡¯s a trap. The last time you walked through one of those, you got sealed in, right? We walk in there, and we¡¯re not coming out.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know that,¡± Tori interrupted. ¡°In the early games, the fog walls sometimes separated parts of zones, too. It could be fine.¡± ¡°Are you willing to risk your life for ¡®could be,¡¯ kid?¡± Calvin asked. ¡°Maybe. What if that¡¯s the only way around the forest?¡± I held up a hand, closing my eyes. ¡°Tori¡¯s probably right that we can only get through right there, or through some other dungeon. Calvin¡¯s probably right that it¡¯s a trap. So, I think we check the building, get some sleep, and come at this problem tomorrow morning when we¡¯re fresh. Agreed?¡± Calvin nodded quickly, but Tori stared at me for a second before turning away. ¡°Sure. Whatever.¡± 14: Wont Get There for Free Last night, when Brian¡¯s party hit the Twilight Menagerie, there were eight of them. They¡¯d been confident in clearing it¡ªthey¡¯d survived the Tutorial, were all in the double digits, and three were over Level Twelve. They¡¯d had a balanced team, including a Healer. The Beast Glastisant hadn¡¯t cared. The Level Twenty-Eight boss had torn through their front-liners, gone straight for their Healer, and ignored everything else. They¡¯d lost three people, including their healer, before they could escape the Beast Glastisant¡¯s fanged maw and hooves. Now, the damned zoo¡¯s regular monsters were picking them off one by one right next to the sealed dungeon entrance. They were down to three¡ªhimself and the twins. Carol had busted her leg in the last fight and couldn¡¯t move anymore, much less fight. Zane was still on his feet, but Brian didn¡¯t think he¡¯d make it much longer. They¡¯d fought off the Tigrilla a half-dozen times, but hadn¡¯t been able to kill the monster. He could see flashes of the nameplate over its head whenever it left the tall grass that had grown all around the Lincoln Park Zoo info kiosk they¡¯d turned into an emergency fortress. Tigrilla: Level Twenty-Two Monster Brian had been middle management for an investment firm until three days ago. He¡¯d taken up leadership when Angie died, and he¡¯d held it together all night, but as dawn broke, he watched Zane try to make Carol comfortable. They were just kids, the twins. They could have been his¡ªif he¡¯d ever stopped working long enough to try having a relationship. ¡°I¡¯ve got to do something,¡± he whispered to himself. ¡°This has to stop.¡± He was almost out of the fort when Zane¡¯s hand landed on his shoulder. ¡°What¡¯s going on? What are you doing?¡± ¡°We¡¯ve got to try something, Zane. Something¡¯s got to change.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re going to go kill yourself fighting that thing? You don¡¯t have a chance!¡± Zane shouted, the words tumbling out of his mouth. ¡°No. I¡¯m going to set you two up to win,¡± Brian said. ¡°And then what?¡± Carol asked. ¡°How are we supposed to get out of here without you?¡± Brian didn¡¯t have an answer. He chose to ignore the girl and press on. ¡°So, when it comes for me, I¡¯ll use Parry and Riposte to stall, try to get it facing away from you, and let you blast away at it.¡± Zane¡¯s face was almost as white as his sister¡¯s; he couldn¡¯t stop staring at Brian. ¡°Please, no,¡± Carol mumbled from her place on the ground. ¡°No, no, there¡¯s got to be some other option. We¡¯ve got food, we¡¯ve got water. Maybe we can wait it out.¡± ¡°Wait for what?¡± Brian asked. ¡°Listen, Carol, I¡¯m not exactly thrilled about this either, but if we win, this buys you two time to figure something out.¡± ¡°Something like what?¡± Zane asked. ¡°We¡¯ll be just as stuck when the next monster finds us, but we won¡¯t have you.¡± The kid had a point. Brian slumped against the kiosk¡¯s stubby brick wall and tried not to let himself cry. ¡°I don¡¯t have any other ideas. I just know that we can sit here and wait to die, or we can die fighting. If I die fighting, maybe it¡¯ll buy you the time for something to change. I can¡¯t do nothing. You two deserve to survive.¡± The twins looked at one another. Then Carol shook her head. ¡°You¡­you don¡¯t have to do this. We can find some other way.¡± Brian stood up slowly, squaring his shoulders. ¡°I¡¯m going. Zane, are you with me, or am I trying this alone?¡± Zane wouldn¡¯t meet his eyes. Neither would Carol. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll do it myself.¡± He pushed himself up and over the wall, landed softly on his feet, and drew his sword. His heart wouldn¡¯t stop pounding in his ears, and he could hardly breathe through the tightness in his neck. He¡¯d never even thought about being a soldier¡ªhis grandpa had been one back during the Second World War, though, and he¡¯d heard a few stories. This was his Battle of the Bulge. His last stand in the Philippines. The grass rustled, and the Tigrilla scream-roared. Brian drew his saber. It shook in his grip. The Tigrilla erupted from the grass, black fur suddenly visible as it dropped its camouflage. It leaped toward him with its powerful forearms ready to slam down on him. He screamed. Every part of him wanted to run. But he activated his Rogue Class Skill, Parry and Riposte. The two arms slammed into his sword. They stopped in place, and he spun, stabbing into the beast. This was it¡ªhis chance to deal some damage, to get revenge for his fallen teammates. The point hit and stopped. The cavalry saber bent like a fencing foil. A fireball crashed across the monstrous Tigrilla¡¯s back. It scream-roared again, its fur smoldering and smoking. He slashed three times as it spun toward their improvised fortress. Its eyes locked onto Zane, who was conjuring another ball of fire. ¡°God dammit!¡± Brian lunged, putting all his strength into his thrust and trying to get between the Tigrilla and the twins. Two fists slammed into him, driving him down onto the brick walkway. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The monster broke into a sprint. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, I¡¯ve seen achievements for completion in games before,¡± a girl¡¯s voice said behind him. ¡°I bet you a Minecraft orb that if we full clear this dungeon, we¡¯ll get a bonus re¡ªoh shit!¡± ¡°Tori, Pull it!¡± a man yelled. Brian felt magic swelling behind him. The world flashed pink. A moment later, the Tigrilla stopped like it had hit a brick wall and started getting dragged backward. Someone pushed past Brian, and he slammed right back into the bricks. A huge, bizarre-looking hammer rose into the air, and the Tigrilla turned and roared defiantly. It rushed the guy with the hammer. The weapon whined like a street bike flooring it, and two heads spun. The roar cut off with a wet crack. Brian rolled on the bricks, turning to see his saviors. Tori Vanderbilt: Level Seventeen Class: Telekineticist Calvin Rollins: Level Seven Class: Quartermaster Hal Riley: Level Twenty-One Class: Voltsmith
Tier One Dungeon: The Twilight Menagerie Objective: Kill the Beast Glastisant (0/1) Objective: Kill the Eyes of Perfection (0/1) Objective: Reach the Dungeon Exit (0/1) Objective: Survive (0/1) Completion: 12% Sealed Environment: You cannot leave this dungeon until it is completed It turned out that Tigrillas didn¡¯t like hammers traveling at a couple hundred miles an hour much. I watched Tori consume the experience orb and go cross-eyed like she did when reading her status menus. She was catching up; her spells had locked down the hulking, six-limbed tiger/gorilla hybrid, letting me land a skull-splitting blow that ended the monster before it could even fight back. She wasn¡¯t too tired out, either. ¡°That was a solid three percent,¡± Tori said. ¡°Do you remember what bosses were worth in the Redline Tunnels?¡± ¡°No,¡± I said absently. ¡°Tori, shut up,¡± Calvin said, looking over the half-devoured corpses of Brian¡¯s team. He didn¡¯t sound mean, just firm. ¡°Let¡¯s check in on these guys before we go rushing off, make sure they¡¯re okay and stuff.¡± He held out a hand to help the man with the sword up and started talking with him. I only half-paid attention. My focus was on the bodies. Two corpses lay at the edge of the tall, razor-sharp grass bordering the kiosk and the entry courtyard around it; one was a woman in ramshackle armor whose legs had been pulled off her hips, and the other was a younger man. He didn¡¯t have any obvious injuries from what I could see. I swallowed painfully; these were the first people I¡¯d seen since the subway car¡ªnot counting Calvin and Tori¡ªand they were dead. If we hadn¡¯t entered the dungeon, the other three would¡¯ve been dead, too. Brian Simmons: Level 13 Class: Rogue Zane Parker: Level 10 Class: Mage Carol Parker: Level 11 Class: Skirmisher (Fighter) I stared at their nameplates in disbelief. That monster had been a higher level than me; these people had no business being here. ¡°The whole Tutorial Dungeon was a done deal from the beginning, though. All eight of us started out together, and they let us pick weapons and supplies before dropping us in a safe room. We got through the last boss in the Casual Tutorial pretty easily. It dropped a sword¡ªBloodletting Blade¡ªand we decided I should have it since I can get hits in pretty fast,¡± Brian was saying. He looked out of shape and haggard, and his eyes shifted between resigned and hopeful as they flicked toward me. He was going to have a hell of a bruise later on from where I¡¯d slammed him aside. ¡°It was my idea,¡± Zane interrupted. The skinny black kid stared at me from where he sat next to an almost identical girl. They couldn¡¯t have been more than seventeen, and they were obviously siblings. He had a hollow, thousand-yard-stare expression; her eyes were squeezed shut, and her leg was bent at an impossible angle. ¡°No, trying this dungeon was our idea,¡± Brian said. Calvin held a hand up. ¡°What happened?¡± No one answered him. ¡°Are you going to clear the dungeon?¡± Zane asked. ¡°No,¡± Tori said. ¡°We¡¯re going to full clear it. It¡¯ll be good practice.¡± I winced, then interrupted before she could put her foot in her mouth more. ¡°We¡¯re definitely going to clear it. What about you three? What¡¯s your plan?¡± ¡°We didn¡¯t have one,¡± Brian said. He stared off into the dungeon¡ªa single brick path led farther into the woods, its red-brown color fading into the mists just past a sign that read ¡®Beasts.¡¯ On the far side, a second, yellow path led toward ¡®Birds.¡¯ I made a decision. It was a pretty easy one since we had to clear the dungeon anyway, but it still had to be made. They needed our help, but we couldn¡¯t have them walking through the whole dungeon with us¡ªthey were too low-leveled and too hurt. All we¡¯d do if we brought them with us was get them killed. On the other hand, I couldn¡¯t leave them here. Not without some hope of defending themselves. ¡°I think you had the right idea, holing up here. Do any of you know much about construction?¡±
An hour later, Fort Kiosk was finished. At least, it was as finished as we could make it. It still wasn¡¯t an intimidating stronghold¡ªall we¡¯d done was bolt scraps of train car sides to the gaps between the map and informational signs, then braced it all on the inside with tree branches. It looked less like an actual fort and more like something Joey and I had built on his dad¡¯s vacant lot. It only had one obvious entrance, but I¡¯d included an escape hatch on the other side, too. Just in case. As we¡¯d worked, Brian and Zane had told us everything they knew about the ¡®Beast¡¯ path. It wasn¡¯t much, but it was enough to start making plans. That wasn¡¯t the only Tigrilla they¡¯d fought, and they¡¯d seen something moving through the trees, too. When their archer took a shot at it, it turned out to be a lizard the size of a dishwasher with two gigantic curled horns on its head. They didn¡¯t know anything about the ¡®Birds¡¯ path. ¡°Thanks for this,¡± Brian said. He¡¯d recovered a little¡ªenough to help with the construction¡ªbut he didn¡¯t have much experience. Zane was a little more helpful, but not much. Carol¡¯s leg looked too bad to ask her to help at all. In the end, Fort Kiosk was all on Tori and me. I nodded and shook his hand just like Dad had taught me. ¡°No problem. It¡¯s what neighbors do where I¡¯m from.¡± ¡°Kansas?¡± he asked. ¡°I had some clients near Kansas City.¡± ¡°Nebraska.¡± ¡°Close enough. Good luck with the Beast Glastisant,¡± he said. ¡°We¡¯ll keep this area clear if we can. If we can¡¯t¡­¡± ¡°Button up in the fort, use the ladder to give Zane a clear line of fire, and use the spears if they try climbing,¡± Calvin said. We¡¯d left the old throwing spears here, along with some of our unnecessary supplies. It wasn¡¯t enough to line the fort with spikes, but Brian could stab through the gaps. ¡°Don¡¯t panic. Keep inside and pick your targets, then take your shots, kid. Your fire magic will make most things think twice about screwing with you guys. Your mission is to stay alive until we get back. That¡¯s all.¡± ¡°Can do,¡± Zane said. ¡°What about Carol?¡± Brian asked. He pointed to the girl, who couldn¡¯t stop herself from crying, but was biting back whimpers and groans as best she could. She was a tough cookie, but everyone had their limits. We¡¯d tried to make her comfortable, and they had everything they needed to splint her leg. That was all we could do. ¡°If you do kill something here, make her get the orb and put the points in Body. It doesn¡¯t matter how much getting it hurts her; Body points are the best way to fix her up,¡± I said. ¡°Okay,¡± Brian said. He nodded. ¡°You three be careful, alright?¡± We walked under the sign labeled ¡®Beasts.¡¯ Behind us, Fort Kiosk disappeared into the pervasive mist. In front of us, a bellowing roar echoed through the dungeon. 15: Welcome to the Jungle According to the kiosk, we should have been heading toward the North Gate and a loop with African and Arctic animals¡ªpolar bears, penguins, and elephants. But as I led the way into the Twilight Menagerie¡¯s ¡®Beast¡¯ wing, we realized pretty quickly that things were going to be a little different. Or a lot. The sounds of hundreds of different animals echoed off the dungeon¡¯s tall walls and overhanging trees, trapping Tori, Calvin, and me in a hot, humid maze that reeked of animal waste and half-rotten leaves. The place looked like it hadn¡¯t been cleaned in months. The pens didn¡¯t exist, either. Every animal¡¯s ¡®enclosure¡¯ was marked by a thin rope, but they weren¡¯t in pits, there wasn¡¯t a moat around any of them, and the rope had snapped in places where something big had pushed through it, leaving gaps in even that tiny line of defense. Worse, I couldn¡¯t help but feel like there were eyes on me, but I couldn¡¯t see them. While it wasn¡¯t as dark as the Redline Tunnels had felt, it definitely earned the name Twilight Menagerie; between the damp fog and the thick canopy overhead, I couldn¡¯t see more than a few dozen yards ahead of me. Tori and Calvin had it worse¡ªboth followed me closely, and Tori started at every sound. It took me a minute to realize that Calvin was jumping, too. ¡°Dude, do you want to go back to Fort Kiosk?¡± Tori asked. The poor guy; he¡¯d been in Vietnam as a combat medic, and this had to be getting to him. ¡°No,¡± he snapped. He looked over his shoulder toward the entrance. ¡°No, that won¡¯t help. Getting pinned down is worse than walking into an ambush. At least we¡¯ll be mobile. Let¡¯s just clean this place out so we can move on.¡± Tori glanced at him, but I nodded. He was powering through, even though he hated every second of it. ¡°We¡¯ll try to be quick, then.¡± According to the map, the first animals were supposed to be macaques, to our left. There definitely was something there, deep in the forest. Brian¡¯s team hadn¡¯t encountered them, but I had a bad feeling they¡¯d just gotten lucky. The macaques¡ªif that¡¯s what they were¡ªmoved through the treetops, dropping onto the thick, matted leaves and grouping up around the jungle¡¯s edge. I readied the Trip-Hammer, pointing at Tori. ¡°Alright. This is a chance to start getting your energy use under control. Grab one or two at a time, but only with enough energy to grab one or two.¡± ¡°Got it. Downranked spells only,¡± she said. ¡°What?¡± Before she could answer, the monsters charged out of the jungle, screaming and jabbering at the top of their lungs. I¡¯d seen macaques at the zoo in Omaha once or twice. These were not macaques. Macaque Attack Trooper: Level Seventeen Monster For one thing, they were huge¡ªeach was about three feet tall and much bulkier than any macaques I¡¯d ever seen. They were also furless from the waist up, exposing rippling muscles and atrophied breasts. And worse, they each had vicious fangs that had to be the size of my fingers jutting from overgrown, bare-bone jaws. There were also eight of them. They ran right at us, thundering across the brick path and closing the gap in the blink of an eye. I yelled for Tori to pull the leaders. Three monkeys slammed into the ground. Another ran into them, but the rest of the troop climbed the monkey pile and threw themselves at us. I triggered the Trip-Hammer and swung. One monkey went flying back into the woods, head at a terrible-looking angle. The rest closed in. They tore at my armor, trying to open up gaps, and knocked me to my feet. I grabbed one and pulled him off me. As I tossed him, Tori Pulled him away, and he zipped across the waterfall-fed lake to our back, slammed into a cliff, and slid into the water. There was something to what we¡¯d done, but I didn¡¯t have time to think about it. Another macaque¡¯s jaw tightened around my waist, and I shouted out as it pierced my skin. Unable to swing, I fired the hammer. It pulped the macaque¡¯s chest, and I forced myself to my feet. Calvin yelled something from behind me. ¡°Tori, cover him!¡± I shouted. The monster pile-up in front of me was starting to untangle; if those four joined the fight, Tori wouldn¡¯t be able to keep them off Calvin. I charged the macaques before they could get their bearings, ripping the Trip-Hammer through the pile-up. They exploded. Gore splattered down around us as the Trip-Hammer spun, tearing the Macaque Attack Troopers limb from limb. The remaining two were on Calvin, but as I watched, Tori ripped the first one away with a Pull. I swung the hammer again but didn¡¯t pull the trigger, and the table saw engine slammed into the last Macaque Attack Trooper with a wet thud. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Jesus fucking hell,¡± Calvin shouted. His eyes went wide, and two experience orbs hit him. ¡°That was really bad. You can do better.¡± He had the crowbar in his hand, but when I looked at it, the end was clean; he hadn¡¯t swung it. I bit down a retort. Tori looked like she was struggling not to say anything. I interrupted before she could make the wrong choice. ¡°Calvin, you want a fast clear so we can move on. Tori, you want to full clear the dungeon to see what happens. I want to save these guys¡¯ lives. We need to work together to make any of that happen.¡± Something rustled in the jungle just off the path, and I set my feet and shouldered my hammer. ¡°In the meantime, let¡¯s keep at it.¡±
Tori and I spent the next half-hour quietly clearing out more Macaque Attack Trooper troops. That group of eight was the biggest, and by the time we¡¯d cleared out the other four, I¡¯d leveled to Twenty-Two. We¡¯d also gotten a new magic item. You received Macaque Mask of the Fearsome Roar (Common, Charge 15) +1 Mana, +1 Body Wearer can cast the Fear spell for free once every ten minutes. Fear: Causes one monster or [Homo sapiens] of Level Thirty or below to flee in terror for up to fifteen seconds. Enemies below Level Twenty instead become horrified, and are frozen in place and unable to attack. Boss monsters are unaffected. My first thought was to give the mask to Tori. She¡¯d be able to use the Mana, and her Body was too low to take many hits. But she didn¡¯t want it. She already had Push/Pull, Crush, Inertia Ball, and Shockwave, and she was still figuring out the spells her class wanted her to use. ¡°Telekineticist gives me a major buff to damage and durations on its spells, and I want to focus on that,¡± she said. I shoved the Macaque Mask into my pack. Then, a moment later, I pulled it back out. My first thought had been to scrap it for Charge. That plus the Lock-Grip Gloves would give me enough to build another creation¡ªand I had an idea for a gauntlet that could replace the Lock-Grip Gloves with something way better. That was a long-term project, but I could already see the parts in my mind: wired finger joints, more of the round batteries I¡¯d gotten from the Imbuing Rod, and of course, switches across my palm to control Charge flow. It was going to be amazing, and I couldn¡¯t wait to get started. But the effect was better on Calvin than the Charge would be on me. I tossed him the mask. ¡°Use this if you get attacked or Tori needs some breathing room.¡± Tori¡¯s eyes narrowed. Then, a second later, they widened. ¡°Oh! He¡¯s playing support.¡± ¡°I have no idea what you¡¯re saying sometimes,¡± Calvin replied. ¡°No, it¡¯s perfect! You could be a CC caster. Instead of not fighting, you could pull your weight in the party, and that¡¯d speed us toward the full-clear. We¡¯re on a timer, so everyone needs to help,¡± Tori said. ¡°It¡¯s like timed runs in WoW; the more everyone understands their role, the faster we can go. Or maybe not quite like that.¡± Calvin put the mask on, rubbing his temples and staring at Tori. ¡°You¡¯re gonna have to slow down, kid.¡±
Once Tori had spent fifteen minutes telling us about the League of Legends champions her friend liked to play, crowd control spells, and how to make Calvin Support work with just the one spell, and he¡¯d spent a few minutes explaining how real-life militaries operated and how support there was very, very different, we pushed deeper into the ¡®Beasts¡¯ wing. The fake-rock mountain in the middle of the loop¡ªand the mist pouring off the waterfalls as they cascaded down it¡ªblocked our view of the far side, but as we pushed forward, the weather grew colder. A swarm of otters with razor-sharp, needle-tipped beaks like a fishing bird¡¯s attacked us, but they weren¡¯t any more challenging than the Macaque Attack Troopers. I leveled up again off of them, putting me at Twenty-Three. Still, it wasn¡¯t until the polar bear enclosure¡ªmercifully free of said bears, at least from what I could see¡ªthat I caught a glimpse of the first boss. The Beast Glastisant: Level Twenty-Eight Boss Current Difficulty: Challenging What do you get when you cross a giraffe and a lion with a crocodile and a snake? Usually, nothing! But sometimes¡­just sometimes, you get the Beast Glastisant. Also called the Questing Beast for the hunting pack of dogs its roar sounds like, the Beast Glastisant rules over the Twilight Menagerie with an iron claw, hoof, and paw. Roaming Boss - This boss can appear in other monsters¡¯ lairs, or anywhere throughout the dungeon. It stepped out of the fog, moving slowly; I didn¡¯t think it had seen us yet, so I motioned to Calvin and Tori to get down and stay low. The Beast Glastisant looked less like a giraffe and more like a medieval monk had been given a description of one and a pound of drugs and then been told to go ham on a canvas. Branches creaked and leaves rained down as it walked slowly by. The thing¡¯s neck towered over the canopy, so high up I couldn¡¯t even see it, but judging by the muscular, hoofed back legs and lion¡¯s paws on the front, that had to be the crocodile part. One of its feet hit the bricks only a few inches from Tori¡¯s hand as she crouched low, and I saw her suck in a breath. She didn¡¯t move, though. Another hoof crunched into the bricks, shattering them beneath the massive thing¡¯s weight. I winced. My battery bombs were worthless without a trigger, and I hadn¡¯t had a chance to develop one with Charge yet. That left me with the Trip-Hammer and a few assorted weapons¡ªnone of which were anywhere near as powerful. Tori nodded as I gestured at her, and she started casting Crush. My plan was simple; as soon as she Crushed the leg nearest to her, I¡¯d attack it. We¡¯d try to destabilize the whole boss, bringing it to the ground before it could reach down and attack us, then pummel it while it was down. But before Tori could finish casting Crush, the Beast Glastisant¡¯s leg lifted up. It hit her in the head, knocking her over into the lake. The monster froze. I took one breath. Then another. Nothing happened. Maybe it hadn¡¯t noticed. Tori was a lot smaller than the thing¡¯s leg; it could have decided she was just a rock or something. Tori surfaced. Something sniffed up above, like a big cat hunting for its dinner. I readied the Trip-Hammer as the water rippled behind her. The baying of dozens of dogs filled the air as a massive crocodile head pushed through the trees, the smell of rotten meat rolling from its breath. 16: Bring You To Your Knees The Beast Glastisant¡¯s roar echoed in my ears as I spun in place, head spinning. This close, the sheer volume of it was disorienting. I stumbled toward the behemoth¡¯s leg, revving up the Trip-Hammer, but my swing only caught air. A second later, a hoof punched into the brick near me. Red dust filled the air as it ground the paver into rubble. I looked around as the dozen hounds¡¯ barking stopped, getting my bearings. The lake blocked us from one side, while the dungeon¡¯s towering brick wall loomed over us to the other. We¡¯d be fighting the Beast Glastisant on a narrow walkway no more than a few dozen feet wide and a few hundred feet long. Branches rained down on us as its crocodile head tore through the canopy. Its eyes locked onto Tori, glowing red, and the boss started lumbering toward her. It wasn¡¯t fast¡ªat least not at first, but as the Beast picked up speed, the gap closed far too rapidly. I shouted, trying to get its attention. It ignored me, eyes locked on Tori. I tried to stop it; I was the closest thing the team had to a front-liner, even if I hadn¡¯t been investing my points in Body like a real warrior. She still hadn¡¯t caught up on rebalancing her stats, and none of her items were designed to help her take a hit. It ignored my hammer blow to the rear leg, too. Its stride didn¡¯t even break. Tori tried to run, but a hoof reached out and slammed into her back. Blood flew as she hit the bricks. She screamed, rolling to the side¡ªright into the lake again. Then, suddenly, I had the Beast Glastisant¡¯s undivided attention. Its eyes locked onto me; they weren¡¯t red anymore, but black and lifeless. I shivered as the howling, baying roar echoed again, but readied my Trip-Hammer. Tori dragged herself out of the water, sputtering and coughing. She curled up into a ball, grabbing for her back. I only had eyes for the Beast Glastisant. As the crocodile head lunged toward me, I charged up the Trip-Hammer. Its engine howled, and the ratchet engaged. A split second before the massive jaws could snap shut on me, the two hammers whipped through the air. They hit its lower jaw, and the boss shrieked like a hundred puppies whining. A tooth flew off toward the lake. I watched it flip through the air, spiraling blood behind it. Before it could even hit the water, something erupted from the water next to Tori. She screamed and rolled as a white-furred, clawed seal the size of the Explorer landed next to her. Its flippers ended in bears¡¯ claws, and its eyes had every bit of the mercy and humanity of a polar bear¡¯s, but its tusked mouth jutted out below a small, blubbery trunk. It started dragging itself toward Tori. Bear Lion: Level Twenty-Two Monster I couldn¡¯t get there in time. The Beast Glastisant was on me, hooves and clawed back legs turning the brick path to gravel as I dodged and tried to find an opening. ¡°Calvin, do something!¡± I shouted. ¡°Like what?¡± Calvin yelled back. He¡¯d kept his distance so far, but he¡¯d dashed toward Tori when the Beast kicked her. He was still a few yards away. ¡°CC it!¡± Tori rolled again as the Bear Lion¡¯s claws ripped the brick to pieces. It towered over her, ready to smash down, and I broke into a sprint. ¡°Use the mask!¡± ¡°Feel the weight of your terror,¡± Calvin said. The voice coming from behind the mask didn¡¯t sound like the homeless man I¡¯d befriended at Lake Station, or like the military-esque voice he¡¯d used to talk tactics with us around the fire. This one felt cold and uncaring, and it chilled me to the bone. The Bear Lion spun, its weight crushing a bush as it motored away from Calvin. I swung the hammer toward its back, sinking both spikes into the blubbery thing¡¯s body, but even though it roared in pain, the monster kept fleeing. The Beast Glastisant was catching up behind me, but I didn¡¯t have time to deal with it. We had seconds before the Bear Lion re-joined the fight. No, we had even less than that. The Bear Lion whirled around, and I barely kept a grip on my hammer. It rushed right toward Calvin. Blood trailed from its back, and one of its short back flippers refused to move; I¡¯d done some damage. But it was still a ton and a half of muscle. Before I could get another hit in, the Beast Glastisant was on me. Its hooves punched into me, and I crumpled into the brickwork. I rolled, dodging another set of front hooves. The Bear Lion was only feet from Calvin when its front half crumpled like an empty beer can on Joey¡¯s head senior year. One second, it was looming over him. Then it was on the ground roaring in agony. I stared at it, then at the panting, soaking-wet teenager crouching on the ground. Tori had used Crush. It didn¡¯t finish the Bear Lion off, but the Beast Glastisant¡¯s head whipped down, slamming into me and knocking me across the platform. My Body-enhanced chest took the hit, and nothing broke, but I couldn¡¯t take another blow like that. I shook my head to clear it¡ªI had to pay more attention, or this boss fight would be over. The Beast Glastisant¡¯s eyes went red again, and its gaze locked on Calvin. As it did, I swung my hammer into its back knee. This time, something gave; the boss half-collapsed. More importantly, a dozen glowing orange circles lit up across its body as the thing¡¯s weak points were revealed. It took me a second. Then, out of nowhere, I was reminded of my station wagon. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. When I¡¯d gotten it from the junkyard, a lot of the body had needed work, and I couldn¡¯t do it all myself. Welding had never been a priority on Dad¡¯s farm. I needed help, and I brought in Joey. He¡¯d forgiven me for the stomp rocket incident by then. We spent a few days on the job, welding new pieces into place and reinforcing the frame where it needed it, and one thing Joey had shown me was how to identify bad joints where the weld might give. The Beast Glastisant was full of bad joints, and the welds were very ready to give. Nowhere was that more apparent than the beast¡¯s neck¡ªright where the snake merged with the giraffe. And I knew how to get there. ¡°Tori, you¡¯ll have to Push me!¡± I yelled. Calvin was running for all he was worth, macaque mask useless and crowbar forgotten behind him. He wouldn¡¯t make it to safety, though. I wasn¡¯t sure there was safety. ¡°What?!¡± ¡°Use your Push spell and Push me up!¡± She nodded, face both white with pain and tight with determination. ¡°On its back?¡± ¡°Yes! Three! Two! One!¡± I jumped. Tori¡¯s Push hit me like a semi truck. Every ounce of air seemed to leave my lungs as it launched me high into the air, my jump and her Push compounding just like when I¡¯d thrown the macaque. I hit the Beast Glastisant¡¯s thin back, started sliding, and grabbed on with one hand. The other wrapped around the Trip-Hammer, my glove not releasing. The Trip-Hammer spun. The engine whined. Both sledgehammers hit, their teeth biting into the Beast Glastisant¡¯s joint. A massive gash opened, drenching me with blood. I gritted my teeth and swung again, then a third time. The Beast Glastisant roared, then gurgled. Its neck wobbled, then tore off at the joint between snake and giraffe in a shower of gore. The rest of its body collapsed, and I dove away from the hulking, crushing weight. I hit the icy pond, went fully under, and sucked in a watery breath in shock as the System messages rolled in. Boss Defeated: Beast Glastisant Level Up! Twenty-Three to Twenty-Five. Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team¡¯s experience. By the time I surfaced, the fight was over. We¡¯d won. I pulled myself out of the water, shivering and soaked to the bone like Tori¡ªwho laughed at me. I glared back. ¡°You went in twice!¡± ¡°Yeah, but at least I didn¡¯t belly-flop!¡± For a second, Tori sounded like my sister, and I couldn¡¯t help but laugh and wince at the same time. I stared at the last message as Tori used a couple of points in Body to heal her injured back and Calvin limped toward the disappearing Beast Glastisant¡¯s corpse. ¡°Does that mean¡­?¡± ¡°Maybe. We¡¯ll have to go check on Fort Kiosk to know for sure,¡± Calvin said. Tori went cross-eyed. Then she whooped and pumped a fist. ¡°Check out our completion!¡± ¡°I¡¯d rather collect our loot and get back to the entrance. We¡¯ve still got the ¡®Birds¡¯ wing of this place to clear,¡± I said, but I pulled up the completion anyway. Completion: 46% I couldn¡¯t help it; Tori¡¯s excitement was infectious, and a smile crept over my face. Then I looked at the loot pillars where the Beast Glastisant had been a moment before, and the smile only grew.
In the end, I got two new items, while Tori and Calvin each picked one. Calving grabbed the Pocket Tattoo. It appeared on his neck, right next to his salt-and-pepper beard; it looked less like a pocket and more like a bag of pirate gold. It¡¯d let him store more items in his inventory, which he said was perfect for him. Tori took a necklace that, according to the description, allowed her to delay up to one non-Ultimate spell per day, letting her stack spell effects. It also increased her Mana stat by two. The item description read a lot like the Thunder Mage class had, and I approved of her taking it. Besides, it wasn¡¯t useful for me at all. That left me with two Magic Items. You received Imbuing Rod (Common, Charge 12) User may cast buff spells into this device, then place them into their tools and weapons or those of their allies. You received Fast-Hoof Boots (Common, Charge 10) +1 Awareness, +1 Body Wearer may dash once per fight, moving to a nearby location almost instantly. Requires line of sight and an unobstructed pathway. Both solved problems for me. The Rod was full of parts I could use for new Creations and the Charge to power them, while the Fast-Hoof Boots would let me cover the rest of my party in the event of ambushes. Still, I¡¯d tried to make Tori take them; mages had to need mobility. She¡¯d declined. According to her, I¡¯d earned two pieces of loot. Calvin agreed. ¡°You bailed me out there at the end, Hal. Besides, you need the Rod for your class.¡± It was odd that we¡¯d gotten two of those in two dungeons, but I wasn¡¯t complaining. After a little more convincing, I accepted both of them, unequipped the stat-increasing Surge Protector, and equipped the Fast-Hoof Boots. Then I put a point in Body, two in Charge, and one in Awareness. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s go check on Fort Kiosk,¡± I said.
Sure enough, Brian was Level Sixteen when we got back. Zane had hit Fifteen, and so had Carol. She¡¯d dumped most of her points into Body, and had both legs under her. ¡°Thanks,¡± she said, gingerly putting weight on the leg as she stretched out. ¡°No, really, thank you,¡± Brian said. He stepped out of Fort Kiosk¡¯s door, sword in hand, and pointed toward the ¡®Birds¡¯ wing. Then he paused. ¡°Did you see any of our people?¡± I shook my head. ¡°We had our hands full. Uh, sorry.¡± ¡°Can we go look?¡± Brian asked. I thought about it. We¡¯d taken out everything we¡¯d seen in the ¡®Beasts¡¯ wing, but that didn¡¯t mean we¡¯d seen everything. The fog had been everywhere, and we couldn¡¯t guarantee that Zane, Brian, and Carol would be safe. On the other hand, I also couldn¡¯t stop them from going, and if we¡¯d learned one thing, it was that even Calvin¡ªwho refused to fight and kill¡ªcould be the difference between victory and defeat. I glanced at Tori, and she shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s probably some trash pats we missed. If you take it slow and plan your pulls, you should be fine. Do you have CC?¡± ¡°No, but with Carol up again and those boss levels, we should be okay,¡± Zane said. He seemed to speak Tori¡¯s language. He elbowed his sister playfully, and she glared. Now that she was back to normal, his mood had shifted, and he seemed almost too excited to get going. In the end, I couldn¡¯t say no¡ªnot even if Brian¡¯s party had been part of mine. I nodded. ¡°Just be careful. I know you want to find your people, but¡­¡± ¡°What Hal doesn¡¯t feel like he can say is, if you get in trouble, there are no reinforcements. According to the kid, we¡¯re clearing one hundred percent of this dungeon, so if you aren¡¯t sure you can win, retreat to Fort Kiosk and wait,¡± Calvin said. ¡°I don¡¯t need no heroes.¡± Brian nodded. ¡°Understood.¡± We watched them grab their packs and walk under the ¡®Beasts¡¯ sign, disappearing into the fog. Then Tori stared at the mist until I put a hand on her shoulder. ¡°You okay?¡± She jumped a little. ¡°Yeah. Yeah, I¡¯m good!¡± she said, spinning on one foot and starting to march toward the Twilight Menagerie¡¯s second wing. ¡°Let¡¯s finish this place up, yeah?¡± I nodded and fell into place next to her. She looked away, but not before I saw her wipe a tear off her cheek. 17: A Hunger for What You See ¡°Are they gonna be okay?¡± Tori asked, looking over her shoulder for the eighth time. The fog had faded rapidly as we pushed into the ¡®Birds¡¯ wing; I figured the waterfalls were making most of it, and they didn¡¯t have the power to churn up a mist that could cover the whole place. More and more sunbeams broke through the sparse canopy, too, and the path, which had been narrow, widened as it passed dozens of enclosures¡ªall of which had large, conspicuous openings. It seemed the dungeon¡¯s ¡®Birds¡¯ wing would be more open-air. I didn¡¯t have a good answer. ¡°I¡¯m sure they will be. We took out most of the biggest threats, so right now, they¡¯re just helping us with the hundred percent goal." ¡°Right,¡± Tori said. She went cross-eyed, and I pulled up my quest menu, too. Tier One Dungeon: The Twilight Menagerie Objective: Kill the Beast Glatisant (1/1) Objective: Kill the Eyes of Perfection (0/1) Objective: Reach the Dungeon Exit (0/1) Objective: Survive (0/1) Completion: 47% As I watched, the Completion number crept up to 48%. ¡°See, they¡¯re fighting, and they¡¯re winning. Whatever we left them isn¡¯t that much of a problem.¡± ¡°I just¡­¡± ¡°I know,¡± I said. ¡°She¡¯s okay. Your mom sounds like a smart lady. She wouldn¡¯t go into a dungeon without being ready, and she had a plan she shared with you already, right? She wouldn¡¯t get in over her head like this. Just stick with the plan, think about that full clear, and we¡¯ll be okay. We¡¯re almost halfway there, right?¡± She nodded, but she didn¡¯t say anything right away. She did look over her shoulder again, though. When she refocused, her face looked a lot more determined. ¡°One hundred percent. Should be easy if that¡¯s the strongest monster.¡± Overhead, a thick flock of V-shaped birds rocketed past us, glinting as they weaved in and out of sunbeams. An almost electric scent hung in the air, growing in sharpness until it burned my nose. The birds banked left, then right. They whipped past; I caught a brief view of a nameplate as the flock zoomed by. Sun Eater Swarm: Level Twenty-Five Swarm Swarms possess the following features: immunity to mind-affecting spells, limited immunity to single-target spells, limited immunity to melee attacks, vulnerability to area-of-effect attacks. Well, if that was the case, they¡¯d be easy to deal with¡ªbut not for me. All I had for that was bombs¡ªand I couldn¡¯t activate them. ¡°Tori, they¡¯re all yours,¡± I said. The next time the Sun Eaters zipped by, Tori cast Crush, and the swarm imploded. A few birds on the edges managed to escape, but most of them were pulped into a ball that hit the ground with a smacking sound a moment later. She stared at it, a little horrified. The surviving Sun Eaters looped around, tightening the flock¡¯s formation. They dove for the nearest sunbeam, then looped around in it, their beaks glowing brighter and brighter. The light dimmed around them as they brightened into a swarm of miniature suns. They were draining the light! I charged them, but before I could get there, the surviving birds emitted several rays of energy that ripped across my body like lasers. The burning heat seared my skin like the worst sunburn I¡¯d ever had. Tori also ran toward them, ducking from behind me as I tried to dodge. She used Shockwave. A rippling pulse of force rushed away from her, scattering the last of the swarming birds and knocking me off balance. Instead of several dozen greenish orbs, a single yellow-orange one sat on the ground where the swarm had broken up. Tori looked at me, then at Calvin, who shrugged. Then she absorbed it, frowning. ¡°Those weren¡¯t worth anything!¡± The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Though the ¡®Birds¡¯ wing of the dungeon wasn¡¯t as dark or foggy as the ¡®Beasts¡¯ wing had been, it felt a lot more like a zoo. Log-lined pits and netting cages lined the path everywhere we went; every net had at least half a dozen dead birds stuck in it. The smell wasn¡¯t overwhelming, but it was definitely unpleasant. We fought a few swarms and a three-headed Goosdra that spat burning goo and got Tori to her next level when it died. The percentage we¡¯d cleared was creeping up into the sixties when we reached the end of the path. Ahead of us was the biggest pit cage we¡¯d seen. It loomed almost like a canyon, half-covered by a torn, singed net. The opening led straight down ten feet to a fog-covered barrier, then an unknown distance down from there. Every log had dozens of scorch marks burned onto its smooth surface. I held up a hand. ¡°That¡¯s a boss room. Are we ready?¡± Tori nodded. The first boss had been twenty-five percent, and she¡¯d been eager to get to this one¡ªboth to get the full clear and to make sure Brian¡¯s team was alright. She strode toward the gap, then stopped. ¡°Are you coming?¡± Calvin stared at the fog ceiling. Then he shook his head. ¡°I¡¯ll camp out right here. When you¡¯re done, come on back.¡± Tori looked like she was about to throw a fit. Then she turned and dropped into the pit. The fog shimmered but stayed in place; I couldn¡¯t see inside of it, even with her inside. Calvin waved me on. ¡°She wouldn¡¯t understand. Get in there. I¡¯ll be fine out here.¡± I hesitated. ¡°I don¡¯t like splitting¡ª¡° ¡°I said go. Whatever¡¯s in there, she won¡¯t beat it by herself, and we¡¯ve killed half this wing already,¡± Calvin said. When I still didn¡¯t move, he waved his hand again. ¡°Get going!¡± This wasn¡¯t a good idea. Splitting up was asking for trouble; Calvin might have risen to Level Seventeen, but he couldn¡¯t solo the swarms. He was right, though. Right now, Tori was in the most danger. I took a deep breath, then stepped off the brick path. The Eyes of Perfection: Level Thirty Dungeon Boss Current Difficulty: Challenging Some birds are stunning. Others are deadly. The Eyes of Perfection is both. Fear its gaze. Worship its beauty. Feed its hunger. Arena Battle - The Barrier seals behind you, making it impossible to leave. I hit the springy, tall grass that filled the arena, rolling and pulling the Trip-Hammer out even as its leaves left tiny cuts on my hands. Tori was already somewhere in here, but I couldn¡¯t see or hear her over the rustling, green-brown grass. Water flowed from somewhere, and the room was shockingly bright¡ªalmost like it was noon, not twilight. I crept forward, looking for the Eyes of Perfection. Something moved in front of me. ¡°Tori,¡± I hissed, ¡°you there?¡± If it was Tori, it didn¡¯t respond. I took a deep breath and plunged through the grass. Tori would have said something, so this had to be¡ª I broke free of the grass. The second I did, I stopped dead. A wall of blue-green eyes sprang up in front of me, towering almost to the net overhead. Behind it, through the gaps in the eyes, lay a pond with a small cascade¡ªnot enough to make fog, but enough to explain the water sound. The eyes, though¡­they were beautiful. The blue pupils stood out in the sea of green as they waved back and forth in front of me¡­back and forth. The long eyelashes seemed to bat at me like my last ex¡¯s eyes did when she¡¯d been in one of her moods. I¡¯d always kinda liked those long eyelashes¡ªand I loved the ones in front of me. They looked brown-orange and were easily six inches long. I didn¡¯t bother to look for Tori anymore. Wherever she was, she¡¯d be fine. Everything would be fine. The world went white. A thousand needles stabbed into me, and I shouted in surprise as much as in pain. Where was Tori? Was she seeing this, too? I had to move, but I couldn¡¯t. I had to protect myself, but the eyes were all-seeing. As quickly as it had started, it stopped. The arena went dark. It was a peacock. Not eyes, but a normal-sized peacock with a giant tail that dragged in the dirt behind it. The thing shimmered in the near-pitch-black, the only source of light. Then, as I watched, it slowly started raising its tail. The room grew brighter; it was the light, I realized. All the eyes were the light. As they opened, they pushed back more and more of the darkness. That was important. I grabbed my hammer and rushed toward the boss before it could finish recharging. Wherever Tori was, hopefully she was doing something useful.
Tori hit the smooth, cold ground hard; it knocked the wind out of her, and she took a second to get her bearings and catch her breath. Wherever she was, it wasn¡¯t an animal pen¡ªshe¡¯d gotten a behind-the-scenes tour of a gorilla pen the zoo was working on in sixth grade, and this reminded her of that. She was in a square room with a door on either side. The walls were featureless, except where a tool hung, or a bag of feed sat against them. The door to her right was barred and locked, while the one to her right was solid steel. ¡°Alright, Tori,¡± she told herself, ¡°you¡¯ve seen fights like this. The Giant from the Mountains, or the Vault Guard. They split the party, and one group has to do¡­something¡­to help fight the boss indirectly. You¡¯re not in the boss arena, so you¡¯re the ¡®do something¡¯ team. It¡¯s time to do something.¡± She opened the door. It led to a narrow steel catwalk high above the fight; the grass-covered room below was so dark that the boss was little more than a blob in the middle of the room. She couldn¡¯t hear anything below her, and wherever Hal was, she doubted he could hear her, either. All around her, up against the pit¡¯s log-covered walls, were mirrors¡ªa dozen or more of them, all on pulleys connected to a twisted, woven knot of ropes just below the now-solid net overhead. Tori had seen this before, in the vampire towers raid. She knew exactly what she had to do. The metal grate clanged under her feet as the boss¡¯s tail grew bigger, and the mirrors around the room shifted slightly¡ªeach lined up with a small cluster of what looked like eyes. Below her, Hal charged the boss as the arena brightened. 18: Taste the Bright Lights My Trip-Hammer howled, wind ripping behind it as it flew toward the Eyes of Perfection¡¯s tiny, bird-brained head. It ricocheted off something inches away, jarring my wrist even through the Lock-Grip Gloves, then triggered, snapping back through the air. ¡°Oh shit!¡± I yelled. I stared at the intact bird; I¡¯d accomplished nothing. That blow should have squashed its head¡ªor at least hurt it. Instead, it strutted away from me, looking over its shoulder¡­smugly? Was this damn bird really being smug about being invincible, or was I just imagining things? Before I could recover, the bird¡¯s tail unfurled completely, and one eye after another started to open. I staggered¡ªmy whole mind focused on those beautiful blue eyes, with the lashes that reminded me so much of my ex¡¯s false ones. I couldn¡¯t tear my gaze away. The hammer lowered in my grip. The eyes started glowing. Then, something squeaked and thumped behind me. Before I could tell myself that the eyes were the most important thing in the universe, I¡¯d turned to look. It was a mirror¡ªthe kind of big, wide mirror with no frame you might find in a hotel bathroom. I saw myself in it, and I had a brief, wild thought; I looked like I was in the best shape of my life. Then the Eyes of Perfection¡¯s glowing tail blotted out everything. I threw myself into the razor-sharp grass, yelling in pain as I landed on the blade-like leaves. The room filled with fire and light as the Eyes of Perfection¡¯s lasers lashed out where I¡¯d just been standing. A dozen beams cut through empty space, hit the mirror, and bounced everywhere. I took another hit or two, but nothing compared to the first volley. The boss¡¯s arena went dark, and the stupid peacock went back to walking around the open space near the waterfall like I wasn¡¯t even here. Its tail was recharging, but I had a moment to think. My sister and I found a red ant hill when we were kids. Normally, Dad filled them with something that stank like gas if they were near the house, and that was that. But Beth had a different idea. She was about seven¡ªold enough to have a science kit from Cozad Elementary¡ªand that kit had a magnifying glass. She wanted to see what the ants looked like up close. It was a bright day. One thing led to another, and Dad had to put the resulting fire out. He¡¯d chewed us a new one. Then, Mom had done it again that evening. But I still remembered watching the sun hit that glass, and the first tendril of smoke work its way out of the horses¡¯ feed. The Eyes of Perfection were the sun. The mirrors had to be the magnifying glass¡­somehow. And they were coming from somewhere. I looked up. Just below the fog wall, a catwalk ran around the wall. It was about halfway up, held in place by ropes and rusty-looking L-braces, and on it stood Tori. She was yanking on a rope in an attempt to lower another mirror¡ªthis one looked more like something my grandparents had in their entryway. I yelled and waved to get her attention, but she acted like she hadn¡¯t heard me. Maybe she couldn¡¯t. Then, she turned. Her eyes went wide, and she pointed and started yelling at me. I couldn¡¯t hear a word she was saying, either. An overwhelming wave of heat rippled behind me, shimmering my vision. I turned, then yelled, ¡°Oh shit!¡± again and started running from the inferno that had whipped up behind me. The stray rays had set the grass ablaze. Smoke billowed into the air, rushing up toward the teenager, but I couldn¡¯t spend the time to worry about her. She was relatively safe, and I had my own problems. It was getting hot in here. I lunged for the water as the Eyes of Perfection unfurled again. This time, I wasn¡¯t looking at it, but I still knew the attack was coming because the room went dazzlingly bright. There weren¡¯t any mirrors by the waterfall, but I didn¡¯t care. It wasn¡¯t hot. The water was ice-cold, just like the pond in the ¡®Beasts¡¯ wing. It was deep, too¡ªshockingly deep, almost like a cliff¡¯s edge instead of a gradual pond. My feet finally hit the bottom after a second of sinking. The arena went dark again a moment later¡ªorange lights flickered across the surface overhead. I pushed off and headed for the surface. Now, everything was on fire, not just the grass. The logs were burning, and the catwalk hung on a few remaining L-braces, but huge chunks of it had collapsed. Where was Tori? As I dragged myself up the steep pond¡¯s edge, I searched the catwalk for her. She had to be alive, right? The lasers hadn¡¯t been able to kill me. They couldn¡¯t kill her, either. My eyes scanned the wreckage. There! I spotted her lowering one last mirror, but with the shape the rest of the catwalk was in, that¡¯d be the end of her help. She started working through the twisted, jagged metal as the room grew lighter. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I gritted my teeth and ran toward the freshest mirror¡ªa full-length one from a fancy clothes store. It hung from its smoking ropes, which threatened to burn through at any second. The Eyes of Perfection turned toward me. Its many eyes opened, and I stared them down. They seemed to bat seductively at me, like the eyes of every femme fatale in the noir movies Dad liked to watch. He hadn¡¯t been much for film, but noir crime dramas got him every time. These were every bit as¡ª No. I was better than this. I closed my eyes, shook my head, and threw myself right at the peacock as I activated my Fast-Hoof Boots. A blink later, I stood at point blank¡ªI dropped like a sack of grain. Its laser eyes exploded toward me as I hit the ground. The air over my head flashed white, but this time, the bird¡¯s tail didn¡¯t droop, and the eyes didn¡¯t close. I opened my eyes. The bird¡¯s tail was ablaze. Its eyes blinked rapidly, hundreds of eyes twisting horrifically in the flames. It screeched¡ªthe first sound it had made the whole fight. I grabbed the Trip-Hammer and rushed it. The hammer rose, slammed down, and fired. A few swings that landed with meaty, crunchy thuds later, it was done. The bird¡¯s twisted, burned body sat in the clearing by the pond. Bones stuck through its sapphire-blue feathers, its neck bent at three impossible angles and the tuft on its head was smashed into its ruined skull. It looked nothing like perfection. Not anymore. Boss Defeated: The Eyes of Perfection Level Up! Twenty-Five to Twenty-Seven. Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team¡¯s experience.
As Tori hit the ground next to me, I scooped the three items the Eyes of Perfection had left behind into my inventory and let the tension burn off my shoulders. She raised her eyebrow at me, ready to say something. ¡°Was that blue?¡± she asked. ¡°Blue always means better¡ªit¡¯s video game rules! Green¡¯s common or uncommon, blue¡¯s rare, purple¡¯s epic, and orange is legendary. Show me the loot!¡± I shook my head. ¡°First, we need to get out of here and get back up to Calvin.¡± She pouted for a second. Then she went cross-eyed. ¡°Ninety-three percent. Stragglers, that¡¯s all! I know the way out, but we¡¯ve gotta get up there.¡± She pointed at the top of the catwalk, where an undamaged section matched up with a fake rock halfway up the waterfall. The boulder hung from a pair of hinges. ¡°That¡¯s how you got up there?¡± I asked. I walked toward the waterfall. ¡°No. You¡¯ll see. We climbed the rocks; the handholds seemed almost built for scrambling up. Then, Tori led me through a storage room and out a door that wasn¡¯t locked but looked like it had been. We emerged onto the brick path to see Calvin standing next to two dead wading birds, eyes wide. He panted a little. ¡°Thanks. That level saved my ass.¡± ¡°No problem.¡± There was a time¡ªsoon¡ªto talk to Calvin about splitting the party, but here and now wasn¡¯t that time¡ªor place. I pulled the three items from my inventory. A book appeared, along with a ring that looked like a bird and snake intertwining as it circled around and around. The final item was a peacock-feathered helmet made from a blue stone cut so thin it felt like paper, with a dozen small, eye-like feathers forming half a halo over the top. Tome of Embrace (Common) User learns the spell Embrace, which allows the caster to share damage and healing done to another target. While active, half the damage taken by a target will be redirected to the caster instead. Effect breaks if a life-threatening injury would be suffered. The tome remains intact, but loses its ability to transfer magic after use. Zoologist¡¯s Clutch (Common, Charge 10) +1 Awareness As long as the wearer¡¯s attention remains locked on an animal-based enemy¡¯s corpse, the body will not vanish, allowing the wearer to loot crafting materials. Perfection¡¯s Gaze (Rare, Charge 20) +3 Mana, +1 Body Wearer may designate the target of their gaze. So long as their spells target the target of their gaze, it takes increasing damage for every spell the wearer casts. ¡°I can¡¯t use any of these,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t have traditional spells, and I¡¯ll never have the Mana to cast Embrace. Maybe the Zoologist¡¯s Clutch, but it¡¯d be better with Calvin if he¡¯s building a less combat-focused build, right, Tori?¡± She knelt by the items, reading their descriptions. Then she nodded. ¡°Tome and Clutch to Calvin, Gaze to me. That¡¯s my vote.¡± ¡°Nope.¡± We both stared at Calvin. He didn¡¯t say anything; he just stared at the Tome of Embrace like it was going to bite him or something. He shook his head again; his hands were shaking, too. ¡°Come on, man,¡± Tori said. ¡°We¡¯re trying to build you into a support mage, right? That¡¯s a support mage spell!¡± ¡°Nope. I ain¡¯t doing it,¡± Calvin said. ¡°I¡¯ll take the ring, but that spell¡¯s a trap built just for me. You take it, Tori. Or¡­¡± ¡°Or?¡± I asked. ¡°Or give it to Brian and let him decide what to do with it. His party helped clear this place. They deserve something. It¡¯ll help build some goodwill, and if this Integration thing drags on, goodwill¡¯s gonna be hard to come by. Besides, he¡¯d actually use it. He wants to keep those twins alive.¡± Tori rolled her eyes. I caught it, but I wasn¡¯t sure Calvin did. ¡°Okay. Clutch to Calvin, Gaze to me, and hand the Tome to Brian. That¡¯s fine. It all works out just fine,¡± I said. ¡°As long as you¡¯re okay with it, Hal. You¡¯re not getting anything,¡± Tori said. ¡°Am I supposed to get something every time?¡± ¡°Nah. I bet the game¡¯s throwing loot at us to make sure we all have something. The good stuff will slow down over time. Honestly, the only piece worth fighting over is my helmet,¡± Tori said. She stood, picking up the peacock helm. It appeared on her head, making her look even less like an emo girl than she already did. Now, she looked like someone out of The Great Gatsby¡¯s party scenes. Calvin scooped the ring up and followed her, sliding it onto his finger. Then he followed Tori back toward Fort Kiosk as she yelled and shouted, trying to attract any monsters we hadn¡¯t already found. As I bent down to grab the book, though, something Tori had said kept bouncing around in my head. She¡¯d called it a game. 19: The Price you Pay Congratulations! For completing one hundred percent of a Tier One Dungeon, you have received the following reward: One [Voltsmith¡¯s] Supply Box (Rank One) Completely clearing a dungeon will result in rewards equivalent to the level of dungeon cleared. ¡°That¡¯s it?¡± Tori half-shouted as she picked herself up from under the dissolving Greatest Blue Heron, which had collapsed on her when it died. She seemed furious. ¡°A couple of half-baked non-combat spells?¡± I opened my own box, which smelled like oil and looked like someone had spent an afternoon throwing orange, red, and yellow paint at a milk crate. It creaked open, and I found a small pile of assorted odds and ends. A spark plug-looking thing, a wirecutter and wire, and a single round battery were the highlights. Assorted Voltsmithing Parts Charge Battery (Small) x1 I grabbed the whole box and shoved it into my inventory. Tori was still losing her mind about the single-use spell tomes she¡¯d gotten; they weren¡¯t what she wanted, apparently. I waved for her to follow, and she used both the tomes, glowing gold for a second. Calvin had already put his box away for now; he fell in next to me, and we worked our way toward Fort Kiosk. Brian¡¯s party emerged from the mist as we got there. He was wearing a cloak that looked like it had once belonged to one of those Italian fencers from my history textbooks, while Carol now wielded a plain straight sword and a round wooden shield made of planks. A rune glowed in the middle of it, burning bright red. Zane looked pretty much the same as he had before, but with a smile across his face. They¡¯d leveled¡ªa lot. Brian had gotten all the way to Eighteen, while the twins were Seventeen now. They weren¡¯t as strong as we¡¯d been when we entered the dungeon, but they were catching up. More importantly, the door was open now¡ªand so was a gate on the other side of the zoo. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here,¡± Brian said. He nodded toward the fresh, southern gate. ¡°We owe you one. We can talk about our debt after we''re out.¡± Before I could stop him, he pushed the gate open and disappeared, with Zane and Carol following. As they walked through the door, I saw a few items in their hands. So did Tori. She started to ask, but Calvin shook his head. ¡°You¡¯ll see. Let them do what they have to.¡± I swallowed and followed Brian out the door.
Brian, Zane, and Carol stopped just outside of the gate, which disappeared as Tori followed Calvin outside. The gray fog wall vanished, letting us see inside. So did the fog. The remnants of Fort Kiosk¡ªwhat I hadn¡¯t taken apart¡ªloomed in the distance, and a timer appeared. The Twilight Menagerie: Cleared Time to Reset: Six Days, Fifty-Nine Minutes, Fifty-Nine Seconds Brian paid no attention; I watched as he waved the message away. Carol and Zane set down a few items: armor, a battle axe, and a wristwatch. The girl fished a gold necklace out of her pants pocket and laid it along the top of the stone retaining wall. When she glanced back at us, her eyes shined with tears. Zane pulled her in for a hug. He was shaking, too. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Angie. I did the best I could,¡± Brian said. ¡°The three of us got out. We¡¯ll do¡­I¡¯ll do my best to make sure you didn¡¯t die in vain. I promise I¡¯ll make sure your kids get somewhere safe and that they survive this mess.¡± Tori glanced at the battle-axe. It glowed green¡ªas did one of the leather breastplates lying on the ground. She looked my way, eyebrow raised. But Calvin shook his head again. ¡°They lost squad mates,¡± he said simply. I stared at the balding, overweight man. Something about him had changed in the hours we¡¯d taken clearing the Twilight Menagerie. He¡¯d gained confidence with every level, and the items he and his team had earned had only helped him. But now, with the pressure finally relieved, it felt like something had broken inside of him. His voice cracked. For a moment, he seemed frozen. Then, he started sobbing as he collapsed against the retaining wall. I wanted to put a hand on his shoulder. He needed someone. But Calvin said, ¡°Let them do it.¡± The twins joined Brian in front of the wall, crying and sobbing. Tori shivered, and I put an arm around her shoulder. She hardly noticed; her attention was locked on the two teenagers. We let them mourn their teammates until, after what felt like no time at all and an eternity at the same time, Brian stood up. ¡°Thanks again, Hal,¡± he said, sticking out a hand. ¡°We¡¯d have been screwed without you.¡± ¡°Uh, no problem,¡± I said. I shook his hand, holding the grip as I pulled the Tome of Embrace out of my inventory. I held it out. ¡°Listen, we got this off from the last boss fight, and it¡¯s not something any of us plan to use for our, uh¡­¡± The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Builds,¡± Tori supplied. ¡°So we thought you might want to take it¡ªor, if not, Carol might. It could help you guys out somehow.¡± Brian stared at Tori for a few seconds. Then, sobbing again, he took the tome from me, used it, and wrapped Tori in a gigantic hug. When he finally disengaged, her eyes were filled with tears, too. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about your team,¡± she said awkwardly. ¡°At least we¡¯re alive.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your plan?¡± I asked. Brian shrugged, looking at the ground. ¡°We don¡¯t have one. I think Carol wants to try to earn a couple more levels in Chicago before we try another dungeon, but Zane¡¯s still pretty beat up about what happened in there. So am I, to be honest. I think it¡¯ll be a while before we try another dungeon like this one, much less something harder.¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to the Field Museum,¡± Tori said. ¡°That¡¯s where Jessica is.¡± ¡°Who¡¯s Jessica?¡± Zane asked. ¡°My step-mom.¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome to travel with us,¡± I said. ¡°We should get there sometime today. It¡¯s not that far, but we¡¯d be safer moving together.¡± The silence grew awkward as Zane, Carol, and Brian looked at each other. Then Brian shook his head. ¡°I think we¡¯ll grow better if we¡¯re separate, and thanks to those boss kills, the three of us can handle ourselves now. We need some time to figure stuff out, too.¡± I¡¯d figured they¡¯d say that, but it still sucked. They were the first people we¡¯d seen outside of the Redline Tunnels, and for such a big city, it felt strange that we¡¯d only seen them. I really didn¡¯t want to abandon them, but at the same time, I couldn¡¯t exactly force them to go with us. ¡°Okay. You three stay safe.¡± ¡°Right back at you,¡± Brian said. Zane cast a spell, and the items they¡¯d left behind in tribute burst into flame.
Once Brian¡¯s team left, I pulled the Surge Protectors out, laid them out along with my new Imbuing Rod, the battery bombs, and the box of Voltsmith¡¯s supplies, and pulled up my stats. [Hal Riley] [Class - Voltsmith] [Level - 27] [Stats] ?Body - 20 ?Awareness - 40 ?Charge - 2/26 (10 Used) Stat Points Available: 0 [Class Skill - Decharge/Recharge - Drain the charge from magic items to power your own creations] Items ?Fast-Hoof Gloves ?Lock-Grip Gloves ?Trip-Hammer (10 Charge) I was exhausted, but I had a lot to get done and not much time to do it. Tori and Calvin were talking near the scorched wall. I didn¡¯t bother listening in. With only two Charge available, I could only power a couple of battery bombs, and when I tried pouring Charge into one, it didn¡¯t do anything. I¡¯d need to supply them with power, but I didn¡¯t want to use a whole battery every time I decided to throw one of the acid-and-shrapnel explosives at something. In a way, this was easier when I¡¯d had electrical spells. The first order of business was consuming the Surge Protectors. I drained them, leaving behind a pair of utterly unmagical shoulder pads made of plastic and foam. The six Charge flowed into my reserves, giving me eight to play with. I followed that up by draining the Lock-Grip Gloves¡ªnot because I needed the Charge, but because the pattern I had in my head would take at least one of my hands, and I couldn¡¯t give the gloves to anyone else now that I¡¯d used them. My Body dropped to sixteen, but my Charge spiked up to twenty-three; the gloves had been worth fifteen. Then it slowly dropped seven points before stabilizing at sixteen¡ªI¡¯d overfilled my Charge, and my skin tingled as it flowed from my body. Then I spread out my battery and started forming a matrix of wires, pieces of metal, and foam padding¡ªwhich I ripped from the Surge Protectors. I attached the leather glove to the matrix and placed the small Charge Battery right below the middle knuckle; I connected it to the wires, then ran more of them across the glove¡¯s palm. I added Charge until the small Charge Battery was completely full. It drained almost everything I had, but the prototype gauntlet¡¯s battery glowed a faint yellow-orange. ?Charge - 1/26 (15 Used) What I wanted was a glove that could apply Charge to explosives as I threw them, but the first prototype was missing something; the battery delivered Charge to my palm, but I couldn¡¯t add it to an object no matter what I tried. Something had to change. As I looked at the blueprint in my mind and compared it to the device on my arm, I saw the problem: I had no way to focus the power. I rummaged through the pile of parts, spreading them across the concrete walkway like Lego bricks on a kid¡¯s floor. There, in the middle, sat the spark plug. It looked a lot like the Imbuing Rod¡¯s emitter, but about the size of a nickel and made of glass with copper wires crisscrossing it. I pulled it, plugged the matrix of wires into it, and test-fired the shoddy-looking gauntlet again. This time, the orange sparks coalesced around my palm, shooting sparks a few inches forward before they faded to nothing. Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp (Created Item, Charge 15, Upgrade Level 0) The Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp is a Charge-assistance device. In its prototype form, it can temporarily transfer Charge to a consumable device or weapon created by the wearer. It can also use five of its Charge to create a powerful burst of electricity in melee range. Expended Charge regenerates over time. I wanted to test out one of the bombs, but there were only a handful left. Instead, I pulled one out and held it in my gauntlet-clad grip. Shrapnel Battery Bomb (Created Consumable, Inoperable) While it wasn¡¯t a test run, the message was good enough for now. I made sure the Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp was secured to my forearm with a few straps, added some scrap plates for a little extra protection along my wrist, and pulled the rest of the bombs out of my inventory. A few wires and a touch to the center of the gauntlet later, and the bomb¡¯s Inoperable status faded. I didn¡¯t try activating it. I could only power as many creations as I had maximum Charge for, so I was done for now. That was fine, though, I didn¡¯t have many parts left, and other than my second Imbuing Rod, I had nothing I could strip down. The rest of my scraps went back into my inventory. ¡°Bionic Man, huh?¡± Calvin asked, raising an eyebrow. I ignored him, stretching my wrist out in response. The Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp wasn¡¯t as flexible as the Lock-Grip Gloves had been, and I¡¯d have to be careful with the Trip-Hammer, but I had a decent ranged attack now in the battery bombs, even if I only had a handful. ¡°Calvin, Tori, we¡¯re going to head down Lakeshore Drive. We¡¯ll check on Union Pier and see if it¡¯s available for a dungeon run, then skirt Millenium Park.¡± ¡°And what if that¡¯s a dungeon, too?¡± Calvin asked. I didn¡¯t have an answer. Tori did, though. ¡°Full-clear time?¡± 20: Worse Here Every Day We¡¯d just hit Ohio Beach, and Union Pier¡¯s Ferris Wheel spun slowly overhead, when the crab attacked. This one looked a lot like the Knife Crabs we¡¯d fought on Montrose Beach, but it was a lot bigger, and instead of knives, it had a massive vise on its claw. Crush-tacean: Level 21 Monster I tried not to laugh as the single monster rushed me¡ªit was hopelessly out-leveled. ¡°Let me take care of this,¡± I said. Tori nodded slowly, stepping back to give me some space. The sand crunched below my feet as I set my stance. The Trip-Hammer hung low, its motor sitting on the beach near my feet as I readied the gauntlet around my right hand and wrist. I wanted to test it out; I¡¯d run power through it, but I didn¡¯t want to spend bombs¡ªor Charge¡ªon nothing. The Crush-tacean wasn¡¯t a big threat, but it was big. It¡¯d do for some research. I flexed the Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp. It sparked orange, and the crab closed to melee range. Its vise-claw slammed shut with a deafening thud, but I sidestepped. Then I shoved the Voltsmith¡¯s Grasp against the crab¡¯s body and pushed Charge through it. Stored Charge 10/15 It wasn¡¯t enough to stun the crab, but it did stagger backward, claws skittering in the sand. I made a note that a single burst from the ¡®taser¡¯ wasn¡¯t enough to stop something that massive. Then, I grabbed a single bomb. I didn¡¯t really want to spend it, but I needed to know how this worked. The bomb glowed orange the second it hit my palm, and a timer appeared. Bomb: Active Timer: Five Seconds The bomb started pulsing with orange Charge, and I lobbed it toward the Crush-tacean. It detonated on impact, flinging nuts and bolts across the beach. Tori yelped behind me, and I took a few hits that my Body tanked. The monster¡¯s shell cracked in a spiderweb pattern out from the explosion¡¯s center. It glowed weak spot orange. I shifted my Trip-Hammer to a two-handed grip, and got to work taking the Crush-tacean apart. It took three swings before the shell cracked, plus one more to finish the monster off. I absorbed its experience orb and looked around for any other monsters. There were none. The Crush-tacean was the only thing on the beach. ¡°Well, that worked reasonably well,¡± I said. Tori shook her head. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you keep testing things? ¡°I could have, but I want to keep some energy in reserve in case we have a bomb fight at Union Pier. Spending everything to learn only works if we can stay safe for a while until it regenerates.¡± I looked at the Ferris Wheel again. ¡°Let¡¯s get moving, alright?¡± ¡°Fine.¡± Navy Pier wasn¡¯t exactly my stomping ground. I¡¯d last been here when I¡¯d first gotten to Chicago. I¡¯d ridden the towering Ferris Wheel, bought ice cream, then hung out on the beach nearby. But I¡¯d never been back since. The skyscrapers loomed over Ohio Beach just like they had before, but I was struck by how quickly the windows had grown dirty. They didn¡¯t shimmer in the sun anymore; without constant maintenance, the wind and rain had covered them in a thin but growing layer of dust. ¡°Rituals like that were pretty common in Vietnam,¡± Calvin said. ¡°When we lost people we always had a ceremony with something of theirs.¡± ¡°Did you lose a lot of people?¡± Tori asked quietly. ¡°None of your business,¡± Calvin said. ¡°I lost enough to know what it felt like, and then a few more on top of that.¡± ¡°One time, we had a funeral for a friend who¡¯d played a few games with us. We all spawned into the wilderness, set up torches and fireworks, and talked about him in Discord for a couple of hours. There was a lot of crying.¡± Calvin shook his head. ¡°Hopefully, you won¡¯t have a real friend¡¯s funeral to go to anytime soon, like Zane and Carol just did.¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡°He was a real friend,¡± she said. Her fists tightened, and Calvin raised his open hands placatingly. ¡°Tori, tell me about your games,¡± I interrupted. ¡°Sure. I played a little World of Warcraft.¡± She took a deep breath, trying to get herself under control. I raised an eyebrow; I knew how WoW players were. ¡°Okay, too much World of Warcraft. That¡¯s what all this feels the most like. But I don¡¯t get how these aliens could have modeled it so perfectly off one of our games.¡± She rattled off a dozen similarities as we crossed the beach. Then, she stopped. ¡°You¡¯re sure this is a Tier One dungeon?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure about anything,¡± I said. I stepped onto the pier, where a tall fence stretched across the entrance. The fog gate was there, but it was barred and sealed. When I approached it, a new message appeared. Tier One Dungeon: Jettytown Limited Occupancy: This dungeon can only be attempted by one party at a time. Currently occupied. Please wait for the current party to finish. ¡°We should move on,¡± Calvin said after a moment. I was tempted to agree. Either the team inside would clear the dungeon, in which case there¡¯d be nothing for us, or they wouldn¡¯t. Waiting for them to win or lose could take a long time, and there was the three-week timer to think about. It was down by almost a full day now, and even though three weeks felt like a lot of time, I had a bad feeling about those Tier Three dungeons. We needed to be ready for them when they opened. But before I could say anything, the entrance flashed, and four men stepped out. I was in pretty good shape; digging around in engines and using my arms and legs all day did wonders for that. I didn¡¯t hit the gym, though; I¡¯d never been an iron pumper in high school. Even when I¡¯d worked on the farm, I was farmer strong, not ripped. The first guy put the time in, and it showed. His black beard hung down to his chest, and his arm muscles rippled as he shifted his weight. The others weren¡¯t as big, but they all looked similar: beards, leather jackets and chaps, and a few magic items. Their weapons and armor made them look more like Mongols than bikers. Most of their levels were in the mid-20s and their classes were defaults¡ªrogue, warrior, and mage. The big guy was different. Eddie Petrovich: Level 28 Class: Shield-Bearer I watched, waiting for them to make a move; something about these guys rubbed me the wrong way, but¡­I could just be biased. Every year, we had hundreds of bikers come through town as they rode for Sturgis. Most of them were fine. The town even liked them¡ªmostly. But Dad held a grudge because, one year, they¡¯d set up a camp in the corn field, and we hadn¡¯t figured it out until harvest, when the harvester¡¯s blade hit their fire ring. It had cost us thousands to get it fixed, and we had to harvest by hand or lose the crop. I needed to keep Tori safe until we got to the Field Museum, but that didn¡¯t mean I had to mistrust these guys. I took a deep breath and stuck my armored hand out. ¡°How was the dungeon?¡±
Tori was frustrated; if Hal hadn¡¯t screwed around with his metal glove for so long, they¡¯d have gotten this dungeon instead of these biker dudes. They¡¯d full-cleared the Menagerie, and she''d been looking forward to getting at least one more before they caught up to Jessica. It¡¯d be a lot harder to fight stuff after reuniting with her. ¡°How was the dungeon?¡± Hal asked. He stuck his hand out, and the gigantic biker shook it. ¡°Hell. Absolute fucking hell. We¡¯ve cleared two today, and another one¡¯s on the schedule for tonight. I¡¯m trying to get my boys ready for the Tier Twos. You?¡± Eddie asked. ¡°We¡¯ve cleared out a couple,¡± Hal said. ¡°Lincoln Park¡¯s clear, so don¡¯t go checking there.¡± ¡°Damn. Kev¡¯s team¡¯s heading there.¡± As Hal talked with the big guy, Tori turned to look for Calvin. The guy was nowhere to be found, though; where had he vanished to? She was a little concerned about that, but Eddie waved for his guys to take a seat, and they found spots on the concrete ramp. ¡°Yeah, we¡¯ve got a few teams running,¡± Eddie was saying. ¡°We¡¯ve got a place near that aquarium. There¡¯s four dungeons right there, all Tier Twos. When they pop, the rest of the gangs are gonna rip through ¡®em. Four teams, four clears, then pool the loot. One guy¡¯s got a whole plan for this shit; we¡¯re building a whole new world order here, and my boys are at the center of it.¡± Tori perked up. ¡°You¡¯ve got a place near the museums?¡± ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s a whole damn village.¡± Tori¡¯s mind went into overdrive. ¡°Which dungeons?¡± she blurted. One of Eddie¡¯s eyebrows raised. Then his eyes narrowed suspiciously for a second before the youngest biker dude shook his head slowly. Eddie nodded, closed his eyes, and breathed out. ¡°Planetarium, aquarium, the Field Museum, and Soldier Field.¡± Hal interrupted, asking question after question. Tori only half-listened. Mom¡ªJessica-Mom, that is¡ªwas definitely in their little village. She wanted to see her. She needed to see her. But at the same time¡­Jessica didn¡¯t want her playing games, and whatever this was, it was a lot like gaming. Would this be too much for her? ¡°Why don¡¯t you two come with us?¡± Eddie asked. ¡°We¡¯re heading for Millenium Park, then we¡¯ll go back to Museumtown.¡± He didn¡¯t know about Calvin. Where had the old homeless guy gone? Tori had no clue, but she couldn¡¯t see him abandoning them; even with the experience he¡¯d gotten for the boss kills, he was hopelessly behind. He needed this village as much as she did. More, even. Hal shook his head, glancing her way and shooting her a look. ¡°We¡¯re thinking about heading west downtown, actually. There¡¯s gotta be another cluster of Tier Ones in there, and we¡¯re doing just fine on our own.¡± Eddie¡¯s eyes narrowed. One of the biker dudes stood up and walked toward the pier¡¯s south railing. He tapped his boot against the railing, staring out across the harbor toward a pair of towering buildings. Tori watched him as he lit a match, used it to get a cigarette burning, and crushed it below his boot. ¡°You¡¯re sure? Listen, man, we¡¯ve got everything people need to survive there. That girl would be a lot safer with us protecting her, and your class sounds like the boss could put you to work. There¡¯d be a spot for you in town.¡± Hal shook his head. Something flashed across the harbor. For a split second, Tori thought it was light off a windshield. Then the man with the cigarette whirled, a crossbow in his hand, and leveled it right at her. He started screaming a second later.