When I awoke, my mouth was hellishly dry. Something was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I tried to spit it out for a good few seconds before I realized it was my own tongue.

I groaned. My eyes were caked with grime. Glued closed. My head throbbed. It felt like I was suffering from one of those hangovers that combines the best parts of heat stroke and a migraine.

I groaned again. For a good while that’s all I could do. Time wheeled away. Might’ve only been five minutes after I regained consciousness, or it might’ve been five hours, but I managed to open my eyes with an effort. I rubbed the dust out of them, my arm shoving aside a detritus of stone chips and other crap.

Once I could open my eyes, I was able to see the extent of my predicament. I had been loosely buried in light rubble and half of one of the trestle table workstations when the explosion went off.

Before I started digging myself out, I made a brief exploration of my own body. Didn’t seem like anything was broken. There was no clammy stickiness that might have hinted at a decent bleed. I appeared to be in functional condition. Knowing that I needed water as soon as possible, I heaved myself up and fought my way out of the debris covering me.

Once I was out and free, I snatched a breather and looked around.

The garage was a mess. The lights were still on, which was a blessing, but what they illuminated was enough to turn my stomach. Bodies everywhere; direwolves, hackers, and mafia cronies. Torn by bullets and claws.

If I was being honest, although it was all pretty macabre, I couldn’t say I was that sad to see the goons and wolves dead. The hackers, though, they’d just been like me. Led by poor previous decisions or lack of options to a grisly end that I’d managed to avoid.

The fridge in the kitchen area was still running, despite being stained with blood and scarred by bullets. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water from inside, downed one to rehydrate my desiccated tongue and mouth, and then used the other to wash my face, neck, and hands. After that, I felt a little more human.

Ducking back into the fridge, I grabbed a sandwich and a chocolate bar and ate. It was only when I started to eat that I realized how goddamn hungry I was. In under two minutes, I had demolished the food and gone back for another sandwich.

Chewing the second limp cheese and ham sandwich a bit more slowly, I looked around the room. It was amazing the kind of appetite and thirst that being blown up and buried could work up in a man. It was incredible too, how hunger could drive even the magical appearance of a stone pillar and the subsequent arrival of a pack of rabid wolf monsters out of my mind…

I looked over at the pillar. It was still there. Standing as if it had been there for centuries. The runes on it had changed, though. They had faded from the brightest electro-blue to a dull sullen red, like the inside of a cooling smelter.

I peered over at the heavy rolling door, which had been padlocked the whole time that I and the other hackers had been inside the room. It had been thrust open so hard that it had come off its rails. The padlock and chain were lying on the floor.

If any of the direwolves had survived, they had moved on. I supposed that I should’ve thanked my lucky stars that I’d been buried under that thin layer of rubble, really. It was probably all that had saved me from becoming the direwolf equivalent of a kebab.

“Freaking direwolves,” I muttered. I looked around at the carcasses of the great beasts. They were there, clear as day. I shook my head.

Looking around at the direwolves drew my attention to several Gems that were scattered about the place. I gathered three of them, and then almost dropped them again when, suddenly, there was a dazzling flash of light as they combined into a single, more brilliant Gemstone.

3x Arcane Gem (Level 1) → 1x Arcane Gem (Level 2)

I picked my way through the rubble and corpses until I found three more Level 1 Arcane Gems, which again combined into a Level 2 Arcane Gem.

Gem Inventory:

Arcane Gem (Level 2) x2

Still moving in a slightly dazed state of discombobulation, I tried to insert them into the four empty sockets on my band. No matter how hard I pressed, or what configuration I used, I couldn’t get any of them to stay in the band like the first had done.

Error: Summoner’s Band has insufficient power to insert more Gems.

Not knowing what else I should do, I stuffed the Gems into my pockets until I found a backpack lying amongst all the blood and bullet cases.

I loaded the Gems into the bag after I dusted it off and emptied it of a broken pair of headphones and a destroyed iPad.

Once I was sure there were no more Gems to be found, I slipped the empty handgun into the main compartment, zipped it up, and slung the bag over my shoulders.

I didn’t really understand what use the Gems might have beyond being little summoning stones for my band, but I’d played enough games to know it was better to have items you could throw away later than missing out on potentially crucial or helpful inventory.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

With this in mind, I scoured the place for weapons, supplies, and anything else that I might need. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, or what was waiting for me outside of this room, but I was going to feel a lot better if I had some means of protection.

Unfortunately for me, every other firearm in the place seemed to have been fired dry. The mafia goons had been nothing if not uninhibited when the shooting had started. The bullet-pocked walls, chunks of stone missing from the ceiling, shattered lights, and shot-up bodies of the wolves were a monument to their generous discharging of their weapons. I slipped a couple of other empty handguns into my rucksack, a Ruger GP100 and an ever-popular Glock 19. I figured, once again, that even though I couldn’t find any ammo for the weapons, it was better to have them than not.

I wasn’t feeling particularly chirpy about potentially having to face more of those wolves with nothing but a trio of empty pistols when I remembered a place I hadn’t searched: the bisected body of the henchman I had taken the Stoeger STR9-F from. I hadn’t checked the man’s body because, well, quite frankly the whole-steaming-guts-that-were-lying-around-his-severed-torso-like-streamers-at-Rick-Taylor’s-birthday-party thing was a bit of a deterrent.

Still, desperate times and all that…

It was hard searching the mutilated body without looking at it, but in the end I managed to find a couple of magazines of nine-millimeter ammunition in the dead guy’s jacket pocket. I slapped one into the mag well of the Stoeger, racked the slide, then flicked on the safety. The empty mag I kept, putting it in my bag, and put the other full magazine into my own pocket.

A wicked-looking folding knife, with a five inch blade and a bone handle, was another little something I picked up from under one of the overturned trestle tables. I wiped it clean of blood on a tattered pair of trousers that had been blown or ripped off some poor bastard. I pocketed this and kept my hand resting on it.

I grabbed some more food out of the fridge—more gas station sandwiches and candy bars—along with a few more bottles of water. I tried to search the room that I had seen Gaspari flee into when I passed by it. The roller door, however, was locked from the other side, leading me to believe that Gaspari had obviously had a private way to get into and out of this place.

As I was taking one last desultory glance around, I noticed a cell phone lying nearby. I had no idea where my own phone had got to—presumably it was in Gaspari’s little private chamber, probably still in the bowl with the others. I picked up the cell phone and tapped the screen. The thing was almost out of battery, but I saw that it wasn’t picking up any service.

Hardly surprising under all this cement, I thought to myself.

I was just about to stow the phone in my pocket when something on the display, which had been nagging at my shaken neurons, caught my attention.

The date.

“Holy shit, I was out for two days?” I whispered.

It was true. I remembered looking at the clock on my computer shortly before the supernatural attack had taken place. It had been Wednesday then. Now it was Friday. I wasn’t a medical expert, or an expert on much at all, but I thought that might constitute a short coma.

“Two days sleeping under a pile of rock,” I said. “No wonder I’ve got a friggin’ crick in my neck.”

There seemed little else for me to do but venture out into the world. I couldn’t shake the notion that it was odd the cops hadn’t found me.

Especially if they were parked up the block somewhere like Gaspari said, I thought. Surely they would’ve heard that ruckus. Even if we were underground.

And that wasn’t even taking into consideration all signs pointed to at least some of those dire wolves having gotten out of here. That was going to make a pretty interesting day for some poor bastard at Wildlife Services.

Before I bid farewell to that hellhole, I decided to try my hand at summoning the dire wolf again. It was partly out of curiosity as to whether or not I had imagined the whole thing, but also because I wanted to make sure that I could do it on demand. After all, I’d played games by a set of rules, rules which now seemed terrifyingly applicable to my real life.

Rule 101: Never go to the next zone without having a handle on how to use your new abilities.

I pictured the dire wolf once more in my mind. Those bright green eyes seemed to have been engraved in my memory. When I thought of them, the rest of the dire wolf’s features filled in. As for summoning, I’ll admit that I pictured throwing out a bright-red-and-white ball.

It worked too. Surprisingly well. Once more, the dire wolf materialized in the air right in front of me. It looked much more calm than it had the last time I had summoned it, and I wondered whether that was because it could sense my emotions somehow, so it could tell what kind of environment it was going to emerge into.

I had braced myself for the mental fatigue that had knocked me out the last time I had used my summoning abilities, but found that I was not afflicted by this as I had been. I figured that was because I hadn’t tried to bite off more than my magical abilities—if this was magic—would allow.

The dire wolf looked at me appraisingly. I looked back. It was pretty unnerving standing so close to something that shouldn’t exist, especially when a fellow of that thing that shouldn’t exist had literally bitten a guy’s face off right in front of me.

“How’s it going?” I asked the massive animal.

Sitting on its haunches as it was, its head was easily level with my heart. That was not a comforting thought.

The direwolf cocked its solid head to one side and let out an inquisitive rumble in its throat. As intimidating as the creature was, there was something inherently trustworthy in that bright green stare.

I shifted a little uneasily under that piercing gaze; predatory yet accommodating. The Gems clinked together in the front pocket of my bag. The wolf suddenly started toward my backpack, nuzzling at it with its gigantic snout.

“You hungry, boy?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure if a summoned minion could eat, but I figured he could obviously smell the sandwiches.

I opened up the pack and held out a sandwich for the wolf. It seemed completely disinterested. It brought its nuzzle back to the pack and started to nudge at a Gem.

“You know something else these things can do?” I asked, intrigued.

The wolf took one of the Gems in its mouth and then brought it to me. It pressed its snout against my Summoner’s Band.

“I’ve already tried that,” I said. “Your Gem is the only one that works.”

Then, I was struck by a sudden idea. I removed the Level 1 Arcane Gem from the band, and my summoned direwolf disappeared.

Arcane Gem (Level 1) removed from Summoning Socket A

I then took the Level 2 Arcane Gem from where the vanished monster had dropped it. Speculatively, I looked at it. Then I looked at the empty slot on my Summoner’s Band.

“What if I put a Level 2 Gem in there?”

I rubbed the surface of the jewel with my thumb. It was perfectly smooth. Totally unblemished. Perfectly cut.

To hell with it, I thought. What’s to lose?

I inserted the Level 2 Arcane Gem into the open slot.

Summon Socket A: Arcane Gem (Level 2)

You can now summon a Direwolf (Common) Level 2!

Gem Inventory

Arcane Gem (Level 1) x1

Arcane Gem (Level 2) x1

So, that seemed to have worked. My hand trembled a little as I summoned the direwolf again. This time, the creature I summoned was a little larger, with the tiniest beginnings of a single horn on its head.

“All right,” I said. “I’m glad we got that sorted out. Progress, even if it is baby steps. I’ll… I’ll talk to you later, I guess.”

With another simplistic thought, I made the creature vanish. It was as easy as that.

With that final test completed, I settled my backpack on my shoulders, adopted a two-handed grip on the freshly-loaded Stoeger, and made my way as noiselessly as possible out of the garage, toward the beckoning freedom of the open air.