Chapter One Hundred Ten

Joe stood from the hard chair reception area chair, the pain of sitting on such a seat enough to drive him to rise. It’s time to head out anyway… I think.

“You guys ready to go?”

The others all glanced up before nodding, then Joe realized that he’d not explained to Stephliquen either, and repeated the question for her. All quickly nodded at that, Stephliquen slightly later than the others, but all stood and headed on towards the next door. When the arrived, Joe stared up at it, but when he moved forward to begin the next floor, Gwenvair stepped forward with some concern.

“Uh. Joe? This next floor is very difficult. Are you certain?”

“Oh. You know of it?”

Gwenvair quickly nodded, “Yes. It is not easy.”

“How so?”

“The main monster is some kind of attraction elemental that creates others. It is difficult, with many lesser elementals as its defenders.”

“Attraction?”

“That is its affiliation.”

“Attraction…” Joe trailed of in thought. He considered all his options carefully, thinking deeply and wondering if he should simply go in by himself. But… don’t really want to leave them here alone. Not sure they can make it back through the shadow cat place, especially if it spawns again, so… but…

“Then let me take you back out. You can wait for me to check it out.”

Gwenvair nodded, “We can leave alone, if you wish. It isn…”

Joe shook his head, laughing, “No. It’s fine. I’ll fee safer if I took you. Let me help.”

They all turned and left the reception area, leaving back the way they came until they came to the door leading back to the shadow cat room. Joe opened the door and the group headed back up the stairs. However, when Joe arrived at the entrance hole in the ground, it wasn’t to the shade of the single tree in the center of the shadow cat room, but within the narrow confines of the wall surrounding the dungeon entrance in the city itself. Wait? Did we… Ooh! Ok. That’s cool! Head back out and it insta-takes you to the entrance. Nice to know. Then…

“Do you guys mind if you wait a bit? I was going to ask you just to head to the inn, but, I think I have an idea.”

Joe didn’t pause in their movement, not wishing to clog up the entrance to the intermediate dungeon nor draw attention to themselves. The others followed after, exiting the walled area and coming out into a rather empty street.

“Ok? Did you need our help?”

Joe shook his head as he glanced up and down the street, “Not right now. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

The others nodded but didn’t reply, Joe continued looking up and down the street. Finally, he found a small café like restaurant and led them there.

“Have a snack, or something. I hope I won’t be gone longer than ten or twenty minutes… maybe half an hour, OK?”

The others quickly nodded, but Stephliquen simply stared at him and he realized he’d not explained anything to her, “Oh. Sorry Stephliquen. I’m heading back into the dungeon because there is a tough fight on the second floor. I want to check it out carefully before leading you guys in there.”

“Do you need help? I am of some use.”

Joe grinned and shook his head, “Possibly, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m not incapable of defending myself,” she replied with some chagrin.

“I know. I saw you fight, remember? But, I have the stats, especially the health, to be able to do this without getting hurt. You? Not so much.”

Stephliquen frowned, “I still can fight.”

Joe nodded, “Show me your stats,” then pulled up his stats next to hers.

She nodded and revealed them and Joe grimaced to see her display in QR code and then continued, “Can you will it to display in English?”

Joe frowned with that last statement, the word English coming out all strange and twisted, not quite fitting the sentence but then realized he’d pronounced it in English and not in Qaenar Imperial.

She looked up at him, “Angulish?”

Joe snorted, “Close. My written language… well, the one I prefer to work in … that I find natural is English.”

“Anglish. OK. I can try,” she turned to look at her display squinting a bit with effort then frowning as nothing happened. She settler herself, putting even more effort into it as her face snarled up into an effort filled grimace. Nothing happened for the longest time and she finally sat back, frustrated.

“Seriously? All I wanted was this to show Angli…” she blinked in surprise when her display immediately and easily swapped to English.

“What happened?”

“Not sure? What did you do?”

“Nothing. I attempted to ping the mental interface but nothing happened at all. Then, I just…”

“Huh. That is strange. What were you trying to do?”

“Initiate the request via the interface, whatever interface I have with this.”

“Were you thinking about what you wanted, specifically?”

“At the interface, yeah, but…”

Joe frowned, “Well, it’s working now. Maybe you need to speak it out loud?”

“Maybe.”

“Try this. Just think that phrase, maybe ask it to go back to Qaenar Imperial, but don’t say it out loud. Just say it in your mind.”

Stephliquen glanced up at him, nodding with a grin and just as intrigued, “Sounds like a good experiment.”

She narrowed her eyes but even before she was done, she sat back up with surprise when the display swapped to QR code. She then giggled, and began swapping it back and forth with ease.

“This is incredible. So much more intuitive than our implants.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We have to think a bit, like, sort of at the thing. Not just think about what we want.”

Joe considered that but wasn’t sure he really caught the ramifications of it, their tech quite too far beyond his capabilities and he simply shrugged and accepted it.

“Huh. Well. I can’t help much more on that. It’s outside my capabilities.”

She grinned and shook her head, “It’s fine.”

“But, can you swap it back to my language?”

She nodded and did so, then he brought his and her display together, pointing both of them out, “So, yeah. You are doing pretty good. You have about forty points in every stat, which is impressive for what you are now. But you can take a cut or a small stab, at the most, with that amount of HP. I can take a cut wound or have someone stab me in the arm or leg a couple dozen times, maybe, and I’ll be ok.”

She frowned at that, then looked up at him, “Is that normal for your kind?”

Joe shook his head, struggling to hide his bitterness, “I’m pretty sure you know it’s not.”

He seemed to have failed, as she snapped back a bit, sorrow etching her face even as she snapped back a bit with her own bitter chagrin, “Yes. I am sorry for that, but I’m not sure I know all the data on everything Qaenar has done.”

Joe took a deep breath and closed his eyes, “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I’m just… not doing well. But, no. That is not normal. It is because of this plane th… this moon that I’m not hurt meaningfully until my almost ten thousand HP is gone,” Joe finished by pointing out his massive HP pool.

As Stephliquen leaned forward, he willed his display to Qaenar Imperial and she began to frown as she compared their two stats before nodding with some annoyance, “It does seem to be significantly higher than mine. But, do those other stats actually have any bearing?”

Joe frowned at that, taking a deep breath as he did so, “I think they do, although I’m uncertain how to really use them. They seem like they aren’t automatic like the pools are. My HP, MP, and stamina all seem to operate exactly as I take action in the related pool. But the other stats, they seem to need something else. I’m not sure what. But they take affect pretty much in stressful situations. Maybe I can control them later, but I’m not really sure…”

Joe shrugged at that and Stephliquen nodded, accepting the statement for what it was before continuing, “Well, I think you’ve proved your point. You can hits better than me.”

“Exactly. I’ll be back quickly if I can take care of things. If it’s pretty easy, I’ll bring you back in. If not, or I take to long, then just follow them. I’ll let them know.”

“Sure.”

Joe nodded then turned back to Gwenvair and quickly reiterated his plans, promising to come back for them quickly if he could, but also asking her to return to their current home if Joe took too long.

He then nodded to them and jogged back to the dungeon area before slowing to a walk, not wishing to draw attention of the guards. He slipped by them quickly, none of them interrupting him although all of them looking at him with bored curiosity. Joe ignored them, but noticed one smirk and shake his head in mockery. It took Joe a bit to realize that the men were staring at him because he was alone. Huh… a boss fight dungeon… I guess that makes sense… they’d expect a group of some kind… maybe.

But Joe found he really lacked any desire to care and skipped down the stairs two or three at a time, coming down to the entrance of the first room before he settled himself. Shadow cat… can’t do my infusion trick, right? If it’s immaterial… point and everything just goes right through it, although… infused attacks hurt it hard, so… would it still push the point into the weapon, or just go through it like physical objects… could I kill it by just shoving my mana points into it? Or… huh… Joe settled his thoughts on a plan and stepped into the first dungeon, bow in hand with arrow on the string. First, get it out of the ground.

* * *

Zilnek shivered within his poor shelter and groaned with some relief, the warmth of the morning sun bringing him relief he’d never known he really needed. He looked at the half staff in his hand and grimaced. There were very few things he could do any more, but if he didn’t want to die in the streets, he needed a warm place for the nights, at the very least. He firmed his resolved. There are some things I can do… there are secrets in the status Master knew. Secrets I can find, if I look hard enough. Zilnek flipped open his status window, and like Joe did every morning and evening, Zilnek studied it with an intent bordering on fanaticism. I will find your secrets. Zilnek stared for a time and found little he could understand, but no despair. The secrets to power and wealth lay within his grasp and the path to them well-trod by powerful example. If he could but understand, he could gain such power as to beggar the mind, and all he wanted would be within his grasp. He would be the one to grasp it, rise to power and heights unknown, to become an immortal and have none control him, but rule over all others.

After his dedicated meditation, he released his breath and mana as his family had always taught him before gripping his weapon and standing. I consumed all those cores. Every one. I must be very strong! I grew many times, I know I did! I can do this! He squared his shoulders and headed for the beginner dungeon.

* * *

Joe marched into the first floor of the intermediate dungeon and immediately had his eyes lasering in on the shadow border of the forest. He was certain the shadow cat wouldn’t be in the same location as before, but he still looked their first, hoping, then laughing when he found it easily. Huh… same initial location. That makes it much easier!

Joe kept the shifting shadow nailed in his focus and he began marching across the field with his arrow pointed at the shadow. Just get a bit closer, so… Experiment time? Or just kill it? Joe pondered as he marched across the field and ultimately decided he could afford to do some experiments. He still had several hundred of the wooden arrows he could afford to waste and he was alone without need to protect others. So… let’s pop the shadow first.

He pulled the arrow back and put a mana point on the tip of his arrow. First test, does the point get shoved into the arrow while it’s a shadow on the ground.

His arrow flashed out and buried itself dead center in the shadow cat’s fluidly moving shadow. Nothing happened at all, and Joe frowned. Huh… so that… oh… even the ground didn’t shove the point into the arrow, really? I need to… nope… can’t pull it out yet. It’ll jump me. OK. Keep everything the same. That point stays there with that arrow. So, then…

Next test. Pretty sure we know this guaranteed, but let’s verify… pop the shadow with an infused weapon. He pulled out another arrow and this time had the point buried in the fletching at the end of the arrow, right in the grove used to settle into the string of the bow. The arrow launched so quickly that Joe really only caught it with his eye after it buried itself into the ground in the shadow itself. As soon as it did, Joe screamed at his mana point, willing it to go into the arrow, and as soon as he did, the shadow cat yowled in furious pain, leaping up at out of the ground in a twisting, fearful leap that simply moved it far away from the arrow. Joe grinned, ready for it, another arrow already on his string. OK. Test part deux. Mana point on the point of my arrow, does the shadow cat in its … incorporeal visible form… would that be right? Anyway, in this form, does it shove the Mana point into it.

The arrow shot out and slipped right through the shadow cat without any affect, the mana point unmoved from the front of the arrow head. It shot out and hit a tree, the wood shaft shaft shattering then crumpling to the ground where it lay. Joe frowned, even as he brought out his next arrow. Huh… then the points don’t really … He remembered sending out points that refused to enter a monster’s body without being embedded in some kind of piercing instrument, and wondered if the shadow cat was an exception. Even as he drew back his arrow and attached another mana point to the arrow head as well as at the end of the arrow shaft, but not actually inside it, he pulled on the mana point from the arrow he’d previously shot, still attached to the arrowhead of the shattered arrow on the ground. The mana point shot forward and he directed into the body of the shadow cat, even expelling mana in hopes that the manual expelling of mana might accomplish the same thing as mana infusion, but nothing happened.

The mana point entered the shadow cat’s body without issue, and he danced it around inside of it without any affected. When he expelled the mana from the mana point, it seemed to expel as it should, but did not enter the body at all, somehow not ‘inside’ the shadow cat despite being inside it, as far as his limited three dimensional eye sight could comprehend.

He snorted and released his next arrow. Well, testing done. For reasons he couldn’t understand, the cat was essentially a ghost, and untouchable, except with a mana infused weapon. Why that was a case utterly confused Joe, but he wasn’t going to complain as he already had an adequate response.

The cat had reached the height of its leap and was already clawing back for the ground, it’s back heavily arched even as the tail pierced the sky in a straight up thrust. Joe’s face was grim as he continued marching forward, his arrow striking into the cat and doing nothing but sliding right through it without any noticeable effect until Joe willed his leading and trailing mana point into the arrow head and shaft.

Instantly, the cant twisted in upon itself, going fetal in a moment of sudden change that almost made it look like it frame skipped, simply going from a leaping animation to a fetal curl without any intermediate transitions. Joe sighed and left the cat to die, already feeling the experience swelling within him as verification of its death. He walked to his arrows, giving the spasming cat wide berth as he did so. He retrieved all of them, even the broken one, as it still had a good head and fletching. Waste not, want not. Joe thought as he turned to see the cat vanish. Only when it was gone did he step forward to grab his other arrow that was buried in the cat before he turned to the next floor, walking to the hole in the ground below the lone tree.

He marched down its flight of stairs and then continued on through the surprisingly clean hallways until he made it to the reception area. He was going to simply pass on through, but stopped to take stock of his weapons, and ammunition, returning everything to its appropriate slot after he’d maintained them carefully. He had a lot of secondary arrows he was willing to lose, he still wanted a comically large ammo dump if he could, especially with the ease that the transporter class gave him.

After checking everything, especially his spear and shield one more time, he stood and walked to the next floor. The massive door stood before him, the single large hand far above him spanning both doors, bisected evenly down the middle finger by the two doors. As he arrived in front of it, the hand slid down and shrunk until it was at his perfect size and height, right in front of him so that he could put out his hand and sink it into the engraved hand print directly at his shoulder height. The doors swung open and Joe looked in with curious eagerness. Right… an odd attraction elemental with sub defenders. Let’s check this out.

* * *

Kilniara struggled to occupy herself, finding herself so bored and unhappy within the richest confines she’d ever experienced. She’d never thought that she could be so miserable with all her needs met. The lack of worry about food was nice, and if she’d come here directly after her parents were dead, when her and her brother struggled on the streets of the city, she would have been ecstatic to have her needs so well met. She would have been more than willing to wed the Patriarch.

The cold indifference of her superiors and the fearful separation of her inferiors would have been normal, and even expected; accepted. It was life, and no life was perfect. Simply having food and a good place to rest was more than most could expect, especially during any hardships. So, now, she could not understand why, having what many would define as a luxurious life, she found herself so listless. The life, as simple as it was, that her husband had offered her proved to be more glorious than should could understand and desired it so deeply that what she experienced now was a pale imitation.

Her thoughts were interrupted when one of her ladies in waiting knocked softly on the door before entering with a bow.

“Mist mage Allanar seeks audience, promised of the Patriarch.”

Kilniara sat up languidly, shifting her surprise excitement into a bored movement, learning quickly from other of her so called peers, “I am willing to accept him. Please allow him in.”

Kilniara waited for that first lady in waiting to leave to open the door for Allanar before turning to the second in the room with her. Let’s send her out for some food… give us some privacy.

“Please retrieve some fresh tea and snacks for us, would you?”

“Yes, promised of the Patriarch,” the second said, escaping the room quickly.

Ever since their return from Aelthron’s capital, the two were much more obedient, but also more circumspect in their efforts to watch her. Not having to deal with their recalcitrance was a great boon, but it was still so tiring. Still, having Allanar arrive was an excitement to her otherwise listless days.

“Promised of the Patriarch,” Allanar spoke, walking into the room with less of a bow and more of a deep nod.

“Allanar, newly made mist mage,” Kilniara nodded slightly less back, offering honor more with her words.

Allanar smiled, grateful for her acknowledgement before coming to stand at her small waiting area, next to the sofa across from her. She nodded and waved a hand to the sofa.

“Please sit.”

Allanar sat, offering a second nod of gratefulness, “Thank you, promised of the Patriarch.”

Kilniara nodded and turned to the servant beside her, “No tea or snacks for now. Fresh ones were called for. Please allow us our privacy.”

The maid nodded and stepped back around the corner into the entrance, but still in sight of them. Kilniara pretended it didn’t bother her and looked back at Allanar.

“Allanar. How are you?”

“I bring tidings.”

Kilniara kept her face passive, but excitement jumped within her heart, “Excellent.”

“If I may?” Allanar asked politely, holding up a obscure.

Kilniara was still not used to seeing them, a tool of the noble and wealthy, but she did recognized it and simply nodded in acquiescence.

Allanar nodded back with acceptance and initiated the artifact, the screen encompassing and hiding them within, blurring the outline of their bodies so as to hide the movement of their lips, but leaving their overall form easily seen so as to remove any doubt or possibility of scandal.

“I bring news from your Queen and husband.”

Kilniara sat forward, excitement thrilling through her. Finally! Please!

Allanar grinned, and couldn’t help from sitting forward in excitement as well, “Quite surprising news!”

* * *

When the door swept open before him, Joe found his eyebrows scaling his forehead in surprise. Just… what is th… what am I looking at?! An odd creature floated in the space before him. It had some kind of central burnished ball that almost seemed liquid in its slow shifting deformations. Almost like… a bubble of water in space… in no grav? But… It wobbled and sifted in the air with odd protuberances bulging from the surfaces every once and a while. It… is it spinning? It almo… nope, definitely spinning! The bulging center of the creature shifted from a sphere to an hour glass like shape laid on its side, parallel to the ground, the two bulges of the hour glass spinning around each other and barely connected as the central line connecting to the two grew thinner and thinner while the two bulges stretched away from each other before pulling back into each other with a deceleration, then acceleration back together again. It remained a sphere for a time after, the odd bulges simple deformations on the sphere before it once again split in half and pulled away from each other with only a narrow connection between the two bulges as the spun around each other. The spin didn’t seem to change or accelerate at all, but just a soft slow spin.

Around this central burnished reddish liquid sphere, chunks of reddish earth and metal spun, orbiting languidly but inexorably around the core. The seemed to move slowly and sluggishly for their size. Doesn’t… how big is it? Doesn’t seem too big, but… what…

Around the chunks of earth and metal orbiting the central liquid sphere, Joe noticed small electrical sparks spiking off the chunks and Joe frowned, realizing they seemed familiar. I think… Sparks! Realization hit like a hammer and scale quickly shifted within his mind. The small sphere and orbiting metal chunks which seemed about the size of a large cat or small dog suddenly shifted in scale. The dozens of metallic orbiting chunks became massive boulders the size of trucks or even semi-truck cabs while the liquid sphere in the middle shifted to be about the size of a minivan when combined as a singular globule mass.

The small electrical sparks weren’t simply reactions coming from the orbiting masses, they were sparks, like in the first floor of the advanced dungeon, and they covered each orbiting mass in the hundreds! The remained on the masses before floating into the air although never more than a dozen or so feet off the ground. With the shift in scale, the room changed to a massive affair although there were no obvious edges to the room, the horizon spreading off into the distance without end.

The ground wasn’t exactly inviting, a rocky crack-filled boulder that stretched off into the distance forever as well. There were no obvious pitfalls or poor footing issues, the floor not exactly flat but something he’d be willing to run on with ease if he was careful with watching where he placed his foot as it was not flat, small dips, tilts, and jagged ridges, all no larger than a centimeter or so off the ground were scattered everywhere.

That… is HUGE! Joe felt his breath punch out of him as he realized the scale he was looking at. My spark weaponry is going to be useful… so… at least that’s something. Even as he thought this, the central burnished cored changed shape in a way Joe hadn’t noticed before, shifting more into a donut shape almost parallel to the ground, a dip forming in the top of it, although the bottom seemed to remain rather spheroid, if still flattened into a rather extreme oval shape.

He couldn’t really see into the top or bottom of the thing, even if he ducked or jumped, but the hole in the middle didn’t seem to go all the way through, simply dipping to make a hollow cradle in the middle at the top before a cascade of lightning punched out from the outer ridge of the donut into the center, above the hole or dip in the center. The lightning lasted quite some time, for lightning, but fell away after about ten or so seconds before retreating and in the middle, a spark floated up and out of the dip in the center before shifting and moving to one of the massive orbiting chunks where it settled down upon it, sparking into it. The central mass returned to a sphere and then once again began its wobbly sphere to wobbly hourglass spinning thing once again.

1. Wow… that was kind a cool… so… an attraction monster… and sparks… I’m going with magnetic thing of some kind… which would make sense… and the central mass seems … kinda… like copper, but wouldn’t gold be better? Then… Joe shook his head and went back to his analysis. So, the massive orbiting things… generating sparks, electrical creatures… probably chunks of iron, lodestone… some kind of magnetic thing? Is it… ooh! The idea hit Joe hard even as he began to grin. Symbiosis! Maybe? The thing creates sparks… the sparks settle on the lodestones or chunks of iron and maintain… maybe even increase the magnetism of each chunk? Maybe? Some kind of magic shenanigans… but… sparks magnetize the chunks of iron… looks like iron… they iron orbits the copper core, generates electrical power and allows the magnetic elemental to grow while also churning out more sparks… that’s… pretty coo… scary, actually… cool and scary!

Joe’s mind shifted from the awe of comprehension to a bit of worry as he looked at the massive small fortress sized thing as it churned out soldiers that helped empower itself. Can it really do anything to me? Though? How high can it get its magnetic field… or how fast can it shift its magnetic field… maybe that’s more worrisome. Man… wish I’d studied generators a bit more…

Joe gritted his teeth and considered his options, which didn’t seem like much. He was going to have to kill all the sparks first before he could get close to the creature. Hopefully, the magnetic field wasn’t going to create any thermal issues, which would be pretty bad for him if it did. I think I could handle any of the pure magnetic fields involved, so… but what do I do?

Joe’s mind struggled to understand how to fight a floating liquid sphere of copper and chunks of iron, and wasn’t sure what he could do. Ground the orbiting metal… that would kill off lots of sparks… probably, yeah… but… Joe felt his concern ease off with that as he began to nod, more certain of what he could do. Going to need to pull out my bag… the cordage… maybe couple other things… it should be doable… hopefully I can do it the fast way and not the slow. Still want the others to come with me so I can get them some levels.

Joe breathed deeply once his plans were made, staring into the field at the massive magnetic elemental before stepping forward with certain deliberation, hoping to convince himself of his own confidence.

* * *

Within the capital of Aelthron, directly next to the inter-cradle gate leading beyond the Aelthron system, a massive building of greater capabilities, quality, and construction rose to the skies. However, little visible about it differentiated it from the other towering buildings surrounding the same square. Despite that, the people surrounding that building seemed to offer it a subtle deference difficult to notice except for the way that people skirted around it, a large circle of empty space left the courtyard and the majority of the square fronting the building devoid of pretty much any people.

Up in the heights of this grand building, upon the massive top floor in a smaller yet grand room, a rather small table for four just off from a well-used but opulent kitchen, two individuals sat around the table. Neither were really interacting with one another, but simply enjoying the morning. One was enjoying a meal and the other was deep in meditation. The one enjoying the meal was a stained in some kind of deep blackness, sharp upswept wings behind him and all around him a vaporous smoke hid him from sight, masking and leaving him in mystery that juddered the surrounding doa. Across from him deep in meditation, a young woman surrounded by a green fog that seemed to seep from green scales that graced her entire body with the soft, noticeable weaker, vapor wafting in the dao but somehow more sublime in its interaction with the dao. The two remained in silence, unconcerned for the other until a third rushed into the room with excitement.

“Perfect cores! There are perfect cores!”

The winged individual in black vapor looked up, even as the vapor faded to nothing. He turned from his meal with a sigh, annoyed to be interrupted while the one in green snapped up with surprise excitement, her greenish sifting clouds evaporating almost immediately.

“Truly?, Where di…” she cut off quickly when the winged one eating breakfast frowned and interrupted.

“And you had to barge in and interrupt breakfast for that?”

“But, sir, I was told by th…”

The winged one shook his head, “This rumor happens almost every ten or twenty cycles. If you hare off after every example, you will simply be exhausted and find nothing.”

“Truly…”

“I did the same as you, chasing every rumor. Dozens of them. Guess how many I have found in my thousand cycle service here?” the man cocked his head with a smirk, then continued, “None! Not one! Of course these criminals desire the only form of power available to them. The Dao is block, their ladder destroyed. They have no other source or path to power! Such rumors will drive any wild.”

The intruding man frowned at that, “This seems more than simple rumor.”

The winged man snorted and sighed again, “I cannot control what you do in your free time, but it will not affect your duties on your shift, is that understood?”

The intruding man smiled bitter, “Yes, captain.”

The young woman tinged in green smiled, “But as long as we are not on shift, yes captain?”

The winged man looked up and rolled his eyes, “Your time. Your loss. But don’t…” his eyes widened in alarm and anger but it was already too late.

Space emptied in her seat, nothing within it for a time before the very void of emptiness suddenly erupted inward and air collapsed into the void even as a massive boom rang out, a whirlwind of air erupting, swirling and following after the path she took to escape the room and building. The winged man cursed even as the runes in the building engaged and dampened the wildly surging wind element, calming them and returning them to their rightful peace even as they rioted from being disturbed.

In the quiet, a soft voice of annoyed anxiety perked up, “Aww. I have to wait a full sixteen hours before I can go!”

The winged man sighed, “Fools!”

* * *

Joe stepped into the room with the magnetic elemental and grinned before hopping in place a few times, psyching himself up. He wasn’t sure what to do, the massive nature of the thing making him concerned, but the odd alien magical nature of it leaving him lost in what to do. Against the giant, he was relatively certain of his plan. Even against the giant wall sized slime, he’d been pretty certain of his actions, although now rather annoyed that he hadn’t simply shot a ‘pre-infused’ arrow at that thing and just let the mana points slide into the arrow when it punched into its side. Huh… although… maybe it still could have responded in time? Or, I put them at the end, and slide them in after it punctures… but timing it from so far away… wonder if I could still infuse it if the arrow is completely buried into the monster… something to test, but my gut says no! I can’t send points in through the mob… but can I do through a wound? But… the slime would close up, so… huh…

Joe walked forward, lost in thought before suddenly freezing and taking a step back. Idiot… focus! The magnetic elemental had begun spinning up a bit faster, and Joe faltered in concern. He waited a bit and then relaxed when the elemental hadn’t reacted at all. He retreated a few more steps and then grinned when the elemental slowed down. Huh… threat display? Maybe? Interesting.

Joe began preparing, focusing on the elemental now, pulling out pieces of equipment and tools that he thought he would need, although he did separate them into piles of what he would immediately use and another much more carefully structured pile of what he might use. He then turned and looked at the massive elemental, then frowned. Is this really a magnetic? Or more electromagnetic? Maybe it’s a hybrid elemental? Wouldn’t a pure magnetic one just be… a magnet? Hm…

Joe allowed his mind to wander a bit as he took one of his star tools used to fight the sparks and carried it to a spot, beginning to set up. He ended up taking all but one of the star tools and scattered them around his area, mostly in front of him in an attempt to create some kind of barrier for any incoming sparks. He then took the last star tool and tied a nice long length of parachute chord to it, then sighed deeply as he looked back up and prepared. His mind calmed, then faded, the last of his thoughts coming up as he looked across. I really need to unlock some of the other mage lines so I can have an appropriate response to other elementals… got kinda lucky with the snows… if others come… Even just… the liquid mage with a lighter… flame thrower! Ha!

Joe’s thoughts stilled and he focused on is current action. The star equipment he’d placed in front of him was placed evenly out around him in a curved defensive position to protect him all the way to his sides, although the central portion directly in front of him was empty. Don’t want anything tangling up.

He focused on the magnetic elemental for a bit, eyes narrowed even as he attempted to gauge distances and speeds, hefting the last star weapon in his hands. It wasn’t exactly heavy, but it wasn’t the lightest thing ever at all. Probably going to have to tap into my stats… I hope I can do that… usually kinda do it automatically in the stress. But… I need…

His mind calmed and he simply focused on what he needed. Focus, speed, strength… But nothing happened, and Joe grimaced in frustration. How come I can do it easy when I got a claw swiping at my face, but… He frowned then closed his eyes. What am I doing when that happens… I’m not even sure… I think mana flows… I can feel it coming out of my core, but…

He’d always been to wildly focused upon his combat and targets, not really taking into account what was happening within his body as it simply reacted as it must, but Joe wasn’t certain what was doing it or where the work was coming from. He really wasn’t doing anything. He was certain of that, but somehow it acted, and the change came when he needed it. But it didn’t make sense. How and where was he getting this skill to act with mana within his own being. When he tried to do any kind of mana expression, it was massively difficult. But when I fought the giant during the monster tide, I was able to move and flow… so easily. I think I even reacted way too fast a couple times, but… that slow mo feel…

Wait! A memory floated back into his thoughts, remembering how Gwenvair’s mom had enacted mana flows across her skin and up into her eyes. He wasn’t able to see anything that was going on internally in her body, but he did notice that trails of it on her skin and up to her eyes, the ones crackling across her skin leg a web of lightning much more noticeable. And she did it with her eyes… I saw a bit… so…

Joe frowned in concentration, focused on his desire but also flowed the mana out of his body and into and throughout his entire being, essentially turning his whole body into a mana balloon with his skin acting much like the barrier of a balloon, but nothing at all happened, and he grit his teeth in annoyance.

“Seriously. Why can’t I turn on my super speed, strength and slow mo skills. I kinda need the…”

A sudden and powerful change occurred in his heart, or just behind it. Joe was still uncertain of what he was feeling related to that, but the mana flowing form his chest took on a decidedly different tone, imbued with some purpose Joe wasn’t sure he could even comprehend in the slightest. It shifted out, and then split in a dizzying array of movement that left Joe stunned. All the mana in his body that he’d stuffed himself with suddenly evacuated his being, expelled immediately, even as the wave of mana coming from his core twisted out into his being. Each wave of mana seemed to be uniquely guided and purposed in a way that Joe knew but couldn’t comprehend at all. Every single strand, and there appeared to be hundreds of thousands, if not close to a million, spread from and was made up by his mana. He quickly began to recognize a pattern, however, with the mana of differing purposes, shapes, and constructions… Joe blinked in surprise at that. Mana itself can be constructed? It not just a … weird vapor that… He closed of his distractions and delved in deeper, seeking insight.

The first thing that he noticed was that the mana all seemed to hold some kind of constructed form, defined with a purpose and intent. The form followed function, or the function defined the form, Joe wasn’t certain which, but there was some kind of form to it but its size was unchanged, a singular particulate of mana, whatever that was, somehow had shape and form for a specific function but was still, somehow, a single particulate of the lowest or simplest possible being. It felt like that Joe was looking at ‘atoms’ of mana but somehow each ‘atom’ was forming an entire protein chain of purpose and meaning.

Each stream of mana charged forth from his center and into his being, and that was the second thing he noticed. There was a similarity between certain streams of mana which Joe quickly surmised came from a similar function, purpose, or tissue that it targeted within his body. The mana particulate streams of one specific form all targeted his muscles, streaming into him almost like a fuel line, or an electrical input offering power, but also simultaneously seemed to bury into the muscle and web through it into a complex web structure that bound to and enhanced the muscles, not simple offering power but also support and enhancement as it twisted throughout the entire muscle. Another group sprung out and sought out what looked like his bones, intertwining and surrounding them much like the muscles had been.

Another absolutely massive stream of mana that quickly revealed itself to be millions upon millions of streams, but all uniquely identical in form, but still someone uniquely different, spread across the entirety of his body, while another group of a lesser size joined with those same ones but only targeted the skin.

Still another group seemed to target his torso, mostly, although this group seemed to be grouped into a set of twenty or thirty unique functional groups. Another massive set with a myriad of different groups swarmed up his spine and Joe lost sight of them, but immediately felt their effects as time slowed, sound sharpened, sight narrowed and broadened simultaneously and smell and touch became heightened.

Joe grinned. I wanna do that again… Then he paused, and frowned… Don’t want to lose this… I can do it later at home… let’s get this thing taken care of while I got my magic punch wizard skills working.

Joe hefted the star weapon, bouncing it in his hand almost as if he was bouncing a largish pebble in his hand while staring at the elemental while measuring distance. When he realized what he was doing, he turned his gaze to the star weapon as it bounced in his hand with the ease of a small rock and felt the grin tug at his lips. That’s just… nuts! Wonder what my buddies back on Earth would think! Ha!

He played with it a bit before returning his focus back to the floating elemental in the distance. Alright… let’s try this.

He reared back and heaved the star weapon into the distance, a massive throw that had the star tumbling off in the distance with the parachute chord twisting behind it as it rippled off the well laid spiral of cord on the ground. The star weapon tumbled through the air then hit the ground short of the elemental, tumbling over the ground a couple long paces before it came to rest just shy of the elemental. Almost exactly where I wanted… not bad for a first try. Just a bit further.

Joe pulled the weapon back with the cord, hand over hand until it was back next to him. He took a few minutes winding the cord on the ground neatly again before heaving the weapon out again. It soared through the air before tumbling to the ground just shy again. Joe frowned and sighed before pulling the star back hand over hand once again, laying the chord down in a spiral, then took a bit more time to aim. He focused a bit more, then heaved the thing with all his strength, and this time he grinned, happy to see it landing just shy of where it wanted it but tumbling perfectly into place sliding in under where the massive metallic boulders orbited.

That… looks perfect, right? Maybe? It had slid in during a gap, a boulder on either side of it currently. Joe stared at his star weapon and it was tumbled on its side, and he began tugging on it with the chord carefully. He didn’t want to pull it out of where it was, but was instead trying to pull it upright, hoping the legs would dig into the ground and he could tug it upright, if he was lucky. With some effort, he was able to get it upright then settled back with a grin. Nice… this should be perfect.

But then his smile fell when the large metal boulder came floating in above his star and nothing happened. He cursed softly and looked closer, focusing. That’s perfect, right? It should be? Joe grimaced with some frustration and began pulling it back to himself. Must not work… too low, not close enough, maybe? But…

His frustrated musings trailed off when the star weapon tilted over and just before it fell, a spark leapt from the massive boulder and hit the metallic star weaponry before it fully fell and the spark stopped. When the massive boulder had grounded, all the sparks that were tucked into the boulder screeched and shook in electric pain and as soon as the link with the ground was broken, all of the sparks lifted wildly from the boulders, drifting and pulling away from the boulder.

Some appeared to go into some kind of search pattern, but most simply drifted in agitation above the boulder before slowly drifting back to the boulder. Several of the sparks from other boulders also reacted, leaping to the sky to search around but by the time the boulder he’d grounded had made it a quarter of the way around the orbit, the sparks had all started returning and settling on their respective chunks of iron. Joe grinned. It’ll work… but it’ll take lots of luck.

He sighed and pulled the spark killer back to him, pulling the rope hand over hand. Don’t wanna take the chance of having to fight a couple thousand sparks by myself… especially not without the constraints of a roof. He thought, looking up into the open sky above him. Even if it’s fake… those sparks rose at least a good ten or fifteen paces into the sky! Gonna waste a lot of arrows on taking them down… and I don’t even know if they can strike from a distance, either… although they never did in the advanced dungeon… is that… His thoughts took the rabbit trail bait as he pulled the spark killer back and considered until the metal star was back in his hands. Well… guess it would definitely be worth it to test… just let the last one go… see how it acts without a roof… worried that things will be different!

Joe focused back on his attempts now that he’d made a choice and welled his mana, surging it out into his body slightly to give him the strength and focus he needed to get his toss just perfect. He eyeballed the distance once again, taking into account his previous throws, then heaved it back out again. This time, the throw was almost perfect, tumbling in under the orbit of the outer iron masses that Joe assumed were magnetic and sliding inside the orbit a good two or three paces. He then began tugging it carefully, with as much control as several dozen feet of rope could give him, pulling the star back, mainly focusing on getting it lined up but not necessarily trying to get it upright. When it made it to just about under where the masses orbited, he then began putting effort into pulling it upright. This time, luck was not with him and it simply slid along the ground never quite catching to be pulled up. Bad luck… rope was on the wrong side… not likely that I was going to be able to get this toss upright.

His careful tugs and adjustments were quickly abandoned and he simply began pulling hand over hand again, bringing the weapon back. It took another ten or so throws before he was able to get it positioned under the orbit and upright. Then he sat back with a grin of satisfaction as the orbiting iron masses passed over the star weapon and closed the connection with the ground. The sparks erupted in wild digital screams, electric power sparking and buzzing through the air. But the sparks on the iron mass couldn’t flee, frozen in electromagnetic bonds at they dumped their power directly through the mass and into the load.

It wasn’t enough, however, and all the sparks were still alive when the orbiting mass floated past the asterisk weapon. As soon as ground was broken, all the sparks on that mass erupted into the air, fleeing the metal mass and floating away. This time, the remained in the air for quite some time, and didn’t return back to a metallic mass until the mass had completed almost half its orbit. It wasn’t helped that the next magnetic mass floated over and the sparks there soon screamed, then erupted into the sky when they regained their freedom. Each new fleeing group of sparks would agitate the last one that just had fled, which in turn agitated the next in line. However, the sparks calmed rather quickly and seemed eager to return to their magnetic home. Joe, seeing what was happening, considered his options for a bit, then shrugged and grinned. This ain’t that bad! I’ll take it!

Instead of trying to increase the efficiency by tossing another spark killer under another mass, he figured he had it about as good as it could get. To really make it perfectly efficient, he would need to circle the magnetic elemental all the way to the opposite side and toss another spark under the orbit on the other side. Don’t have enough rope to do tha… ooh!

Joe cursed and quickly pulled the rope back, whipping it back to him as fast as he could which was quite a bit faster than when the spark killer was attached. Well… should have thought of that! Joe thought as he grabbed the rope almost near the end and tossed it to the ground frantically. He then proceeded to stomp wildly on the flaming rope at the tip, wrinkling up his nose at the burning nylon plastic smell. He sighed once it was out and pulled it up. He quickly but carefully pulled of any detritus then shaped the end, making sure all nylon strands were melted into a mass, not wanting the rope to end up unwinding some of its strands now that it had been cut.

Quick thinking saved the rope and himself the bit of time he would need to repair it again at home. Still, he made a mental note to do exactly that and make sure that the end was properly sealed.

He looked back up at the spark killer and grimaced. Lost… what… maybe a foot of rope there? That’ll … well, no sense in worrying about it now, but I should have realized… been watching for it. The spark killer barely glowed a dull orange, but Joe now recognized the massive heat that was emanating from the iron star weapon, the location where he had tied his rope spiraling up a dark greasy smoke as it burned from the superheated metal.

Well… now I can toss another if I want. Joe considered and quickly came to the same conclusion he had before. He would have to circle the whole elemental and try to get another spark killer in the orbit just about exactly opposite of his current one. But when he began considering his options and even grabbed another spark killer to march around the elemental in a wide circle, he came to a stop, reconsidering.

The sparks aren’t starting to land until half way around… they all land a bit after half way around. If I drop another, even exactly at half way around, it’s going to just rile them up again. So then… wouldn’t the ones still in the air never end up landing? They’ll go up, then always get tossed back up when the fastest ones land again… I’ll have to wait until all others are dead before the most cautious are willing to land again. They’ll still only get hit once per orbit after that. Is that faster? Not really. That’ll actually be longer, right? I’ll kill the first group twice as fast, but not start killing the second more cautious group until after the first group dies. Then, the second group will only get hit once per orbit. So… I’ll end up taking half again as long than if I just keep it to one. Right? Joe ran the numbers one more time before nodding his head. Yup… it’ll take longer. He frowned with some frustration before turning back around, dragging the spark killer behind him before he settled back on the ground at his semi anti-spark fortress. And I don’t think I’ll get a chance to deal with just one spark. I can’t pull the anti-spark weapon back.

He then grabbed the spark killer he had, tossing it on the ground sideways before piling up a bunch of cloaks on the spark killer and settling in to relax. So… might as well take in my status. Got some time!

image [https://i.imgur.com/Gxqwuu8.png]

Joe grinned at seeing the numbers, ecstatic at them, but the frowned again. Big numbers! Way to big! They… how are they that big? They shouldn’t be, right? This isn’t…

His thoughts skewed wildly as he struggled to understand what he was looking at, but ultimately he found that he couldn’t think of an adequate explanation for them. They numbers had grown way too much for the classes he’d leveled, and he couldn’t quite understand what he was looking at. The only thing he could think of was that it was either the criminal, combat, or magical jobs. But… the magical jobs… I’ve only got two lines open… to like a depth of just… two or three.

Joe glanced back up to see the sparks still floating in a wild mass on the right side of the elemental but being calmed and settled down on the left. I’m probably going to waste a lot of experience… if I kill all thousand or so sparks in one go… that’s… or… Joe cocked his head in thought as he frowned. I could… maybe try to swap jobs as the level? Really wish I could just have my current jobs tab separate and open. Then I could…

Joe blinked when he saw the tabs of his display separate, the current jobs tab shifting off by itself to the side and showing his current jobs. He grinned. Ooh… ! He separated out all his tabs then frowned when the novelty wore off as most of the tabs proved rather meaningless in the current situation. It would be nice to see things simultaneously when studying the system and understanding the jobs and skills, but ultimately, there wasn’t a lot of meaningful cross referencing that Joe could really think of at the moment.

His eyes traveled across all his tabs in separate, his eyes passing by his status, skills, available jobs, blessings and titles, and curses. He passed over them quickly but paused at his curse screen with a frown, staring at the large red enslaved in the upper left corner. The red blazed out at him, a heat wave blaze underscoring it in the line below, almost like an underline to mock him. He stared at it closer, the shimmering haze wavering more obviously and then fading away as Joe lost interest when bitterness swelled. He sighed and turned away. Right… focus on leveling the jobs I need. Want to keep transporter and gifted for now. Don’t really need theorist, but it would be good for… His thoughts sputtered out as he struggled to find why it would be good or what it would be good for before he suddenly blinked and shook his head. ... so yeah, definitely good for that. So, then… I have one spot to swap out. Should I swap it out at thirty? Forty?

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

Joe ran the numbers, considering his options, and quickly realized that while he could swap it out at forty five now, with this massive number of sparks floating in the air feeding him experience, he could chug quite a few if he swapped them out at forty. That’ll give me a lot. I might be able to punch down a good five or ten jobs in both healing jobs and unlock the sneaky line of jobs… can’t remember the name.

Joe finalized on swapping jobs out at forty and prepared the list of jobs he was going to go through. He thought for a bit then figured he could alternate between jobs. With that thought, he made sure to open up his available jobs page so he could see the listing. When he did, however, he noticed that he was going to struggle, the few series of jobs he was interested in separated by a pretty extensive scroll bar and considered for a bit before settling on getting pretty deep into the stealth line of combat jobs before turning back to putting what was left over into the two healing job lines. That had him purse his lips. Huh… which would be better, then? Keep gifted or drop it to raise thr… two jobs at once? Right? It would be better to two at once, right? He began mumbling to himself as the screams of dying sparks echoed in the background and after a bit of parsing, he was surprised to find out it was better just to keep the gifted job since he could raise ten jobs to forty in the same time span as raising eight jobs to forty. He grimaced. Gifted’s just broken! Although… trying to swap the jobs so quickly… I’m going to miss some… not going to be as easy or efficient… although I’ll only need to change one job at a time instead of two at once… one twice as fast or two at the same time.

Joe sighed and decided to keep it to one. It would just be easier. He ‘char:’ed his change main job skill and prepared, looking up to see the sparks rising and returning to their roosts in a wave. With his choices prepared, he settled in and played with his status to wait for the sparks to begin dying.

He watched for a time before growing bored and distracted and turned to his status. After a bit of playing with his status, he realized what he was doing and would jerk his attention back to the elemental and dying sparks only to quickly grow bored again. It was during one of his searches of his status that he felt the first spark die followed by a few others and experience flooding into him followed immediately by the rush of growth, one of his jobs gaining a level. He looked up with surprise and a bit of self-reproach. Crap!

The sparks on the currently grounded chunk of metal seemed to a bit rough, struggling against their slow but inevitable death. His flicked to his current job page and saw scout was now level thirty six, and he grinned with joy and relief. So… this is a symbiotic relationship… each spark is its own creature! I’m gonna get SOOOoo much experience for this! His eyes stayed focused on the dying sparks.

A few moments later, another bunch of sparks died, and Joe saw scout leap to thirty nine, and he quickly readied his job change, looking at the available jobs and keeping an eye on scout’s level. I’ll be ready for the next steal… crap! What’s the name? How…

Joe cursed, trying to remember the job he wanted then realized he’d learned it with Kilnia… Joe took a deep breath and clenched his teeth, even as sorrowed welled within raging with bitter anger. What was that Acokzau job? I can’t… then… He turned to the inventory and sought out his backpack, needing his notebook but the felt another flash of experience and another swelling of a level and Joe cursed, eyes glancing back at his scout’s level. Forty… no time… I’ll waste so much if I try to find…

His eyes skittered across the available jobs, struggling to find the next job that would lead to the stealth line of classes and felt another two swashes of experience flood into him. A quick glance at his scout’s level had him curse as he saw no change, it now stuck at forty for a while having hit the beginning of the wall. Quick… quick… oh!

His eyes flashed through the available jobs and sighed with relief when he found a class called rogue. Even as he swapped his main job to it, he realized he had a problem. I can’t see the name of the next job on the list until it levels enough! His thoughts struggled to find an option and with the relief of getting his next job, rogue, equipped, he was able to have some clarity on what to do even as his rogue job rapidly skyrocketed its levels. Huh… I’ll just swap between the stealth and healing jobs. I’ll have a couple minutes to find the next name, right?

It turned out that he had more than a couple minutes but not much more. After about three and a half minutes, his rogue class hit level forty and Joe grinned with glee even as he quickly swapped to healing adept. With the three minutes he had after that job change, he had enough time to look over his available jobs and found himself both excited and a bit confused. He didn’t have a lot of time to go over things and felt the pressure. Despite that, the new options were exciting enough he took time to go over them. Huh… got a starting job called sleuth, one called lock breaker, another called cut throat, and the last called shadow hunter. Well… not the last. Looks like there is another job after it. Should I… try to unlock it? Do I need to do rogue to even forty five? Fifty?

Joe glanced at his current job’s level and saw it was hitting thirty and still taking time to climb up to the forties. I got a bit more time… right? He quickly tried running the numbers, growing anxious as healing adept climbed up and passed thirty five. OK, to the next is five times so fifteen minutes instead of three. I’ll lose… about a quarter to level it up, but… a forty five job requirement to open up the next line of jobs… its gotta be a good job, right?

Joe grit his teeth and pondered it for a time before finally making his decision. When he looked back, healing adept was at thirty nine and he decided it was close enough. He swapped to rogue once again, and settled in for a long wait, the three minute wait turning to an almost twenty minute wait as his calculations hadn’t taken the extra thirty or forty seconds per level into account. However, when he hit forty five, no other job became available to fill in that last spot and he grimaced. He quickly swapped to shadow hunter, hoping that was something that was at least what he wanted, giving him stealth and combat capabilities. He did look at sleuth and lock breaker as well, but dismissed sleuth quickly when he remembered that it was a job specifically focused on investigative skills. Why is it… He dismissed his thoughts on that and turned back to following shadow hunters climb up the levels.

The next job after shadow hunter unlocked at only level twenty and he even considered changing to it but the levels climbed so rapidly, he settled in and maintained his original decision, pushing it up to forty. In this fashion, he leveled up shadow hunter, shadow warrior, shadow master, and shadow blade. Each of them unlocked the next job in line at only level twenty or thirty, making it easy for Joe to simply pick the next job in line. After the last one, he saw genin become available and grinned softly to see it. OK… so a ninja line of jobs… if I remember my anime right. Heh.

The last of the sparks died, and he barely got shadow blade above thirty five, but was satisfied since at least it opened up the next line of jobs. Now all that was left was the massive electromagnetic elemental, if he was guessing what it was. He stared at it a bit, lost in thought when it suddenly bunched up in the middle once again, preparing a small dip and formed another spark before spitting it out. Joe stared at it, sighing, then remembered he wanted to see what a spark did in an outdoor environment.

1. So… how do I get that thing over here? Maybe… Joe pulled out his bow and a wooden arrow. The arrow would fly quite far off into the distance and Joe frowned with annoyance. Right… I’ll lose the arrow, so the wooden one, but hope it gets its attention!

He sighted carefully and let the arrow fly. It slid right through the spark but basically did nothing to it before the arrow disappeared into the distance. Joe frowned for a bit, watching the spark before finally grinning as it became obvious that it was floating towards him, if with a bit of lazy movement.

When it finally got close, Joe’s smile began to drop and he found himself getting a bit concerned. It was staying quite high in the sky. Right… this… isn’t good. Joe turned his gaze back to the massive magnetic elemental and decided he didn’t want any more sparks spawning and sighted an arrow on it, aiming for the liquid copper core, if he was guessing what it was. I can play with it later… figure out more later… not much time right now. It was an easy shot, the only concern he needed was to either arc the shot over the outer orbits of metal or shoot the arrow between them. He decided to shoot between them, finding aiming to be easier. He nestled a mana point at the arrow tip but one at the end amongst the fletching as well for backup, hoping that the one in front would be shoved into the arrow like his other arrows, but had the one at the rear in case it didn’t work. He wasn’t sure how a magnetic elemental would work.

He glanced back up at the spark in the sky, gauging its distance and growing more concerned. It still hadn’t dropped from the sky at all, but seemed to be trying to position itself above him; something Joe really didn’t like the implications of. He took a dozen steps to the left, putting a bit more space between the spark and him, then aimed and loosed his arrow. It flew true and sank into the massive copper core. I think it’s copper… makes sense if its copper, right? Would the upgrade be gold? Maybe? Or…

Joe grinned as he saw the entire elemental shake, a riotous guttural roar that echoed and shivered the entire space they were in. The vibration was deep and had Joe almost seeing double. A wild echoing shriek occurred above and he looked up to see the spark not taking the elemental’s reaction to well. It survived, but while Joe had a hard time judging the health of an elemental spark, it seemed a bit worse for wear. The magnetic elemental seemed even rougher around the edges, and he prepared another arrow. Guess bigger ones require more? That makes some kind of sense, so… let’s give it enough, then.

He piled a good ten mana points along the shaft of the arrow along with a couple on the arrowhead. I’ll have to manually send the ones on the shaft inside the shaft… donno if the points will push off one another and get pushed to the side and not end up going into the arrow. Hm… something else to test, I guess. He sighed with that realization and released the arrow after taking another three or four steps to the side again, glancing up at the spark above his head warily. With the distance, he aimed and loose. Right when his arrow was about to puncture into the copper core of the elemental, Joe commanded his mana points to entire the arrow shaft. Oops! It seemed Joe had commanded the mana points to enter a bit too early as the magnetic elemental reacted with wild abandonment which Joe could only assume was terror. Can’t tell what terror on a magnetic elemental would even look like!

The thing wobbled wildly and a massive spike of magnetic power erupted outwards. It was so powerful that Joe could even see the pressure wave waft out slowly as it went out. But the punctuated power of magnetism proved inadequate to blog the arrow, although it did skew it wildly in the last half a meter or so it had before entering the central copper blob. That seemed to be the only thing that ended up stopping the magnetic wave and Joe found himself quite concerned.

The elemental erupted wildly, collapsing to the ground with an odd gelatin like liquid splash, a slow motion overly cohesive liquid. After a bit, the splash slowed as it spread out like liquid should, but seemed to slowly solidify until it froze. The magnetic wave continued outward, and died off with the death of the elemental, but what little was left of it terrified Joe. When it got to Joe’s star elemental weapon, still glowing a dull orange, it pulled the star of iron up into the air like it was a toy, and it twisted and turned in its grasp for a good dozen or so paces before it finally fell back to the ground as the magnetic wave died out.

The massive orbiting chunks of iron fell to the ground with the elementals death and their crashes drove home just how massive and heavy they were as the entire room echoed and shook with their collapse. They then dissolved into the air along with the copper core a short time later, and while Joe found the effect fascinating, he found himself looking up at the spark above him with concern.

It continued floating towards him, not doing anything, but working pretty hard to get above him. He frowned, then looked back down assessing things around him. Not much I can do, can I, or…. Joe considered then grinned. Maybe I have an option?

He ran around and got at least four asterisk weapons and then pulled them towards the spark as close as he dared before he settled two spark asterisks upright but rather close together. He then took the last two and tilted them sideways, parallel to the ground but laid on top of the two upright sparks, making an upside down block ‘U’ shape before he climbed underneath and hid. Hopefully this is enough? I can ground any shots hopefully down through the metal spars. Pretty bad faraday cage, but…

The spark drifted closer, and when it got overhead, just as Joe feared, it seemed to have another attack. It paused overhead, then began to gather itself, somehow, seemingly glowing brighter and brighter with power. Suddenly, a massive crack rang out and a blinding whiteness took over the field. Joe rapidly blinked his eyes as tears streamed down his cheeks. He struggled to see but quickly noted that his body seemed fine, even if his ears and eyes returned nothing but meaningless white spots and ringing noise.

A few moments later, he began to be able to see with blurred and spotted vision that still seemed to glare white but allowed some sight to return. His hearing, however, still rang high pitched before slowly and subtly shifting to a screaming whine. It took him several moments to realize that his hearing and sight had both adequately returned, and what he was actually noticing was the death throes of the spark high above him.

The sparking white oversaturation of all around him was the spark above slamming a never ending lightning bolt into his spark killers above him. The shrieking high whine was actually the spark grounding itself into his spark killers above him. Can’t stop the lighting bolt attack once fired? Or just while grounded? But then why … wouldn’t it be grounded if it attacked anything on the ground like this? Or is… something else going on? What’s…

Joe crouched low beneath the bar and curled in so he wouldn’t touch any of the bars. He had to stay there only a few moments but then the spark finally died, and Joe crawled out with some relief. Maybe a full on faraday cage might be a good idea? Joe stared back at the four star weapons and saw that they were barely glowing, although the heat they gave off was pretty significant. Must have been hurt pretty bad. Didn’t really last that long. Didn’t really have enough power to heat the thing up like the others.

With the battle done, Joe sat back down in his spark chair covered in cloaks and took a moment to breath. He ran the numbers and figured he hadn’t been gone too long and wrestled with whether he should go out to see if the others were still there waiting for them. The time was pushing it, but he’d rather have them along if he could, simply to help them gain levels and this second floor did that in spades! He fidgeted while he waited for the weaponry to cool down enough to handle, but also got up to wander the area looking for any of his old arrows. He did find the two he shot at the magnetic elemental quickly enough, but the one he’d shot at the spark was long gone, and Joe wasn’t sure where it was.

He returned to the spark chair again to rest a bit until the sparks looked warm enough to handle. They weren’t, but Joe finally got up the nerve just to slap them so he could pop them into his bag inventory. Moving them into his space inventory would have been too much, requiring him to move them by hand, but the bag simply required touch, which Joe was able to do with a rapid tap.

With all his materials packed away, Joe marched down the stairs to the next room before promptly turning back around and marching back up and coming out at the entrance to the dungeon, the bright sky and dungeon containment walls rising around him. So weird, but nice… Joe thought as he marched quickly out of the dungeon and down to the café where the others congregated.

* * *

Within the Dungeon Guardians and Dragon Spear headquarters, two groups of people meet. The Dungeon Guardians were much more professional, meeting with a certain austere dignity around a long table with attendants and support staff crowded behind each member invited to the meeting. Within the Dragon Spear quarters where the strongest of the members of the current plane lived, a hierarchy had naturally formed, but it was much more fluid and relaxed, with the members crowding their ready room and entertainment area. The strongest of the Dragon Spear lounged on various chairs and sofas while the weaker and younger stood in the back, circling the powerful yet few members in the middle.

The Dungeon Guardians argued in stilted and politically correct language but essentially evaluated whether they had the capability to pay a rather strong visit to a certain young clan on the last plane of their cradle with the expectation that the visiting dignitaries would receive certain pertinent gifts for their visit. The Dragon Spear, at least, were more honest in their description and consideration of robbing from the Coushar clan any meaningful wealth, especially anything that might actually be a perfect core, if such existed.

Both branches of this team kept their considerations quiet, although both knew that the other knew as both teams were fed information from the same network. Efforts had been made by the Dungeon Guardians to keep the Dragon Spears out of the loop, but that always led to poor outcomes for the Dungeon Guardians as if the Dragon Spear heard of it, their members who were always incredibly strong, took great affront to being left out.

As plans were being made, their information network returned with one other piece of. A piece of news that had the leadership within the information network sweating with some fear and two runners were sent to both parties, both insistent and urgent although one was quite a bit more polite in dispensing the news.

“The prison guards have learned of this and seem interested.”

The Dungeon Guardians muttered and settled back into professional disappointment before voting to table the decision and bury it beneath some heavy classifications. The Dragon Spear took it with less dignity as the meeting broke up with shouts of anger and curses carefully selected to target neutral nonaffiliated members. The Dragon Spear were arrogant. Their power allowed them their arrogance, but they were not fools. The dungeon society quickly settled to quiet fascination, making no move, but watching very carefully.

* * *

When Joe made it back to the café, he was relieved to find the others there waiting for him, and he quickly had them joining him back in the dungeon. He’d been excited to see if they’d gained any levels, already having put them all into a five member party, but they received nothing. Joe wondered if it was because of distance or not being in the dungeon, as they headed back in, Joe didn’t particularly care and grinned as they headed back down.

The others respected the silence until they made it to the first room and Gwenvair quickly interjected, “So?”

Joe grinned back at her, “It is a good floor. I will show you when we get there, although I can see how some might find it difficult.”

“But it is not for you?”

“Not something too unusual. Stephliquen likely could have done the same, with some preparation.”

All the others turned to stare at Stephliquen and she glanced around at them before she turned her gaze to Joe, “What’s going on?”

Joe grinned, “I just told them you probably could have figured out the second floor just like me. They were a bit surprised.”

Stephliquen pondered that, her eyes narrowing as she stared at Joe, “What do you mean?”

Joe’s grin grew slightly, “You’ll see.”

Stephliquen’s curious gaze shifted, her lips twisting upwards. Joe simply chuckled and led them down.

Passing through the was simply as Joe did the same thing, dropping an infused arrow into the shadow of the shadow cat which caused it to leap out of into the air where Joe punched another infused arrow straight into it. It died, immediately, and Joe grinned, happy with how quickly that went down. No cores, but to be honest, who cares!

Joe then led them straight on down into the second floor with the other’s all staring at him with surprise. Joe ignored them and simply marched straight to the second floor entrance before he paused. Wait… If I want to level them… Joe’s lips twisted with that thought, pursing upwards in consideration before he sighed and went over his options. He looked at his jobs and options and finally decided that he would have to give up one of his language skills to char: the researcher’s triple bonus to learning for the party. That should do it!

When they made it to the second floor, he grinned and ushered all of them in, “Alright. Be prepared to enjoy some insane growth today.”

Gwenvair looked at him with a quirk, but smiled softly, while Xylarnae and Kalia simply stared at him, although Kalia frowned a bit. Joe sighed at that, then turned and spoke to Stephliquen, explaining what would happen and the basic math behind it. She quickly caught on to it and Joe nodded then turned back and prepared much like he had before.

As he prepared to throw the spark killer, he grimaced realizing he was going to lose a bit of parachute cord again, but realized there was little he could do for it as he wanted most of the spark weaponry available in case he needed to defend against a random flying spark. Although… maybe I could take them out with an infused arrow shot? The thought gave him pause, but he took it as a possible primary option and still wanted to have a good backup he could rely on, so opted to sacrifice another few feet of cord.

With things prepared, he began heaving the spark asterisk weapon over at the elemental, and the others stared on with confusion, although Stephliquen quickly became excited and laughed a little.

“I see what you are doing!”

Joe glanced back at her and chuckled, laughing, “Pretty cool, huh!”

“It works?”

“Yup. Works just fine, although I lose a bit of the cord, but…”

“You do? How?”

“The cord melts from the heat.”

Stepliquen’s eyebrows shot up at that, “They dump that much power?”

Joe nodded, grinned, then shrugged, “Seems like it, although I have no tools to measure it. You can see for yourself.”

She nodded and fell silent at that, so Joe turned back to tossing his massive star weaponry again. The others whispered amongst themselves but said nothing in reply so Joe continued. As before, it took a good ten or twenty minutes to pull it off, but this time it was much more enjoyable as Stephliquen cheered or moaned along with him for each almost success or failure. When it finally did work out, she laughed with some relief.

“Finally.”

“You’re not the one that had to throw the thing a dozen times!”

Stephliquen chuckled but replied with an evil grin, “I wouldn’t have needed a dozen times!”

Joe sputtered at that, then rallied, an idea coming to him, “Without your implant?!”

That had Stephliquen sputter herself but she was unable to come back, and ended with her own reply, “Well… touche.”

Joe flinched at that, sighing then chuckling, and she noticed, “What?”

Joe sighed again and looked at her, “You just spoke French.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Ah.. I mean, the translator gave your reply in French. I … just wasn’t expecting it.”

The swelling of translation magic washed past Joe and over Stephliquen, but Joe found he wasn’t really in the mood to care, frowning with a bit of bitterness and Stephliquen quickly fell silent herself while looking at Joe for a bit before replying softly.

“Sorry.”

Joe huffed at that and tried to smile, “Not… it’s… I’ve forgiven you… as much as I can. Leave it at that.”

She said nothing but did nod when Joe looked over at her and settled back to watch the rest in silence. That turned out to be a good idea because Joe now had to swap out quite a few jobs, another seven for his own and another three for each of the others. He was able to get them all up through citizen, educated, and scholar. That, gave Joe some relief, and he knew things would really start looking up for them with them getting into the scholar line of jobs. Joe grinned, happy to finally be there. He’d hoped for more, but to be honest, the theorist line of jobs were just a tick away, and focusing on the education jobs for the next week or two would really do it. An unknown tension lifted from his shoulders even as he found himself speaking with Kalia and Stephliquen with ease, barely a second or two delay between their hearing and reply. Much… better. That should help out alot!

* * *

When news of the Dragon’s Spear and Dungeon Guardians got out, the greatest, greater and all the rest of the clans reacted almost as swiftly. As powerful as the Dungeon Guardians were, their ‘neutral’ networks were littered with many willing to report information quickly and easily. And just as quickly as the Dungeon Guardians and Dragon’s Spear reacted, so, too, did the clans. Their planning begun, then put on hold pending the prison guard’s reactions. That didn’t stop the planning and careful preparations. While it was surreptitious, a surprisingly large amount of materials and man power found their way to the capital of the final plane in Aelthron’s Cradle. While none were willing to poke the slumber dragon that were the prison guards, there was no love lost between the two, fear on the one part and mocking dismissal from the other had the prisoners of Aelthron’s Cradle more than willing to subtly withhold information if they could do so without getting caught.

* * *

With the second floor done, Joe was able to look over his gains, and he grinned. He’d gotten regen adept and shaman up to almost forty as well as healing adept and shaman. As for his stealth gains, he’d been abel to open up another four shadow hunter jobs: genin, chuunin, jonin, and shinobi. The next job opened up was called nokizaru, puzzling Joe and teasing his memory, but he couldn’t remember anything and simply left it at that. . He then decided to look at what his latest stats were and grinned. Today… was a good day! Ha!

image [https://i.imgur.com/TI4qSp5.png]

After taking a look at his status, he turned to the others. He ended up talking with all of them in one big messy conversation with Stephliquen having her own side conversation simultaneously with the other three with him sometimes having to interpret between them all. It was fun, but exhausting for Joe, but ultimately he was able to teach them what they needed to know.

All of them learned where their future lie, with Stephliquen having a short layover in pushing for the polyglot skill and working on some ‘char:’ skills that would be much more difficult for her simply because she hadn’t had a lot of time to actually use any of her skills to raise them. He taught her specifically about the ‘char:’ skills so she could use them well, and then asked her to pass it on to the others if they had more questions.

While both understood where their future growth lie and understood the steps necessary to push into the theorist lines of jobs as well as other learning jobs, only Stephliquen seemed to understand the numbers involved, and quickly grew excited, just like Joe, especially when he showed what he was capable of with his enhanced stats. He did struggle to ‘turn them on,’ as it were, but when he did, she saw them very quickly for what they were, and while she wanted to dig into the ramifications, Joe had them moving out rather quickly, heading to the next floor. His exhaustion also didn’t help, and found his exhaustion to be an odd one, almost more mental that physical, or somehow deeper in his bones in a way he couldn’t quite grasp. He wasn’t quite physically tired, but neither was he really mentally tired. It was a really odd feeling, as he’d felt both before, and the best he could liken the current exhaustion he was feeling was to something similar to mental exhaustion, but not. It was an exhaustion that was affecting him physically and mentally, but it really didn’t seem to be either one.

That left him unable to really deal with the tougher questions she had and when he explained, she politely pulled back from delving into tougher topics and they simply rested in the resting room before the third floor.

“Then, is there anything you want to know?” Stephliquen asked, “Something not too hard to go over?”

Joe grinned at that, “Sorry. Not sure what’s going on, but I’m feeling exhausted.”

“I can tell.”

“A weird one, though… but yeah.”

“Hmm.”

They fell silent for a time and Gwenvair interjected, “Are you feeling well, Joe?”

Joe looked over with a smile, “I’m pretty good, just exhausted.”

Gwenvair also nodded then fell silent for a bit and Joe found himself unable to really fall asleep so returned to what he hoped was a light conversation with Stephliquen.

“So, what other weird things have you found about life here on gas giant moons?”

Stephliquen looked over at Joe and chuckled, “Not really anything else really important… really.”

“But something?” Joe picked up his head, curious.

“Yeah.”

“Simple and easy and won’t twist my brain in knots?”

“Definitely not. A simple observation, if anything.”

“Oh. OK. Then what is it. I’m kinda bored.”

Stephliquen nodded and continued, “Well. They don’t follow the galactic form norm.”

That little phrase piqued Joe’s interested and he found himself quickly escaping from his exhaustion, ‘Galactic form norm? What is that?”

Stephliquen smiled, “Not something you would really know until you had gained interstellar space flight, but, at least within our galaxy, intelligent beings all follow standard galactic form.”

Joe’s eyebrows wavered, confusion and surprise in equal parts including a bit of denial, “That’s… not what I think it is… never mind. Please explain?”

“How is it a surprise? Look at both of us.”

“I was curious about that. Both of us are human… or what my species would call it, anyway.”

“The galactic form norm. Everyone that we have found follows this exact form: two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two arms, and two legs in this upright basic shape. There are some differences, such as different subsets of hair color or eye color, or differing numbers of fingers and toes. Although, the fingers and toes thing usually are uniform in that they all have the same number on their hands and toes. If they have five, then all limbs have five. If they have three, then all limbs have three.”

Joe blinked at that, uncertain of where to take this and deciding to go with the easiest first before really digging into the meat of the matter, “Then what is the range on fingers and toes, and do those numbers include thumbs?”

Stehpliquen nodded at that, “I think three to seven, including thumbs.”

“So the smallest is two fingers and a thumb, and the largest is six fingers and a thumb.”

“That we know of, although our sample is a bit small, with only about two dozen or so.”

“Two dozen? Twenty four? I thought there were only four in your empire, including the Qaenar?”

“Yes, but the Qaenar Empire has met several other star empires and is currently fighting against one. Between all the galactic empires we’ve met… they’ve met, we’ve found twenty six galactic species. Every one of them is human, pretty much. As I said, the only difference is hair and eye color ranges and digit counts for fingers and toes.”

“That’s… not possible?! That’s the only difference?”

“Well… there is some variance on height and width, as it were, but the proportions are essentially identical.”

“That… doesn’t make any sense at all. How are all... how have you guys accommodated for that?”

“Not sure many have. Some have argued that intelligence is intrinsically tied to the humanoid shape, and …”

Joe interrupted with a snort, and a shake of his head, “That is absurd.”

She looked at him then cocked her head, “Then how do you account for it?”

“The only thing that would make sense is panspermia. It’s gotta be intelligent panspermia, at this point.”

“Panspermia?”

“The seeding of other planets and solar systems with life.”

She grinned, “And yet genetically, they are not alike.”

Joe’s eyebrows fluctuated even as a heavy breath whooshed through him, “What do you mean?”

“Genetically, you and I are incompatible. I do not know what genetic or protein base you use, but we are not compatible.”

Joe grimaced at that, “I was worried about that, but I’m eating here… pretty fine.”

She sat back at that, then added in her own grimace, “Yeah… although disease doesn’t seem to be a significant problem for us.”

“Maybe… but magic.”

Her grimace grew at that, “Yeah…”

Joe pondered her comments a bit before diving right back in, “But, again, that’s just… bizarre. Are you saying that the genetics of each planet are unique to each?”

“For the planet?”

“Yes. My planet has a singular genetic code for all life on it. Every single living organism has the same four molecules used to encode genetic information. We identify them as GTCA. They define every species on our planet, from unicellular to … me.”

“Likewise. Our planet has a singular genetic make-up as well.”

“But you do not use the same molecules?”

“There are a … limited set of genetic molecular groups that work together to allow genetic data to be stored. From what I understand, there are many more humanoids than there are specific genetic sets to make up a genetic code, although I think that set, if I remember my general population biology course, is effectively doubled because each set can be mirrored, somehow… but I’m not exactly sure. But… basically, we know of four or five … I think? I really don’t know. You’re diving down into my childhood education and I’m not… really sure anymore. You’re lucky I know this much.”

Joe frowned at that, then shook his head, “But that doesn’t make… any sense. Why wouldn’t any evolutionary form that developed intelligence be the continued form of that evolutionary state. It…”

Joe’s mind slammed into a hard lock, unable to continue thinking as everything he knew or extrapolated simply crashed against this new evidence, “But… are you sure?”

Stephliquen laughed, “Yeah. Our scientific community had a pretty hard time with this news as well, especially some of our more adventurous entertainment businesses.”

Joe just kind of felt himself sitting in wonder before shaking his head and pondering quietly to himself, “Star Trek got it all right all along!”

Stephliquen heard, but seemed confused by it, eye’s dropping down with confusion, “Huh?”

Joe laughed quietly to himself even as he waved away Stephliquen’s statement, “Nothing.”

They remained like that for awhile then Joe remembered what started the conversation, “So, then… the oddities are that there are greater variances on the humanoids here?”

Stephliquen nodded and Joe laughed, shaking his head, “You have no idea.”

“What do you mean?”

Joe pondered, looking around at the other three before swapping to their language and continuing, “I know Gwenvair has a kin form, but do you two have any other forms?” Joe directed his last bit of the question at Xylarnae and Kalia.

Kalia’s reply was quick and laced with pride, “I’m empowered.”

Xylarnae also nodded, reply with the same, “I as well.”

When Xylarnae spoke, Kalia whipped her head around to look at Xylarnae in shock, eyes traveling up and down her body before locking on Xylarnae’s eyes. Xylarnae simply gazed back at her with a smile and Kalia turned away, obviously confused and curious, but not replying.

Joe, for his part, was confused, “Empowered?”

Neither spoke, but Gwenvair stepped forward with some embarrassment and replied, “Empowered are … more powerful and greater than kin. They do not have a secondary kin form, but hold true to the base form while maintaining their own unique form as well.”

Joe pondered that, then cocked his head in confusion, “What does that mean?”

Kalia spoke, waving down her body, “I maintain the basic base form but retained my fey heritage. All fey are empowered, as are elves, dwarves, and other such.”

Joe’s eyebrows narrowed at that before he continued, “So … if you have something like a base human form, but are different… you are empowered?”

Kalia nodded, “Yes. I maintained much of my fey power and abilities, so I retained much of my fey form and beauty.”

Joe blinked at that, “Then you can’t change at all? This is your … you’re done? No other options?”

Kalia frowned at that, obviously not liking the way Joe was putting it, and replied with some disdain, “I have no need to waste power and effort on a second form.

1. Sore spot… I’ll drop it.

“Then, Gwenvair, would you be willing to show Stephliquen your Kin form? She has never heard or seen such before?”

Gwenvair’s eyebrows jumped at that, surprised before she nodded, “Sure.”

Joe nodded and turned away, catching Stephliquen’s gaze, “Watch Gwenvair. She’ll show you something cool!”

Joe smirked, and kept his back to Gwenvair, not wishing to embarrass her as he remembered Kilini… Joe sighed, and closed his eyes before continuing, “OK. You can go ahead. I’ll keep my back turned for you.”

Gwenvair’s reply was rather surprising, “Why?”

Joe’s mind blanked for a bit before he continued, “I… uh… I don’t want to embarrass you when you have to change or… take off your clothes?”

Gwenvair shouted at that, and he felt a hard slap come down on his shoulders followed by dozens of weaker ones, “You… why would you…”

Joe whipped his hands up over his head and called out, “I’m sorry… I just figured if you shifted, you would rip your clothes or … hurt yourself… or something!”

The slapping stopped and a silence came over the field. Joe slowly turned and looked at Gwenvair, seeing her deep red blush on her cheeks. Joe frowned but remained silent before Gwenvair took a deep breath and continued.

“Thank you for your thoughts, but I do not need to do such. My clothing has been enchanted to allow such.”

“Oh. I didn’t kno… that is so cool!” Joe’s thoughts shifted quickly to the ramifications of morphing clothing and he smiled brightly, “Can I see then?”

Gwenvair blushed once again and growled in embarrassed frustration, “Stop sounding so… bad.”

Kalia laughed at their conversation but said nothing although Gwenvair turned towards her with a grumble and some attempt at graceful dignity, “Your laughter is not appreciated.”

“And yet such a boon for me!”

Joe coughed, hiding his own chuckle before Gwenvair noticed. He was saved, but she did end up turning her attention back to him. He endured it for a time until she’d cooled down and Joe tried to get the conversation back on track.

“Uh. So… can you show her?”

Gwenvair looked at Joe, then grimaced as a small red tinge returned but she ignored it and immediately fell forward then dropped onto four legs, shifting into a beautiful if massive wolf, fur swarming out in a massive wave to cover her body. The clothing shifted to being primarily straps to hold all her belongings.

All Joe’s embarrassing slips with Gwenvair vanished when Stephliquen shouted and leapt back in shock, “The Imperial Queen’s infested nethers!!”

Glad the translation didn’t do that… exactly. Joe grunted, holding in his laughter but unable to hold in his smile as Stephliquen stepped back and away from Gwenvair with look of horror. Joe laughed then and looked at her. Gwenvair obviously noted Stephliquen’s look and quickly returned to her more humanoid form and remained where she was while looking at Stephliquen with concern.

“Are you OK?” Gwenvair asked.

Joe quickly realized Stephliquen wouldn’t understand and translated for her, “She wants to know if you are OK?”

Stephliquen turned her gaze to Joe and angrily began to blast into him, “You knew about this?! How did she do this? Where is the mass coming from? What happened to the clothing? What about…”

“OK. OK! OK OK OK… let’s calm down. Yes, I knew about this, but didn’t know her actually form, although I had a pretty good guess. Yes, this seems to be pretty common, although it seems like in our group only Gwenvair can do this. Many of the people can do this. They call their not human form kin and their humanoid form base. The form they like to ‘rest’ in and mainly exist in for their lives they call rest. Often, the rest form is a morph between the two. For example, you can see that Gwenvair looks mainly human but likes to keep her tail and ears, which makes sense ‘cause she gains a lot from having both out.”

Stephliquen’s rapid panting had settled and she turned to look at Joe with some shock, “This is… normal?”

“For her species, I think… yeah.”

“Her species?”

Joe nodded, “From what I understand, there are a LOT of kin… species that can do that… morphing thing.”

“How many?”

Joe shrugged and turned back to the others, “She wants to know how many kin there are?”

All three stared then laughed at that, shaking their heads. Kalia was the one to answer.

“Thousands upon thousands? Millions? As many as there are cradles in the sky? Maybe not as many as there are cradles, but… each cradle has their own peoples, and so there are as many kin as there are cradles but for the cradles that chose empowered forms.”

OK… that… has a lot to… Uh…

“Just a moment, Stephliquen, but, for now, a quick answer is millions, if not more… As many as there are gas giants with life on them in this galaxy.”

Stephliquen blinked in shock but Joe was already turning to face the other three, “What do you mean by each cradle has their own peoples or that cradles… chose? Their peoples?”

Kalia nodded at that, smirking with frustration before continuing, “You do not know this? How…”

Kalia sighed deeply and calmed herself before returning her gaze to Joe and continuing, “Each cradle bears its own people, and those people are chosen by the cradle.”

Suddenly, it clicked, and Joe calmed down, not so shocked anymore, “You mean that each cradle had a singular intelligent life form?”

“Yes.”

Calming, Joe continued, then realized there was a big problem, “Across all planes in that cradle?”

“Yes?” Kalia replied, confused by Joe’s concern.

Joe found himself lost once again, struggling to understand how all this had happened with what he understood with his current knowledge, “But… not for each moo… uh, plane on the cradle?”

Kalia shook her head, growing more annoyed but also seeming to be concerned for Joe, “No. Each cradle had an Empowered or Kin or…”

Joe turned away in shock, ignoring the rest and returning to Stephliquen, “Yeah. Seems like each gas giant, not each moon, but each gas giant had a singular intelligent being on it that lived on all the moons simultaneously. But they also have either a dual form, like Gwenvair showed, or a form like you and I, called base, or a form more like Kalia, which is a mix but static and unchanging. This is called an empowered form.”

Stephliquen caught all the details, but like Joe, recognized where the shocking ramifications lie, “On all moons per gas giant? Not a different species per moon?”

“All moons… so per gas giant basis.”

The confusion shifted to horrified awe with that as she continued, “Per gas giant!”

“Yes.”

“In the whole galaxy!”

“Yup.”

“And… with forty or fifty moons!”

Joe nodded with his own sigh of agreement, “Yeah.”

Stephliquen grit her teeth and stared at Joe in shock, “Galactic wide civilization?”

“Yup.”

“How?”

“Seems like they have gates.”

“Gates?”

“Star gates… as some of our fiction call them. Wormhole travel with instantaneous teleportation or wormhole connections between planets and stars.”

“Instantaneous?”

“If it’s not, well… let me ask.”

“How long does it take to travel from one star to another?” Joe asked, looking at the other three.

Xylarnae was the one to respond, nodding her head, “I’ve traveled often, and regularly. Within the same cradle, travel is very quick. I cannot tell any time. Between stars, it is longer, but maybe only a breath, maybe two breaths.”

Joe’s eyes widened with some shock at that before he turned to face Stephliquen, “Pretty much instantaneous.”

Stephliquen breathed heavily and shook her head, “Seriously?”

“Instantaneous within the gas giant’s moons, and a second or two from star to star.”

Stephliquen stared at Joe with shock and excitement even as she shut down and her thoughts turned internal, “Galactic travel … instantaneous galactic travel!”

Joe laughed, nodding, “Yup. About what I felt.”

They fell silent at that, and Joe retreated into his own thoughts, exhausted. He did take the time to turn to the other three and let them know that everything was fine before shutting down for a bit. But a few moments later Gwenvair came to him and began speaking with him and they soon turned to writing shortly after, her glee and determination infectious. He began teaching her at the table, but was soon surrounded by Xylarnae and Stephliquen as well. Stephliquen learned the fastest, comprehending it quickly if still struggling to learn it while Xylarnae and Gwenvair both were driven by passion. Gwenvair’s, Joe was certain of, but Xylarnae’s passion was a mystery to him. That didn’t stop him from teaching all three. About half way through the lesson, Kalia joined them out of boredom, watching on with glazed eyes. This continued for a time until even Gwenvair grew exhausted and he called an end to it. He sat with them and they turned to a relaxed conversation for a while until after a bit, he stood up and sighed, turning to the next door.

“Time to head out, I think.”

* * *

Kainaro, slave master of the slave guild and recently hired man of Gunlan, patriarch of Coushar, fidgeted in his room. It was early morning, and he found himself deeply agitated. He’d received the tools but found that terror was slowly settling into his bones, and he struggled to defeat it. He alternated between sitting in his waiting room and agitatedly wandering his house accomplishing meaningless chores. When noon rolled around, the anxiety fled and he felt only relief. He’d missed the daily gate to the outer plane, and there was nothing to do but wait for tomorrow. The thought of tomorrow had him fleeing his home and seeking escape at a local tavern at the bottom of the tavern’s mugs. He didn’t return home for quite some time. As he did so, however, deep within him, the resolve to confront his task firmed. As he fell into his bed, he softly whispered to himself a promise that he would begin tomorrow.

* * *

Joe led the others through the passageway to the next door and paused, glancing towards Gwenvair. She simply smiled and waved to the door, encouraging him on and Joe grinned, lifting a hand and pressing forward even as the massive handprint in the door slid down and to his right, matching up to his own. He pressed it in and the door opened smoothly. Joe grinned as it did, looking into the room then beginning to frown. OK… I already don’t like this.

The environment was swampy, and looked to be unpleasant because of it, although the depths of the swamp seemed to be only six or so inches. There were areas of dry ground around, but the majority of the field was filled with water. Scattered round were massive trees, almost like mangroves, living in the water although the roots didn’t seem to arch out of the ground quite so high as mangroves. The roots seemed more like normal trees and any root above ground was the result of natural erosion leeching the ground away.

Trees in the water often had much of their roots visible, creating a cave like hidden structure under the water for any fish or other water living creatures to live in. The same trees growing from the small islands grew pretty much like normal trees, their roots buried into the ground and not visible at all, almost until they were right up against the trunk as it rose up into the sky.

Despite the presence of trees, they were sparse, and visibility was good. The sky was clear and bright and Joe found he was able to look around rather easily. Even the sun was covered by a cloud and no bright sharp rays reflected off the waves to stab into any unwary eyes. Still, the fact that he would be marching around the swamp didn’t endear him to this floor and he turned to seek out the encounter.

Finding it proved a bit tricky until he saw it move, then realized he was pretty much dealing with the Aelthron version of a turtle. That gave him pause and he spent some time pointing it out to the others and asking for their input, especially Gwenvair as she was the only native there.

Turns out that they were predominately identical to their Earthen counterparts, however there were two major differences: one variant wasn’t quite so slow and had range attacks. The second variant also wasn’t slow, but not as quick as the first, and while it didn’t technically have range attacks, its reach was almost the same. Joe wasn’t interested in encountering either one!

The range variant seemed to be predominately magical, while the non-ranged variant was, for all Joe could call to mind, a turtle snake. It was a turtle shell with snakes for appendages, essentially. That one seemed like their best bet, because if it was the first, Joe wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it at all.

They all took in the view, judging and making some plans before they finally decided to step in. They verified its location one last time, then entered, ready for both options.

* * *

Thamnerlun Metalgrapple thumped back to the Galgandar clan gates and found his welcome much more polite and rapid. The wait was miniscule and the Galgandar Patriarch met him within the grand walls of his seat. Thamnerlun settled before the Patriarch with a rumbling thump.

“Found him?”

“Yes, great smith. He is my slave.”

That gave pause to Thamnerlun, even as his eyes narrowed if not quite in suspicion. Any being would love to have the life debt of one of his kind, let alone a master smith of his kind. His intent for a life debt had been given due to the great work the man had done. This snotty kin brat was no such thing.

“As your slave?”

The Patriarch simply grinned greater and Thamnerlun felt his eyebrows drop even more, concern twining through his gut. This boy plays games! But if it is his slave, then… He gains the debt for himself… so why the games to… Epiphany struck the dwarf and his eyebrows smoothed and he shook his head.

“No. Not your slave.”

The Patriarch frowned at that and leaned forward, “He is my slave.”

“Not during the working.”

The Patriarch relaxed and leaned back, smiling, “My slave.”

Thamnerlun frowned then sighed. More tricks and foolishness.

“He was not your slave during the working or you would have long said so. Do not play me for a fool, whelp. Where is the man?”

Rage curled up on the Patriarch’s face but Thamnerlun could care less what the boy would do, for he would do nothing. He simply stared at the Patriarch. The Patriarch stared with hatred before sitting back with a petulant anger.

“He is not here.”

“When?”

“I do not know when he will return.”

“Call.”

“I have! You think I have not called the man? He does not return!”

Thamnerlun paused at that, staring at Patriarch for a time but not replying for awhile as he considered the ramifications of an uncontrollable slave. He grunted and decided it wasn’t his concern. Only seeking out the man and returning a life debt was his concern. He needed only the name of the man so he can find him on his own.

“Name.”

The Patriarch’s lips twitched even as anger swelled, his teeth clenching as his jaw tightened, “Joe McConnell, the eccentric.”

Thamnerlun nodded and immediately turned his back on the whelp, ignoring all the gasps in the room. The foolish boy lied to me. What more could the child want but to be insulted in return for his poor behavior and boorish attitude! He enjoys the fruits of his labor! He marched out without concern nor a farewell, the doors booming shut behind him. His daughter and brother clamored to his side as he left, his daughter wonderfully silent, although for reasons that deeply concerned him, while his brother just couldn’t shut up. He stifled his sigh.

* * *

The turtle in the third floor of the intermediate dungeon happened to be a rather normal turtle in the location it had chosen, basking in the sun upon a small hump of land but relatively close to the water if it wished to return. It was decidedly not a normal turtle in pretty much any other way as it didn’t have a body, as far as Joe could tell!

It had something like a head, tail, and legs. They came out pretty quickly when his team entered the floor, but they were decidedly not any form of living creature he’d ever seen before. The head was a ball of glowing flame while the legs were pillars that were mostly vertical, firmly gripping the ground, while the tail was a thinner flame that wafted in the breeze unlike the other five limbs which blazed with power but unusual rigidity.

“What is that?!” Joe stared with some shock.

Stephliquen seemed a bit more concerned for solutions, “How are we gonna fight that?”

Kalia simply snorted, then sighed and shook her head, “It would be easy, if I were in my prime, but I am uncertain. Although, the eccentric has proven to be unusually effective against elementals and their ilk.”

“This is an elemental?” Joe asked with some surprise.

“A hybrid,” Kalia quickly replied.

Xylarnae frowned and shook her head, “Not truly, but it does have an elemental form. It, itself, is not an elemental. It is likely a trait or possibly some form of magic.”

Joe frowned at that, “It’ll stop after it runs out of mana?”

Xylarnae smiled, “Unlikely. Traits need no magic, and evolved forms from magery… they are often incredibly efficient, unlike sentient efforts to elementalize.”

“Huh… wait, we can do that?”

Xylarnae smiled, chuckling, “If you have enough affinity or train for thousands… hundreds of thousands of years? It is difficult!”

The turtle fireball had paused in its mad scramble and stared at them with concern, but did not move. Joe relaxed when he saw that, and felt free enough to continue asking more questions.

“Then, any recommendations?”

“Shoot water at it?” Kalia offered sarcastically.

Joe sighed and rolled his eyes, “Duh, but we don’t have that… except the swamp water.”

Kalia smirked, “Regular water is useless against elemental fire.”

Joe frowned at that, immediately thinking that was foolish but then reconsidered. Magic? But… that seems odd. Is there different kinds of… maybe elemental water would do well against elemental fire then? Or…

“Would elemental water do well?”

Kalia sighed, “Amazingly, but we don’t have any and you are not secretly a water mage, are you?”

Joe frowned, “Nope.”

“Then you have nothing.”

Joe replied, “Infused weapons seemed to do great against sparks or other things.”

Kalia snorted, “If you can get close enough to it.”

Joe nodded at that and considered, “Then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

Kalia smirked but said nothing while Xylarnae simply nodded at his statement and Gwenvair seemed to simply be eager for whatever plan Joe had. Joe sighed and looked towards Stephliquen.

“Well, we have to fight that.”

“The fire breathing moveable fortress?”

“Yup.”

“And we can’t just dunk it under water?”

“Well, supposedly, normal… things can’t effect the elemental version of it, so water is great against fire, but that isn’t normal fire. It’s elemental fire, so it needs elemental water to combat it, not just regular water.”

“Well, that… really sucks… and is weird at the same time.”

“Isn’t it? Right?”

“Yeah. Water is water. Why wouldn’t it affect fire?”

“Yeah. I just don’t get it.”

“Wanna test it?”

“Probably seems like a very good idea,” Joe nodded then turned back to look at the flame throwing fortress, “but I really don’t want any of us to get hurt. That flame will cook any one of us and we’d have to get pretty close. They said it moves fast.”

“With all that armor?”

“Yeah. Seems odd, but yeah.”

“Huh. Then, do you have a way to deal with it at range?”

“I don’t really think so, not easily… but if I can sneak an arrow into those holes.”

“You’ll probably lose an arrow with those flames, though.”

“Yeah. Kinda what I’m worried about. Guess I could use one of my dispensable ones…”

“Dispensable arrows?”

Joe glanced up at Stephliquen with a snort, “You didn’t send me down with near enough supplies. Had some more arrows made up, but they’re inferior.”

Stephliquen rolled her eyes, “Well excuse me for not knowing there was magical spatial storage insanity around here.”

Joe snorted, “Probably was for the best. Would have locked me to the pod.”

Stephliquen grimaced, “That was our assessment as well. It would have led to long term demise of most inserted.”

Joe’s face struggled to hide the snarl of rage as he snarked back at her, “You could have not sent us at all!”

Stephliquen flinched and nodded. Joe noticed and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again.

“Sorry. Still a bit sore about all this, although recent events… yeah, I’m not in the best of conditions to be … yeah.”

Stephliquen bowed her head, offering a half bow of apology combined with a nod of acquiescence, “I completely understand. If it helps, I fought hard for your supplies.”

An eyebrow launched up at that, “They didn’t want to send any?”

Her eyes closed while a bitter twist came to her smile, “As I said, they wanted you out and contacting the locals.”

He stared at her, eyes narrowing and piercing through her, “How many survived?”

She grit her teeth then sighed deeply, “Six… or seven, I’m not sure.”

“How many did you send?”

Lips twisted into a grimace and her eyes closed again as she spoke, “Maybe thirty… thirty five were inserted into this moon. I’m really not sure.”

“How do you not know this? It was your job!”

“My implants not working. I can’t get the details,” Stephliquen quickly replied, stepping back from him and holding up her arms.

Joe paused at that and quickly pulled back, realizing he’d stalked up on her in a rage and he turned away from her to calm himself even as he considered what she said. His calm returned and he turned back to her with thin lips. He stared at her for a while then chose to simply dismiss the entire conversation, the burning anger simmering deep within him not something he wished to experience or explore at this time.

He turned back to the fire turtle and stepped back, startled, when he saw Gwenvair at his side with a hand on his shoulder. When did she… oh… His memory played back and he remembered a soft caress on his shoulder blade and shuddered when he realized he’d been incredibly distracted. He nodded to Gwenvair in thanks and turned his attention to the fight, dismissing Stephliquen entirely.

“Alright. Let’s see what we can do.”

Joe stepped forward and brought up his bow, sliding one of his wooden arrows onto the string while slipping a mana point onto the tip of the arrow head. Gonna hit the inside of the shell, at least. That should bring this thing down rather simply.

Joe sighted his arrow and breathed out, releasing his frustration and anger with that one long sigh before time slowed and the turtle’s shell came into focus. It spun a bit lazily, the blazing head and legs somehow only loosely tied to their respective holes in the shell as the shell wobbled back and forth despite the head and legs remain static and unmoving. As he sighted in on the closest hole, what appeared to be the hole for the head of the turtle, he realized that the shifting shell moved enough that the hole was often out of alignment with his shot. Joe frowned. Guess I need to time this.

He kept his position for some time, watching the movement of the shell and quickly found the pattern. He double checked it a few times to make certain then counted out the time softly under his breath as he guesstimated the distance. Wind wasn’t a factor, and he soon calmed. Easy. I got this… Then waited for his next shot to line up with the head hole and then released. The arrow fled from his bow and as it passed the arrow rest, his breath released as well, a soft sigh. Hit!

Joe lowered his bow and grinned, certain of his strike, but then froze as he saw the turtle freeze as well. It reacted to Joe’s bow shot and immediately hunkered down, pulling the shell down and even tilting it upwards a bit, putting the arrow on target to hit high, well above the neck hole. Joe grimaced, cursing softly and pulled out another arrow immediately.

Too slow. Too slow! The turtle had stopped moving at all, so it was wide open as Joe lined up another shot. However, he’d let the first arrow fly too long and feared it wouldn’t stay long enough. Still, he had his arrow up, lined up the shot, and zipped a mana point to the arrowhead, then released it before the first arrow had struck.

The first arrow struck the turtle shell, but did not bite. That wasn’t the problem, however, as the first arrow spun off into the distance with a crack. The mana point had punched into his arrow, just like he’d intended, and as soon as it did so, the turtle went wild, spinning in place like a top and releasing a veritable storm of flame, thrown out each hole available to it. The spinning quickly shifted from a straight spin to include an up and down wobble, adding another dimension to contend with for any long range shots.

It then zipped off the mound of dirt it was on, flames shooting from it like a fire tornado, and sped across the water to another mound of dirt. Joe blinked in shock as it slowed and stared at them warily. What is this, Mario? This… A burning cough sounded out and Joe refocused his attention on the turtle just as Kalia shouted out

“Move!”

“Run!” Xylarnae added a split second later.

Joe looked back and found both of them running perpendicular to the direction of the turtle and Joe quickly realized what was going on. Gwenvair started late, so Joe turned to see Stephliquen looking on with some confusion and Joe sprinted to her side, grabbing her elbow and pulling her along.

“Move!” Joe shouted to Stephliquen but his focus remained on the turtle.

The coughing continued another bark or two before Joe noticed that the air in front of the turtles head was growing in brilliant light, flame forming before it. The small ball of flame it created remained there for a split second before it suddenly launched into the sky towards their position.

It wasn’t slow, but it certainly wasn’t following the laws of physics or this moons gravity standards, moving too slowly and falling too slowly. Despite that, Joe and the others almost didn’t make it as they split. Kalia and Gwenvair had run one way while he, Stephliquen, and Xylarnae went the other.

The fire ball landed between them and exploded in a veritable flame. There was no concussive force, oddly enough, but a massive conflagration formed. A freakin’ fire ball mortar? But even more concerning to Joe, was the flames that had spread across to the water burning just as easily as the flames on the dry ground they’d been on. Something like… magical napalm? That’s… not good!

Joe kept moving, slogging through the water to the next island before quickly lining up another shot and firing it at the creature. That proved catastrophic as the turtle spun up its fire tornado once again and zipped across to a third island, slightly closer to him. Joe cursed and dropped his bow. Well, it knows arrows are dangerous now. Don’t think I’ll get another shot!

Joe plopped his bow back into his inventory and dithered over his options until he heard another coughing sound. As before, Kalia and Xylarnae shouted out their warnings, both already running. Joe turned back to Stephliquen but found her also already taking off after Xylarnae. He cursed and brought his head down sprinting as quickly as he could after them.

Thankfully, the fireball went in the other direction, and Joe found his stomach leaping in his throat, fear twisting him even as he growled. No! Not right! Move! Joe didn’t even think, bringing out the Qaenarian spear and ran at the turtle. It didn’t have the storm up, and was still looking at Kalia and Gwenvair, but when Joe got close, it quickly turned its attention towards Joe.

With Joe charging it, it seemed much more willing to engage in a fight and came to stand on the edge of its small mound of dirt. Joe maintained his gaze on it, but allowed a quick shift of focus to take in the latest fireball mortar strike landing in the distance behind it. Relief hit him when the two proved far enough from it and he squared up against it, stepping forward into range with cautious movement for the last two or three strides. All around him, shouts rang out, some of warning, others of concern, but Joe found his thoughts consumed with taking on this monster. No. Protect. Can’t let …

“Joe! No!”

“Don’t let the fire touch you!”

“You’re too close. Its dangerous.”

The cries registered, but somehow all fell behind a wall of rage, consumed and unnoticed. The creature advanced, and he dismissed concerns. He shifted to the right and the turtle shifted with him, bringing the head hole in line with him. Joe crouched, and the turtle did nothing to react, then shifted closer once again.

Joe replied in kind, then lunged, a single long strike that had his spearhead slam into the shell just as the turtle spun to the right and protected the hole from being struck. The strike left a long skittering scratch in the shell but did no damage to it, and Joe frowned. Dumb… infusion!

The creature continued its spin, speeding up and Joe quickly recognized the ploy and he leapt back and to the side. Don’t let the fire touch me. The thought danced in his mind, curving in and around him then softly faded away. The turtle spat out a whirlwind of fire but didn’t advance on him and Joe stood in the face of the awesome heat.

A hand came up, the heat quite immense, to protect his face, but he made sure to continuously glance under his armpit to keep the creature in view. It only spun for a second or two, but the tornado lanced into the sky to an impressive height, despite not really getting much horizontal distance. Still, the heat was significant and Joe was getting certain that he might have a sunburn after all this was said and done.

The spin and flames began to die down, and Joe tensed, sensing an opportunity, bringing his spear in line for a thrust. The spinning came to a stop and the flames erupting from each of the holes shifted from a rising twist to a straight out curved upward flame. Joe grunted. Get low!

He dropped into a deep squat even as he pulled the spear almost completely out of his right hand, leaving only just enough for his right hand to grasp the absolute end of the shaft. Wait… wait… NOW! The flames retreated, growing smaller and smaller until they were only shooting out about half the distance and Joe leapt forward once again, a full bodied lunge that put his entire right side of his body as far forward as he could. His left hand held the shaft of the spear up for his right for a few seconds until his forward lunge began, his right leg lifting up even as his left launched him forward towards the turtle violently. His body leaned in with the strike and his left arm, now losing place as his body pushed his right further and further forward, tapped the spear up slightly even as his right hand pulled back just an inch or two on the spear.

Then his coiled body erupted all at once, the left leg reaching maximum extension even as his body completed its tilt forward and launched forward as well. His right arm moved with the rest of his body, pushing the spear forward in a wild incredibly long distance strike. He had less than a second, his right hand and arm not strong enough to hold up the spear but enough to keep the spear on track, the point rushing for the hole in the shell directly in front of Joe.

The spear shot forward and pierced into the hole without much fanfare, and the creature didn’t really react. Why? The hole began glowing a wild cherry red and Joe’s eyes widened. It’s going again! But, not… oh! Mana points! Shaft! His mana points reacted with a wild lack of control as the all slammed into the shaft of the spear even as the cherry red glow erupted out of the shell, directly for him.

His grasp opened up on the spear even as he attempted to tilt his entire body forward as quickly as possible. He wasn’t in a good position, but he was still crouched from his lunge, most of his body weight over his right leg. Just need to shift… direction.

His body continued to fall forward ever slow slowly even as his mana points slammed into his spear shaft. That brought a reaction, the turtle shrieking in wild rage, pain swelling within its burning crackling cry. The smooth laminar flame coming from where his spear shaft had entered erupted into a wild uncontrolled burst and Joe’s concern exploded. That’s not good!

He wasn’t as well positioned as he wanted to be, but could not see any other time or chance, and he leapt forward as powerfully as he could. His right hand slipped from the spear shaft as he dove into the waters in front of him. He almost made it, the flames missing him nearly entirely except to brush his right arm from elbow to wrist, just across the forearm.

Pain unlike anything he knew flooded his system even as cool water swamped over him, but the blessed relief of the cool water did nothing for the flames burning on his arm. His mouth opened underwater even as he screeched out, bubbles rising from his mouth. He broke the surface even as experience swelled through him, and while the relief of knowing the turtle thing was dead relaxed him, looking into through boiling water to see the flames dancing merrily on his forearm returned his anxiety tenfold as pain continued to wrap around his arm like clawed paws. Joe’s head tilted back involuntarily even as a howl of pain erupted into the skies.