“Everybody calm down,” Bo said. He didn't like what he saw inside the cave's entrance, and he wasn't sure who was at fault. Before he jumped on Lydia, and almost certainly got killed by a core level 9 monster, he wanted to know what happened.
“I'll calm down when she's dead,” Jenny said, gesturing at the bodies of Slick and Bev lying on the floor. From where he stood, Bo couldn't tell what was wrong with the pair, but the way their arms were curled up to their chests and their legs bent at the knees didn’t give him the warm fuzzies.
Lydia glanced at Bo before returning her attention to Jenny. “I do not wish to harm any of your allies, but she isn't giving me much choice in the matter.”
Bo raised his hands and locked eyes with Jenny. “Put the machete down,” he said. “Let's figure this out before somebody gets hurt.”
Jenny's weapon trembled in her grip, and she shook her head. “She did this to them, Bo. She's a monster. We have to stop her before she hurts anyone else.”
The pitmaster's thoughts raced. Jenny was about two seconds from hurling herself at Lydia and hacking on the monster with her machete. Unfortunately, Lydia would naturally defend herself from an attack. That would end badly for Jenny.
“Lydia,” Bo said quietly. “I'm going to do something. It'll look like an attack, but I'm not trying to hurt you. Please don't kill me.”
The horse-faced creature opened all four eyes wide. “If this is a trick, you will regret it.”
“I am well aware,” Bo said. “I promise this won't hurt you. I'm just trying to take things down a few notches.”
“Very well,” Lydia said. “I will not resist your attempt to defuse the situation. Do not betray me.”
Before he could lose his nerve, Bo raised his hand toward Lydia and activated the Webspinner card. He felt a distinctly unnerving sensation as the skin on his palm opened and something sticky and warm raced up through his forearm. Tiny structures twitched and spun inside his hand, and a web of silken cords burst free to streak through the air. Guided by magic, the web stretched out around Lydia and anchored itself to the cavern's stone floor.
“I warned you,” Lydia said, her eyes blazing with fury.
“Stop,” Bo said. “Jenny, she can't move. Put your machete down. Let's talk this out.”
Bo was certain Lydia could have torn free of that webbing in the blink of an eye. She was so much more powerful than Bo that even his cards wouldn't have much effect on her. For a moment, he thought she'd do just that. Then Lydia dipped her head toward him and closed the lower set of her eyes. She relaxed under the strands of webbing. To Bo, it looked as if she'd understood what his plan was and agreed with it.
Jenny, however, did not put down the machete. She didn't rush to attack Lydia, either, which Bo took as a good sign. Her eyes were wide and brimming with unshed tears, and she held the weapon in a white-knuckled grip. Bo couldn’t blame Jenny for her rage. If he’d stumbled on Lydia over her unconscious body…
Yeah. It would not go well.
“I came out here to see if you'd made it back,” Jenny explained. “I found Slick and Bev just like this. The monster was crouched over them, getting ready to finish them.”
Bo thanked his lucky stars he'd come back when he had. If he'd been a few minutes later, Jenny would certainly have attacked the monster, and there’d be three bodies on the ground. He prayed Lydia hadn't actually attacked his friends, because he didn't know what he’d do if she were guilty. A monster of her level could tear through Bo, Jenny, and everyone else inside the cave without breaking a sweat.
“What happened, Lydia?” Bo said. “Be honest with us. We need to settle this before anyone else gets hurt.”
The monster let out a sigh of what Bo hoped was relief. She started to her hands, then remembered she was supposed to be pinned in place by his webs and let them drop back to her sides. “I was tending to the community focus, which is still right there. I had focused some of my mana into it to create a map of our surroundings. It's a difficult task, but my skills are quite impressive. Slick and Bev stumbled upon me during the attunement process.”
Jenny jabbed her machete in Lydia's direction. “And then she killed them,” she said, her voice stone cold with deadly fury. “We need to get rid of her, Bo.”
“Stop saying I killed your friends,” Lydia said. “I did nothing of the sort. I was trying to help them when you came upon me and threatened me.”
“You need to explain what happened,” Bo said. He watched Slick's chest carefully, and saw that it was indeed rising and falling. The older man wasn't dead, but he was definitely out of it. Something had happened to him.
Something bad.
Jenny's shouts had drawn more members of the community to the cavern's entryway. They were all armed with knives, cleavers, and other kitchen-based weapons, and looked ready to jump into action if a fight broke out. Bo tried not to imagine how badly that would end and raised one hand toward the crowd.
“Settle down, everyone,” he said. “Lydia, get to the point.”
The monster snorted as if irritated at being rushed. Or maybe she was aggravated by the webs that held her arms in place, but dove into a quicker explanation. “Your friends stumbled upon me during the attunement process. There was a great deal of mana in play, and Bev sensed it. She broke free of Slick and touched me before I could stop her. The backlash knocked her unconscious. Slick tried to drag her out of the area while the mana was still active, and he was also rendered unconscious. I was reviving them when Jenny showed up.”
Bo felt some of the tension eased from his shoulders. Lydia’s explanation made a certain sort of sense, so maybe this wouldn't end in a bloodbath. “What can we do for them?” he asked Lydia.
“Let me tend to them,” the monster said. “They're affected by my mana. It will be easier for me to rouse them. Or you can wait a few days and they will recover on their own.”
“She's lying,” Jenny said. “And even if she's not, she's too dangerous to keep around. We can't have a monster who knocks people out for days at a time living with us.”
“It wouldn't have happened if the child wasn't so nosy,” Lydia said in her defense. “I'll be careful not to conduct any more mana-intensive procedures without letting the rest of you know to steer clear of me.”
“Get them back on their feet,” Bo said to Lydia. “Jenny, stand ready to defend them on my word.”
Jenny looked dubious about the prospect, but gave Bo a sharp nod.
“The rest of you stay back,” Bo said.
Hank had worked his way to the front of the crowd, and raised a chef's knife over his head.
“Yes, Hank,” Bo said, rolling his eyes. “We’re not in school. You don't have to raise your hand to speak.”
“Shit seemed kind of tense,” Hank said. “I didn’t want to get my head torn off by talking out of turn. Anyway, how do we know if we’re supposed to jump the monster?”
“If you see me fighting, then you can jump in,” Bo said. “But I don't recommend it. This isn't a game. You could get hurt. Maybe killed.”
That seemed to settle everyone down. Lydia looked at Bo. He gave her a nod of his head, and she casually walked out of the webs as if they weren't even there. Bo been right. She was far too powerful to be affected by his cards. Jenny's worries were probably unfounded. But she had a good point. If Lydia turned on them, they had no hope.
“Here we go,” Lydia said as she crouched down next to Bev. “This child is more than she appears. Her core is quite small, but it still absorbed a great deal of mana. It will take me a few minutes to absorb it back into my system. She may thrash or cry out during the process. Do not take that as is a sign I have harmed her. It is simply the body's reaction to having energy removed from it.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“You better not be a vampire,” Jenny said.
“She's not drinking any blood,” Bo said.
“There’re different kinds of vampires,” Jenny said. “Some of them feed on life force. Don't look at me like that. I saw it in a movie once.”
Bo was about to tell his friend that real-life was nothing like the movies when he realized that wasn't true anymore. Instead, held his tongue and watched as Lydia hovered her hands a few inches above Bev's head and chest. The cavern's entrance was lit by a faint glow from the smoker, but despite that ambient light, Bo saw flickers of light jumping between the child and the monster. The flickers turned into miniature lightning strikes, then to coruscating arcs bright as daylight.
Sure enough, the kid started thrashing around after a couple of minutes of that. Her mouth opened in a silent cry, and her back arched. Bev's little legs stiffened and relaxed in strange spasms, and her arms shot out straight down to her sides before curling back up toward her chest.
“The monster's killing her,” Jenny said.
“No, she's not,” Bo said. He'd focused his thoughts on Bev, and the system status message he saw told him she was fine. Unconscious, but not wounded.
“If anything happens to that little girl,” Jenny said. “I will kick your ass right back across the Red River, Bo.”
“I know,” he said. “And stop with the threats. They don’t work on me as well anymore. You wouldn’t even be the first person to kill me today.”
Jenny's eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
“I got killed,” Bo said, gesturing toward the bundle of armor and weapons slung over his shoulder. “The elf I took this from shot me with a poisoned dart.”
“You some kind of zombie?” Hank asked.
“I'm not a zombie,” Bo said. “I was dead. Now I'm better.”
“And so is she,” Lydia said, gesturing to Bev.
The kid had already sat up. She squeezed the palms of her hands into her eyes for a moment, blinked twice, and stretched. “That was fun. Can I do it again?”
----------------------------------------
It took Lydia longer to get Slick back on his feet. Once Bev was fine, though, the crowd lost interest in the spectacle and returned to their cave. Bo imagined they were setting up house, trying to get comfortable in their new surroundings. He was proud of those folks, for not freaking out, for following directions when they needed to, and for doing their best to get back to some sort of normal life. None of them had decks of magic cards. None of them wanted to be heroes. They all had families and jobs and homes outside of the casino, and it seemed likely they wouldn't see any of that again soon. That they were not freaking out and running in circles was worthy of a medal.
Bo didn't have any of those to hand out. He hoped the community focus would help him give the people what they really needed just then. Stability, safety, and some sort of home in a world that had gone completely upside down.
Maybe that would be enough.
For now, though, he wanted to know more about this map that Lydia had made using the focus. After making sure Slick and Bev were actually all right, Bo slapped the older man on the shoulder.
“Try not to scare us like that again,” Bo said. “You can take Bev back in the cave if you want to. I need to talk to Lydia for a bit.”
“I'll stick around,” Slick said. “Not sure my legs will take me very far at the moment. I feel like I got electrocuted, drowned, and pumped full of super vitamins all at once. I'm tired, but it feels like I could run them marathon.”
“You suffered a mana overload,” Lydia explained. “You'll recover in a few hours. For now, it is best you don't do anything strenuous. The energy you feel is the mana remnants in your core, but your body doesn't know how to process it. It will dissipate in time.”
“Okay, sure,” Slick said with a shrug. “I guess that's her problem, too?”
They all looked to Bev, who was running around the entryway. Her little hands were balled into fists, and her arms pumped furiously with every stride. There was a look of quiet determination on her face, as if she had some important goal to reach.
“Running like that won't hurt her, will it?” Bo asked.
“Children are resilient,” Lydia said. “This might be good for her. If you start young enough, even humans can learn to channel the mana from their cores into strength and speed. She’ll be exhausted when the last of the mana is gone, but I doubt it will hurt her.”
“Good,” Bo said. ”Look. I’m sorry things got so heated. You have to see it from our point of view. This is all new to us, and you’ve been at it for a while. If you could walk us through what you found, I’d appreciate it.”
“It is easy to forget that you are novices,” the monster said. “Allow me to help guide you.”
Lydia explained that the magical smoker was connected to the hex on a deep level. The mana flowing through the land also flowed through the focus. Those with the proper skills and enough mana of their own could read those flows and get a sense of what was in the hex and immediately surrounding it. It wasn't a terribly precise sense, but Lydia now had a fair understanding of where things were in their immediate area.
The monster believed the refugees, which Bo hoped were the Dingle Gnomes, had settled near a dungeon to the southwest. The refugees were in an adjacent hex, and since dungeons were usually near the hex’s center, they were probably five or six miles away. Close enough for a day trip, not so close Bo could run over and check on the situation right now.
“And why are they near a dungeon?” Bo asked. “Seems awful dangerous for refugees.”
“Power,” Jenny said, before Lydia could explain. “You got a core level bump and a card for popping the Apocalypse Sow. I bet the refugees hope to defeat their dungeon and get stronger, too.”
“You are correct,” Lydia said. “Which is why I am concerned about the other settlement I sense to the northeast.”
“Grunge elves,” Bo said. “They aren’t waiting for us to come to them, either. I ran into one of their scouts today. That’s the guy who killed me.”
“I really wish you’d stop saying that,” Jenny said, scowling at Bo.
“Does it make you sad?” Bo teased.
“No, it reminds me I might die,” Jenny replied. “And I don’t care for that at all.”
“Neither do I,” Bo said in a sober tone.
There was silence for a moment, and Bo felt a twinge of embarrassment. That had sounded a lot more emotional than he’d intended, but it was too late to put the words back in his mouth. If he tried to play it off, Jenny would think he didn’t care about her. And if he didn’t…
“Get a room,” Slick said. “So gross.”
“Don’t be jealous,” Jenny said. “I bet Bo’s sweet on you, too.”
Lydia surprised Bo by swooping in to rescue him from this mortifying conversation. “If the grunge elves have sent scouts into your hex, they are planning an invasion. Once they consolidate their territory, they will look toward annexing yours. Violently.”
“I figured as much,” Bo said. “How long do you think we have before they go on the offensive?”
“It depends on the size of their force,” Lydia said. “If they have only a few champions, you probably have several weeks before they can comfortably attack your hex. The larger their force, though, the less time you’ll have to prepare for their onslaught.”
“Give me a second to think about this,” Bo said. He ambled away from his friends to get an opinion on how screwed he was. “How many elves do you think they have, Barbie?”
Reaver forces are limited by the Grail System’s capacity to transport them. All forces have the same limits. There were roughly one hundred troopers in the Devouring Devil invasion force.
“A hundred?” Bo sighed and raked his beard with his fingers. “We’re fucked.”
Not necessarily. The transport limit is based on a combination of unit strength and numbers. Our force was mostly support staff, who are quite weak. We had only ten true champions. The grunge elves favor elite units, so they may have only five powerful champions.
Five grunge elves were still a problem, but not an insurmountable one. If he could find more cards for his people, somehow turn them into champions…
That is not likely possible, but you have returned from the dead. The impossible no longer has much meaning for such as you.
“Thanks, Barbie,” Bo said. “I think.”
Bo rejoined his friends. “Let’s say they have five elite champions. How long do we have until they come calling?”
“Let’s say three weeks,” Lydia replied.
“Then let’s figure out what we need to do to give them a welcome they’ll never forget,” Bo said.
The group went over the challenges they faced. There were three monster spawn points that had to be dealt with. Because those were inside Bo’s hex, Lydia had a strong sense of where those were. The thunder bison were down near the Red River to the southeast. Minotaur lizards were on the edge of the hex due west, and the jackalopes were on the grasslands to the northeast. Those little hopping bastards were the closest threat to the casino, and Bo looked forward to stomping their guts out.
Lydia also knew of a gathering force to the north, but she had no more information about them. If Bo wanted to know what they were up to, he’d have to pay them a visit.
Then there was the matter of the community itself. Lydia stressed they would need to upgrade defenses, at a minimum, before they were attacked. Grunge elves weren’t the only dangers; a troop of those damned jackassalopes could show up and wreak havoc. The cave was more defensible than the RV park, but it was far from impregnable.
Upgrading defenses would require Community Build Tokens, which Lydia explained they could achieve by completing quests and defeating enemies.
More fighting. Great.
“What do we tackle first?” Jenny asked, after they’d listed all the problems on the horizon.
Everyone was looking at Bo. He didn’t like that, but he also knew he’d better get used to it. As the hex’s champion, he was responsible for everyone in it. And that meant he had to make the hard choices, no matter how he felt about it.
“We’ll find out who the people to the north are,” he said. “Or if they’re even people.”
“Then we’ll kick their asses,” Jenny said. “Make sure they know who’s boss around here.”
“Maybe we don’t fight them right off the bat,” Slick suggested.
“We’ll see,” Jenny said. “But no promises.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for fighting,” Bo said. “We’ll deal with the monsters next. Jackalopes, then minotaur lizards. I’m saving the thunder bison for last.”
“Why?” Slick asked.
“Because they’re friggin’ giants,” Bo replied. “We’ll work our way up from small problems to bigger ones. Hopefully, we’ll get strong enough along the way that we don’t get caught in a fight we can’t handle.”
“That is a sound plan,” Lydia said. “Since you have allowed me to aid you thus far, may I assume I am in your employ?”
Bo looked at Jenny, who gave him a shrug. That was better than a homicidal glare, so Bo took it as a yes.
“Sure,” he said. “But no more rituals that will zap people until you clear it with us first. Got it?”
“As you wish,” Lydia said. “I will now retire. If you need me, simply approach the focus and say my name.”
With that, the monster evaporated into a cloud of gray mist that disappeared into the gloom.
“That was neat,” Bev said. “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s go find you some food,” Slick said with a chuckle. “I’m sure we can roust up something.”
Jenny watched the older man and the child go. Then she turned to Bo and stood up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear.
“I can hear better than Slick,” she said. “So, who’s Barbie?”