The bagel shop was still open, and surprisingly well stocked, since they locally sourced their cream cheeses and whatnot. After eating some breakfast, they wandered out into the street and Caleb pulled out his phone to check the map and orient himself since the directions that they got to all the hubbub blocking the road had been from the hotel not the bagel shop.
Jeremy adjusted the way his paper sleeve fit around his coffee cup and sighed. It was still too hot to drink and he was envious of Zanie’s iced coffee now that they had stepped back out into the heat. Hazel had been fascinated by the ice as she sloshed it around with her straw and slurped her drink down.
“Don’t you have ice in your world?” she asked, incredulously.
“Of course.” He flipped his hand and with a little flash of runes, a chunk of ice landed in his palm. Atticus, who was winding around his feet, meowed up at him and he offered her the ice. She chomped on it, while Jeremy wondered if he had a cat or a dog. Then Hazel stood back up and finished, “I just find it fascinating that you have managed to create machinery that serves the same purpose as what many of our spells do.”
It probably was interesting to come from a world that relied on magic and crafting and whatnot to one that was based on machinery and oil and such. Jeremy wondered exactly how similar the elvish world was to what humans imagined in their fantasies. He wondered if anyone had actually gone through the gates in the other direction yet.
“This way,” Caleb pointed to their left, then began walking down the street.
“Has anyone crossed over to your world yet from this one?” Jeremy asked Hazel.
“Not to my knowledge,” Hazel shook his head, “It would not be advisable until you were of a certain level anyway.”
They trailed off into silence as they walked for a while, broken only by the sounds of their footsteps, passing cars, and the ice in Zanie’s coffee sloshing around. There was no hum of air conditioners or anything else like that as they passed by buildings. It was still a little eerie.
Eventually Caleb broke the silence. He must have been thinking about how Hazel was higher level than us, because he adjusted the strap of his bag and asked, “So I get that you can’t teach me how to create a bag of holding yet, but can you make us some yourself?”
Hazel chuckled a little bit and responded, “No, I apologize, but I’m not an enchanter, nor am I practiced in spatial magic, so my bags of holding would not turn out very well.”
“What does that mean?” Caleb asked. “That they wouldn’t turn out well?”
“Well, if I did manage to enchant a bag successfully at all, it would likely not hold very much or would malfunction by making the objects you placed inside of it disappear for good.” Hazel shrugged. “Something along those lines.”
“Oh,” Caleb kicked a piece of concrete that was loosened by weeds growing through a crack in the sidewalk.
They lapsed into another stretch of silence. Jeremy turned his mind to thinking about what other neat ways the scan spell might be used. By the time they saw the roadblock on the horizon, he was mulling over the idea that maybe if it was connected to a mana crystal that constantly stored the user’s data, it could be used to make an automatic comparison of the creatures level and affinities if they had any, then make a suggestion about whether or not to engage.
He put a pin in that thought as they approached the commotion. Although, describing it as a commotion was rather generous. There were cop cars blocking the road, their lights flashing bright, strobing blue. And a couple of power company vehicles sat on the other side of them – a truck with the cones on its front and a bucket in the back and a regular pick-up truck. But everyone was just standing around the vehicles chatting for the most part.
One of the cops noticed their approach and stepped away from the group of two other police officers and a bunch of guys in high vis shirts holding hard hats. He hooked his thumbs in his belt and met them just as they reached the diagonally parked police vans.
“Road’s closed,” he informed them, “Vehicles and pedestrians. Apologies for the inconvenience, but you’ll have to go around a different way.”
Jeremy doubted he was all that sorry for the inconvenience, but at least he wasn’t yelling at them for being out and about when there was still a stay-at-home order. He was glad that they already stored the M4s in the duffle bag with their clothes whenever they started walking around in towns.
The world had turned upside down, but that didn’t mean it had descended into such chaos that waltzing into a bagel shop with a carbine slung over your shoulder was acceptable or smart. And approaching a group of cops like that definitely would not have been a smart plan, especially given the tensions going around.
Jeremy gestured past the cop and said, “We actually came to see if we could help. Is there some type of creature causing the disturbance to the power grid?"
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
He eyed them warily, giving each one of them another quick sweep. This time he did a double take on Hazel and his brows lifted. The elf’s presence was probably the only reason he decided to give them an actual answer, instead of continuing to urge them to move along.
“There’s a group of monsters chewing through the lines,” he nodded slowly, still looking at Hazel.
Caleb decided to jump in with the same little explanation he had given back at the hotel. “We are a research group focusing on understanding magic and creatures and might be able to help you figure out how to address that little problem."
The cop nodded seriously, as if this did not surprise him. Maybe there were legitimate government-sanctioned research groups doing just that. The Guard had put together a task force to study at least one dungeon, and while Jeremy was pretty sure that was at least partially just due to Captain Byrne's initiative, there were probably others conducting research as well.
Deciding that maybe they needed a little more legitimacy to convince the police officer, Hazel reached into his pocket and withdrew a document. “I have an official recommendation."
The cop took the document and unfolded it, still eyeing Hazel warily.
“They are just making up all kinds of stuff now,” the cop muttered under his breath as he read over the document. He shook his head in disbelief as he handed it back. “Well, you seem legitimate enough. I’m not opposed to seeing if you can come up with a better way of dealing with the situation.”
He gestured for them to follow him past the road block.
“What’s on that,” Zanie nodded her head curiously at the document as Hazel folded it and placed it into his pocket again.
“It’s mostly just identification so I can move around freely in your country since I have no technical citizenship, but it also states that I am a consultant with the Department of Defense and lists all the clearance levels that I have apparently been given.” Hazel shrugged. “Usually the people I show it to try to call and confirm it’s legitimate, but this police officer is rather trusting.”
“It’s the ears,” the cop said over his shoulder, clearly having been listening.
Jeremy thought it was wild that the government not only granted an apparently new type of visa to the elves, but also gave them a bunch of security clearances. He supposed it probably would have been necessary in order to allow them to work with the military inside the disaster zones. But the cop’s disbelief was understandable.
They followed him to join the circle of other cops and utility workers, then went around introducing themselves. The guy from the power company who seemed to hold the most authority was named Matt, who just pointed down the road a way at the lines and pressed his lips together, like the sight alone would be enough of an explanation. It was.
They weren’t in a residential area, which was probably good. So there were dense forests on either side of the road with open areas around the poles – grass that would probably get cut one more time before the end of the growing season under normal circumstances and limbs that were trimmed back from the power lines. The lines themselves were fine beside where they were standing, but further down they were missing completely from between the poles.
And where Matt was gesturing too, Jeremy could see why. A group of metallic, grub-like creatures were glinting in the sunlight as they swarmed the lines draped between two poles. As they watched, several of the lines snapped as the creatures chewed through them, swinging down to slam them into the ground. A few of them tumbled off, but the ones that hung on simply started munching their way up the lines as they hung there. The rest of them swarmed up the next pole to continue their way towards where the trucks were parked.
“They are headed into town,” Jeremy observed. That was not good since there would be lots of parked cars and road signs and whatever else that they could chew through.
“They just follow the powerlines like they are a trail of breadcrumbs until they get to a transformer or something, and then gorge themselves,” Matt told them, “It’s been a nightmare trying to deal with them.”
“They don’t get electrocuted?” Caleb asked.
“Not really, or the amperage going through the lines isn’t enough to hurt them at least.” Matt said, “They seem to be made of some type of metal compound themselves, so maybe they just conduct it without too much damage to themselves. I really have no idea.”
“We do have the power shut off to this area, just for safety reasons though, so they aren’t actually getting electrocuted right now,” one of the other workers chimed in.
“What do you do to deal with them?” Jeremy asked.
“Well, they were trying to box them up into wooden crates, but then they would manage to get some of the nails and just open them and escape,” Matt said, “So I’m not sure what the current solution they are working on it.”
They all stared at the creatures as they caused the next set of lines to sever and drop between the poles.
“If they get too close to the town, I plan to lay down some line and lure them back out here to the woods, but after that, I don’t know.” Matt shrugged. “The company will lose a fit. They’re already having an aneurysm over all the losses, but those things are aggressive if you approach them, so they don’t need to be in town.”
Jeremy rubbed his jaw and squinted his eyes at the swarm. He could not really see their overlays from this far away. The scan spell also showed the target object’s information close to their location – another modification that he put a pin in. But he could not imagine they were that high level if all they had been doing was gorging themselves on power lines. Plus they had Hazel with them and he was nearly level six, which had to count for something.
“Have you tried to kill them?” he asked.
“Like I said they are pretty aggressive and they don’t really seem to take any damage.” Matt looked over his shoulder and found one of the other workers so he could pat him on the shoulder, “Ricky here even tried shooting at them with his .308 back when we were a little further from town and it did nothing.”
“That is because they are slimes,” Hazel stepped in, showing off his expertise that made him a DOD consultant, “Their structure does not take physical damage.”
Jeremy waited for a beat, then prompted, “Do you know how to deal with them instead then?”
“Usually, a mage would be the one to deal with slimes. It is unfortunate that I was not provided one as a partner, so we will have to make do.” He reached into his pocket. “You can also kill them by totally destroying their form, which crushes their core.”
Then he pulled out a massive hammer.