“You really need to stop knocking yourself unconscious with your power use, Cal. How many times have you woken up in a bed in the void house having done that so far?” Cal was pretty sure it was Andrew’s voice speaking to him, but the pounding in his head made it hard to be sure. He forced his eyes open and confirmed that it was indeed the first one to be stuck in these loops and the reason he was in them as well.
“Did we get all the capybaras?” Cal asked. His own pain wasn’t as important as the rescue of his friends.
“We did. Believe it or not, you’ve only been out an hour or so. The dogs are working on patching everyone up. Harold wants you to know that you managed to cause a small earthquake with your stunt and that you did a great job,” Andrew said.
“Where did the bear come from? And the armor on Captain Lightspeed plus Gus’s gun, were those you?” Cal asked, still confused about that part of the battle.
“That was Cirtar, one of the friends I made during a very strange visit to the Arctic two loops ago. Ask Andy if you want more details. I’ve yet to figure out how to summon him directly here, but I was able to get him through to the under library and then bring him back here. As for the weapons and armor, no, apparently Gus and Lightspeed felt like they weren’t doing enough and have been tinkering around for a while now,” Andrew explained.
“So are we counting this as a win then?” Cal asked. It sure sounded like somehow it was one.
“Yes, we are,” Harold said, having just entered the room. “In fact this is a decisive major victory for our side here. In the final tally, we took back more of who they had captured, sprung their trap, and escaped without loss while hurting them again there. We have thirty-six returned allies either being debriefed or patched up for future debriefing. We captured one of the top Agency men. We have several surrendered prisoners that Bug is debriefing, and we have a handful of captured ogres, so we can learn how the tech works and see about freeing them in future loops. Then there are the children you rescued, all already exposed to mana spirits in some fashion. What we need to discuss first, though, is just how powerful you’ve become. Can you reliably channel that level of mana, Cal?” Harold asked after he completed his tally.
“I doubt I can do that again with some time to practice. I haven’t had full access to these powers before now, and once the realms merge more it should get even stronger. As for how powerful I am now, that’s hard to say. There’s a lot of weird shit going on inside me that I have trouble fully understanding most of the time. If you want a full breakdown, let’s see. It started with Andrew’s injection, then the three mana spirits, and then we added this place. I picked up a world seed on Mars, and something else went into me on Pluto. I met Sleek. And none of that even includes the weird console and quests it has sitting there that I never remember to check because it creeps me out to think of my life as some sort of game! Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to start yelling. None of this is either of your faults. Well, the first part is Andrew’s, but I understand why he did it,” Cal explained.
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“That is a lot to take in, alright we can table most of that until we beat the Agency, but we are going to have to have a long conversation and try to unravel just what every resource we have is and how best to help you, Cal,” Harold said gently. Cal thought that man looked a little guilty following the outburst. He’d rather not have caused that, but it was too late now.
“Thanks, but going back to the previous topic, there’s also Bug’s new friend,” Cal said. As horrifying as the image of them was in his brain, he knew it was not remotely their fault they had been turned into that, and they gave him a good way to jump off other unpleasant conversations.
“Yes they are one of the big discussions I have specifically for you two, the children as well. Andrew, we should bring Bug’s friend into the loops and use them as an undercover agent in case things go south in the next loop. We should also do that for Rusty and start working through all of the kids, loop after loop. That’s a potential fighting force and something we desperately need in the long run, but in the short run it means we will have people starting off directly within the Agency aware of what is coming. It’s a great tactical move,” Harold explained.
“Yes, we should do that, assuming Andrew is okay with it. We also need to work on a list of who to start bringing into the loops. We need to maximize our resources, I’d been thinking about that before. The more we expand, the less we know what to do to run everything,” Cal said.
“I agree entirely with both points, but also there’s something I’ve been considering as well for a while. We are going to need a lot more than what we have and are even planning to find right now in order to stop the Gryalth. Their resources expand beyond this planet and beyond this universe. The Agency failed, and they had far more fodder than we do. We need to find a way to bring people into the fight when it starts quickly,” Andrew said.
“Oh yeah, I already thought about that too. Once we get have the Agency dealt with and all of our friends back safe and sound, then we can move onto that part of the grand plan, but for now, I have one word for you, bard,” Cal said with a genuine smile. It helped that Andrew’s face had one of his old grimaces at the word.