Grandpa and I joined Juana, Arjun, Allison, Frank, Dwight, and a couple of our other command staff back inside the church over a nice after-dinner pitcher of something that tasted a lot like beer but was sadly lacking in alcohol.

"Between what our crafters have learned and other intel sources that Ames isn't revealing, we now know that the dwarves took down some sort of werewolf boss yesterday," Juana reported. "And the Congruent Paths team took out Baba Yaga this morning.”

“Neither of them had follow-on quests?”

"We don't know. I mean, we know nothing popped up, but whether they chose to turn down a quest, weren't offered a quest, or were given a quest that wasn't opposed, we can only guess. For now, we have to assume that we're all roughly neck and neck. They took down their bosses sooner than we did, but we had the bonus quest, which was pretty successful."

Arjun was sitting perched on a stool with a whole pile of little round skill seeds in front of him. He had an enormous magnifying glass and was examining them, then turning to consult a piece of paper on Juana's clipboard next to him. "What are you doing?" I asked.

He held up the magnifying glass. "This is an item we traded for. It came from a treasure vault on Phase 2, like the one you raided. It is able to analyze a skill seed and determine what sort of ability it is likely to give." He frowned. "The details are rather vague, though. They tend to fall into a couple of categories, whereas the skills we actually have are, as you have noticed, personalized and unique."

"Yeah," I said. "And I might be wrong about this, but I think that's unusual when it comes to reality engines. I've been in a number of fights with other miners now, and I've noticed they don't use many skills. Mak’gar and his team didn't. Those dwarves didn't. None of the outsiders seem to use much in the way of skill."

“Remember how the Patriarch told us most reality engines only offer 8 or 10 class options?” Juana reminded me. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Obviously my searches are limited — they keep a lot of information locked down — but I did some looking around. From what I can tell, most species have their reality engine chosen for exploit while they’re at a much lower technology level.”

I frowned, leaning forward across the table. “Really? Veda said something to me about how we had woken up our engine with the Voyager probe, and they hadn’t known we were here until then.”

“Right.” She grinned. “What she didn’t tell you is that there are thousands of galactic probes out there looking for unclaimed reality engines. They missed us until it was almost too late. Another few decades and we’d have found this one ourselves.”

Grandpa swore. “If we hadn’t wasted all that time after Apollo dithering around in Earth orbit —”

Juana raised a hand. “Let’s not waste time there. You know what the common classes are?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Warrior. Healer. Farmer. Priest. Tailor. Brewer. Blacksmith. Peasant serf. Slave. And something the system won’t translate for me but seems to be ‘lazy royal scion’, probably. With Farmer, Peasant, and Warrior by far the most common.”

It took me a minute to figure it out. “If you collect ten million people at, say, the Bronze Age stage of development —”

“First, you probably just took every member of their species in existence.” Juana ticked off her fingers. “Second, those ten classes pretty much are it as far as jobs, hobbies, vocations. Not a whole lot of people in subsistence living can put in enough time to develop a whole image around being, say, a gunslinger.” She gave me a quick grin. “Or an office manager, which is essentially what I am.”

“Damn.” Grandpa sat back, shaking his head. “Damn. I thought we were screwed, but they really fuck up most planets.”

“If they usually take the whole population, do they even have rules for what to do about the rest?” Suddenly, I was worried about the eight billion humans left on Earth. I’d rarely thought of them in the last year, aside from being jealous of their luck.

“I’ll check with Veda, but there are rules. Just — maybe not for a space-worthy population numbering in the billions.”

“Shit. We need to find out.”

“Nothing we can do about that at this minute,” Grandpa said firmly. “Let’s cut to the point. How does this effect our team, right now, in Phase Three?”

I took a deep breath, my mind still thinking about the implications. “Um. So outside miners have really basic classes. That means they're relying on equipment quite a lot. Oh man, do they even use ability points? The Reality Engine clearly stole those from Earth RPGs. I wonder if they can adjust their stats like we can on level up. I guess they must level up? I wonder if Mak’Gar would tell me —”

“Equipment,” Grandpa said firmly. “Some they get from us, some they bring.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“We can turn that to our advantage," Arjun said, not looking up from his pile of skills. "Most pieces of equipment have some sort of flaw. If we can analyze our enemies well enough, we can perhaps design counters for them."

Grandpa laid a hand on the table. "Right. But right now, we've got to concentrate on being ready when the doors of that castle open up. The bad news is, Shad and Sage and I, and a number of the rest of us, are only going to be getting back from our enforced vacations a matter of a couple of hours before those doors open. That means those of you who are here are going to have to take on a lot of the heavy work. Is there any sign of another of these outdoor bosses?"

Juana shook her head. "No, and we've been looking. Most of the miners who weren't on the combat team were out combing the grounds."

“We've got a little more than a day before the system snatches us away for some enforced R&R. We need to get some plans going before that happens."

"Excuse me," came a voice from behind us. "Perhaps I can help."

We turned. One of our Grignarian mercenaries stood in the doorway. Although I couldn't tell one Grignarian from another by the face, I did recognize the decals on his glowing robes. This was their commander, Exalted Skywarden Greenlight.

I rose. "Commander Greenlight,” I said. "Thank you for your assistance earlier. How did it go?"

His face tentacles all rose at once, gave a little a twist, and then fell back to their normal position. “We destroyed three times more of them than they destroyed us. We are content."

"Good. Glad to hear you can hold your own in a firefight," Grandpa said. "You wanted to speak with us?”

"Yes," the Grignarian said. He entered the room and took up a place a little ways from the rest of us. “We want to help.”

“How so?” I asked suspiciously.

“We have seen this style of contest three times before in reality engines. It is very rare, and it almost always signifies an engine rich in treasures to be harvested, but also stubborn in revealing them. Like a..." He said something, and the system flat out didn't translate it. After a minute, a really artificial voice said, “Pearl in an oyster." I had not heard a translation glitch like that before.

"So you’ve got some advice for us?" Grandpa asked. "I'm all ears."

The Grignarian tilted his head to one side. "It was my understanding your kind has only two of the sensory organs used for detecting sound waves."

Grandpa held up a hand. "Never mind. Go ahead."

“We wish to help your team get as far as possible. Your success will give us success, and we believe there is much wealth to be found here. With your permission, we will spend the time while you are gone scouting and drawing out the enemy to devour them,” Greenlight said.

"Sounds good to me," I said. Even if I didn't fully trust these guys, it would be nice to keep them out of the way of our people.

"We'll want you to be on standby to come to the assistance of our farmers if necessary," Grandpa said.

"May we have permission to engage with other groups as necessary?"

"By 'as necessary,' do you mean if they ambush you? In which case, of course. Or do you mean if you see them and think you can take them out?"

The Grignarian made that same lifted, twisted, dropped tentacle gesture. "Perhaps a bit of both."

"Try to avoid pissing off Congruent Paths. We have a ceasefire with them until the castle doors open,” Grandpa instructed. "The rest of them, feel free. Especially those asshole dwarves."

"We are agreed on the rectal nature of that particular group," the Grignarian captain replied. "Very well. Thank you, Lord Twofeather."

"Is there a reason why your translations seem messed up?” I asked. "'Cause it feels like the system does a pretty good job on everyone else's."

"It is because the system is in your head and their heads, but not in our head," the Grignarian replied. It pointed at a small green pin on its robe. "This is my translation device. It has trouble sometimes, though it piggybacks off of what you refer to as 'the system' for most of it. Still, there are some concepts which are simply not compatible between my species and that of any..." It gave another strange sound, and after a moment, the artificial translation filled in with, "Creature spawned from the false gods’ refusal to submit to the laws of entropy.”

Oh boy, I thought to myself. These guys have some strange ideas.

"Tell you what," Grandpa said. "For every three of them you take out without losing any of your own, we'll throw in a bonus on top of what we're paying you. Juana will work out the details."

She looked annoyed. “Maybe I'd better check with Veda about our finances. The last I heard, we're a little strapped right now."

"You gotta spend money to make money," Grandpa said. "We just won that huge bounty from Podaga, after all. Throw a little of that around if necessary." He stood up. "Well, I'm beat. I'm gonna go get a few hours of shut-eye before whatever comes next."

One by one, the others filed out of the hut, until it was just Arjun perched over his pile of skills, me, and Juana. She moved away from Arjun, as though not wanting to interrupt him. I followed her over as she flipped through papers on her second clipboard. Arjun still had the one she liked best.

"You look tired," I told her.

"I am, I guess." She ran a hand through her hair. "I shouldn't be complaining. You're the ones out there fighting.”

“When was the last time you slept?"

"I've got that vacation coming up," she pointed out. "My sister's not going at all, and my mother only gets to go for eight hours. That leaves me on my own for two and a half days. I'll catch up on sleep then."

"Where will you be?" I asked.

"I assume back where Mama's restaurant used to be. Little town in pretty much nowhere, Texas.” She laughed. "It used to be pretty much nowhere. Things have grown up a lot. It's not that far from San Antonio, actually."

"You could come hang out with us after you're done," I suggested. "Sage is dragging all of us to SoCal, and I wouldn't know how to behave at a K-pop concert. You could give me a couple of tips."

Juana turned slightly pink. "I think I'd like that."

I thought of something else. "Of course, it's not like we have any money. I mean, we have lots of galactic money. Soul Coins. But it doesn't seem like we're going to have access to anything on Earth. We've been gone long enough. I'm sure they've declared all of us dead, and I haven't got my wallet anymore."

Juana's eyes widened. “Shad?" she said.

"Yeah?"

"Have you watched any of those entertainment packets that Sage is always seeing?"

I shook my head. "Got more than enough to keep me entertained right here."

"Uh," she said. "Yeah. So, you might find a few things surprising when you get back to Earth, but I'm betting I can swing a flight to Los Angeles if I have to."