The people behind the heavy metal sheets of the old garage were whispering in excitement. Going round and round their prize in hushed, quick voices that would have been inaudible to anyone with normal human senses.

Sadly for them, our party was composed of people who were level 3 plus. And one of those people was very fond of that one specific car.

James Robertson stomped his way over to the doors. His face a mask of reddish hues and his cheeks so puffed up that I could almost see steaming bellows escaping from his ear like in cartoons from the 50s.

He knocked on one of the garage doors. Loudly, but not loudly enough to leave a dent in the metal or send the bloody thing flying.

‘He has a remarkable amount of self-control.’ I observed. ‘I just got to level 3 and I don’t think I could have kept my body from leaving a crater.’

While I didn’t know what his level was, I knew that it must have been quite high, if he trained regularly with people like Russell and Homer. If someone like that went all-out, I suspected the garage itself might be sent into orbit. Along with the other abandoned burnt-out buildings scattered over the abandoned shopping centre.

The voices inside the garage went dead as soon as the rich man made his move.

Then the phone I’d taken from the other criminals started buzzing.

I pulled it from the pocket of the suit and unlocked it with the password the victi… I mean the crook… had provided.

“Yo dude. Is that u?”

I looked at Elsie, Carlyle and James and nodded.

James knocked again and spoke up.

“Your friends are okay.” He said, calmly. “All of them are alive and here with us. They’ll even be able to walk again someday. Probably. Maybe.”

He cut himself off and took a deep gulp of air.

“Look. I don’t care that you steal cars. I really don’t. But what you have there is an original 1962 Shelby Cobra. I don’t mean to be rude, but that car is literally worth more than this entire neighborhood several times over. I promise we won’t hurt you if you walk out and give us back our car.”

I could hear movement from inside now. Drawers opening and what sounded suspiciously like guns being cocked.

James must have heard it too, because he signaled for me to come forward.

I picked up one of the prisoners and brought him to his feet. Ripping off the tape from his mouth and growing a blade of bone from the hand behind him.

I didn’t even need to say anything.

“LET THE CAR GOOOOOOO!!!” The man wailed. “EL ES EL DIABLO!! NOS VAN A MATAR A TODOS!! DEJALO!!!”

I looked back to the garage and waited.

The sounds of guns being cocked had stopped, but the sounds of footsteps soon replaced them. I could hear the people on the other side taking positions and then stopping. Their movements making it plain that there was going to be a fight.

“Man.” I whispered. “You have some really shitty friends.”

Then I allowed some of Pool-Cecil to slip into me and grew a few more roaches from my hands. Letting the guy feel them crawling up his back while I pressed the bone dagger forwards. Finishing it off by adding another whisper.

“If that car gets so much as a single dent, then you, your friends and your girlfriends are all about to get second belly buttons.”

“LEEEEET IIIIT GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” He howled like a madman. “LET IT GOOOO!!! OH SANTA MARIA!!! HE’S GOT THE ROACHES AGAIN!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOOOOOOD LET IT GO!!!”

Elsie looked my way and shook her head sadly. I shrugged and sent a dozen Shotgunlings forward. Backed up by six Saboteurs, six Venomlings, a couple of Siege Spiders and a swarm of Burrower Roaches.

Not long after, the metal doors started going up and after that, the shots started to ring out. All of them being absorbed by the new and improved forms of my units.

To the point where even I was surprised.

“Holy cow. They aren’t even piercing the exoskeletons.” I muttered.

“Well duh.” Elsie commented from the side. “A bunch of small caliber bullets shot from probably illegal and badly maintained guns against a layer of super-chitin? I could have told you that.”

I shrugged once more and then sent the roaches in with a flicker of willpower.

Half a heartbeat later, the bullets stopped. And then, the screams began to flow back in. Loud and wild and terrible. Wails of deep, dreadful despair, tinged with surprise.

The man in my grip sobbed. Salty tears flowing freely from his yes while the rest of his posse wriggled in their webbing.

James Robertson walked forwards. Magic flaring up slightly so as to knock his targets prone without making their heads pop like overgrown pimples.

He too was crying soon thereafter. Letting out quiet sobs over the husk of an American muscle car that had obviously been stripped of parts.

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“You bloody fools.” He said after some time. “This was the first car I ever owned. I saved up for two years to be able to afford a downpayment.”

He placed a soft hand on one of the nearby benches.

“This was the car we used after our wedding. And the one we used to bring Charles home from the hospital. You stupid bastards. Who in their right mind would strip a relic like this one for parts?”

“I don’t think they can hear you grandpa.” Elsie commented.

“Right son. I understand why you’d be upset, but there’s no point in harping on this any further.” Carlyle followed up.

He stopped to rest his own hand on another striped car.

A Toyota Corolla which looked to be in altogether better shape. Then the old man’s eyes stopped on the car’s identifying mark, after which he removed his hand. Stopping just long enough to withdraw a bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket and squirting some of it on his hands.

My jaw dropped, but no one else seemed to notice.

“I warned you.” Casper repeated. “I warned you all this would happen. But did you listen? No. Why would anybody listen to me? It’s not like I grew up in this city. It’s not like I know what I’m talking about. It’s not like…”

“Yes Casper. Thank you.” Carlyle stopped him curtly. “Now if you would be so kind as to teleport all the parts and all our new friends back to town? It would be most appreciated.”

“What are you gonna do about the people we caught?” I asked.

‘I could use some more test subjects.’ Pool-Cecil purred. ‘The girl needs us to do more testing too. If she wants her dreams to come true. We could take the prisoners to our Dungeon. Nobody is likely to miss this lot. Their families, if they have families, will probably be glad to be rid of them. Nobody needs to know.’

Carlyle gave me a quick shrug.

“We don’t have any way to erase memories yet so they’ll go to the correctional facility in town. After that, I don’t know. It isn’t as though any of them got a good look at us. Them being normal humans with normal vision and all.”

He moved to a side table and eyed a few baggies filled with suspect powders and crystals.

“We can probably leave them knocked out in a bench somewhere along with their merchandize. The police will pick them up and charge them. Or not. I mean, what are they going to do? Tell them Conan the barbarian sent a wave of roaches their way and trapped them in webbing?”

Casper snorted, but said nothing further.

“You know…” Elsie began. “I’ve been keeping an eye out for the location and it’s pretty decent for what we want. I mean, isolated space in the middle of the city. No one around for blocks. Easy road access for all the authorities once the monsters start showing up. Little chance of fires spreading to other parts of town… Yeah.”

She nodded to herself.

“This could work.”

Carlyle clapped as soon as she was finished.

“Excellent observation Elsie! Way to turn your grandfather’s frown upside down! We’ll start the process right away and then we’ll make our way over to the party. Casper, if you’d be so kind as to bring Cecil’s Dungeon Core over from Korea?”

Casper didn’t look pleased in the slightest, but complied.

The parts of James’s car had already been taken, alongside the people and now he came back with a Core that was five times the size of my own body. A colossal, uneven crystal that pulsed like a beating heart. Sending saturating waves of Magic out into the air as soon as it emerged into the garage.

I choked on my own spit. Even as Pool-Cecil started slavering like a starving hound.

‘Mine. Mine. Miiineee. MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!’

I choked him out of what little Magic he had flowing in the Skill and forced him to slink back in the recesses of my mind.

Then I placed a hand on the Dungeon Core and asked it to begin changing the garage around us.

Within seconds, the walls and floors were covered in moss and mushrooms and hardened crystalline walls of amethyst and opal.

Within minutes, the ground had opened up and started transforming into a wide spiraling staircase. With steps that ran half a meter in width and that went down and down and down into an abyssal darkness.

Within an hour, two entire floors had been created. The first being a maze of solid stone and half a hundred hallways that looped around and went up and over or down and under other passages. Some hallways being as wide as six meters and some being as small as two from wall to wall. The second was a great open space. Reminiscent of the 12th floor in the Dunstonberry Dungeon. Complete with Sky Shrooms and Sniperlings hiding in crevices along the walls and Venomlings scurrying in burrows beneath the fungal roots.

Both floors had ceilings completely covered with glowing vines and fluorescent gemstones so that normal people could at least see two-feet in front of them and both floors were set to creating units at level 1. With the actual power being concentrated in the chambers leading directly to the Core.

“Right then.” I said aloud. “This should do for now. I set the Core to keep digging and I created a Broodmother to keep spawning stronger units to keep the Core protected. It should all be ready to blow by the time we’re at the party.”

Carlyle and James nodded in satisfaction. The former glowing with expectation while the latter still seemed saddened by his car.

Casper looked more worried than anything, but he appeared more concerned by the cars that kept stopping outside the abandoned shopping center than the mission.

Regardless, he teleported in a Jaguar shortly thereafter and we were off to the party as a group.

Yet, strangely enough, I found myself agreeing with Casper more and more as time passed.

It was, I don’t know. Unnerving.

The streets were barren and bare. Devoid of both cars and pedestrians for the most part. Three out of every five houses had broken windows and run down, rusting cars on the lawns. The remaining two out of five had either a bunch of fencing stationed around their homes or signs that cheerfully recounted how many people had been shot and killed for trespassing. That or bragged about the savage ferocity of their dogs.

Speaking of dogs, I considered myself a bit of a fan. Of all kind of dogs, regardless of reputation. Yet I couldn’t help but notice how hostile the barking and the glaring was for those that bothered to react at all.

We were stopped at a light on a dirty, broken two lane road, when someone jumped out from the shadows. A disheveled, half-mad person with eyes as wide as saucers.

“Ya got veggies man?” The gentleman asked at once. Slamming his open palms against my window.

“Uh, what?” I muttered in confusion.

“The magic veggies man! The magic veggies! The apples and the melons and the potatoes!”

He smacked his lips with his tongue. Loudly. All while heaving heavily and misting up the glass.

“I haven’t had a magic veggie in five days man! I can’t stand it! Come on man! Gimme an apple or something! I see your muscles! I know you eat the good fruit! Gimme some greens man! I’ll do anything man! I’ll suck…!”

Carlyle stepped on the gas. Launching the car forwards and running the red light. The pedestrian fell sideways as we sped off. Landing on the asphalt with a loud oomph.

I stared after him. Aghast. And noticed how toned his exposed abs and biceps were before we turned the next corner.

My head snapped to the Robertsons.

“What the frick was that!?”

“What was what?” Carlyle asked back.

“Don’t play dumb with me old fart! That guy looked like he was withdrawing! And he looked like a bodybuilder! Those are not groups that have much of an overlap!”

“Well actually…” Elsie started.

I shushed her.

“What was that?” I insisted.

“Oh come now Cecil. I don’t know what you want me to say. Your products are very healthy and… transformative. Is it any wonder that people are drawn to them?”

“That guy was withdrawing!”

“You don’t know that.” Caryle protested. “At least, you don’t know that it was because of the food. He could have been on any number of drugs. Heck. Look around you and tell me that this doesn’t look like the kind of place where people do lots of drugs.”

My jaw hit the floor for the second time that night and I was stuck playing that scene in my head on repeat. My heart already dreading the conclusions I’d come to.