Dale watched the exit eighty-five sign slowly creep past them as they walked on. He felt like time was stretching like taffy. Every few meters, someone needed to slow down or stop for whatever reason. A pebble in a shoe or someone was tired.
Dale wanted to scream at everyone. He needed to check on his kids. Not stop every few seconds because someone breathed hard for the first time in their lives.
He looked up and noticed everyone was staring at him.
“Why are we stopping now?” Dale asked, incredulous.
Their faces were a mixture of freaked out and confused.
“You are ringing.” Ichnick told him.
Dale’s eyes shot wide, and he snatched his phone out of his pocket. He was going slightly deaf, so it wasn’t all that surprising he hadn’t heard the phone.
“Hello?” Dale asked into the phone after swiping to answer.
“DAD! You’re alive!?!” His daughter exclaimed.
Dale snorted. “Don’t be too surprised. Where are you?”
“With mom, Ben, Kyle, and Vic.” Lana explained. Ben was her boyfriend, Kyle was her younger brother, and Vic was their little brother from their mom’s second husband.
“I was so damn worried. I’m so freaking happy you guys are safe. Are you at your mom’s? Oh, how in the hell are you calling me?” Dale asked.
Lana giggled. “Magic.”
Dale snorted, “Okay, smartass. Seriously, how did you manage it?”
“There is a spell called remote speech. It’s part of the matter specialty. You having a phone makes it easier since it has been used to communicate with people far away before. Lowers the cost of the spell.” Lana breathed out a sigh. “I’m about depleted. Come to mom’s house! We’re all here and I got the dog.” The phone went dead again.
He felt a massive weight lift off his shoulders. Both his kids were at least together and safe enough to call him. For now, that was enough for him not to start beating on everyone around him to get moving.
Mary stepped toward him. “Phones work?” She asked, dumbfounded.
Dale shook his head. “Only if you use matter magic. If we get her another twenty experience, your daughter could add matter to her magical abilities.”
Mary stared at him in horror. Either Dale’s response expression or something else must have clued her in because she wiped the horror away and replaced it with a shaky smile.
“Maybe later.” Mary remarked and went over to drape her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Anna just kept whispering to her familiar.
Dale looked over at the imp. “Why are they still talking?”
It looked over at the pair and then looked back at Dale with a smirk that bubbled over with self-satisfaction. “I couldn’t begin to contemplate what goes on in the minds of other familiars.”
Dale rolled his eyes. Given the agreement between them, that statement was within bounds for the monster. It wasn’t important enough to qualify as vital information.
“Boss.” Ichnick remarked.
The group continued to walk north on the freeway.
“Boss!” Ichnick called out, poking Dale in the side with a claw.
Dale turned to him. “I’m not in charge of you so you don’t have to call me that.”
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Ichnick threw his hands up. “What do I call you? You don’t respond to master and even this new term boss that the other human recommended isn’t good enough.”
Dale frowned. “Call me Dale. That’s it, just Dale. Okay?”
Ichnick’s snout was tilted upward slightly, and his lip was curled back from his back teeth. Dale was slowly learning kobold body language. This expression was frustration.
“The scout says there is a group of monsters moving around on the other side of the stone blocks.” Ichnick explained pointing to the other side of the freeway.
Dale stared in that direction until he caught some movement among a group of stopped cars.
“Does the scout know what kind of monster they are?” Dale asked him.
Ichnick called out some strange kobold language. The scout responded in the same language.
“He is unclear what they are. They do seem afraid of us. It might be a good idea to remove them if only for experience. My people can go look to find out what they are.” Ichnick advised.
Dale nodded to the little shaman then looked at his character sheet. So far, he was sitting at 30 experience. That was after spending ten for magic. Turned out just participating in a battle gave experience for all the monsters defeated in that battle. He’d even nabbed six experience for Ichnick and his tribe following him around.
“Mary, Steven. Could you come here for a second?” Dale asked them.
The couple stepped closer.
“Here.” Dale stated and handed his spear to Steven. Then he went over and collected his spear from Xilbit. Under protest of course. That one he handed to Mary.
“You two have no points and no abilities. You want to survive; you’re going to need both. I’d like you to fight whatever it is on the other side of the freeway.” Dale pointed over to the group of cars that the monsters were hiding around.
Steven was starting to shake, and Mary had tears welling in her eyes. They looked at each other and then looked at him.
Dale gave them a stern look. “I don’t really have time to go through the motions of training you and then putting you in a controlled combat situation before throwing you into the fire. So, in the fire you have to go.”
Steven shook even harder. Dale walked up and put a hand on each of the spears, stilling them. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
He took them through a couple of breathing exercises.
“I’m scared.” Mary said to her husband who nodded.
Dale sighed. “Repeat after me. Fear you control is good. Fear controlling you is bad.”
They repeated the mantra back to him. He made them do it a couple more times.
“Boss, I mean, Dale!” Ichnick called out, bouncing over to him. “They are Giant Rats.”
Dale looked over. “Okay, can you herd them toward those that don’t have points? Let’s have them form a line and the rest herd the rats their way.”
Ichnick nodded in understanding and went over to his Xilbit and explained the plan. It only took five questions for Xilbit to finally understand. Then he was barking orders to his kobolds.
Dale escorted Steven and Mary over to where the kobolds without points were waiting. He put Steven on one end of the line and Mary on the other. That would give them the greatest reach in case a rat tried to slip past them.
Dale stood behind the line and to the right. He would keep an eye on the mischief of rats once they started toward the line.
Kobolds started to scream and bang their weapons against the cars. One rat sprinted out from under an SUV. A kobold got in its way and yelled, banging a staff on the ground. The rat jerked backward, saw another kobold that way so headed straight for the line. It was working!
Dale called names out as the rats sprinted one by one and soon two by two. Then there were three. Dale’s egging on kept the terrified weaker kobolds and humans from bolting from the line. Steve jabbed forward with his spear and impaled a rat the size of a german shepherd. Mary had to leap to her right to stab a rat trying to shoot the gap between herself and the kobold beating on the pavement with a makeshift staff.
About five to six minutes later, the corpses that had been dragged from the line were piled high on each side. Dale went forward and looted a rat. It yielded six copper, a pelt, and teeth. Also, piles of rat meat. That was probably the most valuable thing they could get right now. Dale didn’t know when the food would run out but it definitely would eventually.
Each member of the battle line earned a total of twenty points.
That reminded Dale about the special little quest that the author had set up. Dale went through each one of the gathered people and kobolds. As before, he let the little girl keep all the points and money she got. Everyone else Dale insisted on splitting the loot with. Now both Mary and Steven had twenty-five points and their daughter had an extra ten.
Anna used her ten to expand her mana pool by taking a point in intelligence. It seemed that five points increased a skill by one point. Mary took a defensive fighting ability, a point in dexterity, and then capped it off with adding a point in the spear skill.
Steven was an administrator at a hospital. During college, he’d worked as a paramedic so had enough knowledge to unlock a healing ability. He added two skill points into a medical treatment skill to supplement the healing when he ran out of mana. That burned all twenty-five of his points.
The four kobolds were pretty hush-hush about what they took. Dale could have forced them to tell him, but he didn’t really care. Dale was now sitting on eighty points. He saved it so he could figure out a plan with his kids.