Max considered himself a responsible kind of guy. He never missed work, supported his foster parents when they needed it, and was always there for his friends. That’s why it surprised him when he picked the reckless choice.

He chose Specialize in his system. It would let him build a powerful card, but it was a risky choice. He would have great strength, but great weaknesses too.

Retroactively, he justified the decision to himself. He would need a lot of power if Ebba ever decided to abandon them. He had friends that could cover his weaknesses. These were good points, but he knew the real reason he chose to specialize. His twelve-year-old self would have thought it was cool.

He chuckled to himself and took out the Augment magic card from his pants pocket. This time the card easily slid into his chest, setting up residence there. He pulled out the Gloves card too, but it wouldn’t go in. Max sighed in frustration. Was the Gloves card too weak or was there a limit to how many cards he could merge together?

Max gazed into the center of his soul to investigate. To his surprise, there were two cards there. Hadn’t he picked Specialize? Hurriedly, he pulled up his system and double checked.

Benefits:

Can add one additional card to your active deck.

Card effects morph to closer match each other.

Specialize Level 1

Drawbacks:

Cannot remove cards from deck.

All cards must be the same suit.

This was unexpected. He had picked Specialize, but the cards hadn’t merged. Apparently that was an effect of higher level Specialize. At this level, he could just change the effects of the cards a bit. That was a bit underwhelming. He checked out his cards again to see what changed.

Advanced

Hammer

Citadel

Transmutes mana neutral matter within aura into a hammer based on the cardholder.

Mana Cost: 32

Refresh: 0.6 Hours

Card Level: 3

Ooh, it changed from common to advanced. That made it better in almost every way. The description was simpler, which meant that there were fewer restrictions on what he could make. The refresh was half of what it was before, the card level went from one to three. The mana cost was higher, but he could still afford to use it. All and all, a fantastic improvement.

He read over the description again and realized something exciting. It didn’t say crafting hammer anymore. Now it just said hammer. That meant he should be able to make a war hammer now. A war hammer with a magic strike. He barely stopped himself from giggling with glee. He decided to try it out.

A problem presented itself. The card used his mental image to create the hammer, but he didn’t really know what a war hammer looked like. He didn’t even know how big it should be.

Thankfully, he had the answer tucked away in his pack. Wikipedia. Months ago he had bought a used kindle paperwhite and an SD card. It wasn’t too hard to get the entire thing downloaded. He had to cut most of the pictures to get it to fit, but he kept everything related to medieval stuff. war hammers certainly counted.

He couldn’t get into his pack right now though. They had just finished a break and it would be miles until they stopped again. He shelved that idea and checked the Augment card next. His shoulders slumped. It had gone down from exceptional to advanced.

Advanced

Augment

Citadel

Transmutes a metal object within aura into a better version of itself. May choose to slightly reinforce material or create a slightly stronger magical effect. Final size may be increased by additional metal.

Mana Cost: 42

Charge: .9 Hours

Card Level: 3

The refresh went up and the card level went down. But the worst part was that the card only worked with metal objects now. That was a huge downgrade from what it was before. He went from being able to augment everything he was wearing, down to being able to augment his pots and pans. He couldn’t take the card out of his deck, so that mistake was permanent.

He cursed his impulsiveness. He should have asked Ebba more questions. Now he was reluctant to add the glove card to his deck in case it brought the other two down to common. He literally started cursing himself.

“You ok up there, buddy?” James said, huffing a bit.

Max clenched and unclenched his fists. “I’m fine. I picked Specialize, but I think it might have been a mistake.” He went on to explain what he did and how it changed his cards. “So the best card I might ever see is now just an advanced card.”

“Easy come, easy go,” James said.

Max turned around and glared at him, “Getting that card was definitely not easy.”

James held up his hands in surrender, “I know, I know. We all almost died. I said you are a hero, didn’t I? What I meant is that you didn’t work years to get that card. You got it the day you appeared here. And you were willing to let any one of us have it. Would you be as upset if Gus had taken the card and you were left with two common cards?”

“Well, no. I wouldn’t have cared.”

“Then celebrate! You started with a common card, and now you have two advanced cards. Take the win, buddy,” James said.

Max grumbled but didn’t reply. His friend had a point. Maybe he should just be happy that his hammer card was much better now. It was tough to get his head wrapped around it right now though. Maybe he would feel better after he created a war hammer.

“Hold, hatchlings. There is a monster nearby,” Ebba said.

She seemed relaxed, but no one else was. Max felt his heart rate rising and saw a panicked look on James’ face. Ashley let out an eep and covered her mouth. Everyone stood stock still as Ebba stared up into the trees.

She took out her bone knife and stick with her lower hands and passed them up to her upper hands. She stood there motionless for a moment. Then she flung the knife high into the air. It flew straight up until she yanked the stick sideways. The knife made a right hand turn and stabbed into a monster. Max hadn’t seen it until she hit the monster’s neck. It shrieked faintly as it fell forty feet.

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It was a six armed monkey lizard. It had fur and fingers, but also a thick tail and scaled face. Despite the knife in its neck and the long fall, it still wasn’t dead. Ebba had to stab it with her spear to silence it. A small orb appeared above its body and she grabbed it as she took out her knife. Moments later, she was hacking her way through the jungle again.

Max walked around the monkey lizard, breathing hard. The monster was bigger than him with huge muscles. He hadn’t seen it at all even though its brown fur didn’t really match the trees above them. That thing would have easily killed him. He shivered despite the warm weather.

He kept an eye on the jungle above them more now. He didn’t notice any other monsters, but he did notice a lot more vines in this area. Some of them had large blue spheres on them. They were as big as his head and came in clumps. Max moved forward in line to ask Ebba about it.

“Yes, those are the water berries I talked about. It’s the safest water you will find on this level because the plant removes the mana from the spheres as it grows them. Careful when you pluck them, the skin is very thin,” Ebba said.

Max and Gus walked over to the closest cluster and grabbed one. It felt like a plastic bag of water, jiggling and wobbling. Gus pinched it and opened it with his teeth. He took a small sip and waffled his hand back and forth.

Evidently the taste wasn’t great. Max decided to stick with his own water and passed his water berry on to Kezhi. The short ponytailed guy had run out of water already. He gave Max a little bow. Or at least as good as one as you can do while walking through the jungle.

“Thank you, honored Max. For the water and for leading us to victory,” Kezhi said.

“No need to call me honored. I’m just a regular guy that got lucky. I am sure you will be the next one to save us all,” Max said as he waved the compliment away.

“This one wishes that it was so. Unfortunately, circumstances are showing that my bravery is lacking.”

Max didn’t quite know what to say to that. Lily saved him by jumping in.

She said, “Don’t worry Kezhi. When the time comes, you will rise to the occasion. You just haven’t found the perfect moment yet.”

Kezhi almost unbalanced himself by turning and giving her two shallow bows. “Thank you for your kind words. I will live up to your confidence in me, I swear it!”

Feng faded back as his friend grew louder. He looked embarrassed to know Kezhi. Lily's smile grew strained.

Kezhi continued, oblivious. “The problem earlier must have been my tools. My magic card is blue cutting glass, but it was only level zero before. I have brought it up to four now, so it should be a deadly weapon, ready to defend your honor!”

Lily looked like she regretted saying anything. Kezhi paused, unsure of what to do with that reaction.

Max decided to save him by changing the subject. “So, Kezhi. I’m here to find my brother. What brought you to Spinworld?”

“My quest is also related to my family. I am here to bring honor to my family. Our name has been tarnished in China, to the extent that we didn’t have enough social credit to use their portal. I will restore our honor and return triumphant.”

Feng caught up and said, “You told me your family kicked you out for playing too much Starcraft. You said you had nowhere else to go."

“Yes, that too,” Kezhi said with a nod.

Max and Lily chuckled while Feng rolled his eyes.

They went back to quietly walking through the forest. Max was impressed with how well everyone was keeping up. James was huffing and puffing, but everyone else was able to keep up the pace without falling apart. Gus was the oldest of the group, probably older than forty, but he was one of the fittest. He had a wiry build that hinted at hours of daily exercise. The rest of them had varying levels of fitness. Most of them young enough that their age gave them enough stamina to keep up.

Max pulled out his phone to check the time. It wouldn’t turn on. The mana must have already shorted out its circuits. In fact, the phone was starting to get hot. He decided to chuck it before the battery blew up on him. He told the others to check their phones. Half of them found out their phone was dead, and the other half had already ditched theirs. That still left him with his original question.

“How long are days here?” Max said, looking into the sky. All he saw was leaves.

“The normal amount, twelve 2.1 hours. Of that, night is exactly four 2.1 hours long. Our day isn’t quite over, but we could stop early if you are getting tired,” Ebba said.

“That might be a good idea, some of us are not used to this much walking,” Max said. “So days are uhhh...”

Before Max could do the mental math Lily said, “Twenty-five hours and twelve minutes. Of that, eight hours and 24 minutes is nighttime.”

Max smiled and said, “Thanks.”

He remembered now that James said she had a real mind for numbers. She might be the youngest in the group, but she was probably the best at math.

Ebba said, “Yes, that is what I said. We will be able to stop in a short while. I want to sleep out of the range of the mana converters.”

“What’s a mana converter?” Max asked.

“It’s an integral part of the mana environment that keeps the layers discrete. You humans call them dungeons for reasons that have never made sense to me,” Ebba replied.

“There’s dungeons here?” Gus said excitedly. “Are they a series of connected caves with monsters and traps and magic loot?”

“Close. It’s in a tower. The rest is all true. The dungeon builders have truly twisted minds.”

Gus looked happier than ever. He said, “Really? Can we go visit one? Please?”

“No. We won’t even venture near them unless we have to. There is always a risk of a mandatory quest forcing us inside. You would not survive the experience.”

“Mandatory quest?”

“The builders in charge of the mana converters need constant visitors. When no one has visited in a while, everyone within miles is forced inside on pain of death. I spit on the dungeon builder's empty clutch,” Ebba said and matched word to action.

“You mentioned the Builders before, what are they?” Max said. He jumped in because he could tell Gus was starting to get frustrated.

“How should I explain? Hmm.There are different Builders in charge of different aspects of the world around us. Some tend to the weather and plants, others to monsters and magic cards. Few have strong feelings about those Builders. However, the Builders in charge of the dungeons are universally hated. The dungeons are dangerous and the ‘rewards’ they pass out are sadistic. Almost all of them are cursed with just enough left uncursed to keep people returning. The dungeon builders are malevolent pond scum.”

“Really? Wow. I’m just surprised that you think the dungeon builder is an asshole. I thought you guys worshiped them,” Gus said.

Ebba looked at him in shock and then twitched all four hands in laughter. “You- You call people you dislike assholes. How perfect, because they spew shit. I will have to steal that one. To answer your question, no one worships the Builders. They are mortals just like the rest of us. Some respect the Builders, others hate them, but no one worships them. They may be powerful, but they make mistakes like all mortals.”

“Mistakes? Like what?”

“Well, the most obvious one is with the magic cards. They have populated the world with magic cards since the beginning. However, some of those cards malfunctioned and killed the wielder. The Builders scrapped the whole pack and came out with a new deck of cards to fix the problem. It wasn’t long until new problems arose. We are now on the sixth pack since the inception of the world.

“You mean our world is created and maintained by programmers that push out buggy code on a Friday?” Max said in shock.

“The translation magic struggled with that one,” Ebba said.

“Nevermind. It’s just concerning that their mistakes might kill us.”

“Indeed. This pack has been stable for years, but you shouldn’t trust the Builders blindly. It’s why you should be wary of any quest that isn’t mandatory. Sometimes those quests are simply the whims of bored Builders.” She paused and clarified, “You should also be wary of mandatory quests as well, but you must fulfill them regardless.”

Max nodded and they fell into silence as they continued to walk. As promised, Ebba stopped not too much later. She had found an enormous kapok tree to use. The roots were like flying buttresses, creating walls taller than even Ebba’s seven foot frame.

“Someone told me that humans like to sleep separated by gender, is that true?” Ebba said.

“Yes, normally. Unless they are in a romantic couple, humans usually don’t sleep next to someone of the opposite sex," Max said.

“Fascinating. Well, I suppose I can be the barrier. We can have the females huddle together over here, and the males over there. I will sleep in between the two groups.”

“Uh, I don’t think there will be enough room in this section of the roots for even half of us,” Max said. “We’ll have to spread out around the tree.”

“Nonsense, we can easily all fit in this section. And don’t worry about standing watch. My Disregard card will work even when I am sleeping. The effect is smaller then, but still big enough to cover this area here.”

Max shook his head, “No, that’s not what I meant. We’ll want to set up tents and give each other privacy.”

“Humans sleep in tents like the Paj? How sad. No. We won’t be doing that. Everyone will sleep huddled together as is right and good.”

“I don’t think that everyone’s going to agree to that,” Max said as he looked at the other portal jumpers. James looked terrified, Lily too. To his surprise, Gus just shrugged. Max continued, “What if it rains in the night?”

Ebba clapped her hands and said, “That is no worry. There is no weather like you are used to on your homeworld. It rains once a day, just after night ends. So there is no reason to separate yourselves with tents.”

Max looked back to the humans and said, “Come on guys, help me out here.”

James didn’t say anything, but looked around with panic in his eyes.

Feng shrugged and said, “I will follow the advice of our guide.”

Kezhi and Yang nodded along with him.

Gus said, “I’m not spooning anyone, but I don’t mind sleeping under the stars. Or trees in this case.”

Max slumped his shoulders, “I guess I’m outvoted. Sleeping bag huddle it is.” He sighed and unclipped his bag.

“Don’t worry Max Kraft. We will arrive at the City of Wild Plums by tomorrow. You can sleep on your own while I sleep with the Lunuk clutch,” Ebba said cheerfully.

Max shook his head and started unpacking. He was going to make dinner before they turned in.