Max squinted up at the sky. The large floating hex would be passing in front of the sun soon. Thankfully, they had already holed up for the night. They had made a small ‘camp’ inside a thorny thicket. It was small and cramped, but it should be safe.

Max passed out the trail rations they had bought in Twelve Meditations. Dried apples, peanuts, monster jerky, and dried peas. It wasn’t high cuisine, but it would fill them up.

“Do you need the monster orbs you got today, Max?” Lily asked around a bite of food. “Mushy is stuck at six, but I could use them to get the drop bear up to six as well.”

“Six? Did you get an evolution quest too?” Max asked.

“Yeah, it’s impossible though. I haven’t even accomplished one of the three tasks,” she said while staring at something only she could see.

“I just completed my Hammer quest. What worked for me was to expand my mana pool. Maybe you can level up some part of your system to make the quest easier?”

“Maybe. My pool isn’t the problem, but if I...” Lily trailed off, mumbling to herself.

James chuckled softly. “She’s gone. She gets like this sometimes and forgets the world exists.”

Lily paused for a moment and looked up at him, “I never forget about you, James.” She turned away, mumbling again.

James’ face turned red and he turned away.

Max jumped in to fill the awkward silence. “Yang. I was going to give everyone a split of the orbs, but maybe it would be best for you to use all of them. Once you get to six, you can improve the card. What are the chances you can evolve your Camouflage card to cover all of us?”

Yang shrugged, “No idea. I’ll try if you want me to.”

Max frowned slightly. He had been hoping she would have insight into how her card worked. She clearly had a better connection to the Camouflage card than the rest of them did.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have my share of the orbs than to have her waste them,” Gus said.

Max shook his head, “One orb each won’t help us survive. Avoiding attention might. Yang, take these white cores and start the evolution quest on your Camouflage card.”

Gus grumbled a bit. Yang made a show of eating the monster cores with gusto. Gus looked away. When the sixth one was down, she stared off into space.

“Got the quest. I’ll have to try it tomorrow. All of the tasks require actively avoiding attention of a monster.”

Max nodded, having expected that. He finished up his dinner and took a swig of water from his water bottle. He would have to be careful with the water. There were far fewer water berries on this layer than there had been on the third.

Night fell, as sudden as ever.

Everyone but Yang lay down to sleep. She climbed a nearby tree so she would have a view while she kept watch. Max was glad he had kept his best sleeping pad and bag. He was perfectly comfortable.

Sleep was slow in coming. They had lost Ebba today and it left him with conflicted feelings. He missed her, but maybe she had been planning on betraying them the whole time. There was no way to know. Now she was dead and they were on their own. Max was in charge of keeping the final five of them alive. Anxiety pushed his way into his mind, his heart racing.

This was too much responsibility. Everyone was going to die and it would be all his fault. Why had these people trusted him? It couldn’t possibly end well. Thoughts jumbled around in his head, each vying for the worst thought ever. He tossed and turned.

Eventually, he sat back up. If he couldn’t sleep, maybe he could do something useful.

His mana had finished refilling and he had one card he hadn’t tried yet. Augment. He pulled out his latest circular saw and focused on the Augment card. He got the impression he could improve the material the saw was made of, or the magic spell inside. Not both.

Without thinking about it much, he chose the magic effect. A wave of mana rushed out of him all at once, sinking into the saw. He felt woozy. Something that had always been with him was gone again. He felt tired, lesser.

He couldn’t test the saw right now, not in the middle of the night. So instead, he succumbed to the weakness and slumped back. He fell into a dreamless slumber.

...

“Max,” someone whispered. “It’s your turn to take watch.”

Max wrestled with the urge to ignore her and go back to sleep. He sat up and gave Yang a nod. He slipped out of the sleeping back as Yang slid into hers. It took him a moment to fully wake up. He grabbed himself a snack and stretched to get himself ready. He slid a hammer into his belt and was ready to go.

Climbing up the tree to keep watch was easier than ever with his Levitate turned on. Once he was up there, he realized he had no way to tell time. He had set up a three shift watch, but hadn’t thought to give the camp guards a way to know when their shift was over. Lily was the only one with a working timepiece, he would have to ask to borrow it tomorrow.

Time passed slowly.

Occasionally he heard something in the distance. It might have been monsters prowling or trees creaking. Either way, it never drew closer. Their little camp stayed undisturbed.

Boredom forced him out of the tree. He had no idea how long he had been up there. There weren’t any visual cues to time passing and his instincts for time had never been good. He didn’t want to wake Lily for her shift in case it hadn’t been that long. Instead, He crept over to his bag, trying to be as quiet as possible. He took out the tool that had been weighing heavily on his mind.

The saw. He had finally used his Augment card to create a circular saw with an enhanced magic spell.

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The middle of the night might not be the best time to test it, but Max couldn’t help but pick it up. He stared at the metal cutting tool long enough that his Insight triggered.

Circular Saw- Charged

The description hadn’t changed. He had hoped that it would, maybe by adding a descriptor. Super charged, or Amazing Circular Saw. That didn’t happen. Or at least he couldn’t see any change with his level of Insight. Maybe it would be different if he had it over 18 like that Paj shopkeeper.

He still had one point unused, so he could raise his Insight to seven, but he doubted that would do any good. The system seemed to be on a base six system. He probably wouldn’t see a qualitative change in his Insight until he hit 12.

The only way he was going to find out how well his augmented saw worked was to test it.

Which would be kind of dumb in the middle of the night when he knew there were monsters prowling about. Even if the magic cutting disc was quiet, it was bright. He would just have to wait for morning.

Time passed slowly. Very slowly.

His mind drifted to his belt. He had emptied his storage belt before he went to sleep, knowing he would have to use five random objects before he could trust it with his stuff for the day.

It was after midnight and he could probably do that random object task while he waited for morning. He unbuttoned a pouch and stuck a hand inside to check. There was something new inside.

It was one of those springs with handles, a grip strength trainer. He happily gave it a few squeezes and it dissolved into nothing.

The next item was a package of some sort of dust. It was hard to know what kind in the darkness. He opened it up and gave it a sniff. Nothing. He stuck a pinky in the substance and swirled it around. A dawning horror came when he realized what it was.

This was evil incarnate. Craft herpes. The belt had given him glitter.

The only reason he didn’t immediately throw it away was that he knew it would dissolve into mana once he used it. Probably. Just in case, he decorated the bush off to the left, one he could avoid if the glitter never disappeared. He had to admit, the bush sparkled rather nicely in the dim light. Thankfully, it also disappeared.

After that he pulled out a Christmas ornament. A wry half smile formed and he softly hummed Silent Night. Once the ornate ball was hung on the tree, he moved onto the next item. This one was big.

Too big to take out in the tree in fact. He snuck down and used both hands to pull out the porcelain object. It was a toilet.

A random toilet, dry as a bone and not hooked up to anything. He rolled his eyes and moved the toilet past the edge of the camp. He relieved himself and the toilet disappeared, leaving the pee behind. Good thing he hadn't done that closer to camp.

He waited until he was up in the tree before he pulled out the final task of the cursed belt. He made another check of the surroundings and reached into his belt one more time. It was a paper bucket. One filled with popcorn.

Maybe his cursed belt actually liked him. He took a handful of popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth. He was almost sad when the bucket disappeared.

With his belt available for storage again, he tucked away the hammer and saw. Time passed slowly once more. He got the saw out again.

A stick snapping set his heart pounding. That was close, closer than any before. His night vision had long since adapted, and he saw a shape slinking through the trees, heading their direction. It was four legged and huge, at least fifteen feet tall at its shoulders. Max couldn’t tell more from where he sat in the tree. It was snuffling about, staying in the area.

Getting down without being heard would be difficult. It was too close. But he needed to wake his squad before the monster got here. He grit his teeth and did the only thing he could think of, he plucked an acorn and threw it.

It hit where he was aiming, Yang’s sleeping bag. She was the only one of the four he could trust to wake up silently when something hit them in their sleep. Once she was up and looking at him, he motioned that there was a monster and he was going to attack it. She went around and woke everyone quietly.

This was the perfect opportunity to test his upgraded magic tool. He bet that the spell would travel farther now. He planned on getting closer first, just in case. Either way, he was excited to see what happened.

As he guessed, as soon as his boots scraped the tree trunk, the monster zeroed in on them. He hopped down the last few feet and stood at the entrance they cut in the brambles. He waited until the slathering monster was close before activating the magic.

A silver sheen covered the disc and then shot forward, expanding as it went. It flew forward twelve feet and dissipated into a sparkly mist. The monster’s forelegs were cut off and it tumbled to the ground.

To his surprise, the spell wasn’t done. Another silver disc shot out of his circular saw. He had kept it trained on the monster, so the second cutting spell sliced the top of its head off. A second later, a third spell cut through the body once again. Then a forth, fifth, and sixth cutting disc flew out of his magic tool. Six discs in six seconds. The monster was a minced mess when the spell finally completed.

He stood there motionless. A beat later a magic card and an orb appeared over the body.

Medium amount of essence gathered

“Damn, Max. You sure it’s dead yet?” James said and clapped his hand on his shoulder.

“Overkill, I know. But check it out, this little guy can do that every six hours. Power overwhelming!” Max said, quoting Starcraft.

Lily stumbled over then and said, “Is it over, can I go back to bed now?”

“Yeah, it’s over,” Max said and chuckled.

Yang and James watched as she went back to her sleeping bag. Gus had never gotten up despite Yang shaking everyone.

Max walked over to the corpse. It was hard to tell what it was, even up close. He grabbed the orb and the card. He read it over as he walked back to the others.

Advanced

Shrink

Clover

Removes mass from living target as spell takes effect in stages. 3/4th within a minute, half size within two minutes, an eighth size within three minutes. Reduced effects from tier differences.

Mana Cost: 42

Permanent: 1.2 hours

Card Level: 2

It was an interesting effect. He could just imagine tiny titans. Max handed the card over to James to read.

James read it over and said, “Do you want this one, Yang? It’s good but I think my Decay card is better.”

Yang shook her head, “No. It takes too long. I would rather keep my Deafen card in my Clover slot.”

Max nodded and tucked it away. He decided against offering it to Gus in the morning. The bearded man hadn’t even woken up for the fight, he wasn’t going to get loot from it. They could sell it on the first layer.

Once the other two were back to bed, the forest was quiet again.

A few hours later, dawn came with its typical suddenness. Strangely, rain didn’t accompany the coming of the morning, so Lily and Gus slept in. Max decided to join them while Yang and James kept watch.

When he woke up again, he remembered to check his mandatory quest. 21 days. He looked towards the distant mountains. That should be plenty of time to get there, even with their slowed pace without Ebba.

Before they started walking for the day, Max climbed a tree and took a good look around the area. His heart fell as he looked north. Surviving the trip suddenly seemed a lot less likely.