Peter’s head was ringing. His grandmother had just clipped him upside the head with a broom handle, sending him tumbling to the road. In her defence, he HAD just hit her with the same broom and took off running.

It had seemed like a perfectly rational decision at the time, she had been ripping him a new one over failing to sweep the kitchen properly, blaming his gender, his father and every male influence in his life. The tipping point had been when she had disparaged her own late husband, the kindest and most diligent person Peter had ever known. Peter had felt the cold rise up through him and, completely forgetting that this was the real world and he didn’t turn into a glowing avatar of death here, had whirled the broom like his scythe and just let many hours of combat instinct take over.

The moment the head of the broom made contact with the raging matriarch boss mob realisation dawned. Well, partially. He had still tried to use his wings to assist his escape to exactly as much effect as expected.

Nevertheless, Peter had managed to get his feet under control and legs pumping. With all the power at his disposal, he had run as though all the demons in hell were nipping at his heels. Said power was not exactly Olympic standard. He’d never been a big child, at age ten had regularly been mistaken for a five year old and even now that puberty was hitting most of his peers like the proverbial freight train it hadn’t even arrived in his city yet.

On the other hand, his grandmother was made of the same wiry corded muscle as most MMA fighters and possessed of the similar level of chill. Surprise may have allowed Peter to score a first strike, but he hadn’t even made it past two driveways up the street before her retaliatory swing took him off his feet and sent him tumbling up the gutter to lie on the sidewalk in a daze.

“When you’re done snivelling, get back to the house. You’re grounded.” She didn’t even check if he was conscious.

Peter, who had not yet shed a tear, nevertheless remained where he was until the colours went back to normal. He was relatively sure there shouldn’t be black clouds in a red sky. Fifteen minutes later he scrabbled over to a nearby fence and dragged himself upright. Looking up and down the deserted street, he noted that there wasn’t a single car in the driveway. Exactly zero people had seen what had happened, and in such a remote community they didn’t even have street lights - let alone community security cameras. Good luck getting any of the neighbours to share their home security footage either, most of them had a healthy distrust of the police. Peter resigned himself to heading back to the house and putting himself to bed, not even bothering to ask for dinner. It would only be refused and give his cousins ammunition to use against him.

In his room he wiped the blood from his head with toilet tissue and tucked it into the pocket of his hoodie. Sure, it was too hot for a hoodie, but it would hide the injury from any intruder as he had no way to secure the room and it was not unusual to have his room raided while he slept. He had no intention of sleeping this time though, and he trusted the protections of The Age to eject him if he was disturbed.

He felt the cool breeze on his skin and stood there for a moment, enjoying the fresh mountain air until a snuffle in his ear made him jerk his head to the side. “Hey DB, how’s it going buddy?” he asked wearily.

“Squeak,” DB replied, noncommittally. He crawled out of Peter’s hood and sat on his shoulder. Peter could feel the increased weight from his tiny friend, but welcomed it.

“You’re getting bigger, bud,” Peter opened his inventory and pulled out a berry. “Not that it’s a bad thing.”

“Talking to yourself, mate?” Dani’s voice called out from behind him.

“Sure am, sometimes I need expert advice!” Peter quipped, putting on his mask. “Just us so far?”

“Yeah, you’re a bit early today. Whitey and the Wall probably won’t get here for at least an hour."

“Maybe we don’t try those nicknames on just yet?” Peter suggested as he closed his inventory. “You can call me anything you want, except late for dinner. Those two have a special friendship and I don’t think we’re quite there yet.”

“Fair,” Dani stepped up beside him and gave DB a scritch. “I probably wouldn’t call you late for dinner either. That’s a bridge too far for most. So, what’s your plan while we wait?”

Peter picked up a stone from the road beside him and looked around. They were standing at the entrance to the arcology where they had all logged off last time. Just off the side of the road was the green grass of the fields that carpeted the lower slopes of the mountain the dungeon was set into. Up hill a ways the green gave way to white as snow took over, with black rock poking through. Further down hill was pine forest and on amongst the trunks dark shapes moved. He tossed the rock in the direction of the trees contemplatively. “How about we go hunting?”

Dani burst out laughing. “We’re a loooong way from where you stepped off the jetty, mate. You want to wake up in a box, set foot under those branches. You won’t even see it coming.”

“Ok, so, better question, what CAN I do?” Peter pouted. “If we’re so far out of my depth, why are we even here?”

“I can teach you how to use that bang stick you’re lugging about before you kill yourself with it,” Dani offered. “Again,” she added after a moment.

“Hey!” Peter protested weakly. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but heeeey!”

Dani punched him in the shoulder and gestured to a boulder not far off the side of the road. She unslung her crossbow and laid it down before pulling parts from her pockets. As Peter ambled over she screwed a shoulder stock into the handle and clipped a scope to the top. In seconds the pistol crossbow had been transformed. Even the arms had been swapped out for longer, articulated ones with a coil spring as round as Peter’s wrist.

“How do you even draw that thing,” Peter marvelled.

“Like this,” Dani tried to draw a strange contraption from the leather holster the crossbow had been in. It stuck, so she pulled it all the way off and slid the thing free, leaving the holster to flop on the rock in a pile of leather. Cursing under her breath, Dani shoved it aside with her boot and snapped the device to the top of the crossbow. Two studs popped into recesses in the arms and a pair of arms ending in a curved handle laid either side of the scope. With a wrench, Dani heaved the handle up, cocking the bow. The handle then eased back into place along the forestock, the curve allowing the user to look through the scope unimpeded. Peter marvelled at the complexity while Dani got her breathing under control.

“You don’t use that very often, do you?” Peter asked, running a finger along the stock.

“I prefer a more… in-your-face… method of conflict resolution,” Dani wheezed. “But every now and again you just need to convey your regards from a distance.” She picked up the weapon and pointed it across the fields to where various species of local fauna grazed on the grass or each other. “Right, now, we don’t have the time or manpower to go around powering up your scythe, so we’re going to use this. Do you see that rabbit over there?”

Peter squinted in the direction Dani pointed, seeing a brown blob hopping across the grass. “I think so?”

Dani rested the crossbow back down on the boulder. She set the stock into her shoulder and sighted through the scope. “We’re going to do it supported first. We begin by building a position.”

“Building a position?” Peter watched Dani rest her body against the rock, trying to memorise what she was doing. “What’s that mean?”

“This guy I worked with last year used the term, it’s like building a fortress. If you’re using a ballista you need a strong foundation or it’ll knock the wall down when you fire it.”

“Makes sense,” Peter acknowledged. He could see how Dani had adhered herself to the surface to form a firm base to support the weapon.

“Now, while you need good support, you need a pivot point to let you adjust your point of aim. Like this.” Dani balled her right hand into a fist and placed it between the rock and the forestock of the crossbow. She demonstrated how squeezing the fist could raise and lower the point of aim in small increments. “Now, if you want to make large changes left to right, you have to reset yourself, but small ones you can slide this hand across a bit. Got that so far?”

Peter nodded, then realised Dani couldn’t see the gesture. “Got it.”

“Now, take in a full breath. That lowers the point of aim. Let out half the breath, letting the motion bring your crosshairs up onto the target. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it. Let out the rest of your breath after the shot. Don’t hold it too long, you’ll get dizzy and miss.” Dani followed her own instructions, breathing in exaggerating the sound, then half out.

The crossbow twanged and in the distance the brown blob expanded into a pinkish cloud before dispersing.

“Your turn.”

Peter looked down to see Dani had risen already and was handing him the weapon. There was already a bolt tip poking out of the the recess and the arms were drawn.

“Rule one: every crossbow is loaded until you personally prove it isn't. What’s rule one?”

“Every crossbow is loaded until you prove it isn’t,” Peter repeated.

“Good. Rule two: don’t point a crossbow at anything you don’t intend to kill, even if it’s unloaded,” Dani looked Peter dead in the eye, not releasing the crossbow. “What’s rule two?”

“Don’t point a crossbow at anything you don’t intend to kill,” Peter repeated solemnly.

“Rule three: a crossbow is never ready to fire unless you ready it to fire. What’s rule three?”

“A crossbow is never ready to fire unless you ready it.”

Dani released her grip, clearly satisfied by his respect for the subject.

“Ok, get ready. There’s your target,” Dani pointed at a much closer bunny. It had a sharp horn protruding from its forehead for some reason.

Peter followed Dani’s example to the best of his memory. He draped himself over the boulder, put his fist under the stock and looked through the scope. The position was uncomfortable, so he wriggled around until he was set, tucked the stock into his shoulder and put his fist back under the stock. Looking down the scope, he sighted on the bunnycorn.

Peter breathed in, watching the crosshairs dip. He let out half a breath, bringing the point of aim back up. It wasn’t quite enough so he squeezed his fist and the crosshairs laid perfectly over the monster's chest. He wasn’t trying to be fancy with a headshot, just hitting the thing would be enough. He squeezed the trigger, leaning into the stock slightly to brace against the expected recoil.

THUNG.

The bunnycorn hopped away, completely unconcerned.

What the heck? Peter thought. I did everything perfectly! He picked up the crossbow and looked at where the bolt had been laying in the recess and Dani cuffed him over the head.

“Oi, what’re you doing?”

“Checking if the bolt fired,” Peter explained.

“And what if we’re using toxic loads? You’re going to point that at your face? How’s that going to taste?”

Dumbfounded, Peter searched for an answer.

“Here,” Dani handed him a crossbow bolt. “I took it when you weren’t looking. What was rule three?”

“A crossbow is never ready unless you ready it.”

“And what did you do?”

“I trusted you to ready it and didn’t do it myself.”

“Right. Now, go through the rules yourself,” Dani gestured to the rock again.

Peter whispered to himself as he went through the rules. “It’s loaded until you prove it isn’t.” He pointed the crossbow at the sky and pulled the trigger. Nothing. “Don’t point it at something you don’t intend to kill.” He laid down on the rock and pointed the weapon at the bunnycorn. “It’s not ready until you ready it yourself. Bugger.” Peter stood up and cranked the handle to set the arms. He carefully loaded the bolt into the recess.

Laying down once more, Peter ran through the rules in his head again as he et himself up and took sight. It’s loaded, I checked myself, and I see my target that I definitely intend to kill. He took a breath, let half out and squeezed the trigger.

This time the metal shaft took the monster directly in the torso, pinning it to the turf.

“Hey, why is mine different to yours?” Peter complained.

“Because you tried to look down the length of a crossbow from the angry end,” Dani explained patiently. “Do you think I should be letting you have explosive bolts?”

“...No.” Peter let his head rest on the cool rock. “I guess not.”

“Right, so here’s the next one,” Dani handed him another bolt.

Peter ran through the rules mentally as he loaded and reset himself again. He took sight on a second bunny shaped beast not far away when he felt a tap on his ankle. He looked up at Dani.

“Not that one. Too easy. That one,” she pointed to a brown thing out where her target had been.

“I don’t know if I can hit that,” Peter said.

“Try. I have plenty of bolts.”

Stolen story; please report.

Building his position again, Peter sighted on the shape at the end of his visual range and looked through the scope. The magnification brought the image into focus and Peter could see that this time it was a wolf, that for unknown reasons had a white star in the fur on its forehead and a unicorn-like horn poking out through the centre of it. “Are you sure?”

“Am I ever not sure?”

Slightly intimidated by Dani’s military instructor demeanour that was so different to her usual manner, Peter sighted once more and squeezed the trigger. The bolt flew off into the distance with a whistling sound. “Bugger.”

“Try again.”

Whiff.

“And again.”

t-CHING! The bolt ricocheted off a rock, startling the beast into flight.

“Again!”

“But it’s running away!”

Dani’s boot cracked into Peter’s ankle. “Do you think your target is just going to wander into your crosshairs every time? Shoot it.”

Peter dragged his fist across the rock, scraping the skin away painfully. Ignoring the pain, he felt his mind spread out, cold blossoming in his chest. He felt his weight increase and his wingtips brush the ground beside him. For a moment he wondered how they had penetrated the suit he was wearing, but to took the thought, acknowledged it and let it pass. Now was not the time for distractions. He breathed in as he pulled the crossbow across, leading the wolf slightly. He paused, letting out the half breath as the head drew level with his point of aim and squeezed the trigger.

Shunk! The bolt sprouted from the wolf’s head just below its ears. It took another two steps before the body seemed to realise it should be dead and dropped to the turf. DB clambered up onto Peter’s head and began dancing a little jig. Peter felt the paragon state start to fade as the wolf’s body did the same, melting into the turf to leave a small pile of items that he couldn’t make out clearly due to the distance.

“Nice one, mate,” Dani had returned to her usual ebullient self as well. “See, all it took was the right kind of motivation.”

Smiling, Peter unlaced his bracer and checked his stats. The tattoo was pulsing with golden light, indicating he’d had a major breakthrough. Sure enough Ranged Weapons had increased to 1.5%, and once he had let his attention linger on it for a moment the pulsing stopped. “Dani, what’s your ranged weapons score?”he asked, flicking through the rest of his skills.

“Oh, I’m the best,” Dani boasted. “Ask anyone in Castlemoon, nobody else joins the competitions if they see my name on the docket.”

“Yeah, but what’s-” he trailed off as a dust cloud approaching along the road caught his attention. “Uh, d’you think that’s Woz and Pham?”

Dani scooped up the crossbow and looked through the scope. “It definitely isn’t. In fact, we’d better make ourselves scarce. It’s a mob with that knobber we met holding up the bus at the head. I’m betting he couldn’t crack this nut and called in reinforcements.”

The pair were off across the field as fast as their legs could carry them, pausing only to snatch up the loot from the wolf. DB had tumbled from Peter’s head and into his hood where he burried himself and clung on for dear life. Once they were past the rock the wolf had been near, Dani took a hard left down the slope and dashed towards the treeline. Rather than go too far in, she tucked behind the first trunk thick enough to obscure her and waved Peter to do the same.

“Down,” she hissed. “And don’t make too much noise. The things in here are stronger than those bastards up there, but dumber. If we’re quiet we might live through this.” She thought for a moment before adding, “Well, I might.”

Peter just rolled his eyes and tucked himself down between the roots of the tree shielding him from the players on the road. He was struck by the similarities between this situation and the time he’d gone into the small copse of trees near Averton. Stealth skills were handy and allowed for super effective critical hits, but he wasn’t so arrogant to think he was the only one who had them. If the creatures in this wood were are strong as Dani was making out, he knew he had better keep a very sharp eye out. And ear. And nose? Peter strained every sense he had to the limit trying to detect danger before it became a threat.

So laser focused was he that when Dani tapped him on the shoulder he let out a little high pitched squeak and nearly made a mess of his pants. All his attention had been on the shadowy trunks and boughs and he’d completely forgotten that she existed.

“Er, yes,” Peter coughed and ground out the words in a gravelly voice usually reserved for Batman impressions. “What can I do for you?”

Stifling a giggle, Dani pointed up the slope with her chin. “They’re gone in, we can probably wait by the doors again.”

Desperate to put the event behind him, Peter strode confidently up the slope, putting as much manly swagger into his step as he could. Rather than meet Dani’s amused eyes, he inspected the exposed wiring of the control box that Pham had been so proud of rewiring. He drew on his memories of the books he’d found in his grandfather’s workshop and tried poking around to see if he could figure out how it worked.

One shower of sparks later, Peter sat on the ground with his head ringing just as it had that morning. A cold nose in his ear helped clear the fog. “Eurgh, DB! Cut that out. I’m fine.”

“Squeak,” the hefty rat assured him, one paw on his cheek.

“Ok, maybe not, but I will be.” Peter opened his inventory and dug out a sandwich and tore it in half. He offered one to DB before taking a bit himself. “You hungry, Dani?”

Dani, who had been cleaning parts of her crossbow before stowing them, shook her head. “I’m good for now. You probably shouldn’t be feeding him as much as you do either.”

“DB’s a good boy, he gets all the sammiches he wants.”

“I’m a good boy, do I get one?” Pham emerged from the ruined doors, blinking in the light.

Peter tossed him a whole sandwich that he completely missed and landed squarely across the face plate of Warren’s helm. Warren’s response to the culinary assault was probably swearing but the bread made a great sound dampener. Eventually he removed the helmet and peeled off the snack, locked eyes with Pham, and jammed the whole sandwich into his mouth in a single go. “Mine noo,” he rumbled around the mouthful.

Pham crossed his arms and pouted. “Fine.” He grabbed a turkey leg out of his inventory and began gnawing on it.

“Do you lot do anything other than eat?” Dani asked, slipping the last piece away and returning the pistol bow back to its holster.

“I don’t get to eat much at home,” Pham explained in between bites. “So I eat as much as I can here.”

“They still doing that to you?” Warren bristled. “Can I help?”

“Nah, I have a stash,” Pham tossed the cleaned bone off into the fields. “I’m fine as long as I don’t weigh too much on Saturday mornings. Anyway, where are we at?”

“Peter was learning to shoot, and then getting zapped,” Dani offered, “while we waited for you to arrive. Oh, and a horde just rushed the gate.”

“We saw them,” Warren put his helmet back on. “Too many to take with just the two of us, so we kept our heads down.”

“Got two with traps though,” Pham chuckled. “They hadn’t even set their spawn point yet so they’ll be coming from town again.”

“Good thinking Pham,” Peter piped up. “You said the first time you came through here you disabled all the built in traps, do you think you could reactivate them once we get ahead of them?”

An evil smile crossed Phams face, and he cracked his knuckles and neck. “Oh. Yeahh. Alexa, play Bad Moon Rising.”

“Alex-” started Dani.

Peter just held up a hand. “Just, don’t ask. It’s an old saying.”

They headed into the dark while Pham wrung his hands like an evil mastermind plotting world domination. Occasionally he’d giggle to himself. Once they were past the barracks those giggle became actual guffaws as he rigged tripwires connected to the devices embedded in the walls. It was almost impossible to get him to explain where not to step because every sentence devolved into wordless wheezing.

By the time they reached the end of the hall Warren had slung Pham over his shoulder because he’d lost the ability to breathe properly, but at least that meant he was quiet when they approached the entrance to the loading bay. Clearly resisting the urge to drop him from shoulder height, Warren laid Pham quietly on the floor. “Once you get yersel under control, we’ll cross the next room. Quietly,” he stressed the last word, looking to Peter and Dani as well. “Chad’s probably beaten the globlins in the next room but they pull themselves back together quick smart if left alone.”

Pham was just managing to compose himself when Warren uttered the word “globlin” and lot it again. “Are you still calling them that?” he forced out between gasps.

Warren leaned down next to Pham’s ear and whispered, loudly enough that Peter could hear but not so loudly as to draw aggro from anything that might be nearby, “It’s not just me. I registered the name at the guild. That’s the official name. Has been since you-know-when.”

“You’re joking,” Pham sobered up fast. He looked into the shadowed eyeslits of Warren’s helmet. “You’re not joking, are you. Frak!”

“Shh!” Three voices hissed as one.

“Sorry.”

Peering into the next hall, Peter could see the loading dock as Warren and Pham had described. The lights that remained glittered off the surface of oily pools and fragments of shattered potion bottles. Those who came before must not be far ahead as the remnants of the fight hadn’t despawned yet. The colour rendition wasn’t good enough to be able to tell the difference between blood and globlin remains, but a few were beginning to arch up in the centre so Peter didn’t want to chance the rest.

“It’s clear, but we have to move,” he urged. He and Dani dashed across the lower section, zig zagging between puddles and vaulted onto ledge with a minimum of noise. They leaned against the open door catching their breath tucked into their elbows to dampen the sound.

Warren crashed across the same space in a dead straight line dragging Pham by the collar, lofted the elf over the divide to bounce off the wall and threw himself up the level. “Through,” he barked.

Piling through the doorway Three Stooges style, they shut it and Warren barred the door with his weight. Pham lay there and stared at the ceiling while Peter and Dani hauled a crate off the shelves nearest the door and used it to replace Warren.

“Inspired use of the scythe there mate,” Dani gave Peter a thumbs up as they leaned on the crate. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“Simple application of fulcrum mechanics,” Peter said, chuffed. He rubbed where he’d scuffed the metal using it to lever the crate along the floor. “Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the earth.”

“Righto Archie, if you’re so smart, what do you think of that?” Pham’s voice came from somewhere around their feet.

Peter looked down, then up to where Pham was pointing. “Huh,” he said. “I think that’s a classic christmas movie setup. Wait, Archie?”

“Archimedes,” Warren supplied.

Peter and Pham stared at him in surprise, Dani in confusion.

“What? I read.”

“Did Sports Illustrated have an article on Ancient Greeces’ most ripped philosophers?” Pham climbed to his feet using the crate as support.

“Actually, it did. It was Plato, by the way. We don’t even know his real name, Plato is his wrestling name and he sometimes won debates by flexing,” Warren posed like The Thinker to emphasise his point.

Dani was frowning and staring at the roof, trying to see what Peter and Pham had. “What do you mean about a Christmas movie?”

“He means, yippie kayak, other buckets. We’re going into the vents,” Pham pointed at the air intake just above the top crate in the corner of the room. A fan was spinning loudly and rapidly, drawing air from somewhere else in the complex and blowing it into the warehouse.

“I don’t particularly want to know what it’s like to be turned into mince meat today, if that’s ok with you,” Dani said. “Unless you know of a way to get through that thing without breaking it and making it obvious that’s how we got in?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Pham swaggered over to the far side of the room.

From his confident step, Peter assumed Pham had come this way a few times before. While his teammate wound his way through the scattered crates and machinery that littered the warehouse, Peter took the time to really examine the environment. Somebody designed and programmed this, he thought to himself. So every voxel in this room has a purpose. What is it?

To his inexpert eye, it was a simple warehouse. Five rows of three level storage racks, the outer ones ran the length of the room from the back wall that was bare bar the iron sliding door in the centre to the front that had the human sized door they had entered via and a massive roller door that took up the whole rest of the wall. The three middle racks were shorter, allowing space before and after them for a forklift-like device to manoeuvre around and between them. The device itself sat in an area at the end of the middle row in a metal cage. It couldn’t be called a true forklift, as it only had one ‘tine’ that was about eighty percent the width of a crate, the crates themselves sitting on four squat legs at the corners.

Overhead, Peter could see there were long crystalline lights set into the roof, providing a nice warm white glow, quite different to the “outside” of the dock that wasn’t outside at all. Clearly it had been too hard to get at them to steal. To make it even harder, they were protected by a metal wire cage, though that seemed more impact protection than theft deterrent judging from the dents and bent wires.

A sudden absence of sound drew Peter’s attention from his exploration to the section of wall the fan was in to see that it was no longer pushing air. He looked around and saw Pham standing in front of an open metal box set into the wall that had been obscured by a crate at the back end of the room near the door. Warren was leaning on the crate watching while Dani was trying to pry the top off another crate not far off.

“This spitbox,” Pham leaned back precipitously from the waist, pointing at the contents with finger guns held sideways in the gangsta style, “was a leaky boi!”

Dani paused, improvised prybar wedged in the crack at the top of the crate. “Does that mean-?”

Pham dramatically inserted a jack trailing a red wire into the recesses of the box and cut Dani off, shouting “Done!”

Dani rolled her eyes, used to Pham’s incomprehensible shennaneganery now, and finished removing the lid, which slid to the side with a clatter. She then had to jump back to avoid being hit by the sides, as the lid had been holding them in place. What was revealed were neatly packaged rectangular boxes with a seam through them vertically. She pried them apart and looked at them quizzically.

Peter looked over Dani’s shoulder and squinted into the gap. “Does that kinda look like a mould?” he asked.

Warren picked both halves up and pulled them apart. He paused for a moment, seemingly shocked immobile, then set one half down to open his inventory. Stowing them both he cleared his throat. “Let’s get moving.”

“What are…” Peter trailed off as he saw Warren’s helmet tremble, as though he were trying to shake his head without being seen. A veteran of many classroom silent communications, Peter took the hint and changed the subject. “Right, moving. This way.”

A little tinkering and trial and error later, Peter had manoeuvred the box lifting device under the crate that Dani had pried open. Judicious application of strength from Warren cleared the contents to leave a nice flat platform for Warren, Pham and Dani to stand on.

“Ok,” Peter explained from behind the controls. “I’m the lightest here so what I’ll do is park the thing once you’re all up. If we close the control box Pham messed with it probably won’t be obvious what we’ve done. Who thinks about fans when they’re running from, what did you call them? Globlins?”

Pham and Warren looked at each other, Pham’s cheeks reddening, Warren’s hidden by a helm. Both coughed in embarrassment and looked away.

“We’ve always been run-” Pham started.

“It was the best I could come-” Warren protested at the same time.

“What are you talking about?” Pham asked.

“What are YOU talking about?” Warren demanded.

“How ‘bout you both stop talking and let Peter finish?” Dani interjected.

“Oh, right.” The veteran players ducked their heads in apology.

“Soooo, ignoring all of that,” Peter waved his hand in a vertical circle to encompass The Situation, “I’m going to pop the crate back to hide the control box and park the spatula lift back where it goes. Then we can use this rope,” he pulled a length of hempen rope out of his inventory, “to pull me up here. Any questions?”

Three hands went up. Peter sighed.

“Dani?”

“Spatula lift? Really?”

“Well, I can’t call it a fork lift, can I? It’s one big flat metal shelf. Warren? Do you have a sensible question?”

“Why not ride the lift without the crate base?”

“Thank you, good question. Because I didn’t think about it until you’d already made a mess and were standing on the thing.” Peter pressed the glowing sigil to raise them off the floor.

Pham waved his hand in the air. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”

Peter kept his concentration on the controls, making sure not to drive his teammates into hte shelves. “Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, Pham, what do you want to know?” The platform began ascending.

“Why for the love of all that is holy do you have fifty feet of hemp rope in your inventory?”

Peter grinned manically. He’d been secretly hoping for this. “Because we’re adventurers exploring a dungeon! I also have a bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, torches, rations and a waterskin.”

“Peter, know that I say this from the bottom of my heart,” Pham said kindly.

“What?”

“Neeeeerrrrrrddd.”