Chapter 21 : In Through The Out Hole

A leader is a dealer in hope.

-          Napoleon Bonaparte

The sun was going down, Brett and Amanda had come back, but Jess and the squishy necromancer were still AWOL. The shadows were getting deep in the thick of the forest, and it was only a matter of time before they would have to start moving again, try to find somewhere safe from the Tortoise.

Jeb was still pestering the fairy.

“Is there a way to survive the wipe?”

“Nope.”

“A way to avoid it?”

“Nope.”

“Hide from it?”

“Nope.”

“Not be here when it happens?”

“…No!” Smartass said with exasperation, throwing her hands up with an exaggerated sigh. “I already told you, nothing comes in, nothing goes out!”

“I’m just trying to ask every way I can, to make sure there’s nothing you’ve been prevented from telling us.”

Smartass snorted, her wings fluttering like she wanted to leave, arms crossed. She was frustrated, but able to stick it out for her greed. Jeb had promised her one pound of candy per month for the rest of his life if her assistance led to them surviving the Impossible tutorial.

She originally demanded chocolate, but Jeb explained that chocolate might be impossible to source if the world had ended. Sugar, not so much. There was plenty of that crap lying around.

Nothing comes in, nothing goes out.

The treasure chests come in, don’t they?

Jeb frowned, thinking back to the bloody chest with nicks on it that they’d received in the titan’s heart chamber. Nobody in their right mind would 3D print a box with wear and tear and blood. And the noise. Like someone shouting.

“What about the treasure chests?” Jeb asked. “Where do they come from?”

Smartass shrugged. “Idunno.”

“The treasure chest sphincter. Do you know of any way they could be held open?”

Smartass’s wings perked up and she burst into cackling laughter. “Jeb, are you thinking of going in through the out hole?”

“Is it possible?” Jeb asked.

“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever tried it.”

“Never?”

She shrugged. “Not that I’ve heard.”

That made a certain amount of sense. The sphincters showed up, dropped their goods, then faded into nothing. Most people couldn’t see them, and people were far more interested in whatever the chests held inside.

Was it possible?

…did it matter?

Nothing was more devastating to morale than hopelessness. The team needed something to do, even if that something was pointless, or a suicide mission. As long as they didn’t believe that, they had a chance at getting by. Because the alternative was sitting around waiting for death, and that would cause problems. Serious problems.

So when Jeb finished talking with Smartass, he presented his plan as more of a sure thing than he honestly believed.

“Find Ron and Jess. Tell them I’ve got a way out.” Jeb said, standing from his log, puffing out his chest and looking every inch the confident military man.

“You do?” Brett asked.

“I do,” Jeb said with a nod, keeping a lid on his anxiety and hopelessness. “But we’re going to need everyone.”

Damn good odds this doesn’t work and we all die, Jeb thought, but seeing the light return to Casey’s eyes was almost worth misleading them.

Oh god, how am I gonna pull this off?

Jeb ran through his list of assets.

Most of his ingredients, including the raw lenses he’d been saving up, had been exploded across the mountainside, leaving him with just what he’d been carrying.

He was carrying the Beautiful Revenge, his guerilla fireball wand, the BSF,  the remains of his void lens, a fancy pen…

While he waited for Brett and Amanda to get back, he inspected the ebony and gold pen.

Xen’s Scrivener

Created by the ancient sindio Xen as a convenient tool for magical inlays, this pen removes matter from existence at a configurable depth and width. If a mistake is made, the user may turn the pen around and backfill the empty area with what was there previously.

-          A collectable item bearing none of its creator’s evil, owning it is not illegal, but somewhat frowned upon by the church of Kolos

Hmmm….

Jeb held the pen in a writing grasp and felt a strong tug as Myst was pulled out of him at a rate that put the lantern to shame.

Curiously, Jeb tested the pen on a nearby log.

Beneath its tip, the pen carved a perfect line, about an eighth of an inch wide and twice as deep.

Frowning, Jeb turned it over and rubbed the opposite side across the carved line.

The removed wood was back where it had been previously, without a single break in the grain to show it had even been gone, seamlessly reintegrated back into the whole.

Fancy doodad.

Jeb tried a couple things, gently pushing more Myst in, then restricting it, making it go in at odd angles. Everything had an effect, widening the channel, deepening it, making it lopsided or narrow at the point of contact, but widening out inside the material.

It was surely a tool that with the right skill, could be used to make amazing works of art.

Too bad that’s not what I need right now, Jeb thought, gripping the pen in both hands and snapping it in half.

Well, he tried.

The pen had a lot more durability than Jeb thought, not even bending as he used his full strength on the fancy paperweight.

Jeb set the pen down and glared at its whorling gold filigree.

“Okay, two can play at this game.”

Jeb spent the next couple minutes deconstructing the Beautiful Revenge, grabbing its tiny Myst siphon and one of the grain sized sections of Void Lens.

He affixed them to a rough shaft carved out of wood, then aimed his makeshift plasma cutter at the side of the pen.

The tiny void lens was only capable of cutting a tiny, pinprick-sized amount of the pen, but Jeb was patient, going over it again and again until he cut through the side.

Then he flipped the pen over and did the other side.

Finally, he popped the two halves of the gold and black construction apart.

“Damn,” Jeb muttered.

It felt like the first time he’d ever cracked open a PC and gazed upon the tangled mess of his computer’s guts.

There was a lens at either end, and a couple more in the middle, along with what looked like a Myst engine barely bigger than a .5 lead for a mechanical pencil.

There was a strong siphon, somehow stronger than the one in the lantern, but smaller. The thing that really reminded him of a computer were the several plates of complicated pseudo motherboard, that Jeb assumed dictated the pen’s brush behavior and allowed it to restore material on command.

Let’s see if we can break it down like a computer, Jeb thought to himself, eyes straining to see all the little parts of the contraption in the fading light.

Power supply, Jeb thought, tracing the siphon’s output to the front and back lenses, along with one of the middle lenses.

Internal clock and behavior, he thought, tracing the Myst engine’s output to the motherboard-reminiscent plates…

That’s interesting, he thought, tracing the power supply to one of the internal lenses, which was receiving a constant supply of Myst. Through some feat of engineering, the Myst being fed into this lens was scattered, touching every part of the pen’s guts.

Jeb singled it out and inspected it.

Processed space creation lens (tiny)

These rare lenses are found in the wake of the Drifting Roil, and are highly sought after by wizards for their convenience.

These lenses are used to create extra space around their focal point, effectively shrinking their target, although the difference should be noted. They are most often put to use in handheld artifacts of great power, bypassing space limitations.

Hmm.

Jeb checked the other lenses, and organized them in his head. from business end, to business end, this is what he got.

This one shears matter away, this one stores it, this one moves them back and forth between the two extremes, this one shrinks the guts, this one puts matter back where it came from.

There was a control plate for each of the extremes , the storage lens, and the one that moved them back and forth, four in total.

The storage behavior plate had a constant flow of juice from the engine, likely because it acted as the RAM, holding on to the matter it had picked up even while the user wasn’t actively using the pen.

I wonder if it dumps its memory every now and then, or if it’s got tons of material waiting to explode out of here the moment I cross the wrong wires.

Either way, Jeb was very interested in both the ‘shrinking’ lens and the storage lens. Both of them warped space, and he had a feeling that would come in handy real soon.

Nearly an hour into his dissection of the Scrivener, Jess and Ron came back, covered in dirt and twigs. Jess’s eyes were puffy from crying…Ron’s too actually.

Jeb’s cynical mind catalogued the glow in their cheeks, the smudges of dirt on their knees…then dismissed them.

Didn’t matter.

“If you guys are back for good, bring Amanda and Brett back, they went looking for you. I figured out a way to get out of here.”

“Really!?” Ron asked, eyes widening. “That’s unbelievable!”

“It is unbelievable.” Jess said, looking Jeb over. “Care to tell us how?”

“Treasure sphincter.” Jeb said.

Rons, jaw dropped, his eyes going glassy. “Could that work?”

“It’s gonna work,” Jeb said, projecting all the confidence he could. “Because that’s what we need it to do.”

Jess met his gaze for a moment, gears turning coldly behind her eyes.

“Fine. Ron, you stay here, I’m faster by myself.”

Ron nodded and sat down beside Jeb, oohing over the guts of the Scrivener.

“Ron, since I’ve got you here alone,” Jeb opened.

“Hey!” Casey and Smartass interjected simultaneously.

“Close enough.” Jeb shrugged before returning his gaze to Ron. “I’d suggest treading carefully with Jess.”

“What, umm…what are you talking about?” Ron asked, his cheeks reddening.

“You know what I’m talking about. Jess is a dangerous woman. Don’t piss her off without a good reason. She’s capable of cold-blooded murder, more than any of you.”

“What,” Ron said with a half chuckle. “Pfft. No, she’s just dealing with stuff. She’s totally nice once you -”

“-get in her pants.” Casey supplied.

“Umm….”

Jeb shot Casey a grimace, and the teen looked suitably chastised.

“Look Ron, how do you think she got the Assassin class?” Jeb asked.

“…Defending herself?” Ron asked, unsure of his answer.

Jeb nodded. “Maybe that’s true. Maybe she had to kill someone in their sleep to avoid being brutalized. Regardless of how it went down, the fact remains that she’s capable of coldblooded murder. So treat her good and don’t do anything stupid, okay?” Jeb said, jabbing Ron in the chest.

“Okay,” Ron said, nodding vigorously.

God I hope he got the message, Jeb thought with a sigh. I could go for a smoke, and I don’t even smoke.

Not for nearly a decade now.

Not since he’d noticed he was trying to kill himself using cigarettes as the weapon, just before he’d been discharged.

Thinking about being discharged led his train of thought toward the reason, which inevitably ended with him glancing at the forest canopy above them, wondering when the spike was going to drop through it, crushing him.

The thought sent cold goosebumps up his arms, but Jeb was used to feeling like that. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t an attack. Not in the strictest medical sense.

Jeb mentally gave the spike looming above him the finger, and attempted to steer his hijacked thoughts away from it.

What was up with that dream? He thought, unbidden, train derailed once again. I’ve had that dream where I’m the one under the beam for damn near eight years now, but I’ve never, Never, had someone talk to me during it. That was new.

Was it simply the dream mutating because his stressful circumstances were causing more activity in his prefrontal cortex, or was it something to do with the extra supernatural clarity derived from high Myst?

Jeb didn’t know how much he liked that last thought.

He traced the scar with his thumb while he stared into the dark forest.

I’m alive.

“We’re back!” Brett called out as they strode back into the clearing with everyone.

“Excellent,” Jeb said, standing and shoving his worries aside to focus on the right now.

“We’ve gotta find a safe place to camp, but in the meantime, Brett, do you still have that Body potion?” Jeb asked.

“Oh yeah, I pocketed it before the shit went down. Guess I forgot.”

He patted around his clothes for a moment before paling. “Ah, shit. Sorry, it looks like it was attached to my belt, which was attached to my armor.”

“Which was on fire,” Jeb said with a nod.

“Okay, listen up,” Jeb said. “We need to get Casey Thompson the Third’s Body up to eh, the twenty or so range by feeding her every Body potion we find, so we’re going to be boss hunting for a little while.”

Jess narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“So the baby can withstand more than fifty G’s of impact force without suffering long-term damage, obviously.” Jeb said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Listen up, people, I’ve got a plan, but it’s going to be the equivalent of being shot out of a cannon. We need to slay some bosses, raid some dungeon, replace our gear, and especially make sure our precious cargo is tough enough to survive a little rough handling.”

Casey clutched her baby tighter to her chest, giving Jeb a suspicious look.

“You want to shoot my baby out of a cannon?” She demanded.

“Casey,” He said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder and looking into her eyes.

“This is gonna work.”

***Days Later***

You are now level thirty eight!

Jebediah Trapper

Mystic Trapsmith, Level 38

Body 21 +2

Myst 71

Nerve 26 +3

Abilities: Mystic Trigger

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Amanda asked, looking at Jeb’s contraption.

“Positive,” Jeb lied.

Sitting in front of them was the pyramid shaped construction, the most complicated Trap Jeb had ever put together, with thousands of If/Then statements woven together, allowing it to engage in a sophisticated manner above and beyond any of Jeb’s previous traps.

He’d tested it, retested it ad nauseum, until they began pushing close to the deadline of the wipe. It was good to go.

Hopefully.

The construction was about two feet tall, topped with a space generating lens, and filled with some of the hacked up guts of the Scrivener. When he’d removed the shrinking lens, the entire thing had become about the size of a football.

Right next to the space generating lens was the remains of the void lens, to deal with the treasure chest.

The contraption itself remained nameless.

Jeb didn’t know exactly how much the people who ran the show were paying attention, but he didn’t want the description of the item to roll across someone’s desk and raise flags.

He also kept the details of the plan close to the vest, in case the System was listening in.

Paranoid, but…after everything he’d seen, Jeb felt like a little paranoia might go a long way.

“Alright, is everybody strapped in?” Jeb asked, glancing around the clearing.

One by one, they nodded, checking and double chacking their harnesses, making sure they had all their gear. Casey nodded, with her daughter swaddled up in a tiny metal cocoon. The baby didn’t like it, but that was tough titties. Last thing they needed was a dead baby.

“Alright, Jess. Do the thing.” Jeb nodded at Jessica, who stood above a struggling giant lizard monster thoroughly nailed down to the ground with telekinetic force.

Jessica swung Razorback down with enthusiasm, decapitating the restrained boss monster.

Ding!

Your party has cleared the eastern plains dungeon! Please take your rewards.

And here… we… go. Jeb thought, his heart trembling in his chest as he waited for the sphincters to show up. Moment of truth.

There was a whistle of air behind him, and Jeb turned to see the copper-tipped spear being jettisoned away from him, caught by his anti-missile trap.

The copper creature’s warleader ducked under his own missile, snatching it out of the air as he charged Jeb, moving like a streak of shiny orange despite being down a foot.

“Shi-“

The creature tackled Jeb across the midsection, throwing him across the clearing as the treasure sphincters appeared above them.

Jeb’s creation followed its programming.

The instant the portals began manifesting, the pyramid slid itself underneath the nearest one in an explosion of movement, then shot a beam of void energy up through the sphincter to hollow out the contents, I.E. the treasure chest.

Then Jeb’s construction grabbed everyone nearby and reeled them in at car-crash speeds.

Naturally, this included Jeb.

Jeb didn’t even have time to grunt as a wave of force smacked him hard, tossing him up into the air above the pyramid, the maddened copper insect man still attached to him like an angry spider monkey.

Once all seven of them were crushed together by a tube of telekinetic force ensuring they were in the right position, limbs be damned, the shrink lens blinked on, creating extra space inside the tube as it contracted, small enough to fit.

Then they got shot out of a cannon, straight up into the magical anus.

They weren’t quite small enough to fit through the hole in the wooden box, but Casey tucked herself around her baby, and everyone else tucked themselves around her, sheltering them from the wooden shrapnel sharing a lane with them.

As a family unit, the eight of them slammed up against a stone ceiling with enough force to crush a normal man’s bones.

Jeb felt like he’d been attacked by a giant sandwich press, but on the bright side, the presence of a ceiling meant the plan was a success:

They weren’t in the death wilds anymore.

“Oh gods!”

“What in the Roil?”

Jeb hit the concrete ground, still wrestling with the tribal warrior desperately trying to stab him with his broken spear.

“What’s going on!?”

“Who are these people?”

Jeb injected the creature’s chest with Myst, its resistance not nearly enough to stop him.

The copper-skinned warleader noticed it instantly, locking its sharp talons around Jeb’s arm and neck. The look in its beady eyes screamed ‘shove me off, and I’ll take these with me’.

Jeb redirected his attention to the hand on his neck, grabbing the creature’s fingers from the outside and prying them away from his jugular.

“Get off!” Jess shouted, a heavy iron boot manifesting on her foot as she kicked the creature’s midsection.

The fingers on his neck were sufficiently pried off, but the ones on his arm dragged through the flesh as the warleader was kicked away, putting several gouges through Jeb’s upper arm.

The copper skinned humanoid crashed into two stock boys gawking at them from beside a treasure chest they’d been hauling up to a circular platform.

The insect-man slammed them backwards with a spray of blood. Together, the three of them hit some kind of big red button below a code displayed in glowing runes.

“Get away!” one of the men said, shoving the insect man off, while his buddy clutched a bleeding hand, moaning in pain.

Jeb got a glimpse of a severed finger before the platform turned into a tube, allowing the treasure box and the finger to fall through.

That…already happened.

Jeb didn’t have more time to think about it as the copper skinned creature launched itself to its feet, eyeing Jeb with unmistakable focus.

“Jeez, Jeb, what did you do to piss this guy off?” Smartass asked from her nest in Jeb’s hair.

“Killed his whole village,” Jeb muttered, putting pressure on his bleeding arm.

“Yeah, that’d do it,” Smartass said, resting her elbows on Jeb’s scalp and kicking her tiny feet. “You do seem to leave a trail of destruction in your wake. You might be cursed.”

“Find a control room or a way out while I deal with this guy,” Jeb said to the rest of his team. “We don’t have time to screw around-“

The harsh sound of a klaxon filled the air, and the whole warehouse of treasure boxes was bathed in a harsh yellow and red light.

Taking the opportunity, the copper-skinned creature flung itself forward, aiming for Jeb.

Jeb splayed his fingers wide, and the shield trigger popped in front of him, catching the warrior in midair.

Jeb jumped over the shield, aiming over it with his finger.

“Juggernaught!”

Over the next four seconds, a hundred Mystic triggers sent out their payload, packed tiny fractions of a second apart from each other.

The warleader tried to dodge, but the sheer volume of telekinetic mind-bullets pinned him down and tore him to shreds.

Jeb watched as the eyes that bored into him slowly lost their life.

“I thought you said we didn’t have time for this!” Jess shouted in his ear, dragging him away from the dead guy trying to avenge his family.

“Right,” Jeb said, shaking it off.

I’ll wallow later.

The stock boys looked like your typical car mechanic. They wore overalls, had grease stains on their hands, and a weatherworn look about them.

Where they differed was the fact that they were pale, skeletal, seven feet tall, and had no lips, giving them a horrific visage.

They seemed like nice folk, though. The stock boy was helping his friend keep the pressure on his bandage.

Despite their imposing looks, they cowered as Jeb and company approached them.

“WHERE ARE WE?” Jeb shouted over the klaxon.

“IMPOSSIBLE TREASURE SHIPPING ROOM!” The skeletal laborer shouted back. His words hit Jeb’s ears as harsh consonants and snakelike hissing, but by the time it made it to his brain, it felt like English.

“Is there a control room for the Impossible Tutorial we could access from here!?” Jeb asked.

The skeletal fellow pointed to a nearby door.

“Take a right!” he shouted, pointing a shaking hand.

“Much obliged!” Jeb responded, nodding toward the large double doors.

Brett kicked the doors open, leading the group into the tight hallway.

Moments later they heard shouting and the stomping of boots coming from down the hall.

Rounding the corner were a dozen of the pale lipless men, dressed in solid steel plate, sporting standardized swords and a single crest on the front of their steel plate.

“Humans! Surrender immediately or we will have no choice but to use lethal force.”

“I’ll show you lethal fo-“

Jeb grabbed Jess’s shoulder lightly.

“What happens to us if we surrender? Prison?”

They hadn’t actually killed any of their people, so if they locked him up for a misdemeanor, then let him go a few months later, that was still a technical victory over the Impossible tutorial’s lethal consequences.

“You will be returned to your designated zone.” The leading soldier spoke with ironclad confidence.

“Well, that’s unacceptable,” Jeb said, channeling his Myst into two planes of force that ran through the center of the hall.

He moved the two planes of force to either side, parting the troops like Moses, grinding them against the stone walls.

“Unf…Guh,” The leader was only able to speak in guttural grunts as Jeb’s team passed through the hall.

Jeb took a moment to put a Myst trigger on each of them. He didn’t want to kill anyone, but he also didn’t want leaving these guys alive to come back and bit him in the ass.

“I’m going to be watching you,” Jeb said, nice and loud, so everyone could hear.

“If your body leaves contact with this wall, I’ll explode your head,” Jeb said. “I’m sure one or two of your bravest, or perhaps stupidest co-workers, are going to do you a favor and prove that this is a real threat, so my advice to you: Don’t be that guy.”

They passed through and made their way to the control room. Jeb released the planes of force once they were past, and cocked his head, listening.

Pop! Squish! The distinctive sounds of a head exploding and a body slumping to the ground sounded from around the corner.

“Can’t save ‘em all buddy,” Smartass said, patting Jeb’s head as he hustled to catch up with the rest of them.

Jeb was expecting something like holograms in the Control room, but it looked a lot more like a switchboard operator’s setup from the nineteen twenties.

The optic cables he has seen that relayed Myst, were being switched in and out of little holes in a honkin’ big box that dominated most of the room. The thing was probably chock full of lenses and Myst generators.

Jeb’s mouth was watering before he caught himself. There was no time to crack the box open and study it. They had a job to do: Find a way to get out alive.

“Good afternoon!” Jeb said upon regaining his sanity. “We’re commandeering this room until such a time as we can all safely leave the premises.”

His voice was drowned out by the sound of the klaxon.

“Shut off that fucking alarm!” Jeb shouted.

One of the switchboard operators blanched and pulled a plug, plunging the room into silence.

“Thank you.” Jeb said, clomping forward so he could see every operator. So they could see him.

“Here’s how this is going to go. I’ve got three rules. Rule number one: Anything we ask you, you answer immediately. Two, anything we tell you to do, you do immediately. Three, don’t do a single goddamn thing we didn’t tell you to do. You follow these simple rules, and we’ll be out of your hair in minutes, and you’ll be none the worse for wear. Break them and we’ll snuff you like a candle.”

“Is that understood!?” Jeb demanded, adopting his muster voice.

The operators nodded enthusiastically.

“Alright, first question. Can we get to Earth from here?” Jeb asked.

The operators glanced at each other hesitantly, staying silent.

“Are you breaking rule number one already!?” Jeb demanded.

“Well, it’s just…Earth as you knew it…doesn’t exactly exist anymore,” one of the operators said, cowering.

Jeb’s heart sank into his stomach.

“Explain.”