GSA Chapter 18: Black Betty

“Whoah!” The closest man said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. Casey could smell his B.O. from across the camp, causing her nose to wrinkle involuntarily.

“Stay over there,” Casey said, motioning with the water gun.

“Is that a gun?” One of the men said, peering at the heavy hunk of metal in her hands. Damn thing almost weighed as much as she did, but there was a reason for that.

Casey breathed in, and entered her Myst Core. In the center of her being was a crumbling old bible, so weatherworn and overused that it was falling apart, pages dropping out of the seams. She mentally picked up a page that had fallen out of her dad’s bible and jammed it into the gun, pointing it at a nearby boulder.

SSSHHHHH!

A blast of concentrated water lanced out and bore a hole through a boulder jutting out of the ground beside the rightmost man. The gun bucked in her hands and nearly knocked her off her feet, but she wrestled it back down.

“Close enough.” Casey said, her voice steady and grim.

Inside, she was freaking out.

What the hell am I supposed to do!? They’re gonna kill me! They’re big and smelly and strong, and I’m so fucking screwed! Jeb, Jess, hell, I’d even take Ron, where the hell are you!? Why aren’t the guards guarding me!? They’re my creations aren’t they!?

The men took a few steps back, watching her warily, allowing her to catch her breath and find words.

“What do you want?”

“Umm…Food and a safe place to sleep…Miss.” The one in the front said, arms still raised.

She considered it for a long minute, adrenaline making her body ache with the need to run or fight. Running would mean abandoning everything she had here, which was unacceptable, and she couldn’t see herself leaving her baby.

Fighting was also off the table, as it raised the odds of getting her or baby Casey hurt bad enough that Amanda couldn’t patch them up. The chances of winning were… She glanced at the three of them.

Casey had no idea what the chances of winning even were.

Let’s try to manage the situation. God, I hope this doesn’t need to be a fight.

Casey nodded at the pot of meat, her heart hammering. “You can eat, but you can’t sleep here. The mountain’s got plenty of caves, and the monsters don’t seem to like it.”

“That’s plenty, thanks,” the leader said before the three of them tucked their legs in and sat around the pot of meat, greedily plucking out hunks of white scarab meat with their bare hands and popping them in their mouths with abandon.

They were slowing down, beginning to chat with each other in a relaxed manner, when Baby Casey began crying at full volume from inside the cave.

The men glanced at each other, and one of them mouthed the question ‘Baby?’. Their gaze settled on her and the cave behind her like a pack of hungry wolves.

“I remember now!” the leftmost said, dropping his fist into his palm. “You’re that pregnant girl! I didn’t even recognize you without the long hair and the panda eyes!”

The leader’s posture shifted.

Relaxed.

Like she wasn’t a threat.

Goddamnit.

“Well, why are we sitting around, she can’t be more than level –“

The leader put a hand on the rightmost’s shoulder and pushed him back to a seated position.

“She obviously didn’t get here alone, Dick.” The man said, glancing back at her.

“Who all is sharing this camp with you, girl?”

“So it’s ‘girl’ now?” Casey asked, a small flame of anger sparked in the core of the fear. “Now that you think I’m not dangerous?”

The two mannequins that had been crawling silently toward the men swept up behind them, putting blades on the necks, the pressure dimpling the skin.

The leader shot to his feet, scrabbling for the hilt of his sword.

The pot of boiling water tipped itself over onto the man’s feet, dragging a wretched howl out of him.

Inside Casey, her father’s bible burst open, the pages fluttering violently as she breathed in as much Myst as she could. She vacuumed up the fluttering pages and directed them in front of her.

“You bitch, I’ll –“

“You’ll do nothing! Sit down!” Michael boomed as he manifested in front of her. The angel was nearly as tall as a man, pointing his flaming sword directly at the man’s face.

The leader’s red face turned expressionless, and he sat back down, hands above his waist.

“Not so fun when you’re outnumbered, is it?” Casey asked, unable to stop herself from gloating, just a bit. They’d put her through the most intense couple minutes she’d had in the last couple weeks. Aside from pushing a baby through her pussy while monsters were trying to eat her.

That one was hard to beat.

Without any prompting, the mannequins glanced at each other and nodded, using their free hands to snatch the three men’s weapons from their belts and throw them away, something she’d neglected to even think of.

They’re smart as people, Casey thought, her hair standing on end. Each of her creations was an autonomous, fully conscious, thinking person who ultimately had her best interests in mind.

Hard to put a price on that. No wonder it’s S ranked.

“Let’s pick up this conversation where we left off,” Casey said, carefully setting the gun aside and retrieving her fussing daughter from the cave. “You can call me Casey, or Miss. Ma’am makes me feel like I’m in a play.”

***Jeb***

Ron held up a palm and dozens of threads of neon purple power spooled out of his hand, seeking out dead bodies like living things. Each one that attached to a corpse shuddered like the tightening muscles of a snake as it injected his power.

Black ooze spill began to spill from the monster’s wounds, and they lumbered to their feet. Some of the magic that allowed them to be so goddamn hot must have remained, as the creature’s black blood boiled off of them, rising up into the air as a noxious smoke.

The second wave of zombies was up and ready to go in moments, and they were far more effective than before.

“Check this out,” Ron said, directing his zombies to spread out. The new creatures were immune to the heat and trudged through lava pits without so much as a care.

Fun fact: you don’t sink in lava. It’s way more dense than you are.

They spread out in every direction and attracted another dozen crawly caterpillars and larger golems.

Once his zombies had the attention of the nearest dozen monsters, he recalled all of his zombies to a central point in the distance, kiting the approaching lava monsters into a tight knot.

Ron snapped his fingers, a pulse of neon purple radiating through the threads on his hand.

Three zombies lunged forward while the rest withdrew. These three swelled up horrifically for an instant, looking like the dude from Big trouble in Little China.

Then they exploded, sending bone shrapnel covered in poisonous black flesh in every direction. The three detonations tore into the feral creatures, wounding or outright killing some of them. The wounded became easy prey for the remaining zombies.

In a matter of seconds, the twelve corpses were rising back to their feet.

That tactic had a net gain of nine bodies, Jeb thought as he watched it play out. Kite them into a concentrated formation, sacrifice a small number of zombies to cripple them, then mop up for a net profit.

Smart.

“Beat that,” Ron said, thumbing his nose as he posed with a cocky smirk.

Jeb had to wonder if the display gave Jessica second thoughts about deflecting the bronze spear sailing through the air toward the ginger necromancer.

Jessica whipped a hand out, something metal leaving her hand in a blur. A clang! sounded through the chamber right before the bronze-tipped bone spear clipped Ron’s leg and lodged itself in the stone beside him.

“Shit!” All of the necromancer’s swagger evaporated in an instant as he dropped to the ground, clapping his hand over the oozing cut in his leg.

The Death Knight placed itself between Ron and the figures in the distance.

The light was dim that far out, and all Jeb could make out was shifting movement and a glint of something shiny.

Oh shit!

Bronze spears started raining down on them like hail, and Jeb couched down small and made the ‘shield’ gesture with his arm, shoulder and head tucked in.

The shield popped a dome shape in front of him, and he crouched behind it, spears ricocheting off wildly.

When the hail passed, Jeb scanned the group to see if anyone was hurt.

Amanda and Brett weathered the attack behind their shields, and Jess managed to dodge all of the incoming projectiles.

Ron’s Death Knight was plucking spears out of its body with nonchalance, while Ron tried to stop the bleeding in his leg behind it.

“Amanda, get Ron!” Jeb shouted. The heavily armed healer lunged over to Ron, a spark of white light leaping out between them. Ron shivered for an instant as the flesh of his leg knitted. 

“Ron, stop them from doing that again!” Jeb shouted as Jessica took shots at the enemy, seemingly choosing her targets with ease.

She must be able to see them.

“How far away are they?” Jeb asked as the zombies converged on the distant hill.

“About a hundred fifty feet,” Jessica said, sending an arrow hurtling toward the enemy cloaked in shadow.

Jeb pulled out the fireball wand and twisted the collar on the barrel until it rested just shy of the one-sixty mark.

“Fire in the hole!” Jeb warned, squeezing the trigger. Click.

BOOM!

“That made them think twice.” Jess said. “They’re pulling back – hold on a second – she whipped her bow up and shot something dark streaking through the air.

Jess’s eyes widened. Whatever she saw, she didn’t like it.

“Put a shield up!” she shouted, grabbing Jeb’s shoulder. “Cover us!”

Jeb didn’t question it.

He siphoned Myst out and made a dome of telekinetic force over the five of them.

Spatters of some kind of hot brownish liquid began raining down over them, sizzling as it boiled against the hardened air.

Nearby, a perforated leather bag struck the ground, oozing more bubbling goop.

Some kind of boiling oil attack? Jeb thought, peering at the bag. Boiling candied sugar could fuck up your day, if that’s what it was.

“They’re taking off,” Jess said, peering into the darkness.

“Let’s move back toward the entrance,” Jeb said, lifting the dome upward in one big section so they could duck out from under it without spilling any of the gunk on themselves. “I don’t like unexpected things.”

“Ugh, this shit smells,” Ron said, scowling as he ducked out of the shield, trying his best to avoid getting any of the cooling goop on him.

“Hold on,” Jessica said, cocking her head to the side. “I hear something coming.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, but it sounds like a lot of…” Jessica pointed into the distance, toward the dark roof of the cavern, where dots of light were beginning to show, like stars winking into life. A few at first, then more and more dots of light came to life on the ceiling, spreading outwards by the thousands as they detached from the ceiling in a cloud.

A swarm. The boiling goop was a lure. That’s why it smells.

Jeb didn’t know which was worse. That the creatures that had ambushed them were clearly sapient and knew how to pick their battles, or that they now had to deal with a swarm of what he could only assume was less than friendly.

“Back to the entrance, double time! Watch your footing!” Jeb said, motioning for them to get moving toward the entrance.

Jeb set the range on his wand to two hundred feet and the explosion tore a chunk out of the swarm, but many more took their place as his companions rushed past him.

Unfortunately, these creatures were much faster than even a superhuman sprinter, closing the distance between them in a matter of seconds.

They were like…evil firefly bats with molten tummies. I’m not a biologist.

The vast majority of the swarm creatures collected around the area they’d just vacated, gnashing their mandibles against the rock with the goopy green stuff on it.

A few of them, though, they split off from the swarm and investigated the fleshy treats hustling away from them.

Jeb felt a pinch on the back of his neck for a heart-stopping instant before the creature and everything nearby was flung away from him.

In the empty moment following that, Jeb wove a shark cage of telekinetic force around him, with openings about an inch wide. No more biting the back of my neck.

The creatures were about the size of a football, and  while they battered futilely against his cage, the rest of the party members had a up close and personal experience with the flying rats.

Jess was bleeding from dozens of small scratches across her body as she dragged Ron backward through the chamber. There was a black steel helmet covering her head, with a drape of interlocking plates partly down the back of her neck.

Ron was covering his head with his arms, while his death knight ineffectively swatted the swarming creatures out of the air in ones and twos.

Amanda and Brett were the least affected by the swarm, as they were decked out in the most complete sets of armor.

Brett ran up to Ron and shoved his shield into Ron’s hands, ordering him to cover himself before he picked Ron up like a piece of baggage and started running.

Jeb would have laughed at the bat-creature gnawing on the Soldier’s helmet if he had the breath to spare.

Jeb followed after them, using his shark cage as his own personal flying elevator.

Lower the range, Jeb thought as he set the range to the eighty foot minimum and fired the wand right into the center of the swarm.

“Fire in the hole!” Jeb said, covering his eyes.

BOOM!

The shark cage caught a spray of dead bodies against it, although a few parts came through the one inch holes and caught Jeb in the side. Nothing got through his armor, though, thank god. Dead bat-fireflies tumbled to the ground in droves, their ichor giving off the gentle sound of rain.

His ringing ears couldn’t hear it, though.

You have gained a level!

You are now level 37!

The swarm was much diminished, looking more like a small gnat cloud than a true horde. They were gradually losing interest in the humans. Whether it was because they were retreating in the face of danger, or simply gorged on their brothers and sisters, Jeb had no idea.

Jeb was patting himself on the back like an idiot when Amanda’s scream shook him out of it.

“BRETT!”

Jeb whipped his gaze around and saw Ron lying on the ground halfway to the tunnel, covering his face from the last of the straggler with the shield while the death knight swatted them.

About four feet to the left of Ron, one of the lave pitfalls rippled.

Time stopped.

That fucking tentacle dragged Brett into the lava!

Jeb instantly dropped the shark cage and siphoned out all the Myst energy he could, dipping into his Core itself, until he couldn’t possibly draw any more.

Jeb shoved the Myst down into the pit of molten stone until he felt Brett’s Myst core resist his telekinesis like a baby kitten.

Jeb forced the resistance aside and hauled with everything he had.

Brett flew up out of the pit in an explosion of molten rock, three long tentacles wrapped around his waist, leg and neck. His armor was cherry red, but he’d only been in the lava a second or two… he might…

“JESS!”

There was a glowing hot creature beginning to surface in the pit, dragged to the surface by Jeb’s telekinesis. The thing was trying its damndest to pull their fighter back into the liquid hot stone. Jeb could make out an amorphous shape and an orange glowing beak moving back and forth, trying to reach the prey in its grasp.

Jess whipped past and severed the three tentacles in the blink of an eye, following that up with a thrown weapon to the creature’s head. It let out a plaintive screech and slid beneath the surface.

Meanwhile Jeb dropped Brett on the ground directly in front of Amanda and siphoned out two separate strands of Myst.

He grabbed opposite sides of Bret’s armor and peeled the cherry red armor off of the soldier. It was easier because of the heat.

The padding beneath the armor was charred black, and flaked away, the skin underneath that was angry red and burned off in places. His eyelids were mostly carbonized and burned away from where the visor in his helmet had let liquid stone through.

Amanda knelt beside her husband and channeled as much Myst through Brett as Jeb had ever seen her do.

An arc of White Myst crossed between her palm and Brett’s chest.

The soldier shuddered and gasped, his breath shuddering.

There was a pinch on Jeb’s scalp, followed by pain as one of the stragglers latched onto his head.

Jeb reached up and wrenched it off of him, tearing the football-sized creature’s mandibles off before tossing it aside. He felt the blood dripping through his hair.

“I’ll grab Brett,” Jeb said. “let’s go!”

Jeb reached out with split Myst and picked up himself and Brett. Jessica grabbed Ron in a fireman carry and Amanda followed along beside her husband.

They made it into the hallway and aimed for the entrance of the dungeon. As they passed by the first lava pit, Jeb gained a grim satisfaction when he heard the dull thump of his trap going off, spearing whatever creature was lying in wait for them under the rock.

A moment later, they were outside, panting desperately.

Jeb set Brett down and Amanda went over him carefully, paying special attention to her husband’s eyes.

She had somehow regrown the man’s eyelids. Maybe there’s been enough left of them that she was able to build on that…or maybe with enough power, she could grow back things that weren’t meant to grow back.

Jeb would have liked it if that were the case, but even so, Feet were a lot bigger and more complicated than eyelids.

“Brett, babe, can you see me?” She asked, her voice trembling as she pried his eyelids open and peered into them.

Brett’s eyes weren’t milky, clouded, or missing, but there was a possibility the healing had removed the signs of damage without repairing the nerve endings.

By way of response, the naked Soldier snaked his hand around the healer’s waist, behind her armored plates and pinched her butt.

Amanda yelped and barely stopped herself from smacking him.

“Yeah, I can see.” Brett said with a mischievous grin. “I’m honestly a lot more alive than I expected I would be a couple minutes ago.”

He sat up, but Amanda didn’t seem to want to leave him alone, asking how many fingers she was holding up with each eye and checking his naked body front to back.

His clothes were completely carbonized, sloughing off him little by little, revealing that goddamned underwear model figure.

“Leave me be,” he said, giving her a swat. “There’re people in worse shape than me.”

“Get Jess first,” Ron said, leaning against the wall in a puddle, holding a hand over a cut in his scalp. “She’s lost more blood than I have.”

Jeb touched the bloody scrape in his scalp, and while it was bleeding pretty good, it wasn’t dangerous, and not as bad as the cuts the other two had all over their upper bodies. He could afford to wait until Amanda got around to him.

“Ron, your idea worked.”

“Huh?” Ron grunted, glancing at Jeb.

“The healer is perfectly fine.” Jeb said, pointing at Amanda, who didn’t have a scratch on her. The woman took off her helmet and shook out her sweaty hair as she went back and forth patching them up.

“Oh yeah. Huh.”

“Let’s have a debrief, then go back to the camp and turn in for the night.” Jeb said.

They spent the next half an hour resting and discussing possible solutions to the dungeon. One was to station zombies with Mystic Triggers on them beside all of the lava pits and have them walk in circles around them until a tentacle dragged the in. when a large beak got within a certain distance of the trigger, it would explode violently.

For the swarm, Jeb figured he could make some custom triggers that would throw up a shark-cage over the entire group and give them time to take out the attackers. Ron’s tactic with the exploding zombies worked great for the caterpillars and golems.

All that was left were the spear-chuckers.

“They looked like humanoid insects,” Jess said. “They were maybe six and half feet tall, with a coppery, shiny carapace.

Jeb had seen the occasional shine of reflected light, but it hadn’t been bright enough to identify them.

“I can make some bouncing betties out of pebbles and key them to six foot humanoid insects,” Jeb said. “If they’re as smart as we think they are, then seeding the main area with a couple hundred explosive pebbles should put the fear of god in ‘em, and make them think twice about moving through the main cavern.”

“That sounds like it’ll work. But we need to be sure they won’t go off near us if we get attacked.” Brett said. “I’m not interested in getting cut in half.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jeb said, nodding. That would require an if/and trigger, but the triggers were very smart, so he was fairly sure it could be done.

Amanda finally got to him, sending ice cold healing through his scalp as it knitted itself together.

Jeb sighed in relief as the constant sting let off.

“Let’s head back to camp,” Jeb said, patting the dried blood in his hair. “Let’s clean up and prep for another run.”

“Why are we going into the dungeon again?” Amanda asked. “Brett almost died.”

“Because it’s there?” Ron said with a shrug.

“Because it has something we need to get out of here,” Jeb clarified the mission statement for everyone. “This whole place has been laid out like a sadistic death game. Bosses and dungeons have been dropping items we need to survive, and at the same time the Safe Zones went down, this dungeon just happens to show up? It can’t be a coincidence.”

“And if we do it right, today’s trip will have been the most dangerous one. We’re gonna recover for a day, then systematically empty out that cave system. There’s a good chance it’ll have something we need.”

Amanda frowned but she nodded. The alternative was forming a little family and living the rest of their lives on the side of mount doom.

It was an option. They had food, water and shelter.

It just wasn’t an option any of them wanted to take, yet.

***Later***

Jeb clomped back to the campsite, and immediately noticed something was wrong. Casey was sitting by the fire, nursing her baby under a blanket, humming to her as she did.

That wasn’t what was wrong. There were scuff marks in the dirt; size ten boots. There was a pile of extra scarabs shells on the ground and the ‘lobster tank’ was far emptier than it had been when they’d left.

“Anything happen while we were gone?” Jeb asked.

“Nope,” Casey answered with a smile. “We’ve been fine all day.”

Jeb saw motion out of the corner of his eyes, and glanced over to see the mannequin motioning for his attention. It held up three fingers, made walking motions toward the pot of food, then shook its fist, pointing to the northeast.

Three men came, ate some food and we scared them off? Jeb thought. He glanced back to Casey and sighed.

She probably had the teenage mindset where she had to handle all her problems by herself in order to be ‘an adult’. Sadly this mindset Included not telling them about possible threats, because the adults might step in and treat her like a child.

“Casey, if something important happens, you’d let us know about it, right? It would be the ‘adult’ thing to do.” Jeb said, sitting down beside the pot and spearing some meat with the nearby fork.

Casey gave him a deer-in-headlights look, her gaze flickering to Jess, who was already tracking the direction of the footprints toward the northeast.

“Some guys dropped by, I gave them some food and then sent them that way. They used to be on Eddies crew, but they were very well behaved after Mike talked to them.”

Mike kicked his heels on Casey’s shoulder, nodding.

At the mention of Eddie’s crew, Jess’s lips peeled back from her teeth in a snarl. It was only a moment, but Jeb caught it.

“Don’t kill them, please,” Jeb said.

“You got a reason I shouldn’t?” Jess demanded.

He glanced over at their healer, whose eyes were widening, then back to Jess.

The assassin got his meaning. “Alright. I’m not gonna kill them,” She said. “but if they attack us, I’m putting them down.”

“You can’t –“

“Amanda,” Brett said, putting a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder. “If someone tries to hurt us, and we give them a slap on the wrist and send them on their way, there’s a good chance they’ll try again, forearmed with knowledge from the first fight, and the belief we’ll go easy on them if we win again. That kind of thinking could get some, or all of us, killed.”

“Can’t we just take their weapons and send them away?”

“That’s basically killing them, except we feel better about it.” Brett said with a shrug.

“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Jeb said. “We outnumber them and they know me and Jess beat Eddie. They don’t want to die. They’re a lot more likely to ask to join us or just avoid us outright.”

Jessica didn’t seem to like the sound of that, but she didn’t say anything.

“What if Eddie comes back?” Amanda asked.

“Then he’ll die.” Jeb said with a shrug. “We can’t afford to take it easy on someone who comes back for more. Like Brett said, that will get some of us killed.”

“In any case, I’m gonna need to work on the traps for the next dungeon run, I’ll start with the bouncing betties. I’ll put a few of them up around the camp in case they decide to sneak back in the middle of the night.”

“I’ll be shoring up Myst. Need to rebuild my store for more zombos.” Ron said.

“I spent a lot too,” Amanda nodded.

“I’ll fix our gear and work on making my Core,” Brett said.

“I’ll confirm the three stooge’s location and…not kill them.” Jessica said.

Once the plan for the night was decided, they settled down for dinner in the fading light of the sun. For the nightly story, Jeb paraphrased the plot of Fight Club as best he could, with help from Brett and Ron.

Brett played Tyler Durden, because of his model body, while Ron played the narrator, and Jeb shifted between roles, trying to keep the story flowing as smoothly as possible.

By the end of the night it had devolved into pure silliness, but the girls seemed to love every second of it. The comradery and the sound of women laughing did a lot to ease Jeb’s mind. Even Jess broke a smile a couple times.

After dinner, they broke off to their respective tasks. Brett retired into the cave to snooze and try to form his core. Ron sat crosslegged in front of the fire beside Amanda, while Jess stalked off into the darkness.

Jeb, in the meantime, tried to figure out his ‘bouncing betty’ design.

The first step was to ensure he could make a safety mechanism. The if/and statement.

If I am holding this rock, and no other person is within twenty feet, the rock will pop up.

Mystic trigger

Jeb held the rock in his hand then took a few paces away from the fire. The moment he was twenty feet away from the closest person, the rock popped up out of his hand.

Success. Now the hard part.

Jeb’s spell didn’t inherently know what direction was up or down when it fired. That meant he had to make something that could orient itself. At first he’d thought of a bobber, but that was too complicated. Eventually he stumbled on the idea of a bop bag.

Like one of those clown punching bags that kids punch that always right themselves.

All he had to do was make a sphere and hollow out one side of it, the sphere would always orient itself with the heavier side down.

Of course it wouldn’t have worked for his ejector seats, because they were being carried by a person, but for making bouncing bettys? Hell yeah, it worked.

In his furnace, Jeb took a large rock and melted it, then squished it down and stamped out sixteen hundred identical thumb-sized spheres. Once that was done, he formed sixteen hundred needles connected to a press and injected a little bubble of air into the top of each of the glassy pebbles with some help from Casey’s mannequin.

Once that was done, Jeb just had to wait for the glass to slowly cool inside the furnace, to limit the amount of fracturing.

Sometime during that time, Amanda slipped away from the rest of the group, and a few minutes later, they started hearing the sounds of passionate lovemaking coming from the cave.

It started quiet, barely noticeable at first, but eventually the grunting, slapping and moaning were pretty much the only thing the three of them could hear as they sat around the fire.

Jeb ignored it, too focused on mass producing his bouncing betties. If he let them experience temperature shock, he might even lose the whole batch.

Ron listened to the increasingly loud noises coming from the cave, staring at the entrance for a good ten minutes before he stood.

“…I gotta go take care of something,” Ron said, walking off into the darkness with his Death Knight as backup.

Casey scrunched up her nose. “Why are they doing that?” she whispered to Jeb.

“Brett almost died.” Jeb whispered back with a shrug. “Almost dying makes people horny.”

Casey blinked at him disbelievingly.

“I didn’t write the rules for human biology,” Jeb whispered.

After another couple minutes, the sounds came to a climax, and Brett walked out of the cave with a shirt wrapped around his waist. He stooped over to grab a water bottle and drank nearly the entire thing before heaving a huge sigh.

“Goddamn, that hits the spot.” He glanced at Jeb and thumbed over his shoulder. “You wanna finish her off?”

“Can I take a rain check?” Jeb replied.

Brett frowned. “Why?”

“As long as I’m the leader of the group, I can’t afford to.”

“What does that mean?”

“Some day, something I tell you to do might get you hurt. I can’t afford Amanda to even have the shadow of a doubt that it could be because I caught feelings.”

Jeb shook his head.

“It’s too dangerous for any of us to have a falling out right now…but as soon as we’re out of the Tutorial and someplace safe, I will absolutely wreck your wife.”

Brett chuckled. “Alright, rain check.” He took another swig of water and walked back into the cave.

The noises resumed.

Casey stared at Jeb like she’d just seen some eldritch horror that had permanently scarred her mind.

“What, should I have said never?” Jeb asked. “Amanda’s hot.”

“But they’re…how…” she finally gave up. “I don’t get it.”

“You don’t have to. Most people can’t separate sex and love until they’re well into their thirties,” Jeb said, turning back to his project. “Sometimes never.”

The decision not to get laid rankled, but it was the right one to sidestep unnecessary drama.

I might take a page from Ron’s book and work out my issues outside the camp.

A while later, Jeb took the first of his bouncing betties out of the furnace and tossed it onto the ground. The spherical glassy stone bounced and rolled for a moment, then stopped with the bubble facing up. Jeb repeated this test with a handful of about a dozen of them, and was pleased to note that they landed bubble up nearly every time, and even when they weren’t bubble up, they were still bubble-mostly-up.

Perfect.

Then Jeb went about putting a Mystic Trigger on each and every one of the little marbles, creating an If/and statement.

Mystic Trigger

If there is a weapon-wielding creature within two feet of the marble and none of Jeb’s group* is within fifty-two feet, whirling fifty-foot blades will appear three feet above, turning everything inside their range into mulch.

Jeb’s group* includes Jeb, Jessica, Ron, Brett, Amanda, Casey, Casey the third.

There were a few issues, such as the marble having a distinctive shape and not being hidden underground.

The enemy would most likely figure out a way to deal with them after the first handful of encounters.

But until then, they would give Jeb’s group a huge tactical advantage. And they only needed to win once.

Jeb kept weaving Mystic triggers, moving the marbles from the unfinished bag to the finished bag as he went. By the time he was too tired to continue, he’d finished a good three hundred of them.

Before he went to bed, he tossed a couple handfuls into the barren slopes surrounding the camp.

Just in case Eddie’s goons really are that stupid.

***The entrance to the dungeon***

A copper-covered claw scratched stone, taking an uncertain first step into the moonlight as the creatures entered the outside world for the first time in their history.

The copper-carapaced hunters crouched low as they tested the air, following the strange scent of the pale, soft creatures.

The lead hunter hesitated for just an instant before it padded silently out onto the mountainside. Behind him, dozens, hundreds more coppery hunters spilled out of the dungeon into the starry night, silent as the grave .

It was finally dark enough to see.