Book 2, Chapter 16

Four of the eight wash stations were occupied. Three in the middle were empty, so he selected the center one. No Neighbours that way. The stations were little more than modest privacy screens. A curtain serving as the entrance and the sides were office dividers. Inside the closed space were a basic wooden stool, a cheap bright red plastic bucket, a chunk of soap, and a tap connected to a water tank by piping. The walls were as transient as anything, but someone had bothered to do proper plumbing. 

With a simple thought, the armour he was wearing vanished. It was a convenience feature of the legendary set of armour that he had got from killing the Bird. It was arguably the coolest thing of the new reality, potentially better than a bag of holding and possibly even magic itself.

How much power did it cost to get this feature?

An image of a man. He was old with a crooked back. The little kid was laughing at the old man and had not noticed the bamboo stick clutched behind the man’s back. If you looked closely, you could see the evidence of a partly burned paper bag filled with poop. The bamboo stick flashed.

Random

A little orphan going up to a big man in a blue coat “Please Sir? Can I have some more?” The man roaring back “MORE”

Better.

There was a sense of chuckling and a tide of rising glee. The sort of emotions that might go along with playing a fantastic prank on someone.

Back and caught up in the first image. Little boy laughing, hands on his stomach. The old man was angry. The hidden bamboo stick appearing and flashing down. Nothing the boy could do, hands rising to protect the face, the bamboo stick dipping lower targeting the ribs.

“Owwll.” Adrian leaped sideways, sending the bucket tumbling in an ever so brief flood of water along the hard pavements before it vanished out past the divider into the left wash area. His side stung like something had bitten it in multiple places.

“Just a stubbed toe,” he called out, mindful of people around. There was no need for any swords or magic to fly. This was bad enough as it is. Rolling up his old T-shirt. A red welt was already forming, and it broke the skin in places.

This was bad.

This was really, really bad.

Epic level terrible.

The second image. “Can I have some more?” “MORE!” the thundering voice and the flinch of the little boy.

Words could not describe how bad this was.

It filled his mind with the sounds of giggling children. Something touched his ears.

This was not happening.

A touch on his back.

I have a Non Sapient interface. I have a Non Sapient interface.

A contemptuous look and a rich elderly distinguished gentleman disappearing into a palatial mansion. He had left because he wanted to, and not because of anything anyone might have said.

There was no doubt about it. He was screwed. If its images could affect him physically, then maybe there would be no just putting up with it. It was possible just telling a trader he needed help because his interface was sapient might be enough.

The apology flooded his mind instantly. Just some fun, went too far, won’t happen again. The interface was part of the team, just a lowly programmer, he was the boss. Would do exactly what he asked.

Did I lose power?

A mental shrug. Who knows? Everything was possible, but when the system generated convenience items, those functions did not represent knowledge. The armour's ability was not powering like an attribute boost or a new fire spell. So technically it should not have entered any calculations or acted to reduce the value of items he got given. Technically, followed by a shrug.

That was good to know. The ability to instantly remove and then replace his armour had not cost him strength.

Re-filling the bucket and using his tattered T-shirt as a sponge. Washing all over. Sponge in and then out. It was not the best cleaning session he had ever experienced, but a lot safer than dunking in the river. Pouring out the water once he had finished. Judging from the colour he was not taking the hygiene thing seriously enough.

An image of a small Chihuahua rolling in poop, then rolling on some sort of dead animal, before digging up an old bone and rolling before presenting itself to the owner while being proud as punch. One squished up nose and the poor Chihuahua was promptly dumped into a bathtub.

Very funny

Filling the bucket again and repeating the process by the end, he was shivering slightly. Dressing in a fresh t-shirt and underpants and then with a thought re-equipping the armour. As always, it looked remarkably fresh. Self-cleaning and mending were great traits to have in a set. Especially now he knew it had not cost him.

Leaving the sad wash house, there was a trader just down the road. With nothing to trade, he turned away to get into the hotel, brushing past the people in his way, not even bothering to acknowledge or apologize.

Felt like a beer, but there would be none available. It would not last, but the town had literally run out. Wagga did not have its own brewery and with road routes, cut beer had been one of the first and most noticed shortages. There were probably hundreds of homebrew kits set up by now, and in a week's time, they would be flush with beer again. Mind you, by then he would be gone.

The dining room was completely full. Identification skimmed over the room. Everyone he saw had a magic class. All the usual suspects were there along with the weird such as Ice Titan, Flower Song, Force Fighter, Fire Sorcery.

There were no seats. Changing his plan on the fly.  First, he got the attention of the policewoman. She waved before burying her nose back into the clipboard. Today she looked overwhelmed, unlike the previous days where she was a model of efficiency. Now that he had reported in, he would retire to get some peace in his room. Study for an hour before coming back down for dinner, and then hopefully there would be some free chairs.

The smell hit him as he pushed his door open.

The smell of a pub. The door kept swinging open and eight boys turned to look at him. The oldest might have been nineteen, with the youngest closer to fourteen. They all looked guilty, like any teenage group of teenage boys surprised by an adult. Most of them masked it quickly.

Their composure was admirable, but then fighting monsters regularly sort of reduced the impact of disappointing parents. If they even still had parents. The dark thought snuck upon him.

“Roomy,” Pimple Face, as Adrian immediately thought of him, yelled out immediately. Pimple Face was a level nine water walker. All seven, no, eight boys were looking at him; none of them were older than twenty.

“We lucked out getting the Penthouse man,” the kid speaking was one of the Chubbies.

My Penthouse, he felt like snapping, though he wisely held his tongue. There was no need to antagonize his new roommates. They were here for the same reason he was. To protect themselves from the Lucu and he had told the pretend policewomen that he was happy to bunk with others.

Beer

If he was lucky, their presence could at least satisfy that itch. He could see empty bottles.

“Yep, plenty of room for everyone. If you get really close to the windows and lookout, there is a reasonable view.” Pimple face said grandly.

Adrian disagreed, he had checked yesterday, and the windows were small with secure metal bars. The view was all you could expect from the third story in a small outback town. Nothing at all to get excited about. Dirty roofs, spacious streets with broken cars, and a buildup of rubbish as people discarded useless plastics in piles around the place.

Heading towards the queen bed, the boys parted.

“You were here first, the bed is yours,” pimple face said graciously, realizing the prior claim by the way he moved. There were beer bottles all over, but they all looked empty.

“We are out, unfortunately,” the kid who must have been the youngest of the lot told him. He was a surprising level 11 Growetreg and must have noticed the long look Adrian had given the empties. “We still have goon bags.”

Goon bags had survived. Of course, they had. They were foil aluminum bags. Usually, one or two-liter containers filled with cheap wine. The alcohol choice of the youth and the poor.

“Yep, Mitch scavenged them from the alcohol store the young boy continued. No one wanted them.” he held up two cardboard containers. “Red or white.”

The thoughts of quiet study disappeared. “Red and then maybe I will go down to dinner.”

“Second serving starts in thirty minutes.” Pimple face told him. “It is the main serving. Early dinner and late just get the scraps. They serve all the prime food in the middle session. We all get to go.” He sounded so proud. “Fred,” Pimple Face said, nodding towards a teen wearing glasses, “got us a table. He is instrumental in the Lucu effort. He also got us the two six-packs of beer.” Fred was a level seven Diviner.

“We found the nest,” Fred told him with a surprisingly deep baritone. It was a pleasant voice to listen to. The boy could have been a radio star.

“So we are safe and can do what we want tonight?”

“No,” Fred told him, “They are leaving the entrance unguarded. If we guard the tunnel, the Lucu will burrow out somewhere else and that would ruin our plan. So no guarding, and hopefully, no one else dies tonight.”

“I don't understand.”

They passed the glass of red to him. It was a large ceramic mug filled to the brim. Typical teenage behaviour. The red passed the test of being alcoholic. After two sips, the sour tastes and a lack of any true flavour was pretty irrelevant.

“They're going to flood the place with carbon monoxide.”

“What?”

“Carbon monoxide sinks, or at least it doesn't rise. We generate a lot of carbon monoxide at the surface, blow it down, and wait for carbon monoxide poisoning to finish them. They will die before they even realize there's a threat.

“A portable generator, a length of pipe and leaf blower.”

Fred laughed, even his chuckle was smooth. “A portable potbelly stove, some pipe, and magic” Fred countered.

“Wait, you said they?”

“Two adults and three little ones.”

Another victim of the chaotic alpha particle events dragging creatures from all over the place to a new world. It was the memories from the Core still impacting him, or the knowledge around just what had happened. A natural cluster fuck. Now, these Lucu had been dragged here and were doomed by its nature. It was a victim of the scientists who had stuffed up earth just as much as humans were. It had to follow its instincts to take out magic threats to protect its young.

“Who put the plan together?”

“Sally and the team,” Fred answered, “that analysis dude Craig seems to be the driving force. He had me study and describe everything in the cave for like four hours.”

“Wasn't that Dangerous?”

Fred waved a hand and a ball of light barely visible. By instinct, Magic Focus switched on and it became very clear. The energy in it was clear and reminded him of what the insects had used to teleport when he was sharing the Ambushers’ memories all those weeks ago. A thread stretched from the ball to Fred. It was very thin and contained so little energy that it would break easily.

“I can see everything this sees. Craig had me exploring the cave. The entire process should have taken minutes, but the Lucu’s kept having fun jumping on the projections whenever they saw it. So instead of minutes it took three hours before I could confirm that there were no alternative exits.”

“So Craig thinks gassing them will work?”

Fred nodded enthusiastically. “They have tested the carbon monoxide burners.  Full-on scientific testing. Build up the gas then release it into a room and then boom Alpha monster died. I think they used a six-legged rat.”

“So why the delay?”

“They need to build a couple more ovens to get the monoxide concentrated enough given the space in the cave. Some physics dude did the mathematics. They also need more people to drive the gas from the oven into the cave. They have a sailor who is pretty good, but they need more. Craig said there would be tryouts first thing tomorrow.”

“Billy is going to try out.” Pimple face said gesturing at one of the two fat kids. Billy was a level 8 wind master.

Billy waved his hands in front of his face. Power flowed into them from the man's arm. Magic Focus took it all in. The spell was a variant of wind gust. Adrian had watched his own spell enough to see the similarities. Billy tossed one hand out towards him and the blast of wind hit him, rocking him in his seat and rattling the empty bottles around the room.

With a thought, his own power flared sending a counter wind gust at Billy. It slid him a couple of centimeters backward on the carpet and caused the mug of wine he was drinking to tip up and spill all of its contents down the front of his chest armour.

“Goddammit!”

“See it's rude,” Adrian said to the kid “Through I image pretty popular on a hot day.”

There were a few polite laughs

“So are you going to help too?” Pimple face asked.

It was not part of his plans, but while he was here, he might as well help with dealing with the Lucu. Seeing it dead would allow him to hunt at night, and wasting a day or afternoon to achieve that earlier would be a good trade.

“If I'm deemed good enough.”

“What are you man,” Billy interrupted curiously, “when I use my defecation on you it is all types of weird.”

“How so?” Adrian asked back, smiling at them, knowing exactly what he was probably seeing.

“Spell sword?” Fred suggested tentatively, “I can see strong physical attributes and magical attributes plus lots of different magic’s.”

“I'm a non-standard class,”

“And I am a boy,” pimple face setting half the room off. “We can see that you’re a classless level 2.”

“Stealth mage is probably the best description. The physical prowess was just an unexpected bonus.”

“My mate is a level 9 Warrior and I would say you are as strong as him and have similar vitality.”

“If he put some stats into healing or agility, then sure I might be higher. Do you know who I am?”

To a man, they all shook their heads. “This is our first time in town we've all been fighting out of the retirement complex.”

“Max?”

There were a few nods and downcast expressions

“Sorry, I did not mean to open wounds.”

“It happens,” Pimple face said, “Max would want us to move on. All we can do is fight back.”

“I got a lucky magical artifact that boosted my strength and vitality by around three attribute points. Standard interface metrics.” He told them to distract the mood.

“That makes sense,” Fred said.

Taking a sip. The mug was empty and the goon bag immediately got shoved his way.

“Fifteen minutes before heading down. You have got time for another.”

Kids

Adrian accepted the bag and filled the cup about halfway. The night was a write-off. Stuck with nine people in his room, there would not be a chance to study.

Fred's expression suddenly became extra suspicious. “What's your name?”

“Why?” Adrian asked, a little concerned, suspecting he knew where this was going.

“You have a potion throw ability”

“So?”

Fred was grinning now “and the penthouse.”

At least half of the boys had clued onto where Fred was going

“We are going to be telling the story for years,” Pimple face crowed. “The night we got drunk with the hero of Wagga.”

There's nothing he wanted more than to sink to the ground and cover his head and disappear from sight

“And you bugger’s didn't even save me a beer.”

Everyone burst out laughing. “They were from Craig as a reward for me helping him. When we go downstairs, maybe your name will get us another couple of six-packs.”

They kept asking for a story and he kept pushing off. First deflecting to talk about loot chests and then back to the Lucu.

Downstairs, the first thing he saw was Susie. Her eyes were puffy and her face dejected.