49 – Minor Updates

  “Guess I’m next,” Bella said, glancing around the treasure room at the rest of them. Andy nodded, and she turned to follow Bea through the portal. It made a strange sound when people went through—something like a splash chased by crackling static.

  Omar glanced at Andy, shrugged, and stepped through.

  When it was just him and Lucy standing there near the empty chest, she stepped close and grasped the lapels of his new coat, running her fingers over the supple, darkly scaled material. “Is a drake a kind of dragon, do you think?”

  Andy shook his head. “I think they might be related, but—”

  “Yeah, I know; I’ve read a fantasy book or two. I think I was more wondering what you thought.”

  “Oh, well.” Andy touched the coat too, running his fingers over the scales. “I don’t think so. We’re new to the System—noobs. There’s no way we’d get something as good as dragon-scale armor.” He shrugged.

  “Well, whatever a drake is, this coat looks sharp on you.” She let go and held up a corner of her dark, flowing cloak. “I didn’t figure the System would hand out stylish jackets—thought it had a taste for more medieval attire.”

  “Heh. Yeah, I guess.” Andy shrugged, smoothing his coat down; he hadn’t buttoned it up, and it fell to just below his waist. She was right about the style, he supposed; it was basically a stylish leather jacket with a high collar—and scales that gleamed in the light of the magical gateway.

  She smiled at him for another couple of seconds, then took his hand and tugged him toward the portal. “They’re going to get worried.”

  Andy followed her through, shivering at the cold, tingling touch of the magical doorway, and when his foot stepped down, he felt it sink into the ankle-deep water of the chamber under the mesa. Bea’s brilliant magical light greeted his eyes, and he saw a much different scene than the one they’d left behind. The changes began with the air; it was clean and cool. Next, he noticed the green, brackish water was gone, replaced by water that was clear enough to reveal the stone cavern floor as Bea’s light penetrated it.

  As he let the environmental changes soak in, he let his gaze settle on his companions, where they stood talking to a few other people. He approached, his feet splashing through the shallow water, and that was when it hit him: it wasn’t just that the water wasn’t green with corruption anymore, but also that the lighting had changed. The last time he’d been in the cavern, the green, pulsating portal had been there. He turned and scanned the wide, low-ceilinged cavern and saw nothing but the shallow water that he knew would grow deeper as he approached the far wall.

  “It’s gone,” Lucy said, echoing his own thoughts.

  “Yep. Guess we don’t need to worry about a vermin invasion anymore.”

  “Andy!” a familiar voice called out. He turned to see Tucker standing near Bea and the others, waving.

  Andy walked over, lifting the heavy blitz-rat shield by way of greeting. When he got closer, he said, “Hey, Tucker.” He glanced at the others and recognized Mari the Surgeon and Greg Sumner, the Hurler. True to his class, Greg carried a javelin-like weapon, and Andy saw several long knives strapped to his belt.

  Tucker stepped forward and slapped him on the shoulder. “Man! Are we glad to see you all made it out of there! We’ve had people stationed here since you left, and I’m not ashamed to tell you we were getting worried.”

  Andy could hear Bea giving the others a brief rundown of their experience in the dungeon, so he kept his voice pitched low as he asked, “How long were we gone?”

  “Two days as of this morning.”

  “Is the storm still going?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah, but the winds are dying down. Doesn’t mean it’s over, I guess. The rain’s still coming down in sheets. You should see the damn waterfall! Oh, shit, speaking of the waterfall, Eddie was standing there, watching the storm, and he said he saw one of the trailers bouncing through the desert like a damn tumbleweed!”

  Andy groaned. “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah, brother. We’re taking bets on how many are left standing. You want in on the action?”

  Andy shook his head. “Eh, maybe later.”

  Tucker pointed to the empty cavern. “You reckon we still need to post guards here?”

  Bea cleared her throat and spoke up before Andy could reply. “I don’t think so. Now that this water has been cleansed, I have a strong sense of it. I think I’ll know if there’s any sort of danger coming from it.”

  Andy arched an eyebrow, and Bella said, “Really? You can do that now, Bumblebee?”

  Lucy looked at Andy and mouthed, “Bumblebee?” with a question mark in her eyes.

  He chuckled and shrugged.

  “I sure can, girl. My water senses have expanded significantly with all the levels we got, and I just earned another one for completing my class quest.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You had a class quest?” Omar asked.

  Bea thumped her staff in the shallow water. “I told you all about it—had to cleanse this water.”

  “Hey!” Bella cried. “We all helped with that!”

  Bea shrugged. “No one ever said life was fair. Listen, I’m dog-tired. Can we head up?”

  Mari took the older woman’s arm, even though Bea didn’t look any older than the former EMT, and guided her up the tunnel. “Let’s get you upstairs and dried off.”

  As the others followed, Greg approached Andy. He reached up to move some of his long, stringy gray hair out of his eyes as he asked, “You sure someone shouldn’t watch this place? I just got on shift. Don’t mind staying for a while.”

  Tucker nodded. “I’ll hang with him, Andy. Won’t hurt; we’ve got guards watching all the tunnels.”

  Andy nodded. “Like you said: it won’t hurt.” As Tucker and Greg moved off to stand near a pair of folding camp chairs, Lucy tugged Andy’s hand, and they started up the tunnel behind the others.

  When they reached the landing near the central stairwell shaft, Andy noted the lamp burning there had a blue-tinged flame. He looked at the guard on duty—a man he recognized but whose name escaped him—and then gestured to the lantern. “Why’s the flame tinted blue?”

  “That’s one of the new enchanted wicks.”

  “Care to explain?” Lucy asked.

  The man was tall and lanky, with dark hair and eyes. He leaned on a spear that wasn’t particularly well made as he smiled at Lucy. “Oh, you don’t know about ’em? That chick from the big box store—um, Lydia, I think—she and a couple of others have been experimenting with some kind of magic writing. That friend of yours, Andy! The guy with all the notebooks.”

  “Oh, Eduardo?”

  “Yeah. Anyway, they figured out the wick thing. I guess they stitch some magic words into the material, add some mana, and—” He snapped his fingers and grinned. “—just like magic, they last a hell of a lot longer. They’ve done some other stuff, too. Like, um, boiling water without a flame.” He shrugged. “A bunch of things.”

  Bea’s light was fading as the others wound their way up the stairwell, so Andy gestured to the stairs. “We should head up. Thanks, um…”

  As he trailed off lamely, the man laughed and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I don’t speak up all that often. It’s Rigo.” He held out a hand, and Andy shook it, inwardly impressed by the strength of the well-calloused grip.

  “See you around, Rigo.” Andy climbed the stairs beside Lucy, and as they went, he saw more of the blue-flame lanterns on the other landings.

  “At least people have been busy while we were gone,” Lucy remarked.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I wonder if Lydia figured all that out from the glyphs I was making.”

  “You’ll have to ask her.” They were past the first landing by then, working their way up to the top of the stairwell, but Lucy paused, turning to face him while leaning against the stone wall slightly. “Andy, aren’t you worried about this storm—about…everything?”

  “Yeah, of course. I just—”

  “No, I mean, really. The world is going mad out there. We have food for a week or so in here, right? How can anything remain after a storm like this? Will there be anything to scavenge? Will any normal animals remain? I don’t want to eat monsters.”

  Andy exhaled heavily as he shook his head. “I don’t have all the answers, Luce, but there’s no way lack of food is going to do us in. I promise you that much. This storm might be a freak of nature, and Tucson might be flooded, but there will be food left to scavenge. Forget that, though; we’ve got that boon, and something tells me the System isn’t going to wipe out all the plant life in the area. Hell, this storm is bad, but the water pouring down isn’t so much worse than a really long monsoon. The desert is resilient, and that was true before mana entered the equation. You’ll see—not everything is going to wash away.”

  She stared at him for a minute, a slow smile spreading on her lips as she listened. Andy had a feeling she would have hugged him if she weren’t carrying a pack, two bows, and several quivers. He was similarly burdened, so he settled for grasping her hand as they both tucked things under their arms and continued to climb. By the time they reached the top, the others had already cleared the stairwell room, but Violet was there, waiting, and she hurried up to Andy, watching as he set the shield down to catch his breath.

  “I was starting to wonder if you got lost!”

  He smiled. “Nah, just taking our time. How are you, Violet?”

  “I’m doing really well! Really well! Eduardo’s a different man since he and Lydia figured out that magical language skill. He’s obsessed.”

  “I thought he had a Scholar class,” Lucy said.

  Violet nodded. “Oh, he does. He hasn’t earned a new class, but a new notable skill. You’ll have to have him tell you about it. Lydia too; she says it complements her forging ability.”

  “Oh really?” Andy nodded, rubbing his chin. “Well, was there anything else? I’d like to go drop our stuff off and then find those two. I’m curious—”

  “I’m starving,” Lucy interrupted.

  Violet smiled, stepping back to give them both a good look. “You like fried fish? We’ve been catching a lot in the lake downstairs. Also, you could both do with a bath.”

  Andy laughed, making a show of sniffing himself. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Lucy jerked her head toward the tunnel. “Let’s go, Andy.”

  He shrugged and smiled at Violet. “Talk soon.”

  “Yep! Welcome back!” She waved and started down the waterfall tunnel.

  When they reached the big cavern where everyone had set up camp, Andy was surprised to find only thirty or forty people spread out around the vast space. He and Lucy set down their things, and then Lucy said, “I’m going over to the kitchen area. I really am hungry. Join me?”

  “Yeah, just give me a few. I wanna talk to Ed first—if I can find him.”

  “I’ll let them know you’re coming.” She started off to the corner where the camp stoves were all set out on long folding tables. Andy noticed that she’d put down her old recurve bow, but her new Fire Bow was slung over her shoulder. He supposed she was reluctant to let it out of her sight, and he couldn’t blame her.

  He was about to look for Eduardo or Lydia, but then a thought crossed his mind, and he opened up his status page. Once again, he’d managed to amass six Improvement Points, and he got distracted staring at his skills, wondering which he should improve next. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t hear anyone approach, so he started, reaching for his broken spear, when Jace cleared his throat and spoke.

  “Hey, Andy.”

  Andy waved away his status page and turned to the big, red-fleshed man standing at some imaginary perimeter of the space Andy shared with Lucy. The fighter was leaning on a long staff, favoring his still-bandaged leg. “Jace! Shit, man, good to see you up and about.”

  “Heh. Yeah. Hoping now that Bea’s back, she’ll give me another shot of her good healing water. I should be able to tolerate it by now. Speaking of people being back, wanna tell me how it went in there? I guess you probably know I was pretty butt-hurt about not being able to join you.”

  Andy had about a hundred things he wanted to do more than recount their experience in the dungeon for Jace, but he could empathize with the guy; nobody enjoyed feeling left out. He pointed to a camp chair and then sat down on his sleeping bag. “Take a seat, man. I’ll tell you all about it.”