At Fredo’s bar, Al is the owner, and he’s happy enough to have us play. He doesn’t have prior entertainment planned, and we’re able to handle everything but the food and drink. He says he gets crowds in the dozens usually, and he has a stage-like area where the band can play. We agree that the band will play there tonight for tips, and on future dates if it works out, then head back to our cottage.

There’s enough folks coming through Cerberus that the construction business is booming. Folks who work with materials are almost always well liked. Stone shapers, wood witches, and metal mages, they’re all appreciated. Air benders don’t get a lot of love, and neither do folks meditating on the dao of water. Whatever. Angela and Rain are still back in Imaginetown. On the other hand, Miguel very quickly gets offered some work, and he’s happy to help. Steve goes with Miguel, even though electrical stuff isn’t as useful right now.

In the afternoon, Priya and I head over to the registry to see what other folks have done, magic-wise. There’s quite a list. Most folks list a “-mancy,” but others just list the kind of magic. As I read through the list, there seems to be a wide range of magic options.

Fire seems to be the most popular magic. Priya laughs and says things haven’t changed since D&D and WoW. Fireballs have always been the favorite. Next most common are other elementalists. Earth and air both have huge followings, and water has a reasonable number.

After the elementalists, there’s material magicians. Metal and wood are heavily represented. A few folks chose glass. Others were more specific, like Victor, and chose Iron or Silicon. After the materialists, there’s the naturalists. It’s odd how much overlap there is between similar, but different magics. For instance, there are wood wizards, tree thaumaturges, plant prophets, and down-to-earth druids. All of them have some control over trees and stuff, but there’s a lot of variation, and the details aren’t mostly written down in the public ledger.

Priya laughs after a bit, and says she’s surprised the next biggest group isn’t more prevalent. She calls them pet classes. It takes me a minute to understand that she means there’s a lot of skills involved with companions. There’s necromancy, summoning of monsters and elementals, and animal communication. There’s folks who specialize in one strong creature, and folks who specialize in working with several weaker monsters. P. says that eighty percent of it is basically Pokemon messing with of folks’ thinking.

We take a minute to look at how many folks are in the registry. It seems to be about 25 people per page, 200 pages per book, and they’re just started on book three. “Ten thousand people have registered,” says Piyu, a bit quicker on the math than I was. “Not everyone is signing, and a lot of folks just visited and left. We don’t really have any idea of who’s still here.”

There are a fair number of lightning wizards and weather witches. There’s a surprisingly low number of healer-types, some shapechangers, some size-changers, and not many telepaths. There’s a bunch of folks with force fields of some sort, and light magic is frequent too. There’s body magic, folks who get faster and stronger, and folks who have focused their magic on a specific kind of weapon or damage. Some of those are sharpness sorcerers like Yulia, and others focused on hammers, or occasionally something more unusual.

Then we get to a bunch of stuff I never thought of. There’s a bunch of folks who have some sort of precognition or prediction capabilities. There’s a chronomancer who can mess with speeds of different things. Randi’s duplication-magic is listed by her name near the end. Someone listed himself as a skill-o-mancer, whatever that might be. Damn, I can’t even keep track of all the choices. However, I’ve looked through maybe a thousand folks and their powers, and there is one thing I don’t see at all: sound magic. Am I the only one?

I end up deciding not to sign the registry, because that might let folks know what I’m about. I’m not averse to staying here for a bit, but I’ve already been aggressively encouraged to stay somewhere, once, so I’m a bit careful about sharing my capabilities. Priya puts down her skills, as something common that folks might need.

In the evening, we head out to the bar, and we get a good crowd playing oldies from Guns ‘n Roses to The Supremes to Drake and Halsey. The tips are very good--we make as much from four or five hours of playing as I used to when I used to hunt with Chaim and Yulia. It’s always fun when the audience decides to participate. In this case there’s some out-of-tune singing along, and a little bit of light show to go along with our music.

The days pass with the band helping out with assorted things: construction and healing. The nights are spent playing at the bar. Priya spends half an hour telling me that about a bunch of different kinds of healers, but I don’t really follow the distinctions. Probably because it wasn't music, and I didn’t listen so well. On the third day, we wish Randi luck when she leaves to test herself against zone two. At the bar, the crowds grow every day. On the first day there were about fifty people. On the fifth day, it was closer to five hundred. We’ve had to take some time to increase the size of the bar too, but magic takes care of most of that.

On the morning of the sixth day, one of Randi comes back. “Hey guys.”

“Randi, how was the challenge?” I ask.

“I didn’t take it. Chickened out. I got nervous and I couldn’t do it. I might die, you know?”

“Dude. I didn’t even try it. You’re braver than me. Hey, are you okay? Your voice seems off.” I’m like Sherlock Holmes and shit with my super-hearing.

“I’m sooo nervous, amped up. How do you get rid of all this nervous energy.”

“I just drum, man. Wait. You’re not a drummer. I heard hitting things works. Maybe soft things. Pillows are supposed to be good. I think running works too.”

“Maybe I should go on a run. Seems like a good way to blow off steam.”

“You sure you’re okay, girl?”

She takes several deep breaths.

“I don’t want to go by myself. Steve, can you run with me?”

Steve grumbles, “I run when I’m getting chased. It ain’t fun, I don’t do it otherwise. Take Snake. He can keep up.”

I object, “Dude. I was just gonna stick some jams. Panic Attack was famous on Drum Hero.”

Randi doesn't relent, “Pleeease, Snake.”

“Maybe you can get twins favors tonight,” hoots Miguel.

“Hush!” says Priyanka.

It's clear I'm going. I figure I should stop arguing. “Okay. Lemme put away my sticks. Are we going on a long run?”

“We’ll be done before your band. Maybe bring the drums so we don’t have to stop by here on the way back.”

“Groovy.” I pack up the drums. “Cheering up the lady.”

“Have fun,” says Miguel, "Lots of fun."

“Behave yourself,” says P. It's not clear who she's talking to.

Randi and I run out of town. She’s going a little faster than she was last time, going maybe three times as fast as a normal person.

“Where to, missie?”

“Let’s go north. Turn around in an hour? Thirty miles or so?”

“I got the timer set. I’ll keep up with you.”

Randi is quite the looker. She’s got a long thin model kinda look. She’s sweet, she’s only eighteen or nineteen. I have to admit, a twins thing sounds kinda hot. Wait. She can do four of her. I don’t even know how that would work. But I think I’d like to find out.

About 55 minutes in, we’ve covered real close to thirty miles, and Randi slows down a smidge. She looks around, and then points and pants “Top of that hill over there. Seems like far enough for me for today." She gives me a flirty smile. “Want to race? For prizes? I get a head start.”

“You make it to halfway, then I’ll go.”

“Deal.”

She makes a mile in three minutes, which takes her about halfway there. Continuing to run, she shouts, “Go!” and speeds up. Unfortunately for her, she’s racing the Sonic Snake, and I leave fire behind me when I run. At 42 seconds, I catch her, pat her butt as I run past, and crest the top of the hill.

The entire hill collapses. I’m falling, with nothing I can do. Too much rubble to figure out what's going on. There's people watching me fall. Then something changes, and I black out.