But how to fix this problem now? I need a power source, a bigger one. One that could reinforce my house and keep me safe tonight. I’m not afraid of the dark, but I got the feeling that the dark tonight may be a bit different. I mean, if a nerd/desk jockey like myself could get this powerful, it really made me wonder how epic some other real D&D nerd could get. Or forget them, I bet prisons aren’t a great place to be either right now. Really don’t want to think about a bunch of hulked out, wish-fulfilled prisoners with a new taste of freedom. Oh, I wonder what happened to professional athletes. I would bet my non-existent money that they didn’t go the nerd route. But back to the problem at hand; I need a power source, a big one. The best place for me to put it would be the basement, but I haven’t cleared that out yet. Hopefully, nothing weird is down there.

I gathered my weapons again, and this time I took a minute to gather as much mana as I could. With my .45 in my right hand, my knife in my left, and conjured bone armor everywhere else, I figured I was ready. I spanked my wooden lady for good luck. “Now, don’t go anywhere,” I told her, “I’m just gonna go kill some mutated spiders and crickets. And I can’t believe I just fucking said that. Now that I said that, I had to re-bulk out my armor. I put a toughness enchantment on my boots, jacket and jeans, and then conjured a bone helmet with see-through quartz lenses for my eyes. “Party time.”

The door to my basement is in my kitchen. The stairs go down and then swerve to the right. The half of the basement that the stairs open up to is the finished part, and then the other half was the yucky storage place. I am not doing this right. I may never have deployed with my time in the military, but all of my idiot meathead friend did. Their advice for clearing an area, grenades. Shock and awe levels the playing field. I don’t have shock and awe, but maybe I could make some. I conjured a small pebble and put a light enchantment on it with a conditional trigger. When I drop it, it will flare ridiculously bright. Too eager to test them out, I made about five more, shoved them in my pocket, and kicked open the door and threw two light pebbles down the stairs. As soon as they left my hand, I put my back to the wall next to the stairwell to avoid blindness. The flashing lights stopped in 5 seconds. I rushed down the stairs looking left and right, scanning for anything and everything. The open area to the left was Sarah’s painting section, and the right was the bar hangout area. No spiders. No crickets. One last section to go. I grabbed the last three pebbles and repeated my strategy. 5 more seconds of flashing lights as my nerves pounded from the stress. I whipped around the door frame with my pistol point out and down. Nothing skittered at me. Whew. Thank the Ripple. A sudden heavy weight landed on top of my head knocking me forward a few steps.

“What the FUCKING FUCK!” I screamed as I swiped at whatever took a crack at my skull. A crack sounded behind me just after the weight left my head. It sounded like slate being dropped. “Better not be a goddamn big ass spider!” It was exactly that. I lifted my boot and covered it with conjured stone to make it a big ass boot and introduced it to the spider. It was not the only one down there, but the experience was quickly forgotten due to its traumatic nature. Over-armored spiders are not a good idea. I’m just glad that modern weaponry prevailed, and boots.