I woke up on the bottom floor of the house. Martin and Ska were on the floor next to me. The house was a mess, items of no value had been tossed around. Furniture had been ripped or broken and windows busted out. The front door was still intact as well as the front windows. Those I had made stronger with runic enchantments. That was a good sign, it meant that the control room was likely still intact.

The control lines should still be in place as well because they were hidden from view by the Odin rune. I stumbled to my feet, whatever they had dosed us with still affecting me somewhat. After quickly checking on the other two and seeing that they were alive, only unconscious, I moved toward the control room.

The door and frame around the room had dozens of marks from axes and other weapons. But it was still intact, it seems they had given up trying to get into the room. I placed my hand on the door, activating the tattoo on my hand.

The door swung open and the control room remained untouched. I sighed in relief and began powering up the house. Martin stumbled in while I was preparing.

"Are we just going to leave and let them get away with this?"

"No!" I yelled. I had to take a calming breath. "Get the house into the air and I will show them what happens when they fuck with us."

"Let Ska and I join you." Martin implored.

"I would, but you and Ska can't fly or teleport."

That was part of the reason, the other part was I wasn't sure if the dwarves would be able to render me unconscious again. Without knowing how they did it, I couldn't fight against it. I could only hope my Area of Denial spell counteracted their attempts.

Martin grumbled but did as I asked. "Very well, I will control the house. Teach them a lesson they won't soon forget."

"Oh, don't you doubt that," I said, grabbing one of my basic wooden staffs from inside the room. I only wish I had the forethought to store my spare good staff in here.

The staff wouldn't last long but it should be long enough to complete my task. I felt the house rise off the ground as I headed toward the roof. If my little bit of earth manipulation caused damage to their infrastructure, I hoped my plan fucked them over for decades to come.

I watched from the peak of the roof as the house rose as high as it could. I activated my wings and blink step, flying as high as possible. As the spell ended and I began to descend. I cast Aura of Denial and Imbued my staff with Earth and Fire. The wooden staff vibrated as it barely contained the magic.

Then I fell. With a smile on my face, I slammed into the ground right after activating Seismic Strike. The stone around me rippled and split, spewing molten rock and cracking the cliff face. Unfortunately, my staff was not able to support the magic any longer and burst apart.

The initial shockwave blew me clear of the beach. I got to watch as the magical explosion collapsed in on itself, then it expanded again, vaporizing anything it touched. I had a moment of panic, thinking the house might be in the zone of destruction. I was relieved when I was able to spot it from the corner of my eye, it had been pushed farther out to sea by the initial blast. Then I slammed into the water.

Thankfully my Area of Denial spell was still active. I bobbed to the surface and quickly cast my wing spell, flying to the house.

I heard Martin yelling but I needed to see what my vengeance had wrought. The entire cliff face was collapsing and sliding into the waves below. This exposed open tunnels and dead dwarfs. I was tempted to turn the house around and go retrieve my shit when I saw a flash of light.

A beam of white light clipped the roof, sending the house tilting wildly. I was thrown into the ceiling of the porch and landed with a thud. My shield had absorbed the blow into the ceiling but the timer ran out just before I hit the ground. I groaned from the impact but quickly got to my feet. Another blast missed the house and I could see more weapons being moved into the now exposed tunnels.

I probably should have gotten the house farther from here before I got my revenge, but my rage overwhelmed my reason. I rushed inside the house as another blast clipped one of the corners. I could hear tearing wood as the house spun wildly.

I had to shield my face as all the loose debris, that those assholes left when they ransacked the house, was sent flying.

It was safe to say the dwarves were pissed. 'Serves the fuckers right.'

"Paul!" Martin screamed.

"I'm here, set the accelerator to max power and lower our height, hopefully, that will throw off their aim."

I felt the house drop but not before the house was struck again.

"They hit the roof," Ska said, running down from the second floor.

"Assholes," I growled.

I finally made it into the control room and Martin quickly moved aside.

"Hold on!"

I only gave them a few seconds, when I flipped the pusher plates on the left to max power. The house lit up as another blast flew past.

"What did you do to make them so angry?"

"I collapsed the entire face of the mountain."

"What! How?" Martin asked.

"Mostly by mistake. My staff couldn't handle the magic and exploded."

"Holy shit, did you know that would happen?"

"I knew it was dangerous, but not that dangerous. The last time this happened it didn't explode."

"Last time, what the hell man."

I had to pause and look at him, this was the first time I had ever heard him swear. He seemed to realize his mistake and I heard him mumble a prayer of forgiveness.

"With the magical staffs, I had, I could stack much more magic into them before I even have to worry. I was hoping the wooden staff would have held out for a little longer."

"It is what it is, how do we get out of here without dying?"

"Keep juking in random directions and hope we can get out of range of their cannons before they hit something vital," I replied coldly.

The house was rocked again, but this time by a spray of water as a blast flew below the house. I kept adjusting our heading. We did take one direct hit that pretty much obliterated the third floor. That turned out to be in our favor as the house was able to maneuver much faster. After about five minutes the incoming fire stopped. I kept our outbound direction until the coast was barely visible.

"Well, at least they don't have a navy," Martin said as we inspected the damage.

I gave him a dirty side-eye but kept my mouth shut. We didn't need to tempt fate anymore today.

As for the house, it was a mess.

There were at least a dozen hits that had ripped holes into the house. And that was just the glancing blows. The real damage was the third floor and roof. Almost two-thirds of the roof had been blasted away by a direct hit. The rest had collapsed into the third floor after a blast tore out most of one wall.

That meant all of the bedrooms were gone. At least nobody had been up there sleeping at the time.

Martin and Ska helped me push the remaining pieces into the ocean. Other than the rooms to sleep in we hadn't lost much. Not after they had ransacked the house and stolen everything of value. It still made me angry. I added them to my shit list, we would return and we would not go easy on them when we did.

Fiona found us as we were clearing away the last of the debris from the house.

"What in the void happened here?" she asked, looking around at the damage.

"We were attacked. Apparently, a clan of dwarves claimed that stupid rock outcropping as their own. They somehow rendered us unconscious, then took everything of value. They let us go but not before I got some revenge."

"This was caused by your actions?" she asked, giving me a withering stare.

"No... I mean, kind of. They didn't appreciate me damaging their precious tunnels. So they attacked us with some sort of mana weapon as we fled. The fact that they had them conveniently placed and got them into position in no time flat leads me to believe they were planning on destroying us anyway."

"Why didn't they just kill you outright?"

"I'm not entirely sure. It could be in part due to the oath. While it wasn't on my weapons it was on some of the loose weapons that were laying around."

"Then why attack you at all, it makes no sense," she stated.

"It's possible my attacking them freed them from the oath or the ones that fired back were only defending their territory and weren't under the oath."

"You should have waited for me, I could have gone in and located the items," she replied sternly.

"This wasn't about the items," I said hotly, "this was about the treatment of people I care about. I will not let my friends be bullied or belittled by others!"

Fiona floated back a few feet, even though my anger wasn't aimed towards her. "Ok, I understand. But what now?"

"We need to rearm, repair the house, or find another. Then when we're ready, come back and show them who they fucked with," the last words coming out as a deep growl.

"Are you sure that's the wisest move? Can't we just turn the other cheek, so to speak?" Martin asked.

"We cannot let this slide, or we will look weak," Ska chimed in.

"Exactly, the world is a harsh place and we need to be harder," I said, "it's time to stop running and to start making our mark on this world."

"So how do we go about that, finding dungeons will only take us so far."

"I had an idea about that. I think we should become bounty hunters or mercenaries for hire."

Martin rubbed his chin in thought. "I guess I could get behind that, but do you think there will be a great need for it? I mean sure there are a lot of really shitty people out there."

"We need to find a large city and set ourselves up. Once we prove our worth and sell our skills it should be easy enough to get clients."

"What is this, bounty hunter?" Ska asked.

"Someone who captures or kills people that have caused trouble. A hunter of intelligent beings, pretty much," I replied.

"If I get to fight strong foes, I'm in," Ska purred.

"What about you, Fiona?" I asked.

"Bringing people to justice is pretty much what I did before, so sure."

"Excellent, now that we have that business out of the way, any good news for us, Fiona?"

"Sort of. The mountains end about a day's flight from here. Then the land becomes drier. Stunted and low growing plants, a lot of rock and sand, as well as some odd-shaped trees."

"Odd how?"

"They have a fat central stalk with what looks like arms curving upward. They are also covered in nasty thorns."

I had to think about it for a bit before I realized what she was talking about. "Oh... oh, yeah... those are called cactus. Sounds like we might be near Texas or Mexico then."

"Odd name for a plant, but there was a town off on the horizon. I would have scouted it out but I decided to turn back. I saw what looked like a possible dungeon as well."

"We will have to put dungeons on the back burner for now. At least until we can rearm ourselves."

***

We limped the house to a landing spot outside the town Fiona had spotted. It was devoid of life, sand and tumbleweeds having taken over.

We ransacked buildings, looking for any food or supplies that might have been left behind. There wasn't much. We lucked out and found an army surplus store with an old box of MREs. When I say old I mean, Vietnam war old. Seeing as they were the only thing to eat, we took them. We would just have to hope our increased Endurance would keep us from getting sick.

After getting a good look at the house, we decided to see if we could find another form of transportation. It took a week to transfer the panels, but the RV we found worked as an acceptable substitute. It was also significantly faster. I rigged everything up to run off the steering wheel and always kept us on the ground. Four pusher plates were plenty to move the vehicle.

I did install the levitator plates but I decided I had enough flying around for now. Until I could be certain we had a way to defend ourselves it was just too dangerous.

Our food and water situation was our biggest concern. The MREs turned out to be barely edible and both Martin and Ska got sick. My cleanse spell worked to cure the food poisoning but not the abdominal or bowel issues. My Endurance was high enough that I didn't suffer any issues.

Then there were the creatures of the high plains, I think that's what you called this type of land. The living cactus were the worst. We encountered them when searching for water. I remembered that cactus stored water, so I sliced one open with a stunning gust.

Or I tried to. The damn thing dodged out of the way. Then it uprooted itself and came at us with a vengeance. All I had was a metal shower curtain as a weapon. I learned real quick that I had no real counter for the creature, not unless I wanted to get close enough to hit it. Considering it was twelve feet tall and whipping its arms around, that wasn't likely to happen.

If I had armor or a decent weapon I might have considered it. Seeing as the creature was level twenty-one we decided to run.

Even Martin was unable to stop the creature. His summon was not an ideal match and was torn apart. His other spells harmed the creature but it wasn't enough to seriously damage it. Not with his level being less than half that of the creature.

That was a problem, I had been hoping to collect cactus juice for drinking. Luckily we found a second source of water. The local stores had been cleaned out but people somehow forgot about the water tower. The water was clean, if a bit metallic tasting, from sitting for so many months. We filled up any jugs or plastic bottles we could find and loaded them into the RV. We also filled the water tank, though there was no power and we didn't have any mana engines to make up the difference.

"Everyone aboard, we have places to be and people that need to be dealt with."

Once everyone was on board we were off.