The stench of mildew and rot was enough to make Rebecca’s stomach clench and churn in rebellion the instant she reappeared back in the small storage room with Matthew. When the crystal lost its attunement to the gibberlings, it’s influence feeding the mossy jungle dissipated as well. Without the magic to help provide the necessary moisture and nutrients to feed them, many of the vines and mushrooms were already beginning to wilt and lose their vibrant luster. What had been a vibrantly dark jungle just a few days ago was now quickly withering into a dried up set of ruins – and the stench of that transition was almost unbearable.

“You going to be okay?” Glancing around the dark storeroom, Matthew worked his Dark Sight on Rebecca so she could see without any issues, and invoked Hel’s Sight for himself. Everything appeared much as they had left it the night before, when they had left the school to avoid the crystal’s influence and take refuge in his home instead. Not that Jennifer probably thought of it as any form of refuge, Matthew mused inwardly to himself.

“I’ll be fine,” Rebecca reassured him, moving over to crouch down in a corner. “I’ll hide here and be quiet until you return and I won’t draw any attention to myself or this place. Just be quick and don’t leave me here alone for long. This place still creeps me out,” she admitted, chewing on her lower lip slightly and hugging her sword up tight.

“I’ll be right back,” Matthew promised. “You’ll see.” Trying to grin as much as possible, he held up his thumb to give as much reassurance as he could, before issuing the single word command, “RETURN!”, and disappearing out of sight.

Rebecca gave a yelp of relief after what felt like an eternity passing slowly by to her, when Matthew and Jennifer finally reappeared. Eyes already glowing black, both immediately scanned the area for any sign of trouble. Not seeing any, Matthew gave a slight sigh of relief before walking over and lighting hugging Rebecca up to him. “Everything alright,” he asked quietly?

“It is now,” Rebecca reassured him, returning the hug gently. Glancing over his shoulder, she frowned slightly, staring over at Jennifer. Completely naked, the only thing she carried was a simple spear made out of pure translucent glass. “Is she going to be okay,” Rebecca asked, worriedly. “She doesn’t even have a set of bracelets to give her protection like I do.”

“She should be fine,” Matthew reassured her. “At least, I hope she should,” he corrected, sounding a little uncertain. “All she has to do is stay inside the cavern and make spears like that one today, over and over. I told her I wanted her to plant them in the ground like she had the pillars for the houses the people were staying in, so she could make a wall of spears as the first line of defense for the cavern.

“There shouldn’t be any real danger in that,” Matthew reasoned, then added a worried, “except for perhaps with the boys themselves. I told her to use her magic to protect herself, but there’s several of them there. Who knows what’ll happen if they all get it in their head to team up against her, or something,” Matthew fretted.

“Surely they won’t do anything,” Rebecca reasoned, chewing her lip almost to the point of making it bleed again. “After all, they’d have to see that what she was doing was to help keep them safe. Right?” Doubt was in her voice, and she was frowning heavily to herself.

“Let’s hope so.” Sighing, Matthew finally released his embrace on Rebecca and slowly eased over to the door leading back out to the main stage in the auditorium. Sticking his ear up to it, he held up a hand for the others to be silent as he struggled to listen for any signs of obvious danger. “It sounds clear out there at least,” he reassured both of them, before slowly turning the handle and pulling the door gently open a crack, where he repeated the process while straining to stare out the small opening he made with the door.

“It’s clear,” Matthew confirmed, finally pulling the door all the way open. Pushing back the dying vines which hung like a curtain in front of him, he slowly stepped out onto the back of the stage and fully examined his surroundings. Dark, gloomy, and full of the stench of putrid swamp slowly drying out and dying, everything looked more or less as they’d left it before. “Come on out,” he called back to the girls. “It’s safe here.”

“For now,” Rebecca added, being the first to ease out and look around. “Who knows how long that’ll last!”

“No one knows how long ‘safe’ will last anywhere in this new world,” Matthew reminded her grimly. “You just have to enjoy it for as long as you can, while being prepared for it to disappear at any moment. The ‘safe’ we used to know died when the game started. Now, we just have ‘safe for the moment’ as our new ‘safe’.”

Frowning, Rebecca simply nodded in agreement without saying anything. Stepping slowly to the side, she moved out of the way so Jennifer could finally come out and join them. “Pull up the door behind you,” she reminded Jennifer. “We don’t want to let anything know we use that room for traveling, if we don’t have to.”

Blinking at her blankly, Jennifer slowly turned and pulled the handle of the door shut. Without saying a word to either of them, she slowly turned and walked towards the front of the stage where the trapdoor leading down was located. Noiselessly, she tugged the lid open and climbed down into the passageway leading to the cavern. Only a slight thud of the lid hitting against the floor as it shut behind her was the only sound of her passing.

“She’s not right at all, is she,” Rebecca asked fretfully, staring at the wooden trapdoor she’d just disappeared into.

“Not at all,” Matthew agreed, sighing deeply and shrugging his shoulders slightly. “Not that I have a damn clue about what to do about her. She’s just one more thing on the list of things screwed up in this new world that we have to worry over, without me having even a twinkling of an idea of how to fix it.”

“All we can do for now,” he told Rebecca grimly, “is just do all we can for now. She’ll either adapt or go batshit crazy. There’s nothing we can do about her now. All we can do for now is to search this place and try and find any survivors and deal with them. Those that can come and help protect the crystal we need to bring here. Those that might draw unwanted attention to this place, we have to get rid of. Like it or not, a crystal which can breed an army of inhumans with a taste for human flesh has to come before everything else – and that includes before crazy, brooding, slave wizards.”

“I agree,” Rebecca nodded ruefully. “Since we can’t destroy that damn crystal, we have to deal with doing everything we can to keep it safe first and foremost. Sorting out Jennifer and everything else just has to come second.” Sighing deeply, Rebecca slowly started working her way over to the front of the stage where she leaped off and down into the auditorium. “I guess the question for now is, what are we going to do first?”

“I guess first,” Matthew frowned, “we finish checking this building for survivors. The home economic rooms are here, and the cafeteria. People could’ve holed up in those places for safety. Once we’ve swept the main school building, we can expand outward and check the auxiliary buildings. After that…” Shrugging, Matthew got quiet and held up his hands uncertainly. “After that, we’ll just play it by ear. One thing at a time.”

“One thing at a time,” Rebecca agreed, slowly working her way up between the aisles and to door they’d used to enter the auditorium from earlier – it was the only door which had the vines and moss cleared from enough to open.

“I’m going to let you lead the way again,” Matthew told her, as he slowly hopped down off the stage and followed a short distance behind. If there’s any trouble, I’ll leave it to you to deal with first, just like before. You need the skill practice and the experience to level up. I’ll keep you healed and I’ll step in if things get too dangerous,” he promised solemnly.

“You better,” Rebecca laughed. “I can promise you, you’re not going to get any more nookie from me if you end up letting me die in here!” Easing up to the door leading out of the auditorium, she stopped and listened for several moments before pushing it open and stepping out into the hallway.