Joe:

It took me most of the next day to get within sight of the river. I tiredly worked my way down from the foothills and onto the river plains. I felt the brush slide along both arms as I pushed my way into the latest clearing, hoping it would reveal the river. Instead of a river, I saw the strangest thing. A cloud of butterflies the size of a truck was coming towards me, swirling in every direction at once. Somehow the way they swirled left an empty spot in the middle. An empty space that gradually built up into my brain as a shape. That shape began to look like a woman, or maybe a girl walking towards me. A shiver of warning ran through me and I put my back to a large rough tree, and put a hand on the hilt of my sword.

When the swarm of bejeweled dancers got closer, they zipped toward the center instantly. So rapidly I’d swear I heard a soft click. Now the entirety of the cloud of butterflies was outlining the shape of young woman in amazing detail. Still swirling but like they were being projected onto her skin or they were her skin. You could still see the gaps in between the butterflies and see the field behind her when 2 gaps lined up. She kept walking a few more steps and stopped just out of sword range. She smiled at me, and her lips moved saying something in the voice of the breeze, I strained my ears and screwed up my face, but I just couldn’t make it out.

“Excuse me, I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear that”.

She tried again, the in a voice that somehow sounded stronger like wind blowing through grass and trees, I heard “Greetings Acolyte of the Elder God.”

“Um, hello to you, my names Joe, nice to meet you.” See I wasn’t raised in a barn. Manners maketh the man.

Her voice came louder again, picking up the sound of storm wind singing though tree tops, “Greetings unto you Joseph Walker, Acolyte of Garabal God of the Elder race, sometimes called the Eldar. How come one of your people to walk this land again? The last of you stepped off this world over tens of generations ago.]

“I was sent here to restart Garabal’s work. Why are you here? Uh… What shall I call you?” I asked the butterfly, lady? monster?

‘My name is Hina, first woman, Goddess of Oratory and Communication. I bring a gift and a message for your master. Most Devonian Gods chose to exist fully in this world. Your Garabal has always instead kept one foot in this world and one in the next. This appears to have allowed him to return when most of us would die. In returning though, He needs to remember, he has long been away from Devonia. He must know that alliances have shifted in the time he was gone. He should test or even rebuild his bridges before he leans on them, for not all have held up to the passing of time and neglect.”

I bowed at the waist and said, “Goddess Hina, I will pass this message to him when I see him, but I don’t know when or if that will be.”

“Rise boy, you bring me to my gift.” She made a graceful gesture with one hand and 3 small butterflies separated from her and fluttered to land on my shoulder. “Next time you sleep, place one of these upon your brow. It will bring Garabal to speak to you in your dreams.”

I chuckled and said “Okay, those are the cutest prepaid phones I’ve ever seen!” Bowing again “I thank you for your gift, and will pass on your message this night if I can. Do you have specifics for me to pass on, who to watch out for?”

“Alas, I am already at the very limit of what I can do passing this message on myself. I will send a messenger to you if I have more I can say, but for now, this is all I can give.”

I bowed deeply again, and spoke “Thank you Hina, first woman, for you gifts and I will pass on your words.”

At this the tightly swirling cloud of butterflies in the shape of a woman burst about me in all directions swirling up and out like an explosion of color to flutter away in all directions.

Okay, butterflies just got way cooler in this world, and butterflies were already pretty epic.

As I moved slowly through the tall grass heading towards the river again, I started to notice rustling and clicks coming from up ahead. I crouched low, my legs and back straining, moving as quietly as I could to better cover. I slid quietly through the bush, operating on the assumption Hina had chosen to interrupt me where she did for good reason, God’s seem to like that whole one stone thing. My hunch bore fruit, as I peeked through the brush, I saw a small cave in the side of a hill, with reddish insectoid creatures moving in and out on many legs. Giant cockroaches a big as a large dog, though shorter, but just as massive. The sun was glinting off their red-brown carapaces as they scuttled about. I focused my ID skill on the closest one.

popped up over its head, only to quickly fade away, replaced by a thin green bar. I compared my bar to theirs. They were about 1/3 the size of mine, but there was a dozen of them. Once again, I found myself wishing I’d moved to a world with XP, where farming all of these would be awesome. My next lamentation was that there wasn’t a looting system here either, which would guarantee me good value from fighting them. In this world as it was, I’d get neither.

I thought about the palmetto bugs as long as my thumb that lived on the rocks in my grandmothers back yard. Basically, if you took New York City Cockroaches, and then Texas sized them. You’d have Palmetto bugs. Like roaches, they climbed anything, were hard to crush and had wings. Now take those palmetto bugs and make them big. They fly, they bite, and they have spurs on their back legs they hit you with. Not awesome silver cowboy spurs, just spikes of reddish-brown spite and hate which on these monsters they were 2-3 inches long. For armor, I had a leather jacket. The bastards only came up to my knee. So, except for fliers and climbers, the jacket did me no good at all. What I need is some chausses, or basically shin guards.

I considered strategies, I had my sword, and my flame lance attack. I had a slow healing ring. So, I wanted time on my side, pulling just 1 or 2 at a time with gaps in between. I considered how the spiders had attacked me. A small group, then the boss. Lastly flaming bodies raining down from the ceiling. So clearly, they didn’t. follow normal aggro rules. I had to operate on the assumption I was fighting under real world conditions, not aggro mechanics. A scaled up cockroach this size could run 200mph, cockroaches being one of the fastest animals on earth for their size. The cube squares law will probably kick the hell out of that, but still, they’ll be fast for their size. They are scavengers, not hunters. Bait will be critical. Traps, I could pull them to a specific location with bait, and drop something heavy and spiky on them. Oh! I totally forgot, I have Magical Zero weight inventory, probably my single best magic power.

The first thing I need to do is to test their speed, if they move 100mph, then they are magically scaled up ignoring the cube squares law. In that case I’m hosed, my best strategy is to go around. If they only moved as fast as say a crab, like the ones I’d chased in my childhood, I might have a chance. The fastest crab runs about 7mph, humans run 6 to 8, so in the same range. The best way I could think to test that was to throw a dead spider deep into the clearing. The noise should make them scuttle out at max speed, and maybe full speed back to eat before it’s gone.

I thought about my inventory, and I was able to see it all laid out as a grid in my mind, I selected the most brutally damaged of the medium spiders, popped up over the top of the bushes and threw it as hard as I could at the entrance of the cave.

The good news is I missed the entrance but hit the hill near it, the spider rolled down the hill dramatically enough to scatter the half dozen or so palmetto bugs that were outside. More good news they weren’t moving at 200 mph either, more like a nice jog. The bad news, one of the bastards was scuttling right at me. I summon my sword out of my inventory and into my hand. At the last second, the giant scuttling roach swerved to go around the bush it had decided to hide behind. My bush. As it scuttles quickly around and into view, I stand up and thrust my sword into the junction where its head meets its body, neatly spearing the writhing, leg waving, thing to the ground. I twist the sword and wrench it back and forth, taking off the roach’s head and flipping it over. Then I leap further from the mound just in case. I flicker my eyes from tree to tree, path to path, looking all around me to see if another roach is coming. I check to see if the cockroach was dead. I’d taken its head off, and it was laying there twitching its legs. I suddenly remembered that a headless cockroach dies of dehydration, and it can take up to a week, god they are relentless little bastards. I use my sword to flip the cockroach over, and slice a huge rent in its underbelly, then again and again, Finally I separate its abdomen from its thorax and the giant roach dies. I quickly inventory its pieces and move back into hiding. Crouching behind my bush again, I’m looking to see what the other 5 roaches do. One scuttles back to the hill, twitching its antennae at the dead spider. Then dives in and begins to eat. The other roaches hearing the noise run back into to get their share. Soon the spider is gone, and the palmetto bugs begin to search the area again.

I’d gained the intel I needed. I pulled back to form a plan. If I had a couple spears, I could probably pin them to the ground and finish them with the sword, or my fire lance, one at a time. If I had a high place, like a tree I could drop heavy rocks on them. I remembered stomping a roach with my foot and it still scuttling off, or flying off, and decided that wasn’t’ a great plan here, but might be useful later. So, I ran about finding the largest rocks I could pick up and put a dozen of them in my inventory. I thought about the tree plan again and discarded it, as I suspected the Palmetto bugs were better climbers than I was.

I just didn’t see a safe way to fight these palmetto bugs. If I accidentally pulled 2, I was toast. If I failed to decapitate them, I was in a bad way.

I decided to practice with my fire lance a bit, I pull further back where the palmetto bugs can’t see me. To try to make it longer. I could make it longer, but not much. Just a few inches.

Unable to resist the joke I muttered “That’s what she said!”.

I try to spread the fire out. I was able to make a fan of fire 60 degrees wide and about the same 3 feet long, but much less intense. It would be of no use against bugs, except maybe to scare them off. I decided to call this Fire fan, practiced it a bit, so I could summon it quickly.

I had to make a decision, either make several spears, and try to kill off the palmetto bugs, or leave and head down river, so I could find a safe place to sleep away from them. In the end, I split the difference. I made 2 crude spears, fire hardening them with a fire stone, just in case my ring had limits.

I set out to go around the colony, I’d be killing any bugs I founds as I worked my way past it. I just didn’t trust sleeping anywhere near a colony of roaches the size of a mastiff.

As I snuck through the brush, my sword in one hand and my ring ready in the other, I made it around the colony and found a path the roaches had worn down to the river, a few hundred yards long the other side of the clearing. I started jogging down the path, and saw a roach heading towards the river ahead of me. I swapped my sword for a spear and tried to ambush it from behind, but it spun to face me just before I got in range, waving its front legs and chittering angrily. With a twisting wrench, I thrust my spear into it’s thorax as hard as I could pinning it to the ground. Its carapace crumpled at the blow, and the spear tip burst out of the bottom and into the ground, but not hard enough to keep the bug pinned on it’s own. Juices were leaking out of both of the roaches wounds, but it’s was still struggling to get at me. I shifted back, putting the butt of the spear against my hips, using my right hand and weight to pin it in place. I reached out as far as I could with my left fist, and thought ‘Burninate’ to summon my fire lance. I concentrated on making it as narrow and as hot as I could, and it burned deeply into the bugs shell, driving the giant red-brown roach even more aggressively to climb the spear and get to me. It’s jaws gnashing, the roach started to grab the haft of my spear and slide itself towards me. The noise it made was disgustingly wet and squelchy, but I knew I was in trouble.

I shifted the focus of my fire lance to the frantically climbing monster bugs head and burned one of its eyes out in short order. I took out the beast’s other eye, and went to work on the center of its head. One of the bugs claws reached out and raked my left arm. Knocking it off the spear. The Leather jacket held, but as the clawed arm slid down and off the leather, the spiked spurs slid into my hand my hand, cutting it deeply and the claw clamped down pinning my hand off line, crushing and cutting deeply.

I screamed in pain, trying to wrench my hand out if it’s claw, but only succeeded in tearing it further and splashing my blood all over. I dropped my right hand off the shaft of the spear and summoned my sword, swinging it in a primitive but brutal chop cutting the leg of the bug off a few inches below my hand. Cradling the burning pain of my hand against my chest, I set to cutting off the legs grabbing the spear off, planning to immobilize it. I got the front legs, but the back legs continued to push on the grounds sliding it up the spear and at me. I twisted my hips to take what weight I still had on the spear off, and “Y”stepped forward and to the left, moving like a knight in chess. I swung my sword up, and threw a wrap shot hitting with back edge, taking its rear legs off the right side. The palmetto bugs red brown carapace with covered in its own slimy blood, bits of it were scattered or burnt, but it still wasn’t dead.

I raised my sword high, and slashed it down on the junction of thorax and abdomen several inches beyond the spearshaft. I swung again, slicing it in half and finishing it off. I put my sword back into my inventory and touched each of the pieces of the bug, inventorying them as well my spear still stuck in one of the pieces. My left hand on fire, I stumbled towards the river, and limped downstream. I was hoping I wouldn’t get attacked again crippled as I with my mangled hand. After I was a few hundred feet down stream, I paused to use my multi tool to pry/cut the claws out of my hand, trying not to damage it further. The steel handles of the tool kept slipping in my hands which were drenched with sweat. My right hand was a blazing inferno of pain, making it difficult to manage. My teeth were gritted together trying not to scream, but failing. I got the claw off leaving several spines still in my hand. Slipping the claw back into my magic hidey place, I knelt by the river and washed my hand as best I could, using the pliers of the tool to pull out the 2 inch long spines still in my hand. Somehow the claws hadn’t severed any of the big blood vessels in the back of my hand, though blood was still oozing out of my hand faster than was safe. I untied my laces with my left hand and kicked off the boot. I was able to get at my sock and use it to stop the bleeding. I slipped the boot back onto my foot, pulled the laces as tight as I could and tucked them in. I started stumbling downstream, looking for a safe place to hole up and hope the damn magic ring could unmangle my hand.

---

Garabal:

I walked to the far end of my kitchen stopping next to the avocado-colored fridge. I didn’t want to do it. I spun on my heel and paced back to the small cluttered round wooden table where I ate. I saw no other choice. Joseph needed his new Tome. Turn, wheel walk back to the fridge rubbing my chin. We’d already spent too much. I couldn’t pull it out of the budget we had left, the starting budget was basically the cost of a tome to begin with. My stipend wasn’t going to cover it either. I stopped at my fridge pausing thoughtfully. I picked up my phone pressing its cool smoothness to my ear and dialed an old friend. I punched the familiar square buttons with my finger, listening to the tones. Soon It was ringing. Damn it, I hate doing this.

The ringing stopped and a flat uninflected voice said, “Ops, Howard Banda.”

I took a deep breath and began quieter than I’d intended, “Hey Howard, it’s Gar… Garabal, how’s it going?”

A much more animated voice came back, “Yo! Gar, man it’s been forever, Let’s see, it was since your retirement party, some kind of play, right? How’s it going! Good to hear your voice!”

“Yeah Howie, it was your daughters play, she was in middle school I think, same class as Squatch’s twins Wes and Momo. Momo was a bird of some kind, and your daughter Zuri was what, a tree? Wes of course was the male lead, always dramatic that kid” I said with clear pride in my voice.

“HA! man you always did have great memory. She was that big willow that bashes stuff, from those movies. Good times good times. What can I do ya for?”

“To be honest Howard, I need kind of a big favor. I’m hoping you could help me out with some contract work. It’d be like old times.”

“Whoa, hey man, are they screwing you that hard on your retirement? I can totally call somebody. you shouldn’t have to work if you don’t want to. Not after everything you did. Hell, you built this whole department from scratch. That’s a travesty!”

“No, no Howard, nothing like that. I’m back in the Game. Aggie hooked me up with this great kid. I’m trying to boot strap him, but someone stole his Tome at the gate. I just need cash flow to get him another one, maybe a few more trinkets along the way. Absolutely a temporary thing.”

“That poor kid Carol Ann attacked was yours Gar? Wow. That actually makes a lot more sense than what the rumors were saying. She always had it bad for you and found the worst ways to show it. Remember how she used to show up where ever you went? That was messed up.”

“That’s Carol Ann, stalking before they even invented the word stalker. What is the Rumor mill saying, out of pure curiosity?”

Laughing Howie said, “Ha! You’ll love this, according to one of the eL’s who worked at the gate, rumor was she tried to force him to sleep with her in training and he said no.”

“One of the Ael’s? It’s not Michael, is it? He’s not still in charge of that gate is he?” I said, worrying about Mikes career.

“Nah, nah, Michael took over my job as head of Engineering, when I took over yours here in Ops. This was a new kid. Nephew, I think? He went to school with one of my department heads and he passed the juicy rumors on.”

“Who passed it to you, because the only thing you like better than beer and dried fruit is gossip! Man you haven’t changed a bit. Still tapped in I see.” I laughed back.

“Yeah, you bet, saved both our backsides too many times to count. Any particular reason Carol Ann was on the warpath, or just her normal drama for anything where you and Aggie were involved?”

“Nah this one is personal. Like I said, Aggie helped me line this kid up. The reason she was able to, was someone in recruiting dropped the ball. Joe, that’s the kid, wasn’t interviewed or trained or anything. Showed up in Aggie’s office basically in pajamas. He practically had a cereal spoon still in his hand. No clue where he was or why.”

“Oh man, that’s Juicy! Those two have hated each other since way back. Before you and Aggie dated the first time, right? If Aggie helped Carol Ann look bad, Carol’s going to be on the war path.”

“Exactly, that’s why I’m going to need the funds, which brings me back to contract work?”

“That’s no problem, you want to work on the deep stuff like before, or do you want to learn the new tools? Wait! Mano, do you think you can learn our new tools and give them that Gar touch. Most are still running your stuff deep under the hood. Some of them are getting pretty clunky though too many layers on top of layers.”

“Hey Howie, I’m coming to you hat in hand. I’ll do whatever you need me to.”

“None of that hat in had stuff! You taught me everything I know. You are my mentor and my friend. Anytime you want to work, in any capacity, you just let me know. Any time it takes to knock the rust off and learn the new tools will be paid back a hundred-fold. I can’t give you my job back, or Mikes, or any of the other department heads, but anything under that is fair game. You name it. “

“I’d just like some quiet contract work I can do on my own schedule. I need to be flexible to keep this kid afloat despite Carol Ann.”

“Flexible, hmm. Here is what I’m thinking. You know Momo is interning here, right? Smart kid takes after her mom. She’s going to get her field ticket and be just like us back in the day.”

“Hey, Mona’s brilliant, but Squatch does okay for himself too. His talents were just on the sneaky side of things, that’s all. Glad to hear Momo’s got the bug though. Speaking of interns, what’s Zuri doing?”

“Oh god! it’s my secret shame, Zuri’s heading to Med School to me a Healer like her mom, I’ll be losing my Techie card next, lose my rights to make sci fi references!” Despite his words you could hear the pride for her just glowing in his voice.

Howie continued, “Speaking of Techies, I’ll send Momo over with a full kit. She’ll spend her last week before her practical getting you up to speed. You need any of the old stuff, you talk to Michael. He’s got all that stuff stored away for emergencies. Momo will show you how to log your hours, and I’ll take it from there. While you have her there, you tell her some of the more educational stories from the old days, eh? You know she loves that stuff”

“Ha! Med school, if you sounded any prouder, you’d explode! As to Momo, sounds great. When can I start?”

“I can send Momo over after lunch, that too fast for you? You two can get a half days work in before the weekend. I cut you a check Monday to get you started. I’ll send a contract with her you just sign it, and she’ll bring it back.”

“That’s Fantastic Howie, I really appreciate it.”