“Just kidding, guys,” Carey said, smiling at Bea’s and Will’s horror-struck faces. “There’s no one inside.”

“That wasn’t funny,” Min-joon said, kicking a loose pebble as if imagining it was Carey’s face he was assaulting with his leather boot.

“Don’t do that, Carey.” Beatrice shoved him against the door. “We have to be serious. This is life or death, remember?”

“You gonna tell us what’s in there?” Will asked.

“I can’t really tell, but I couldn’t see or smell any spiders or anything. Come look.”

Carey led them inside a vast chamber carved from rock. Will brightened his crystal and sent out magical globes of light to hang around the space. The walls and ceiling blended in a curved, rocky dome with a jagged surface that rose forty or fifty feet above their heads.

“This must be the back of the shrine,” Will said, his voice echoing. “They carved it right out of the mountain.”

A nearby stream made a rushing sound.

“We’ll need a bridge,” Beatrice said, standing at the edge of a broad gap in the floor that split the chamber in half. It had been carved right from the ground. The stream ran along the bottom. Carey sensed it had once been higher, a flowing underground river that provided the rest of the shrine with water.

“There was a bridge here at some point,” Carey said, as he inspected shards of wooden posts broken off from the floor. “Damn Torgs. How do you think they get over without a bridge?”

“They jump,” Min-joon said, making an overhead arcing motion with one arm. “Like grasshoppers. I saw one do it.”

“We can craft a bridge,” Beatrice said. “Assuming there’s a… crafting station!”

She pointed at a familiar-looking bench draped in shadows against the wall.

“How convenient,” Carey said with a chuckle. “Let’s loot the place first, make sure we have enough wood.”

“Good idea,” she said.

Will waved them over. “Hey, guys, check this out.”

He led them to a stack of huge wooden logs about four feet long that looked ancient. Spider webs draped over the pile.

“Can’t pick them up,” Carey said. “Too heavy. How do we get them to the bench?”

“Easy,” Will said, that boyish grin plastered across his face. He held out his right hand, palm up, and made a Small Steel Axe appear, its razor-sharp head glinting in the light. “I made a few of these for you guys. You’re welcome.”

“You, my friend…”—Carey took the axe, flipped it, and made it dance along his knuckles—“… are full of surprises.”

They got to work chopping wood. There was no right or wrong way to do it. Unlike in real life, they didn’t have to take down individual wooden logs, prop them upright, and chop them lengthwise. Instead, similar to many survival-crafting games Carey had played in his life, all one had to do was chop against the entire stack, and smaller pieces would fly toward them to be collected automatically.

Ten minutes later, Carey had acquired (85) Wooden Planks. When he tried to step back, away from the log pile—which was now only half its original height—he found his movements sluggish.

“Oh, crap. Encumbered again.”

His current carry weight was over 150—almost three times his limit of 55 pounds.

“We all are,” Beatrice said. “Easy way to fix that.”

“These planks are worth 10 wood apiece, that’s why they’re so heavy,” Will said. “Let’s get rid of ’em.”

They shuffled like zombies to the edge overlooking the stream, unable to run, jog, or even powerwalk. Their Stamina drained quickly, almost empty by the time they had crossed the chamber.

“My crafting skill is zero,” Beatrice said. “Will?”

“Sixteen.”

“Min-joon?”

“Twenty,” he said proudly.

“Errrrr!” Carey said, making a negating buzzer noise, like on a game show. “I’m at twenty-two. Beat ya!”

Min-joon shook his head, as if he were suddenly the adult in this situation.

“Carey, open your crafting recipes,” Will said, “and look for a Small Wooden Bridge. It’s under the Blueprints tab.”

Carey found it immediately and selected the bridge.

“Whoa. Cool.”

Hanging a few feet in front of him was a bluish, semi-transparent bridge made of pure light, like a hologram.

“Now,” Beatrice said, “just slide it—”

“I got this,” Carey said.

He was able to mentally push and pull the hologram, sliding it across the chamber’s floor until it locked in place above the stream, perfectly spanning the gap.

“Let’s get to work,” Will said.

Stats appeared over the bridge.

Required Material:

(2200) Wood

(40) Aluminum

(75) Steel Nails -or- (165) Iron Nails

(10) Leather Strips

All they had to do was stand nearby, think about adding the wooden planks to the bridge, and the game made it happen. It still took about three minutes to complete the task, each board flying into the hologram and fixing itself in place. Carey whistled as they worked. Once all the boards were applied, his carry weight went back to 45 and he could move normally again.

The bridge still wasn’t finished.

“We need more nails,” Will said.

Carey was already running. “I’ll go grab some.”

He darted over to the crafting bench and used all 10 of his Iron Ingots to craft (200) Iron Nails.

The completed bridge was easily ten feet long. Carey found himself admiring the structure as they crossed to the other side. He’d never in his life built anything more complex than the Lego house that he’d meticulously pieced together as a child. It felt good. Even though the game had built the bridge—he’d only initiated the process—it still made him feel… manly.

Carey found himself slipping his arms around Will’s and Bea’s shoulders as they walked across the bridge. His friends did the same, sliding their arms around him, Beatrice holding hands with Min-joon, until the four of them were practically skipping along the wooden planks like drunken fools, chuckling and squeezing each other, Min-joon singing softly in Korean.

In that moment, even the boy-thief seemed all right.

They reached the other side to find yet another chamber—only this one was set deep in the stone, an entirely separate level lower than the one they were on, which explained why Carey hadn’t seen it before. Stairs had been cut into the stone, one set to Carey’s left and one to his right, allowing access to the lower level.

Then Carey saw him. He motioned for the others to crouch alongside him behind a boulder.

“There he is,” Carey whispered. “Holy schnikes.”

Lit by an array of standing torches, it was a scene straight out of a cartoonish depiction of Hell. Torg Boss Ruckus reclined on an elegant sofa between two enormous ferns, like some pampered Satan. One shiny, blood-red, muscled leg was propped on cushions, the other stretched across the ground. His dome-like belly heaved with each breath.

Munching on what appeared to be a roasted side of ham on a bone he used like a handle, Ruckus sported a pair of gigantic, curved horns like those of a mature ram—only they were turned the other way, extending over his forehead instead of the back of his skull. He was dressed in a full suit of leather armor custom-built to span his enormous body and the huge gut extending over his thighs.

A massive battle-axe was propped upright on the couch nearby, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice. Ruckus might have been fat, but there was some serious muscle beneath those layers, as well. He probably could have chopped the head off a stone golem using that axe.

“That’s him,” Min-joon whispered. “Torg Boss Ruckus.”

There were six other Torgs—these much smaller and weaker, but heavily armored—going about chores that included roasting meat over a campfire, probably to feed Ruckus’s endless appetite, or tossing glittering chunks of some shiny material into a pile in the back.

Chunks that appeared to be made of…

Wait a minute…

“Is that gold?” Carey asked. “Are those gold nuggets? And… And are those piles of…”

“Other shiny stuff,” Min-joon said.

It was true. The pile of gold nuggets, which were still grimy from having been freshly mined, sat in front of several other piles of collected shrine loot—golden goblets, plates, coins, and even glittering rubies.

Carey’s mouth watered when he saw how much each nugget was worth. The pile was easily worth more than he could ever spend.

“I want it all,” he said.

“Goldie gold gold,” Min-joon said, clutching his hands together as if he were in love.

“We can’t possibly carry even a fraction of that,” Beatrice said. “But a couple sacks will get us far in Tyrathon.”

“Damn. Look at Ruckus’s stats,” Carey said, his heart sinking.

Lvl. 12 Torg Lieutenant

HP: 1250/1250

SP: 920/920

LP: 150/150

“He’s up there,” Will said, “but it’s those Sloth Lords I’m worried about.”

“Sloth… what?” Carey followed Will’s gaze, his sight settling on a pair of gray, faceless, slug-like creatures. They wriggled toward Ruckus, having emerged from an opening on the far side of the room, each at least eight feet tall, with slimy bodies that glistened in the torchlight.

Carey couldn’t discern anything resembling a face, but he noticed eyestalks and was able to pick out nearly invisible slits where mouths should be.

“Chitin armor,” Min-joon said. “It’s very strong.”

“But what are they doing?” Carey asked, studying their stats as they came closer.

Lvl. 8 Sloth Lord

HP: 650/650

SP: 720/720

LP: 850/850

The Sloth Lords stopped a few feet away from Ruckus, who motioned for them to come closer.

“Look at all that LP,” Beatrice said. “They’re spellcasters.”

The Sloth Lord closest to Ruckus bent its head toward its boss. Bright, bluish energy began to swarm around its eyestalks, as beautiful a sight as its caster was ugly. The energy wafted toward Ruckus and slid around his face, and the Torg lieutenant’s eyes rolled back in his head. The half-eaten ham slipped out of loose fingers to settle next to him on the couch cushion.

“They’re healers,” Beatrice said. “They buff the Torgs and fix them up during battle. If we plan on going up against this crew, we need to take them out first.”

“For sure,” Will said. “Those Torgs might as well be in God Mode with those slugs boosting them.”

Carey knew the term “God Mode” well. Often enabled as a cheat in videogames, God Mode rendered a player invincible to all damage. Ruckus and his crew would be impossible to defeat with those Sloth Lords constantly healing them.

“What if Carey and Min-Joon sneak into that room in the back,” Bea ventured, “to lure the Sloth Lords to them. Then they can use Takedowns…”

“To execute them quietly,” Carey said, finishing the thought with a chuckle. “Bea, you’re a genius.”

She blushed at the compliment.

“I’ll set up some traps,” Carey said, “and when the Torgs come to investigate…”

“Boom,” Will said.

“Boom boom,” Min-joon added.

They crept down the stairs on the far side of the lower level, where there were no torches. Despite Min-joon’s young age, he was a proficient creeper and managed to stay as quiet as a mouse. He took the game more seriously than it seemed at times.

As soon as they crossed the chamber’s halfway point, the torchlight would render them visible. Carey found himself swallowing a recurring pang of nervousness and crept forward anyway. No turning back now.

When he was about forty feet away from Ruckus and his crew, something unnatural happened within his field of vision. Cones of awareness appeared in front of the eyes of his enemies, showing how far they could see an intruder. The cones swung around as the creatures moved. A soft, reassuring pulse thrummed in his ears every few seconds. Carey had experienced this system before; the pulse would quicken and grow louder as soon as his enemies detected him.

It was his Intuit Awareness Halva. Thank God! He wanted to jump for joy—but he stayed frozen, smiling, instead.

“Do you have it, too?” he whispered to Min-joon. “The cones?”

“Uh huh. Intuition thingamajig.”

“Exactly.”

A few key details became clear. The Torgs had limited visibility, their cones extending only half as far as the Sloth Lords, whose visual awareness appeared to extend at least forty feet. Plus, the Sloth Lords, with their swiveling eyestalks, were able to swing their vision cones around wildly, which they seemed to do a lot—and which also meant creeping up on them was probably a bad idea, as they might flick their eyestalks to aim straight at Carey.

He pondered what to do next.

“Maybe we could distract them,” Min-joon said.

“Yes. Yes.” Carey lightly smacked the boy’s shoulder. “Good job. Check this out.”

He summoned the Stone of Binding. Studying it in Carey’s hand, Min-joon’s eyebrows shot up.

“That’s so cool!”

“I know, kid. Now, keep quiet.”

Carey took a deep breath. He located an appropriate spot by the opposite staircase and tossed the rock. Bang! Just right.

“Huh?!” Ruckus seemed to come awake at the sound. “Wassat? You two. Go check.”

He pointed at two Torg Fighters, who dropped armloads of gold nuggets on top of what had become a pile almost as tall as they were. The Torgs headed across the room, weapons raised and ready. The Sloth Lords watched them go, eyestalks stretching.

“Now,” Carey whispered. “Between the piles.”

Crouch-walking as swiftly as they could, Carey and Min-joon snuck toward the pile of nuggets. About twenty feet away sat Ruckus, with his Sloth Lords slightly further back. The opening in the far wall, which was even further back, seemed impossibly far away.

Now came the hard part—avoiding those lizard-quick eyestalks while Carey set everything up just right. He made a glass bottle appear in his hand. Instantly, he smelled piss. Good old Gorlag Oil. He showed it to Min-joon.

“Flammable. You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

Min-joon glanced at the space between the Sloth Lords and the doorway. Glancing back at Carey, he nodded rapidly.

Holding the flask at the ready, Carey motioned for Min-joon to follow him—very slowly and quietly—toward the far wall. The soft pulse in his ears eased his nervousness. But it could change in a heartbeat. Carey kept his eyes on the Sloth Lords, ready to run if those eyestalks suddenly changed direction and landed on him.

When he was in the space between the Sloth Lords and the doorway, he began spreading the oil across the floor behind him. The clay flask went dry and disappeared.

Almost there.

His boot slid over a jagged rock with a scraping noise.

He froze.

A chill shot down his back like cold lightning.

One of the Sloth Lords swung its eyestalks, awareness cone shifting wildly toward Carey and Min-joon. The pulsing noise in his ears sped up—BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM.

The vision cone almost reached them—too short by mere inches.

The pulsing noise gradually lessened.

Boom… boom… boom…

Carey almost reeled, so great was the relief pouring over him. Edging backward, away from the cone’s illumination fanning across the floor, Carey and Min-joon made sure to get far enough away. In retrospect, they should have stuck closer to the back wall from the start.

The Sloth Lord, seeing nothing of interest, turned its attention back to the two returning Torg Fighters, whose arms and shoulders were raised as if to say, That was weird; nothing there.

“Get back to work,” Ruckus growled, and the two Fighters ran back to the gold pile. “Noisy rocks falling everywhere. I hate this place! Stupid shrine. When are they coming?”

“Ten more minutes,” one of the Torg Fighters said. “We’ll have this pile ready in no time, boss.”

“You better.” His rumbling voice filled the cavernous space. “Damn shrines. Damn dark holes in the ground.”

Carey and Min-joon made it the rest of the way and entered the opening in the wall, but not before Carey got a chance to glance over his shoulder and spot the Torg Fighters dropping down a hole where the mine must have been located underground. He wondered how much gold was in that mine, and if the game even imposed a limit. Could they come back here when they were stronger and mine infinite quantities of gold nuggets?

It was almost pitch black beyond the opening, but Carey could tell—using his ears and judging by the echo of water dripping nearby—that he was in a narrow space, a corridor that led to God-only-knows where.

Which gave him an idea.

“Check this out,” Carey whispered, calling Min-joon’s full attention as he summoned one of his Exploding Sticky Bear Traps and held it out.

Min-joon saw it, grinned, and gave Carey a thumbs-up.