It took only a couple of minutes for them to have everything ready. Dez’s group had prepped themselves well. They all had packs big or small on their backs, all of them with assorted makeshift weapons prepared as well.

Viv was already at the door, keeping a lookout with her red energy sabre bared. “Come on, already. We don’t have much time.”

“To the bank, then,” Evelyn said, going past her towards the car.

“Not yet,” Dez said. “We need to go to wherever these things are coming from.”

Evelyn froze. “What?”

“What are you talking about, Dez?” Rory asked.

Dez had gone outside to stare around as though he was expecting Thundershells to burst out from between the buildings and trees at any moment. “Look, you think they’re going to stop coming after us if we go somewhere else? We need to find where they’re coming from and stop them at their source.”

“Take out their spawn point?” Miles asked. “Is that even possible?”

“Won’t know till we try, will we? It’s worth a shot, cause I for one am sick and tired of being hounded everywhere by these crusty crabs.”

“Hold on.” Evelyn came back to the doorstep. “We don’t have time to go after them. My family is stuck at the bank. We’ve already wasted so much time here. I can’t keep my family waiting any more than I already have. They’ll die.”

Dez didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look happy.

“There’s another thing too,” Rory said, hating himself for muddying the issue even more. “The dead guy, the one we tried to rescue, has a daughter. She went off to the substation, which is where I’m guessing the Thundershells are coming from.”

Evelyn opened her mouth but then snapped it close. Outrage was written all over her face. She would never be willing to put anyone above her own family, and that was to be expected. But then, no one was inherently more valuable than anyone else.

“The substation is along the way to the bank, right?” Viv asked. “We won’t have to go out of our way to get there.”

Dez nodded. “A quick stop to kick these Thundershells’ butts, and then we can get to the bank.”

Lighting flashed not far, turning the horizon whitish blue momentarily. No point arguing anymore, so they decided to get moving and started getting into the old Cadillac. It wasn’t an easy fit.

They stashed most of their packs deep into the car’s trunk, then kept it open so Trish, Allen, Miles, and Jerky could sit there, squeezing themselves in so that they were almost stuck. Ned claimed the designated driver’s spot by diving behind the steering wheel before anyone. Viv took shotgun while Dez climbed onto the roof and held its edge tightly so as not to fall off.

Evelyn, Rory, Sue, and May all packed themselves into the backseat, forcing Truck to squeeze his donkey body between the two front seats. None of them were particularly thin so it was by no means an easy fit.

Hopefully, Rory wouldn’t be suffocating for long. He wasn’t sure how much his old body could take being squeezed to near-death.

“They’re here,” Ned said. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Everyone ready?”

“Ready or not, drive,” Dez shouted.

Just as the first Thundershells scuttled into view down the street, Ned shifted the gear and hammered his foot onto the accelerator. The Cadillac’s engine rumbled, probably protesting at the enormous extra weight it was carrying, then ground out a roar as it started down the road.

For a second, Rory thought they were going to crash into the oncoming monsters. But then Ned performed a turn so sharp that it nearly threw Dez off the roof. He cursed loudly, holding on for dear life—with the help of Viv who reached out and grabbed his wrist—as the car screeched onto a side road.

This street was blessedly free of Thundershells. Rory could hear the monsters blasting their lightning in frustration behind them, but lucky for them, there were none on the road ahead.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Viv asked as Ned took another turn when he saw a couple of Thundershells on the road ahead.

“Uh, to the substation?”

“Do you know the direction?”

Another furious turn that made the tires screech. They were giving the old car a hefty workout. “East, right?”

Dez thumped down on the roof. “Turn left on Eight Street. Then take Excelsior Avenue, onto Kramer, then a right onto Lower Caldwell.”

“Right. I won’t have any trouble remembering any of that.”

Viv sighed, which rapidly turned into a grunt when the car twisted onto another road again. Rory wished there was a grab handle to hold onto. This part of Hillhard wasn’t all that familiar to him. He could identify the main street, but all the side streets and alleys that Ned took felt like a labyrinth to him.

Thankfully, Ned seemed to know the way after Dez’s directions. Credit to Ned, he never let any of the Thundershells get too close to shoot their electricity at them.

Rory kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. They should have stopped to check the houses they passed, no matter how the trees had fallen on them, or how the walls and doors looked broken and shattered. What if there were people still alive in any of those places?

He didn’t allow himself to get too mired in his fear for his townspeople or his guilt for not helping them. Guilt was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

With Ned’s skilled driving, they soon left the monsters behind. It was hard moving when they were all so cramped inside, but they all managed to exchange Sigils that hadn’t been absorbed by anyone yet.

They gave Perception to Ned since he was the designated driver, and Dez took Fearing Roar and the extra Sigil of Rubber since his range was close enough for his voice to be audible to enemies. He also had a Sigil of the Warrior, which apparently improved his fighting prowess. Allen claimed the Sigil of Marble.

Eventually, the town’s buildings started to grow sparse again as they reached a more secluded area. The sky was starting to darken thanks to a combination of a growing storm and the waning afternoon. Rory hadn’t realized just how long the day was feeling. He was going to need a good, long rest soon.

A single wide road led to a large building surrounded by tall, metal fences in the distance. Large cables led away from the building here and there, indicating their destination.

The substation.

“There’s a surprising lack of them here,” Viv said from the front.

“You figure all of them came after us when we started killing them?” Dez asked from above.

Trish laughed from the back. “Look at us, forcing all of them to come after us. Imagine we had wanted posters with all our faces on it. I bet Allen’s would look like a tomato.”

“Shut up, Trish.”

Their gentle ribbing came to a halt when Dez shouted again, pointing at something in the distance. “There’s something up ahead.”

The something soon resolved into a kind of obstacle they had yet to meet. Strange rocky growths with a metallic sheen had sprung out of the ground, reminding Rory of the Thundershells’ bodies, except these were more purplish instead of deep blue. Electricity flickered off them, the air smelling heavily like a storm.

Their forward progress was completely blocked. The forest of rocks grew too thick for them to even squeeze past in person, much less with their bulky Cadillac.

“You think this is a subtle hint to not waste our time here?” Evelyn asked. If her voice could have been any drier, it would have caught fire.

“We can get through,” Rory said. “I can use my Weaving to clear us a path.”

They worked out the method pretty quickly. Rory got out in front of the car on foot, using his Weaving on the strange material to reduce chunks of it to Sigils. As space opened up, Rory walked forward, Ned driving the car slowly behind him. Rory’s shoes and the car’s tires crunched on the remains of the metallic rocks.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Electrium. Think lightning is cool? What about a rock that makes lighting under sunlight?

[Argent III] allows creation and manipulation of material in a 5-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Element

Rarity: Uncommon

Tier: Argent I [0%]

Efficiency: Low [15%]

By the time they’d reached the gate, Rory had a bunch of new Sigils. Sue took in the Sigils of Electrium, combining them to get it to Argent V. That was the highest of any of them, save Viv’s. Apparently, her red sabre Sigil—the Sigil of the Omnipresent Sabre—was at Argent VII already. Rory shook his head. Her journey before meeting him must have been insane.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” Viv said as they headed closer to the substation.

Rory’s unease was also deepening. It made sense if all the monsters had gone after them, and they’d left the Thundershells behind after how fast they had driven. But still.

Thankfully, nothing untoward happened and they reached the substation’s gate without trouble. There were no signs of the Thundershells just yet, but they all got out of the car anyway. Thunder boomed overhead, and lightning flashes farther behind them signalled that their pursuers would soon be upon them.

“Think we’ll find the source?” Viv asked, summoning her crimson sabre. “I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to look like.”

“Miles?” Rory asked.

“I don’t know…” he said. He had never sounded so uncertain. Jerky yipped in his arms as though providing a suggestion. “Maybe I’ll know it if I see it.”

Dez broke into the substation first. After blasting the gate off its hinges with his dark flames, he went ahead and started carefully shooting dark fireballs with blue glints through the windows and doorways, behind transistors and pylons, trying to spook out any Thundershells in hiding. There was nothing. The substation was abandoned.

Carefully evading Dez’s black flames, they entered into the main hall. Like elsewhere, the walls and floor were damaged and torn, the sparse furniture shattered and their pieces strewn about like flotsam in a flood. There were more of the metallic, deep purplish rocks all over the place as well, miniature lightning sparks bouncing from one to the other randomly.

As they entered, a huge boom of thunder went up, shaking the whole building. Rory’s heart quailed a little. It looked like they didn’t have much time.

“Do you think destroying the substation will stop them more of them from forming?” Trish asked.

Viv paused. “That’s a good point.” She looked around at the Electrium everywhere. “Maybe there’s no single sources so much as all this.”

“So we do have to destroy the substation?”

“In a sense.”

They decided to break into groups. There was a lot of Mana outside, so Sue got started on collecting all that while keeping May nearby, while Ned used his Perception to keep a lookout after parking the car at a safe spot. Meanwhile, Dez and Viv began destroying the Electrium, while everyone else except Truck decided to explore the substation to find anything interesting.

Rory had a different idea, however. He walked over to one of the thick pillars holding the ceiling up. “Hmm.”

He tried to focus the strength of his Weaving when he used it on the pillar, imagining the white lines only taking away bits and pieces of the pillar instead of the entire column. Reducing the whole thing to a Sigil would destabilize the structure. They could use that to their advantage, but not before the Thundershells reached the substation.

When he was done, Rory received the option to select a Sigil of Concrete, a Sigil of Steel, and a Sigil of Support.

Interesting choices, especially the first one. Concrete could have interesting applications, and since he already had a Sigil of Support, Rory decided to go with the Sigil of Concrete. He tutted. It showed a picture of a square column.

New Sigil!

You’ve obtained a Sigil of Concrete. Versatility is this amorphous and complex material’s greatest trait.

[Argent III] allows creation and manipulation of material in a 5-meter radius.

Stats

Type: Element

Rarity: Uncommon

Tier: Argent III [0%]

Efficiency: Low [12%]

Rory went around using his Weaving on the rest of the columns, making sure they were all only just strong enough to keep holding up the ceiling. Viv and Dez watched him curiously in between breaking the Electrium deposits. Once he was done, he went outside and used his Weaving on the pylons to get a few Sigils of Steel, and got a Sigil of Earth from the ground.

Trish came in soon after, yelling about something she had found. “You guys have to see this. It’s sick.”

They all followed her in short order, and Rory used the trek to determine another part of the plan taking shape in his head. “Trish, here, I got you more Sigils. Just absorb the Steel, and once it’s at Argent III, try absorbing this Sigil of Concrete next.”

“Alright.” She took the Sigils, absorbing them one by one. “What are they for?”

“I’ll tell you once I’ve figured it all out.”

Trish didn’t pursue it any further. She was too excited to show them what she and the others had discovered, which was waiting for them in an office near the back. A deep blue metallic block sat on the desk, a cuboid without any noticeable hinges. It did have a small notch in the middle though, like a keyhole.

“What is that?” Dez asked.

Miles grinned at them. “Loot! Though it’s locked, and I’m guessing we only get access to it after we’ve dealt with a boss or something.”

“A boss Thundershell?” Sue grimaced. “I don’t like the sounds of that.”

Rory stepped up and tried to use his Weaving on the metallic block. The lines of light reached its surface, then disappeared as though being sucked into nothingness.

[Warning! Weaving will not work on System Objects]

“My Weaving doesn’t work,” he said, trying and failing to pull down his eyebrows after they’d risen up. “There’s a warning about this block being a System Object.”

Miles nodded as though he’d expected it. “That settles it. We need to beat all those Thundershells out there.”

“Have you found any sign of the girl?” Rory asked.

They all shook their heads. Strange. Where could the dead man’s daughter have gone?

“Did you find anything else?” Dez asked.

Trish shook her head. “Not yet. We found a couple of dead guys, and a couple more who are unconscious. Allen is with them now. But other than that, nothing.”

“No vehicles?”

“No, we haven’t found one yet.

“There might be one in the underground parking. Have you checked that yet?”

“We… haven’t.”

“Then maybe—"

“Hey guys,” Ned called from the main hall. “You should get here fast.”

The alarm in his voice set them all running back to the front. Back in the hall, Ned was pacing the floor while Truck lounged against a pillar.

“They’re coming,” Ned said. “There’s a lot of them. A lot.”

They were silent for a while. Slow panic started working into them all, Rory noticing it in how everyone’s faces tightened, how they went rigid like wooden planks. A pile of Mana glinted before a desk. Sue had found a veritable treasure. One they were going to need.

“Alright,” Rory said. “Gather round. Its time I explained the plan.”