Chapter 16

“Trudy, why are you here?” Daniel asked straight out.

“Levels,” she answered curtly.

“But–”

“Because if you’re growing stuff rather than manipulating wood. I can help.”

“What do you mean?”

“Specifically, a skill I can get on my next level up. It’s designed for enriching the soil of an entire paddock to foster growth. Everything a plant needs, including water, and it’s a channelled spell.”

“What does that mean?”

“Usually if you grow a tree in a pot, it will eventually struggle because of a lack of nutrients. If I use this skill, it’ll grow perfectly for ever. Of course, if the wind blows, it’ll topple over because it does not have the base to support, but that’s a different issue.” She paused slightly out of breath. “When you were building the magpie web, you had to get water and fertiliser. This ability I’m getting won’t require that, and it’s ridiculously efficient, particularly with water.”

“You’re here because it’ll help me?”

Trudy shook her head. “I’m here because it’ll help the community and boosting you.” She saw his expression and her face softened. “Don’t be a baby. I’m here to ensure we get the most of your gift.”

“Where’s your baby?”

She shrugged. “Elaine looking after him and giving me a break. Ivey said I should do this. So we’re your volunteers.”

Daniel noticed the three other people who had come down. “Are you all here for similar reasons?”

Trudy smiled. “As I understand it, that’s what you asked for.

He stood awkwardly. They were older than him and he was very much their boss.

“This is Richard,” Trudy said and pulled forward an old man.

“Monster guy, right?”

The man chuckled nervously, pushing his glasses up, but everyone could see that they no longer had lenses. Some nervous tic had made him keep the glasses. “Monster identifier.”

“What will extra levels give you?”

He swallowed. “I’ll focus on abilities to identify weakness in larger monsters to let us fight the lizard. I’m also the lowest level here. I’m only thirteen, and getting two levels to fifteen will upgrade me a lot.”

“Now we also have, Borris,” Trudy continued and nodded to the seventy-year-old who had followed them in and then deviated to study the traps curiously. Daniel liked him. He was big and solid with laugh wrinkles in the corner of his eyes. “Borris are you a fighter…”

“To old for that nonsense.”

“He has a class called Permanency Master.” Trudy explained.

“I guess the best description is that I upgrade the toughness of materials. Give me a few hours and I can enhance a stone wall patched together with cheap mortar and turn it into something a batting ram will bounce off.”

“Wood as well?”

“Everything.” Borris promised. “And every level improves both efficiency and effectiveness.”

“I might get you to help me with some of the weapons I’m making.”

Borris nodded. “My skills should help. Personally, I think it’s why young Ivey sent me down. It’ll become tougher guaranteed, but the downside is that it might increase the weight, but that’s hardly a problem is it?”

“Nope, almost a feature.”

“Finally, we have.”

“We know each other.” Daniel said coldly, looked at the plant researcher who had been part of Beau’s group.

“Ivey figured you could supercharge some of Jordan’s experiments and his skills might end up being important. Ivey told me to mention life draining vines with thorns.”

That got Daniel’s interest immediately.

“Yeah, she said you’d react like that.” Trudy laughed.

“I can’t do that now, but I have.” Jordan pulled out a lot of seeds. “A starting point.”.

“Fine.” Daniel said finally. “Does this mean Jordan has been pulling his weight?” he asked Trudy, knowing that he was being rude and not really caring that much.

“It’s only been a day and a half, but yes,” Trudy answered.

“I can confirm,” Borris agreed. “Jordies been working hard.”

With a sigh, Daniel turned to the boxes he had constructed. “We can start the side projects later, but for now let me explain. You know the moths in the stairwell?”

Not one of them reacted.

Borris cleared his throat. “We were told to stay away, and I saw the woodwork you’ve put in to lock them down on twenty-four and twenty-five.”

Daniel smiled tightly. “There’s thousands of these moths. I reckon our fighting group can take on about five at a time and any more we’ll be overwhelmed and killed.”

“But they’re trapped in there right,” Trudy said.

“Correct, but if five are that powerful then that’s lots of experience per kill. So I built these.” He tapped the machines proudly. “Last night, I killed almost forty of them.”

“Do you sleep, Daniel?”

He looked at Trudy. “Only a little. I think the event changed my biology. It doesn’t matter,” he said hurriedly when he saw Trudy’s mothering gene about to be expressed.

“This is how they work. You each get one. First you prime it.” Daniel pulled up on the big lever and the internal jaws in the trap separated. He could do this with his plant magic but he wanted the traps to be something he did not need to supervise and the more effort they put into it the more likely they were to get the lion share of the experience which is what he was after. “When the lever is up fully like this, it’s armed. To let the moths in. You pull this up.” He tapped a handle on the back of the trap. Daniel knelt down. “And then from here you can look through the pinhole and see if a moth has come through. If it has you, trap it by pushing the handle down. Then you jump on the lever till it’s dead.”

“How do you know if it’s dead?” Borris asked.

“You’ll hear it if it’s alive. Believe me, they’ve got sound magic and they make a racket.”

“Before we start killing. I want to show you how you clean it.” He moved to the next check. “First handle is down fully.” He pointed. “This is an extra barrier.” Daniel showed them how to do it. “Then you release the front.” He tapped it, tried to open it, and nothing happened. “This is a safety feature you can only open the trap up is if the main trap door to the staircase is down.” After sliding it shut, he opened the trap up. “As you can see those are the killing sheets which would have squashed the moth,” he pointed them are closed. “To clean the machine, you need them open.” He pulled them apart.

“That’s some damn nasty looking teeth.” Borris observed.

Daniel nodded proudly. “That they are.” He reached in and used the rough brush he had created to push out the moth parts into the bucket he had grabbed from one of the cleaning cupboards. “Grab the core.” He picked it out and tossed it over toward where his backpack lay. “Reassemble and we’re done.”

“Questions?”

“How safe is it?” Trudy asked finally.

“Safer than most things in this world. But,” Daniel shrugged. “And I’ll be around, and I think I can kill one if it survives.”

“About it being alive?” Borris asked.

“Trust me you’ll know. They make lots of noise and the lever won’t be fully down.”

Borris nodded.

“Okay prepare your traps and call me over before opening the path to the stairwell.

Daniel spent the next two minutes getting everything ready. While Daniel was double checking the traps they had put together, Jordan, Richard and Borris started moving plant boxes and laying them next to Jordan’s traps.

“Water,” Daniel called out. They brought back a lot of water bottles. Not perfect he needed to get one of the ice mages down.

One by one the traps were clicked into action.

“Borris?”

“Yes boss.”

Daniel handed him a sword. It was well made, but he had not invested any cores into it yet. “Work your magic.” Daniel was in two minds whether Borris would help. The process of the sword becoming a sapient seed already toughened the weapon, but it was worth checking.

There was no humming, so Daniel went and sat next to Jordan. The man flinched back. He had not forgotten spending an entire night bound and waiting for Daniel to come and kill him. “What do you need from me?” The man looked down, studied the pin hole and refused to make eye contact.

Daniel clicked his fingers. Jordan jumped.

He frowned at that response. “Mate, the fact you’re here getting this opportunity means you’re good.” There was no reaction from Jordan, instead the other man was pretending to peer into the pinhole.

“Bloody oath. What’s wrong with you?”

Jordan jumped.

Daniel took a calming breath. “I’m sorry I raised my voice. I’ll try not to do it again and I get what you’re feeling. You were scared, trapped in a world you didn’t want to be in. Beau offered a way out and you followed along. I won’t ever condone that, but at some level I understand.” Daniel paused, sweat was running down the man’s brow. “All I can promise is that I’m going to judge you by what you’ve achieved since.”

“I’ve tried to help but having done anything of note. And I wake up screaming because you come instead of Ivey and…”

“I’m not about to apologise. Beau was there to kill me. You stood in my blind spot ready to use an axe I created to murder me.”

“I wouldn’t have swung.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I wouldn’t have.” Jordan protested. “And you left me there all night. I thought I was going to die.”

“Don’t you think you deserved it?” Daniel whispered harshly. “And more.”

Jordan swallowed. “Yes. I can’t believe I followed him. But the nightmares are real.”

“So are the moths and ferals.”

“And class two monsters,” Richard interrupted. “That’s what we all need to worry about.”

“See.” Daniel said. “There are the worst things out there than me.” He tried not to smile threateningly. “You’ve been given a new chance by me twice. Once, when I rescued you from your room and then I spared you. Stop wallowing and do your fucking job.”

Jordan looked at him in anger, responding to the way Daniel had addressed him.

“That’s the spirit,” Daniel said more warmly. “Get some fire in you.”

“But you said if I didn’t do anything.”

“The fact Ivey sent you down here tells me plenty. You’ve obviously helped where you could and now together we’re going to use your skills to make a difference. You’ll pay us back what you owe.”

“I can do that.”

“Good,” Daniel patted him on the back. “Today we concentrate on food and when we’ve got a solution, we’ll rotate to making something more fun. You know some diabolic horror to help us kill things.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You’re the one with the special class. Vines with thorns, others that can suck the life of an animal to grow, maybe poisons to tip arrows with, pollen that sends people to sleep, laser flowers that can fry people. Use your imagination.”

Jordan looked up his eyes unfocused then shook his head. “At least two of those I can’t do.”

Daniel laughed. That meant he could do most of them. “Then we just need to get you more levels till you can.”

“Or better ideas.”

“Are you knocking my laser flowers?”

Jordan chuckled. “Just another three or four levels and it’ll be easy.”

“More seriously, we won’t know what we can do till we try. And we might as well aim for something outlandish. We might not hit our target, but what we get will be better than if we set our sights low. So once more what the fuck do you need from me.?” Daniel kept his voice low and unthreatening despite using the vulgarity a broad grin covered his face.

Deliberately, Daniel dropped his eyes to the pot. “Today food. Something nice to eat, filling, fast growing. How I help is I can grow a seed to maturity as often as required it.”

Jordan nodded and fiddled with a whole host of seed packets. Some were the sort he had seen in supermarkets and the others were in zip lock gabbed with some scrawled names on them. “One or two flowers for each of these.”

Daniel took the offered seeds put them in the soil and focused for only a moment. From each seed, a stem broke the surface, rising to about a finger length above the dirt before two buds appeared and blossomed.

“Wow,” Jordan whispered in amazement. “How much mana is that costing you?”

Daniel consulted his internal lake and shrugged internally. “It’s already back at full. As I said, I can do it indefinitely.”

“Really?” There was excitement in the other man’s voice. “That means I can make dozens of generations every hour. That will save weeks or months.” Energy gathered around Jordan’s hands, flowing and dancing over the flowers. One by one each flower closed. Jordan wiped the sweat off his brow. His eyes were pinched. “That takes a lot out of me.”

“What now?”

“We grow the next generation. Can you mature the seeds?”

Daniel barely had to think. The closed buds shrivelled up and when Jordan reached out and broke them, there was a new seed there. A bit of power flowed into it. “It’s viable, and producing this really didn’t affect your mana?”

Daniel shook his head.

Crack!

They both looked towards Trudy. She had closed the trapdoor in order to seal the kill box and was hurrying to use the lever.