50 – Lay of the Land

  Andy sat in a camp chair, chewing on a fried-fish sandwich while he watched Lydia and Eduardo working. They had notebooks stacked on the folding table they shared, and while Lydia engraved long, iron nails with a delicate-looking chisel and hammer, she spoke, filling him in on their progress. “It’s really thanks to you and your glyph-making class, Andy. I took the notes you wrote for me, and while I was working on adding to them—you know, copying down the runes you’d created on some of the tools and weapons around here—the System took notice and gave me a new skill.”

  “Same thing for me,” Eduardo added. “I mean, after Lydia told me about it. I just studied what she’d done, and I got the skill. She’s the one who’s been enchanting stuff, though. I’ve been learning a lot about the glyph language.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah, don’t let him play it off.” Lydia snorted. “I can read these glyphs, but he’s figured out the conjugations and the right versions of each word and letter to mix, creating the effect I’m looking for. I think if he’d stiffen that backbone of his and actually carve them into something, the System would probably give him a crafting class.”

  “Yeah, but I explained why I’m not doing that,” Eduardo said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. He looked at Andy, adding, “I want to keep leveling Scholar. The System’s been hinting that it opens up some interesting evolutions at a higher level.”

  Andy shrugged, swallowing his last bite. “That’s fair.” He scooted his chair closer so he could watch Lydia work more closely. “What about you? Still a Forgemaster?”

  “Yes, but I’m closing in on twenty, and, like Ed, I’ve gotten some hints. I think I might be damn close to opening up some kind of magical smithing class.”

  “But you’re doing more than smithing. Those wicks—”

  Lydia nodded, cutting him off. “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m trying all kinds of things. Once you figure out the right combination of runes and then pour a little mana into them—”

  “But how are you doing that?” Andy asked. “For my Glyphwright class, each engraving is a spell, so the mana goes into them automatically.”

  “Ah, that’s the trick, isn’t it?” Lydia winked at him. “It’s not really very difficult. Can you feel the mana in you?” She straightened and tapped her palm against her soot-stained flannel shirt, right above her belly. “Here?”

  “I think so.” Andy nodded. “I mean, yeah. I definitely feel it flowing from there when I cast spells, too.”

  “That’s all it is; you’ve gotta encourage it to flow. These glyphs? They’re receptive to it. They take as much as the material will allow. Seems like those wicks I stitched up can hold about ten mana, and that allows them to burn about a hundred times longer than normal. The System doesn’t tell me much other than congratulations.” She shrugged. “I figure if I upgrade my class right, I’ll start getting more abilities like the one you have that lets you evaluate materials.”

  Andy was only half listening to her because his mind had begun to wander down lanes of possibility; he was wondering what would happen if he got the same skill she and Eduardo had picked up. Would it complement his Glyphwright skills, or would it open up a new class evolution? He intended to find out.

  Lydia interrupted his thoughts by asking, “Where’s your little girlfriend?”

  He looked up sharply, for some juvenile reason feeling embarrassed. He fended off the emotion by deflecting, “Not sure she’d agree with that label.”

  Lydia snorted. “Trust me, she would.”

  Eduardo moved to bail him out: “I was wondering the same thing, Andy. I mean, where the others are. You promised to tell us about the dungeon after you ate.” He nodded toward the empty paper plate on Andy’s lap.

  “Yeah, okay.” Andy took a long swig of water from his skin—freshly filled from the waterfall—and then cleared his throat. “First of all, like I said earlier, we all made it out safely. The place was really interesting, though. You’d get a kick out of the way it was all set up. You see, I guess the dungeon was an actual town, or at least a model of one, and the people inside had been pulled from their world after the vermin invaded it. They said it was called a pocket dimension, and that’s how most System ‘dungeons’ function…”

  They talked for a while, Andy describing his experience and Lydia and Eduardo listening raptly, asking questions for clarification. By the time he wrapped things up, though, he was speaking to a much larger group. Violet and Lucy had wandered over, as had half a dozen others, answering Lydia’s earlier question about where Andy’s “girlfriend” was. Everyone sat or stood near his camp chair, listening, and when Andy got tired or failed to describe something to everyone’s satisfaction, Lucy stepped in.

  When the story was finished and most of the gathered folks wandered off, Violet came closer to where Andy sat. “Did Ed talk to you about the System Node?”

  He shook his head, turning to look at Eduardo. The older man shrugged. “We got busy talking. Anyway, go ahead, Vi.”

  Violet put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “We had the idea that we might want to try to move the node down here. The wind’s died down a lot, but it’s still really dark and wet out there. We thought maybe you could poke your head out and see what things looked like.”

  “Considering you can see in the dark,” Lydia added.

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  Violet smiled, squeezing Andy’s shoulder. “And you’re our fearless leader.” She rubbed her thumb over the material of his coat and whistled softly. “This is so nice. It feels…special. You know what I mean?”

  Lucy nodded. “I do. It’s rich and soft, but you can feel the mana in it, too, I think. My bow’s similar.”

  Lydia perked up at the discussion, standing from her chair to approach. “Really?”

  Suddenly, Andy had several pairs of hands groping and rubbing his coat, and he started to laugh. “What the hell, you guys? Is this how cute dogs feel?”

  “Calling yourself cute?” Lydia chuckled, pinching his cheek with rough fingers. “You should inspect that coat with your evaluation skill when you get a minute—same with Lucy’s bow.”

  Andy brushed her off, standing so everyone wasn’t looming over him. “Yeah, I will. I want to look at your glyph notes, too—see if I can learn that magical language skill.”

  Eduardo tapped his pencil on the tabletop, absently muttering, “It’s called High Dovarti Script,” while he flipped through one of his notebooks.

  Andy arched an eyebrow. “Dovarti?”

  Lydia nodded. “Don’t ask us what it means. Probably the first people who figured out how to use those glyphs to enchant objects.” She rifled through the stack of papers and books on the table, extracting a black and white college-ruled notebook. “Anyway, we made you copy. Just read through this and practice a few—that worked for Eduardo.” As Andy took it from her, she lifted her well-worn flannel shirt and drew Andy’s dagger and sheath out from under her belt. “Also, I should probably give this back to you.”

  “Thanks.” Andy unbuckled his belt so he could thread it properly through the sheath. “Hey, what about James? Did he learn the language skill?”

  “Not yet.” Eduardo looked up, closing his notebook. “Been trying to pin him down, but he keeps busy.”

  Andy glanced around the nearby camps, but didn’t see any sign of the man. “Any idea where he is?”

  Violet answered, “Probably down in the lake cavern with his son. Turns out Keshawn was following Madi around, keeping her company while she hunted for edible fungi, and he picked up the same class—Gatherer. There’s an entire ecosystem down by that lake if you look close enough. I’ve been studying it, too.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Doesn’t it seem off? That cavern seems too big to be in the mesa.”

  Lyda snorted, shaking her head. “It’s not. This cavern takes up most of the depth of the mesa. That lake and the shafts below it are in the ground under the mesa.” She gestured to Eduardo. “He’s been working on a map if you want to see a visualization.”

  “Yeah, but it’s back in our tent.”

  “I’d like to see it, too, Ed,” Andy said, turning his attention toward the cavern’s exit. “But Violet’s got me thinking about the System Node, and it reminded me: we had a settlement quest to explore these tunnels.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “That’s right! Shouldn’t we have gotten a notification?”

  “If we succeeded.” Andy rubbed his chin. “Or maybe we have to visit the node to get credit. I’ll see if I can move it.”

  Lucy grabbed his sleeve as though to stop him from sprinting off. “Someone should go with you.”

  “Nah, like Violet said, the wind’s not blowing. I’ll poke my head out, and if it seems too bad, I’ll stay in.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Omar can see in the dark pretty well, too, Andy, and he’s sturdy. There’s no reason to go alone.”

  “I mean,” Lydia said, taking up Lucy’s cause, “for that matter, we have people who can create magical lights. It might make sense to—”

  Andy shook his head and cut her off. “Listen, I understand you’re worried, and I also understand the buddy system and why it’s smart. The thing is, what none of you are saying is why you’re worried about me, and it’s not just the storm. We don’t know what might have come with the bad weather. Just in case there’s something out there that wasn’t before, I think I’ll go alone. I can see in the dark, and I can make myself nearly invisible. Just let me do my thing.”

  Lucy sighed, but she let go of his sleeve. “He’s right. I hate to admit it, but there’s no one who can be as stealthy as Andy.”

  Violet stared at them for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I’m getting Omar and some others anyway; we’ll wait by the hatch.”

  Lucy unslung her bow. “Same. I’ll be there.”

  Andy picked his broken spear up from where he’d left it leaning against the table. “Any spears around I can use temporarily?”

  Lydia took the broken weapon, chuckling as she ran her eyes over the length of the scarred-up, blood-stained haft. She drew her thumb along the chipped, much-dulled blade, whistling softly. “You really put this thing through it!” She started walking off with it, then turned, adding, “Oh, I’ll get you a replacement. Meet you at the hatch.”

  A few minutes later, Andy stood in the ankle-deep puddle under the hatch, one hand on the ladder leading up, the other clutching a new spear that was very much like his old one—both were Lydia’s handiwork, after all. He’d cinched up his new drake-hide jacket, and the high collar cupped his jaw, but he silently wished it had a hood. Still, it was snug and warm, and—judging by the way water drizzling down from the hatch sheeted off it—waterproof. He climbed up a few steps and then glanced down at Omar, Jace, and Lucy, who were the closest among the rather sizeable crowd gathered there.

  “Omar, follow me up and close the hatch if I say things look okay.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  Andy climbed another step and reached up, jerking Tucker’s homemade latch to the side and unsealing the hatch. As the pressure was released, water poured into the opening. With a grunt against the chilly wetness, he pushed the hatch up.

  Most of the standing water had fallen by then, so he only had to squint against the sheeting rain as he poked his head out of the hole. Earlier, he’d cast Ember Vision, and the surreal landscape left by the hurricane-force winds was clear to see.

  Despite the dark and the wet, the world was tinted a faint amber by his magic, making it all the stranger. Water stood on the ground, turning the top of the mesa glasslike as the rain pounded down, each drop erupting in a small splash.

  What made it surreal, he realized, was what was missing—and what had replaced it. He couldn’t see a single trailer, and where there had been small decorative shrubs, cacti, and the occasional palo verde or mesquite tree before, now there were huge trees everywhere he looked.

  They still looked like desert trees. In fact, they reminded him very much of mesquites—thick, branching trunks, wide canopies of feathery, fernlike leaves through which he could see the rain-dispensing clouds. Still, they were different. The trunks were green-tinted like palo verdes and, stranger than anything else, they were covered with pale white and blue blossoms.

  “No way,” he whispered.

  “What?” Omar asked, his face peering up from down near Andy’s knees.

  “There are trees up here, man. Like, big ones.”

  “Anything else?”

  Andy turned in a slow circle, and that’s when his Ember Vision revealed a pair of glowing figures high up in one of the trees. Their shapes—and the way they perched on a wide branch—were instantly familiar. He lowered the hatch and took a careful step down.

  Rain continued to drizzle through the loosely closed opening, drenching him, Omar, and everyone crowded below. “I think there are harpies up there,” Andy said. “Like the ones we found in the waterfall a few days ago.”

  ***Congratulations, Andy! You’ve discovered a new quest opportunity: Deal with the airborne invasion of your settlement! Be wary! There may be other System subjects working against you. If you succeed, you’ll be awarded a Boon Point and new opportunities for settlement growth.***