Ray dropped down inside the wall of his base city. He took refuge on a roof. He

  decided to eat some from his rations before he went over what he had found with the

  help of the lamp. He washed everything down with water from his bag and sat against

  the access door leading up to the roof.

  Each of the four sites had been the same with one difference. Each one was bigger

  than the one before it. That suggested that his mastermind was spending more work

  on getting the door dimensions right with each try.

  Either that, or he was trying to create a big enough door to overwhelm the adventurers

  that tended to defend humanity from the various monsters that abounded with the

  smallest amount of personal expenditure.

  A third option was a personal cap of some kind was being applied. If that was the

  case, the bigger circles could be from the magician getting stronger in the intervening

  fifty years.

  He liked that for an explanation, but it led him to another conclusion that he didn’t

  like at all.

  “Lamp, what would the size of the next door be if we used the pattern from the other

  four to draw a conclusion?,” thought Ray.

  Lamp drew the shapes of the four holes in the ground in Ray’s mind. It drew the

  estimate of the fifth one. Then it overlaid all of them.

  “That’s a lot of walking and writing,” thought Ray.

  Affirmative.

  The only way to find the guy was to find where the constellations would meet

  overhead in the next few days and go on watch. The Face seemed to be the trigger for

  events.

  If he couldn’t find the guy, there was no guarantee that he could stop a sinkhole as

  big as a neighborhood from taking the rest of the immediate area with it.

  And he doubted that the regular adventurers here would be able to prevent any

  disaster that big until after it showed up.

  He didn’t know if he could handle it on his own. The lamp was a miracle worker, but

  he doubted he could fight an invasion by himself.

  He needed to think of some tricks he could use against monsters that ate everything

  in sight.

  “Lamp, can you predict where the Face of Ba’al will point when it arrives?,” thought

  Ray. That seemed the easiest way to stop this problem before it became a problem.

  Affirmative.

  A map of the continent and the sky appeared in front of Ray in blue light. He watched

  as the stars rolled back two hundred years. The scene paused when the continent

  reached a point before the first wave happened.

  The scene started rolling forward in a blur.

  “Hold on,” thought Ray. “Go back to the first door, and go slower so I can see how

  you did the calculations.”

  Affirmative.

  The voice sounded a little peevish to Ray. He put it down to his imagination. The

  spark seemed like a machine. Could it put inflection in its mental tone?

  He didn’t want to ask in case it said it was a little irritated at his slow wittedness.

  The map rolled forward at a slower pace. Ray squinted as the constellations combined

  and lit up each site as the years passed. He rubbed his face as the stars started aligning

  above him.

  “Are you sure about this?,” asked Ray. He walked around the glowing map.

  Affirmative.

  What were the chances that he would arrive in the one spot he needed to be by

  chance? He expected the numbers would look like a lottery winning. How did he deal

  with this?

  He decided that he should warn Lord Brian, and Sam. They had the connections to

  the locals to get them motivated to fight. He needed to look for that writing so he

  could try to blot it out before the summoning. He had to find the guy doing the

  writing and stop him from doing any more before he killed more people.

  He had the next three steps laid out in front of him. He couldn’t do anything about

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  warning Lord Brian, or Sam, in the middle of the night. He doubted the local police

  and vigilantes would take kindly to him shining a light on the top of their houses in

  the middle of the night. And he had no clue on how to start looking for his would be

  planet killer.

  “I need some time to think,” thought Ray. “As soon as the sun comes up, we’re going

  to have to try to find any writing done and rip it out.”

  Affirmative. Will have to visually scan for pieces. Cannot detect magic until it is

  used.

  “Understood,” thought Ray. He looked at the ticking seconds on his visual clock. He

  had time enough for a nap so he could be fresh in the morning. He wondered why the

  flame hadn’t put things into hours and minutes, but didn’t want to jinx things by

  asking.

  The major problem that Ray foresaw if he couldn’t stop the summoning was there

  were a ton of civilians inside the wall. They would be trapped with the monsters if the

  adventurers couldn’t close the door. The loss of life would be tremendous.

  He needed to get Lord Brian in on this just so the population could be moved out of

  the way.

  “Lamp, wake me up when the sun comes up,” thought Ray. “We have to locate Lord

  Brian, and then talk to him and Sam as the first part of our agenda.”

  Affirmative.

  Ray braced himself up against the roof access and went to sleep. He still had a ton of

  time according to his clock. And if the door hadn’t opened by then, it would probably

  open the next night.

  It was the best he could do at the moment. At least the arm was recording everything

  so Woad would know how the targets were being picked and how long he had. He

  would just have to get the arm back.

  Ray went to sleep while thinking about how Woad would rest the arm from reality

  destroying monsters that could probably eat it.

  He supposed it wouldn’t be easy.

  A chime in his head woke him up to a gray sky. He rubbed his face as he got to his

  feet. Everything felt sore for a moment. The visual clock was still ticking down in the

  corner of his vision.

  At least the world hadn’t ended while he was sleeping.

  “Lamp, I need a clean up, a stop at the Blue Oak, and then finding Lord Brian,”

  thought Ray. “I think I like being able to eat ten thousand calories with no risk of

  weight gain.”

  Affirmative.

  Blue light flashed across Ray’s body. His clothes gleamed with sharper colors. His

  tiredness and aches and pains were gone. He felt sharper.

  “Let’s get breakfast, and start our day,” said Ray. “Where is the Blue Oak from here?”

  Blue flame marked out the saloon in the distance. Ray started using the roofs to cross

  the city. He smiled at the comparison to Enzio that he was making in his head. He

  dropped down in an alley and scared a cat. He crossed the street to get to the Oak and

  walk inside.

  “Hey Ray,” said one of the waitresses he didn’t know yet. “Breakfast is still cooking.”

  “Could I have two servings?,” asked Ray. “I have a long day ahead of me.”

  “I’ll get it for you as soon as the first batch is done,” she said. She smiled.

  Ray went to his table and pulled out his papers. He made notes on fresh pages to help

  him think. Blue flame made corrections as he wrote.

  “Lamp, how big an area of the city are we looking if the door opens here?,” thought

  Ray.

  A visual model of the city sprung into being. Various circles showed Ray which

  chunks would be swept away in a flood of glutton monsters. He knew they were just

  as likely to dig down as to the sides. That would cause sinkholes to happen on some

  of the buildings, dropping them below street level.

  “Place the circle on the Grandview neighborhood and university,” said Ray.

  The circle almost fit neatly on top of the drawing.

  Of course it did.

  “What are the chances we’re facing some academic that likes to experiment with new

  spells he found?,” Ray asked himself.

  One in three thousand.

  “It’s a cliche,” said Ray.

  “What is a cliche?,” said the unknown waitress. She had arrived with two servings of

  food while he was deep in thought. She put the plates on the table around his

  paperwork. She stood back, placing the wooden serving tray under her arm.

  “Where I am from, the idea that a teacher gone bad is the villain is something that

  appears in a lot of stories,” said Ray. “My thoughts about the situation I am in are

  leading me down that trail. And it is well worn trail indeed.”

  “It only makes sense, doesn’t it,” said the waitress. “They do hold the knowledge of

  things men weren’t meant to know.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way before,” admitted Ray.

  “There you go,” said the waitress. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  It still felt like a cliche.

  Affirmative.

  “I hope Sam and Sandra aren’t in on this,” thought Ray.

  Affirmative.

  “We should warn them first,” thought Ray. “They’re right on ground zero if we’re

  right. And they can keep an eye out for suspicious strangers while we try to get Lord

  Brian moving.”

  Affirmative.

  “All right,” said Ray. He put his papers away. He tucked into the food like it was

  going to be his last meal. He called for another jug of what they thought was tea but

  was really some kind of alcohol resembling beer. He drank that down and paid for his

  meal out of his dwindling coins. He stepped out on the street and headed north.

  He hoped he could catch Sam on the university grounds. That would make it easier

  than hunting him across the city and wasting some of his time on the chase.

  “Keep an eye out for any of Lord Brian’s group, or Sam and Sandra, or anyone

  carving signs in the University walls,” thought Ray. “Those are our primary targets

  for the day. As soon as we spread our suspicions, we’ll move to the next things on our

  list.”

  Affirmative.

  Blue traces lit up targets as they moved through the streets. Ray knew that was the

  Lamp’s way of searching. He approved. It was better to run into one of Lord Brian’s

  group now than have to roust them out of bed. It would save time in his estimation.

  Ray hopped the wall of the Grandview neighborhood and jogged up to the University

  grounds. He hopped that wall too. He jogged toward where he had found Sam and

  Sandra’s quarters, but blue light traced a severe figure coming toward him.

  He waved at Sandra as he jogged toward her. One of her assistants from the day

  before pointed at him. The frown he received was not welcoming.

  He supposed the bad news he was about to impart was not going to improve her

  assessment of him either.