Chapter 50

  “Why am I here?” the President asked impatiently as the sand-painting was constructed using the purest salt that they could find. He wasn’t confused or upset, he just literally hadn’t been informed on the way up from the bunker why he was being summoned. He had gotten used to such treatment over the last few days, since the monsters had begun spawning.

  While the bunker he was staying in was relatively low risk, there had been a few encounters with the green things that his forces were calling goblins, and once with a larger beast which was like a wolf, but the size of a horse.

  “Because we might have a way to speak with Erandius,” his aide informed him. “Two hours ago one of our high-priority observational targets sent us a video. He posted it online and sent it to the media as well, of course, but he did send it to us. Anyway, the video showed his method for contacting the titan. It made use of his familiar’s magic to create a complicated ritual using what appears to be table salt. We’re attempting to recreate that ritual using sand-painting.”

  Indeed, in the center of the room, a young man wearing a surgical mask was carefully pouring out a steady stream of laboratory grade sodium chloride onto the floor.

  “Okay,” the president said. He processed the information. “So what does a connection appear like? How do we know if the magic is working? What do I say when—”

  “Hello, Mister President,” a voice said, and a disembodied head appeared over the salt, causing the sand-painter to jerk and fall back. He dropped his tools and made a mess in the ritual, but the connection didn’t even flicker.

  The president evaluated the disembodied head for a moment, then nodded. “Erandius. You claim to be a titan and I have no evidence to disprove that fact, so I’ll accept it for now. Is that a title, a race, or a—”

  “Don’t bother trying to classify me as the head of some opposing organization. I am not here to negotiate. There is nothing to negotiate. The end of your society is nigh, and I am here to make an effort to see that it is not the end of life on this planet. You are level one. I suggest that you change that if you wish to survive the coming night,” the head said.

  “I’m the leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world. I can’t risk myself—”

  “I don’t care much for excuses, mister president. Furthermore I am annoyed at the steps that your government has been taking to discourage individuals and groups from delving the dungeon. I suggest you change that before I determine that a change of leadership is necessary. The preferred method is to leave the acting government in place as long as possible, but it is a simple matter for the system to enact a new one. This is the last time I will answer this summons for you unless and until you clear floor ten on normal mode or higher. Goodbye, Mister President.”

  The head vanished, and a wind blew the scattered salt away.

  “Do we have any of that recorded?” The president asked. “Can we edit it to make it look like he was threatening—”

  Before the president finished speaking, his phone beeped. It was a high-priority ringtone, so he grabbed at it reflexively. It was a video.

  Of him and six other world leaders speaking with the giant head. A seventh was added as he watched, and then an eight, then two more at once.

  They were all in that damned universal language that everyone was starting to speak in when dealing with international affairs, but the terms were the same.

  Erandius had one message.

  Stop interfering, or be replaced.

  It took the president only a moment longer to realize that this wasn’t a typical message; it appeared in his browser but he hadn’t clicked on any links. His phone had been hijacked. That...should not have been possible.

  They raced it off to the tech department, which attempted to backtrace the signal responsible.

  Ultimately, they found nothing. The message had originated from the phone itself. How that was even possible, the techs had absolutely no idea.

  ~~~~~

  Mattie faced off against the giant snake. It was as wide as a city buss and twice as long, but both its markings and its lack of fangs indicated that it was not the venomous kind.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  That didn’t mean that it wasn’t dangerous.

  They were near the elementary school, which was thankfully empty, with the majority of the kids in the city who hadn’t entered the Very Easy Mode Dungeon being ensconced in either the Arashantos Haven, or one of the smaller refuges formed by the other delvers on the surface.

  The snake reared up and looked at her. She stared back at its cold reptilian eyes.

  She felt it the moment that Eli’s magic hit her. Her muscles brimmed with power. She wasn’t certain how she felt about her son getting tattooed. One of the refugees had been a tattoo artist and was making a steady income by tattooing the various magical tattoos in that book that the party had gotten from the dungeon on anyone who wanted them.

  She had reluctantly gotten the general physicality tattoo on her left thigh. She had noticed, like everyone else who had gotten it, a general increase in her speed, strength, and stamina afterwards. The mages claimed that it came with a downside; a five percent reduction in their mana pool, and after that became known anyone who used magic avoided it.

  But Eli had gotten four tattoos that were significantly more complex than the one that she had gotten for herself. She understood why. One of those tattoos was the strength buff which could increase his own strength by about sixty percent, and he could share it for a thirty percent buff to someone else. Which is what he was using on her now.

  A second one of those tattoos was supposed to grant lesser regeneration. How lesser they didn’t know, but one of her own skills listed in her menu was “Trollblood Regeneration,” and it was one that she had largely come to be reliant upon during her time in the dungeon.

  Cuts and scrapes closed in seconds and healed in moments. Mortal wounds could still be mortal, she was certain, but so far she’d survived being stabbed in the lungs and the liver with minimal effect. She didn’t want to try an injury to the heart, spine, or brain, but she was pretty confident in anything else.

  But even if it was “Lesser Regeneration,” she was glad that her son had some form of that ability to use upon himself in an emergency.

  The third tattoo he got was “Acclimatization,” which was supposed to increase his ability to adapt to inclement weather and environments.

  The final tattoo was “Disruption,” which was difficult to test, but according to the description caused a sphere which would disrupt incoming magical attacks. The incoming part of that description was important, and Eli had already confirmed that he could continue to attack from inside.

  As a member of his party, she should be relieved that he had these abilities added to his repertoire. As his mother she should be glad that he was more protected than ever before. But a small part of her saw the portion of the disruption tattoo which came up the nape of his neck and wanted to scream in parental fury.

  The fact that he hadn’t asked her permission before starting the process was another stone in her shoe. She really wanted to haul him aside and scream at him for that. Not that she would have stopped him. But that he had done it without even thinking to ask her.

  The snake snapped at her, forcing her to dodge and stop thinking of creative ways to punish her teenage son. She slashed with her blade, feeling as it effortlessly carved through the creature’s scales. She was washed with its blood. She was a little surprised by how much blood gushed out of the wound she’d created, her blow hadn’t been that deep.

  “I’m using anti-coagulate,” her son shouted at her. “It seems to be effective.”

  “You think?” she shouted back, dodging and slashing once more as the snake slithered past her.

  The screaming around them settled down as the party they were accompanying grew accustomed to the sudden spawn of the boss monster. That had been happening with increasing frequency lately; killing the goblins, or lately the kobolds which had begun spawning, would cause the sudden spawn of a boss monster.

  Killing the boss was worth the effort, they had found. Experimentation and internet testimonies from other Havens which were weathering this phase of the apocalypse relatively well indicated that the rewards that spawned in the aftermath of a defeated boss monster were typically whatever you were lacking.

  Your haven was short on food? You got a pallet of MREs.

  You have unarmed citizens that are being overwhelmed? Weapons for the masses.

  Your camp is overwhelmed with the sick and the injured? Medicine and panaceas. Literal panaceas; they were labeled as such and often even had names on them for who they were intended for.

  After the minotaur, this was the fourth boss that had spawned in the outreaches of the Arashantos Haven. It might also be the last one that they could safely take down, as the party would be delving into the dungeon tomorrow at dawn, and the group would be losing their elites.

  “If it keeps bleeding like that we should be able to exanguinate it,” Eli called from the back, even as he peppered the beast with his blasting rod in his right hand and held onto the keychain filled with other rituals in the other. “I’ve got it confused, but it’s resisting my seizure magic. If we just cut it a few more times—”

  Abruptly the head of the snake exploded as a human meteor struck it. Mattie leaped backward, pulling her sword up to look around for threats. She sensed rather than saw them, six high leveled powers. Humans, like her. She moved to position herself between them and her son.

  “I said to help them, not to, oh never mind. I apologize for the messy entrance of my friend here,” a charismatic voice called. Mattie followed both the voice and the sense of power that accompanied it back to the source, a thirty-something year old man on a motorbike. “I heard there was a powerful guild in the area. Me and my friends are here to apply. My name is Lawrence.”

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