Chapter 45

  “Hello Mister Phelps, we’ve been expecting you. I’m Mayor Raymos,” the Latino man said pleasantly, extending a hand for Miguel to shake. Miguel took it and noticed that it was a perfectly politic handshake, neither dominant nor submissive.

  “Hello. I wasn’t expecting to speak with the mayor of the city, I was hoping to speak with—”

  “I’m sorry, Mister Phelps, but after the attempt by the federal government to take the Mathews family into custody, the fact is that you don’t get to just meet them anymore. All of our returned Delvers are important to the city, of course, but Team Truthkeeper is of greater importance than most given the size of the Haven Token they returned with. The city government has stepped in to take care of the minutiae so that our delvers are free to—”

  The door opened suddenly, and an annoyed looking fifteen year old boy walked in.

  “Dammit Luis I need to speak with him, I thought I said to put him through as soon as he arrived,” the kid said. “I wasn’t kidding when I said it was important.”

  “I’m simply impressing on Mister Phelps the importance of your time—”

  “By wasting it and having me chase him down?” the boy challenged. “Look, I wouldn’t care. I’m glad that you and I can work together and that you’re screening everyone for me so that I only have to meet with the people I actually have to meet with. But the Webmaster runs an important resource and I need to talk to him. I thought I made that clear.”

  The mayor looked annoyed for a moment, but masked it so perfectly in front of the kid that Phelps thought for a second that he’d imagined it. He hadn’t, he knew. The irritation had been flashed at him because he was hiding it from the kid, but the man wanted Phelps to know that he didn’t like him.

  It wasn’t Phelps’s position to intervene in whatever dynamic was going on. He simply followed Eli out of the room, not bothering to mask his own expression, which was one of annoyance, from the mayor.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know why you were delayed. There was supposed to be someone waiting for you instead of making you go through the line and all of that. I needed to talk with you. I think that the system wants your website.”

  Miguel blinked. “What?”

  “I talked to Erandius again and told him about your website, how the delvers are using it to communicate. He knew about the internet and asked me what the webaddress was. I gave it to him. I don’t know what he’s going to do with it, but if he makes it part of the system then—”

  “Okay, let’s stop and take a step back. You talked to the Titan. In space. Which not even the government can do. How does that work.”

  Eli sighed, and he waved his hand for Miguel to follow. “My familiar’s name is Gabri. He’s a faerie. He knows things, but I don’t know how much or which things because being a faerie he won’t tell me everything. I don’t know if he thinks it’s funny or what. But one of the things he knows is a ritual magic spell which will put us in contact with Erandius. It’s like making a long distance phone call, though, and also he can hang up or not answer. I can’t make him talk to me, but for whatever reason he takes my phone calls sometimes.”

  “Any idea why he’s not talking to the government?” Phelps asked.

  “He says it never does any good,” Eli said. “I don’t know what to say, Miguel. Honestly if they hadn’t shot my mom in the head yesterday I’d probably be more interested in talking with them. Instead I just posted everything I know online and called it good. My video was forty-five minutes long.”

  “I know. I watched most of it,” Miguel said.

  “It’s got millions of views since your moderators marked it verified,” the boy said. He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. When I was like eleven, I tried to go viral with the ice bucket challenge and some other stupid things. I was so certain that it would work at the time, but the only thing I got were weird comments. But everyone is trying to talk to me right now and I don’t have the time to answer anyone.”

  “Yeah, it sounds like quite the dilemma,” Miguel said.

  “It’s worse than that, Miguel,” Eli aid. “I’m a Scholar . In order to get stronger, my class has to actually study. Right now I know almost jack squat about magic. I have six days to change that. I think that’s the point of this mandatory rest period. To get us accustomed to our new strength, classes, and abilities. But I can’t do that if I’m leading a Haven of refugees. Which is why I need Luis Raymos. And why I need you. I need you to be my filters, so that I can disappear.”

  “Yeah, okay kid,” Phelps said. “Whatever you need.”

  Eli looked surprised. “Really? That’s it?”

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  “Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I still have a bunch of questions, but most of those are things you’ll have to tell me so that I can tell everyone else. But if you trust me to maintain your online presence and such, then I’ll definitely do that.”

  Eli sighed, a strain visibly leaving his body. “Okay. Tell me what you need to know.”

  Phelps took out a pen and note pad, and they began a brief Q and A session.

  When it ended, they promised to meet again tomorrow and Eli went to the science room, the same one where the Astronomy club met, and he began to study.

  ~~~~~~

  Two days passed. The goblins grew in number and coordination, and they began to develop countertactics.

  Their favorite counter for guns, however, was simply to survive being shot. Shot sighed as more and more strongholds fell into disarray as their defenders ran into trouble for relying on firearms. Without a Sharpshooter or Gunslinger or other firearms based class, the things were useless in this new world.

  While this was unfortunate, humanity did have a few saving graces. One was that more returnees were starting to reappear from the dungeon. Most of these had cleared it on easy or normal difficulty, but every Haven was a boon that was desperately needed, and the government was eager to snap up any Haven Creation Token that it could.

  Unfortunately, few of the returnees had cleared the dungeon on Hard. Indeed, the ones who had managed to get deep into the dungeon in that difficulty reported a very different experience than the one that Eli Mathews and his party had given.

  The one hundred and thirty six who had completed the Hard Mode dungeon had reported that they received a Haven Creation Token. Not a Greater Token, but not a Lesser Token either. It was a step up from what was available elsewhere, but it was still only about forty percent as powerful as the token that the Truthkeepers had returned with.

  When questioned about it, Eli had suggested that the difference lie in how the floors were completed. He pointed out that his party had received considerably more experience and better rewards when they had completed the floor puzzle compared to when they had completed a floor by killing a boss or hitting the quota of lesser enemies, and that this might apply either to the tenth floor rewards as well, or that the token granted might be averaged through the entire delve.

  Frustratingly, Shoto believed that the boy was correct. In his own dungeon exploration he had encountered several hints of a puzzle to be unraveled, but the party had believed that it would be faster or more beneficial to complete the dungeon via traditional methods. Shoto had thought to try to attempt a single floor’s puzzle to compare it to the previous floor, but he hadn’t been the ranking agent in that situation.

  Granted, the man who had made the call was a man that Shoto respected, and he could see the argument for why the decision was made. And the puzzles of normal and easy mode were far easier to solve, with rewards that didn’t seem worth it. If it weren’t for Eli’s account, Shoto wouldn’t be considering solving the puzzles once the damn dungeon lockout ended and he and the rest of his party was able to return to delving.

  Suddenly one of his agents answered a phone. He frowned, looked up at Shoto, then at the phone. “Sir, it’s for you.”

  “Who is it?” Shoto asked.

  “It’s Miguel Phelps, sir,” the man answered. “The man who gave us the kid’s name in the first place.”

  Shoto took the phone.

  “Before you ask, yes the kid can call the Titan in space and yes he’s willing to do it for you. You don’t need to shoot at him or try to take him prisoner. Just make your reasonable requests and give them to us, and we’ll petition the Titan Erandius for you. But we have no control over what the Titan does or does not do,” Phelps said. “In exchange we want full immunity over the bit of self-defense that went down outside the Mathews house.”

  “Twenty-six federal agents are dead.”

  “They didn’t have a warrant. We checked. Unless it’s under lock and seal so tight that—”

  “You’re entirely correct. There was no warrant. This oversight was entirely done by my predecessor. I only learned of his mistake when I returned from the dungeon. You see, he didn’t understand the difference between levels one and…just what level is the party, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lie.”

  “I really don’t know. I know that the cook is level twenty-seven, but I’m not sure what the rest of their levels are and I’m not telling you what Eli’s level is. Stop asking.”

  Shoto frowned, but he made a sound of acknowledgment, accepting the boundary. “I don’t have the authority to issue clemency. Technically, if this were in the before times, your friends would be lucky to be alive, let alone in a position to defend themselves in the court of law. But I’ll talk with what’s left of the judiciary and see what we can do for clearing their name.”

  “You’re willing to accept responsibility for the dead men outside the Mathews’ house?” Phelps asked.

  “No, but I’m willing to put it on the man I shot to claim his command,” Shoto said. “If it ruins what’s left of his career, well, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

  “No more SWAT or men in black?” Phelps asked.

  “Not from the government,” Shoto promised. “At least, not so long as I’m regional commander of the response team. Which will only last until I return to the dungeon in four days. I refuse to fall too far behind the others.”

  “Understood,” Phelps said. “Put together the government’s list of demands for Erandius and call me back at this number. We’ll contact you with Erandius’s response.”

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