“John, I’m Sally McCormack. I’m a paramedic and a Level 7 Healer,” Ingrid said as she crouched low, her eyes steady on his. “I can’t cure lycanthropy, but we hope we can protect you and everyone around you when you become a wolf again. Do you want our help?”

  His shoulders slumped, his face drawn tight as he looked down at the ground. “I…I don’t…don’t want to be this way. Hurt enough people in my life. Should never have agreed.”

  “Agreed to what?” Ingrid’s voice was gentle but firm.

  “To help him.”

  “To help who?”

  “Don’t know. Just a voice. Said he’d make me rich and powerful if I did what he wanted.” His words came out halting, as though they cost him strength to speak.

  “What did he want you to do?”

  “Just get something that was stolen from him.”

  “That was?” Ingrid pressed.

  “Don’t know.” John’s eyes darted toward me, then back down. “He said I’d be able to smell it when I got near it. That it was in town. Was right. When I changed, I could smell it. Still smell it on him.” He lifted a shaking hand and pointed straight at me. “Didn’t say he was so fuckin’ powerful or had friends.”

  “He has lots of friends, John. I’m one of them,” Ingrid said, her voice steady as steel wrapped in warmth. “We all want to help you. That’s why Will trapped you. Why he didn’t kill you. None of us wants you dead. We’re helpers, healers. But we can’t let you hurt other people…or make them like you.”

  “I know. I seen the movies. Know what I am.” His voice cracked, thick with shame. “If someone could take care of my family, just kill me. Don’t want to live like this. Already killed a dog. Ate part of it too.”

  His eyes lifted, hollow and wet, locking onto Ingrid’s. “Take care of my family. I won’t stop you. Get this over with. I can feel it inside. It wants out. Wants to hurt you.”

  “We have a way to keep you from hurting people. We hope. If we sedate you, we’ll keep you unconscious until the full moon is over. That’s why I’m here. Will you let us try?”

  His breathing came heavy and uneven. “If it don’t work?”

  “Then we’ll find another way. We won’t stop trying,” Ingrid soothed. “Please?”

  His chin trembled, but he nodded. “OK. OK. I’ll chance it. You'll take care of my family? Find out if they’re alright?”

  “Sheriff already has a car on the way to your house. We’ll let you know as soon as we know,” I called from the other side of my shield.

  “OK. Do it.” He extended an arm, resigned.

  “Thank you.” Ingrid pulled supplies from her bag with calm precision. Less than a minute later, the injection slackened his body, his eyelids drooping before he slumped. James and Ingrid eased him to the ground, keeping his head from striking the pavement.

  “Bring in the gurney,” Ingrid called to the EMTs. “Bhaarrt, come pick him up.”

  I dropped my shield around him, so they could get out again.

  The cool night air carried the faint smell of grass and exhaust as the breeze blew away the smell of wolf trapped inside the shields.

  [Morticia:] [William of Brinsford] [Sorry. Was busy. What’s this about a werewolf?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Morticia] [We’ve got a werewolf trapped here across from my house. Do you know of a way to turn him permanently back to a human or give the human side control over the wolf?]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Morticia] [My Anti-magic Ward caused him to revert to human. Ingrid knocked him out to keep him from changing back before dawn, or the end of the full moon. Don’t know which way that will go.]

  [Morticia:] [William of Brinsford] [Got any wolfsbane? I don’t. I’ll see what I can find.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Morticia] [Thanks. I didn’t know who else to ask. I heard you took Alchemy.]

  [Morticia:] [William of Brinsford] [Just started. I hated chemistry class. I’m calling it applied biology.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Morticia] [Works for me. They’ve got him on the gurney. I need to be ready in case he changes.]

  [Morticia:] [William of Brinsford] [I’ll let you know what I find.]

  I readied another WARD spell, my hand itching to cast if the man stirred. “One more level… just one more…I need that power now.”

  Ingrid donned her helmet. She stood waiting, spear in one hand, another hypodermic in the other. Her stance radiated calm readiness. Bhaarrt knelt beside her, gently picking John up and laying him on the gurney. His massive maul at rest next to him on the ground, handle upright and ready to grab. Blaze and Carlos flanked the perimeter, warning everyone back and away from the ambulance.

  The EMTs moved in quick once John was on the gurney, and hustled toward the ambulance. Nothing changed. The night held. But their nerves cracked…once clear of us, they practically ran to get him aboard the ambulance. Sirens wailed as the vehicle pulled away, Carlos’s cruiser leading the way. Ingrid and Bhaarrt tore off after them in their truck.

  The other ambulance that showed up had left a while ago, when they realized they weren’t needed.

  Once the last flashing lights disappeared down the street, I let the WARD dissolve. Relief barely had time to settle before the glow burst from within me, warm and golden. The level notification flared in my vision…I’d just hit Level 11. I wasn’t the only one who leveled.

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  “Will? Now what do we do? Is this going to happen again? And again?” Blaze asked, her hand pressing into my arm, her eyes fierce under the street light.

  “I think so. At least until we find who or whatever is the boss behind the MINION tags.”

  “What do we do when we find it? Kill it?”

  “Probably. Unless we can find some other way around it.”

  “Like you did with the dungeon?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know if that’s possible. It’d be nice if we could. I’m not betting on it.”

  “Mr. Bannister?” A hesitant woman’s voice behind me.

  I turned and saw the Holdens, Bailey and Sarah, standing together at the edge of the crowd. Sarah’s voice had carried.

  “Yes?”

  “I…uh, we want to thank you.” Sarah’s cheeks flushed as she glanced at Bailey.

  “For what?”

  “For including me. For pushing me.” Her voice shook, but there was pride there too.

  “For believing I could do what you do.”

  “Well, you did it. You held up and kept your shields up.” I cast REVEAL STATS with a flick of thought. “And you leveled. Congratulations on being Level 4. You earned it tonight.”

  Her blush deepened as she ducked her head. “Thank you. And thank you for teaching me how to draw MANA from the Ley Lines. That’s going to help all of us. Now I see why you can do all the Enchanting you do. That’s going to be a lot of help to the guild.”

  “I know you said you’d help us, but you’re usually too busy. Except for you and Blaze watching us sometimes.”

  Blaze smiled faintly. “We’ve made a habit out of it, haven’t we?”

  Sarah nodded. “We’re doing our first Dungeon this weekend. I think we can do the second set of rooms. We aren’t sure about further than that.”

  “That’ll depend on who you’ve got in your party,” Blaze said. “Take it slow. Each set gets harder. We cleared them in one run, but you aren’t ready for that yet. Don’t push too far. Come back another day if you’re unsure.”

  Bailey chimed in, her voice steady. “We’ve already decided. We won’t risk it. We want to beat it like you did, but we know we have a lot to learn.”

  “You do,” Blaze agreed. “So do we. But you’ve got an advantage we didn’t. You know something about what’s coming. We didn’t. Every room was a surprise for us. You’ve already learned from what we’ve done. We’ve seen all of you get better. We’ve passed on many of your tactics.”

  Then she grinned. “You’ve done things we haven’t. You’re the President’s guild. No one else can say that. You taught her more than she knew, and she was better for it the next morning.”

  Sarah’s eyes brightened. “She was nice. I didn’t like her before, but now I do.”

  “It was her party,” Bailey said, squeezing her hand. “She still doesn’t like them, but there are a few Sarah likes now.”

  “Anytime you need help, call us,” I told them. “And call me Will. No need to be formal.”

  Sarah blushed again, but Bailey laughed. “Thank you, Will. She’ll get there.”

  We said our goodnights and crossed the street, hand in hand, back to my house.

  Half an hour later, I checked in with Ingrid. John was still unconscious, settled in a hospital bed under guard. His family was safe. A deputy had already confirmed it. They were worried, but unharmed, and planned to meet him in the morning.

  Blaze and I sat at the kitchen table, the last of the coffee cooling in our mugs.

  “Will?” she asked softly. “What do you think is behind this? As a gamer?”

  “As a gamer?” I echoed, staring into the dregs. “Whatever it is, it’s powerful. If it’s part of the Game, it has a level. A high one. I can IMBUE MANA into things, make them magical. It’s how I make Mana Batteries.”

  “That’s like enchanting, but not exactly. I can put spells I know into them…like, if I wanted a flaming sword, I’d IMBUE the blade and add a fire spell. One of the university guys at the GRA explained it to me. It wasn’t in the Rules the last time I looked.”

  “That makes sense. But what’s strong enough to grant EXPERIENCE levels?”

  “Good question. Something added that power to the book. And it enchanted the knife so it could do TRANSFER MANA. I think I can replicate that. The book? No way.”

  “Could there be a way?”

  I shrugged. “There has to be. It exists. But it’d take a higher level than anything we’ve seen so far.”

  “Could the SYSTEM create something that powerful?”

  “Sure. But the buyer told me those items weren’t theirs. That’s why they couldn’t buy them.”

  “I remember. But what if you enchanted something normal? Could you sell it to the store?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t try.” I frowned, thinking. “That could be it. Everything in the STORE is made from MANA. Those items weren’t. If becoming a Lich is a high-level Necromancer spell, then sure. It’d be like enchanting a scroll. Or the books in the STORE.”

  After finishing the last of my coffee, I added, “Someone too weak to cast it themselves could still use it if the book carried enough MANA to power the spell.”

  Blaze’s grin said she’d nudged me into figuring out what she already suspected.

  I mulled over it in silence until her hands pressed gently into my shoulders.

  “You’ll figure it out. I’m taking a shower, then bed. Don’t stay up too late. Tomorrow, we go back into the dungeon.”

  After she left, I slipped my hand onto the ring. “Dungeon, I have a question. Can you take an ordinary object you didn’t create, enchant it, and put spells into it?”

  “Dungeon, dungeon?.” At first…nothing. Then I remembered. I pushed MANA into the ring, and the Avatar shimmered into being.

  THAT IS WITHIN THE TEACHINGS.

  “Could you make something like the Book of the Dead? Have it grant EXPERIENCE levels while held?”

  The Avatar’s silence stretched, its face unreadable.

  Finally, it answered.

  THAT IS WITHIN FUTURE TEACHINGS.

  “Future teachings? How far in the future if measured by Player Levels?”

  The silence pressed heavy and long.

  THE MINIMUM IS 25 OF YOUR LEVELS TO BEGIN DOING IT.

  “Twenty-five Levels!” My shout carried into the bedroom.

  “Will? What’s wrong?” Blaze’s voice carried through the door.

  “Wrong? We’re facing something at least Level 25 or higher. That’s what’s wrong.”

  Blaze stepped out in her robe and sandals, her face pale. “Is there something that strong in the Rules?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to check.” I waved her back. “Go to bed. I’ll be there soon.”

  [William of Brinsford:] [JCochran] [Check the Game Rules database. Anything…creatures, bosses, whatever…that could be Level 25 or higher. We may be facing one.]

  A few minutes later, I got an answer. It wasn’t the one I wanted.

  [JCochran:] [William of Brinsford] [Boss monsters aren’t in the rules yet. People speculate, but we’ve got no one…even you…who could handle Level 25. Higher would be worse.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [JCochran] [I know. I just hit 11. Nothing in my view. I’ll check the STORE in the morning. You GRA folks have more data…see if anything matches.]

  [JCochran:] [William of Brinsford] [We only have what’s been seen and reported. Looked through it…if it exists, it’d show under monsters. There’s a new section listing villages, like goblin villages. That means someone found one. The database updates when the first player sees it.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [JCochran] [I noticed that. I’ll keep looking. Please do the same. I don’t know what’s going to come after us next.]

  [JCochran:] [William of Brinsford] [Will do. Night.]

  Not the answer I wanted, but the one I expected. Bedtime. Morning would come fast, and we had a dungeon waiting.

  “I’ll check what happened with the last spawn later,” I muttered, pushing myself up. My body felt heavy, but my mind spun with the weight of Level 25.

  I slowly stood up and walked to the bedroom. I was tired, but I wondered if I was that tired.

  No wolf based music today.

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