24 – A Cry for Help

  Andy stood at the tunnel opening, looking at the scene inside the huge cavern. It had been a while since he’d seen so many people from the settlement together, and in this case, they had some visitors from Grace Refuge, too. The first thing he wondered was whether using all the camp lanterns would cause a problem with the air. He noticed a faint draft, though, and recalled the tunnel opening out onto the waterfall. More than that, the cavern was enormous, with a high ceiling.

  Beyond the many lights, the many tarps and tents going up caught his eye. It seemed that people had been busy getting things moved down long before he’d gotten involved, driven primarily by Bea and Violet. Even then, the two women were standing near the center of the space, directing people here and there. Andy walked toward them.

  “Andy!” Violet called, waving. “Everything go okay with the drainage channel?”

  Andy stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back. “Yep. Got it lined with heavy stones. Should hold up.” Andy was soaked through, and he shivered in the draft.

  Bea smiled. “It’ll get chilly in here. I think the storm’s going to last a while.”

  “Really?” Andy glanced over his shoulder at the people still filing in and out of the cavern with rain-soaked packs, bags, and boxes.

  “Yes, days.” She reached over and put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. “It’s a good thing we prioritized exploring down here; otherwise, we’d be huddled in the lee of the mesa, trying to keep out of the direct wind, but still getting soaked.”

  Andy raised an eyebrow. “You really think the trailers aren’t gonna make it, don’t you?”

  “Some might, but who wants to test which ones?” She gestured with an arm expansively toward the ceiling. “I can feel it out there—the rain. There’s so much of it, and it goes on farther than my senses can reach. Up high, it’s already whipping around on the wind, and it’s only just beginning.”

  “Well, I guess we’re lucky we had you to warn us. I hope other survivors can find sturdy shelter.”

  She smiled, squeezing his arm. “I love that about you, Andy—always worried about other people.” She cleared her throat and added, “Not to change the subject, but I still have that quest. There’s something going on down there.” She pointed toward their feet. “I wonder if we might head back down and explore a bit more?”

  “Yeah, I’m up for it.” Of course, thinking of exploring the depths again reminded Andy of the rest of their little party, so he asked, “Any sign of the others? Lucy, Omar, and them?”

  Violet answered, “They’re around. I think they might be down at the lake with Benny and Janice; some folks wanted to check for fish.”

  It took a few seconds for Andy to connect the names to the people in his memory—the two “draconic” people they’d met after the battle with the toad. “I’m going to walk down that way.”

  “Lucy set you up in the corner over there, just so you know.” Violet, facing the tunnel opening, pointed to the left-hand corner. Andy squinted into the shadows and smiled appreciatively when he saw the pile of bags and boxes.

  “Cool.”

  “Come and get me before you explore any deeper, Andy,” Bea said, and her tone brooked no argument.

  Andy chuckled. “I won’t leave you behind.” He waved, and spear in hand, made his way back to the stairwell. Half a dozen people were there, standing around talking about the storm. Piles of supplies that needed to be moved into the big cavern made the space look cluttered, and Andy couldn’t help thinking it would be nice if they could clear out more of the tunnels below. With the kids and new additions, their population was climbing toward a hundred, and from what Lydia had said, there were quite a few folks from the big-box store who were eager to make the move to the mesa.

  As if his thoughts had summoned her, Lydia came huffing up the stairs, and when she saw him, she smiled and approached, her face a little flushed. “Hey! I was looking for you.”

  Andy leaned on his spear, getting ready for another line item to be added to his long list of things to do. “Yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. There’s a kid—Casey something—who’s got some kind of talent with clay. Says she was pretty good at pottery back before this whole thing started, and she got a class called Claywright. Thing is, she can do a lot more than pottery. She’s making bricks out of mud.”

  “Where?”

  “By the lake!”

  Andy’s eyes opened wide. “Ah! Seriously? I mean, is it safe to have kids down there? We don’t exactly know if that toad was the only one—”

  “She’s not really a kid; that’s me being old. No, she’s a teen—maybe sixteen or seventeen. Anyway, she’s not alone. There’s a bunch of people in that cavern right now; those dragon-folk said there are fish in the water.”

  Andy tilted his head at her. Lydia wasn’t old. He’d guessed she was maybe forty. She’d proven herself to be strong and vibrant during their time at James’s forge. He knew better than to comment, though. “Um, that’s…cool, right? She could help us…” He trailed off, trying to think of what they wanted bricks for at the moment.

  “Make walls! Build new houses—all kinds of things! Her bricks are stronger than adobe, and she can make one in a handful of minutes.”

  “Oh!” Andy nodded, trying to envision it. He supposed they could give people private spaces in the big hall or, as Lydia said, they could make more permanent structures when the storm was over. “We should probably have a meeting soon. I bet she’s not the only one who’s gotten a good class recently.”

  She jostled his shoulder. “You included.”

  He grinned. “Right.” He pointed to the dagger on her belt. “Speaking of which, how’s that coming along?”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “I haven’t had a chance to work on it. I’ve got most of the other tools you enchanted back in the big cave, though. I’m going to go work on ’em. Let you know if the System gives me anything for my efforts!” With that, she turned and marched off; Andy, apparently, was dismissed.

  Before he started down the stairs, he looked at his status sheet, noting with chagrin that he was up to six Improvement Points again. It really didn’t seem like he was going to have a hard time earning them, so his caution about banking a few was starting to feel a little overdone. At the thought, he went ahead and applied a point to Glyph of Fate and read the description again:

  Glyph of Fate – Bound: By channeling mana into a suitable object, you inscribe a glyph that invites the whims of fate. The enchantment imbues the item with a random magical property. Each use of the enchantment consumes a pulse of mana, and an item’s capacity for holding charges is limited by its craftsmanship and composition. Mana cost: 25 per charge.

  As far as he could tell, the only thing that changed was that it now cost more to cast the spell. He hoped that meant the enchantments would be stronger. He knew he’d get caught up in all sorts of other stuff as soon as he got down to the lake, so he added another point to the spell. When he read the description this time, he arched an eyebrow when he read the only change: Mana cost: 35 per two charges.

  It felt like a decent upgrade; he just hoped that didn’t mean he’d be unable to enchant cheap materials. When he’d enchanted some objects, like his shovel, with a single charge, it had taken more than 90% of its enchantment potential. Hopefully, this improved version of the spell was more efficient.

  “All right, enough of this stuff for now,” he said with a sigh. Madi, one of the girls he’d rescued early on from the Hardheads, gave him a sharp look as she hurried by, descending the steps. He followed, frowning as he watched her go. He remembered she’d gotten a class called Gatherer, which was cool, but she was even younger than Casey. He didn’t feel good about having kids going down there.

  When they reached the landing and he saw Dwayne Carter and Frank Dunlap standing there, armed, watching the steps going down, some of his concern fell away. Madi hurried past them, up the passage leading to the lake, but Andy paused.

  “Hey, guys.”

  “Andy,” Frank said, still chuckling from something Dwayne had said. “How’s it going?”

  “Good.” Andy gestured to the steps. “Anything come up?”

  “No,” Dwayne said, grinning, “but we saw some big-ass rats down on the other landing. They keep going back in the tunnel when the light hits ’em, though.” He held up a bow—not a high-end compound with all sorts of fancy materials like Lucy’s, but a decent-looking bow. “I took a couple of shots, but missed.”

  “We can get the arrows back after we get that level cleared, though,” Frank added, looking at Andy almost guiltily, like he felt he shouldn’t have let Dwayne mess around.

  “Well,” Andy said, grinning and clapping Dwayne on the shoulder, “thanks for keeping the little suckers away from the rest of the people up here.”

  The young man nodded, holding out a fist. “You got it!”

  Andy punched his knuckles, then started toward the tunnel. “Gonna go see what’s up at the lake.”

  “Have at it, buddy,” Frank replied. “We’ve got duty here for another couple of hours.”

  Andy paused and asked over his shoulder, “Omar made the schedule?”

  Frank replied, “Yeah. Just modified the one he did for guard duty up top.”

  “Nice.” Andy walked down the tunnel, pausing by the disgusting room that Bea had “purified” with her magic. The ground was still littered with gross-looking stuff—bones, fur, piles of what had to be rat feces—but the stench hadn’t come back. He figured they ought to clean it out soon, in any case; it was a good-sized space they could use.

  When he reached the lake, he paused to take it all in; several well-placed lamps had really changed the look of the place. The ceiling was high overall, but crowded closer to the ground near the far edge, beyond the little lakeshore. Stalactites hung here and there, and many boulders littered the stony ground. A lamp sat not far from where he stood, shining on the nearby area, and beyond it, on the left-hand edge of the underground lake, he saw a cluster of people with another lamp, two of them on their hands and knees.

  To the right, though, another lamp illuminated the area around Benny and Janice’s hut, and Andy saw another crowd, this one standing in a sort of semicircle, watching as two people with fishing rods plied the water. Overall, it was a surreal sight, and Andy had to assume people had been exploring the cavern long before the storm started, because hadn’t they just evacuated the park?

  He walked toward the larger crowd first—the one near the people fishing—mainly because he saw Lucy’s familiar silhouette. When he drew near, he called out, “Hey, folks,” so as not to startle anyone.

  Several people, Lucy and Bella included, turned toward his voice and waved or called out their own greetings. When he approached, Lucy broke away from the others and came close, smiling. “Andy! Glad you’re inside.”

  He chuckled at her choice of words. “Yeah, I guess I am.” He looked up toward the stony ceiling. “Weird to think there’s a storm raging out there.”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “Any luck with the fish?”

  “Yes! Omar caught a big one. Nobody’s quite sure what kind it is, but Monique said it reminded her of a walleye.”

  “Yeah?” Andy frowned. There certainly weren’t any walleye in the Sonoran Desert. “Might have something to do with that boon.”

  Lucy shrugged, smiling. “Forager’s bounty—I guess it fits, right?”

  “Just have Bea check it out before anyone eats it. She might be able to tell if it’s… I dunno, corrupted or something.” He pitched his voice so that more of the people standing around could hear him.

  Bella walked over to join them. “We had the same idea.”

  “Cool.” Andy pointed to the far side of the cavern, where the other part of the shore was accessible. “What are they doing over there?”

  Lucy answered, “There’s clay there instead of stone. That’s Casey and her friend Madi—not sure who else. They’re—”

  “Making bricks?” Andy asked, interrupting her.

  “How’d you know?” Bella asked.

  Andy tapped his temple. “Psychic.”

  “Liar!” Bella laughed. Then she frowned. “Really?”

  Andy laughed. “No, I ran into Lydia. She told me.”

  “Idiot!” Bella groaned, but she smiled.

  “Anyway,” Andy said, “if we can get Omar to stop fishing, we should explore a little deeper. Make sure there’s nothing that can threaten us. I mean, considering our whole settlement is in these tunnels now. Are you two up for it?”

  “Hell yes!” Bella laughed, punching his shoulder. “We’ve been hyped to get down there while you were sleeping!”

  Lucy laughed, shaking her head. “Not like we were bored. We had a battle earlier today, Bella.”

  The other woman shrugged. “I want to get to it, and Bea’s eager to figure her quest out. We have a quest, too.”

  “Right.” Andy found a flat rock to sit on. “Let me change my class. Can one of you talk to Omar?”

  Lucy flashed a smile and ran off, and Andy lay back, closing his eyes. “Just give me a couple of minutes,” he muttered, pulling up his status sheet. He focused on his class, going through the little dialogue to make Brimstone Stalker active.

  ***Do you wish to change your active class to Brimstone Stalker? Yes/No.***

  Andy paused. It might be wise to use his glyphs on everyone’s weapons first; he could give them a couple of charges that might really change the tide of a battle.

  As he thought about it, Bella said, “I’ll go get Bea if you—” A shout rang out from back near the tunnel, interrupting her.

  “Help!” the ragged voice cried, and Andy thought it might be Dwayne.

  “We'd better go check—” Bella said, interrupting herself as she started jogging.

  “Yeah.” Andy started to sit up, but then things went dark while pain bloomed in his skull. He fell back, managing a groan before the System went about its business, changing his active class.

  He didn’t know it, but while he lay there, insensate, Omar and several others ran off. Lucy grabbed his wrist, but he didn’t feel it, and he didn’t hear her say, “Andy? Andy!” He didn’t hear her footsteps crunching on the loose stones and dirt as she ran toward the tunnel, leaving him there to finish the inconvenient process of changing his class.