Bart

  “Really?” I asked Steve. My jaw flexed a few times as the familiar regret crawled back up my spine. I chose the wrong lineage!

  “Yeah,” he said. Then he took in a deep breath and spoke extremely quickly like Ace Ventura. “Dis window shows you as quest leadah, dat you rescued me, and you recruited me to join your quest. It says I get a bunch of experience if I help you save a bunch of people. I accepted de quest, and I got an arrow floating ovah dere and one on my bearing indicatuh." He let out an exaggerated breath. "Simple."

  I wondered if I could get experience points for punching him. “Well, I guess that'll be helpful.”

  “You tink, bra?”

  The thought of split gains itched at the back of my mind. Hopefully whatever entity ran this system knew how to reward separately and not split the points up like some games I played back in the day.

  I dug through my bag for some water, the crinkle of plastic bottles cutting through the quiet. One went to Steve. One disappeared down my throat, and the other I poured slowly into Starla's tiny mouth.

  “Where in the world do you go when we’re fighting, little one?” I asked her as she drank.

  “Where I should go!” Steve laughed as he handed out some protein bars he had found in the second bag.

  “That’s fair,” I said.

  We had to find Jeremy and the others. I needed a plan. From my training, I learned that freaking out and trying to attempt a rescue without a plan would only result in more deaths. Steve had been tied up as a trap, set up by what I now believed to be the werewolf. Several others were still alive, and again, I believed the werewolf had something to do with that. If it wanted Jeremy dead, or really any of us dead, I think it could have easily killed us.

  Be smart, Bart, I thought, and smiled at the little rhyme I didn’t mean to create.

  Before we headed out, we needed to get anything of use out of the boarachnid bodies. Leaving usable resources behind felt like tempting fate. “Steve, can you check that body over there? I'll check these."

  “Sure,” he replied.

  I examined the one in front of me.

  I had never field-dressed a spider before, but there was a first time for everything. I yanked the tusks out with my bare hands with a shlunk sound and put them in the backpack. They had very similar properties as the rat teeth. I then gutted the boar part and found a webby sack at the back end where an anus should be. I cut around the sack and pulled it free. It was some kind of webbing, but it wasn’t as sticky as a normal spider web. I pulled on it, stretched it, and tried to tear it, but the silk was strong.

  I attempted and failed to recover the chitin armor from the spider-pig. I failed on the second one as well. No matter how I tried, the chitin would break when detaching from the flesh like pulling the shell off a crawfish tail.

  Green’s luck helped him get silk and armor from both of the spider pigs he looted. I examined the chitin:

  “Whadda we do with dese plates?” Steve asked.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “They’re kind of sticky. Maybe just stick ‘em straight to your clothes?” I said unsure.

  I finally put my shirt back on and we pressed the chitin onto the center of our chests. The armor clung to our pecs as if a magnet held it there. We helped each other put each piece onto different body parts watching in amazement as the pieces molded to our arms, shoulders and back.

  After getting all the armor stuck on us, I stared at the silk for a minute. How in the world are we supposed to use this? Using my knife, I pried at the top and managed to get a strand free. It turned out to be formed just like a ball of wax twine.

  “Let’s wrap ourselves up with this stuff,” I suggested. “I don’t know if it will protect us from the swarm, but it couldn’t hurt.”

  “We look stupid already, so, yeah, why not?”

  I started with my arms, winding the soft twine around each one like a second skin. Then I asked Steve to help wrap my torso. He wrapped layer after layer until the whole spool was gone, and half of another. For a touch of drama, I tied a strip across my forehead like a bandana. I probably looked like a mummy at a freak-fashion show. I helped wrap Steve up, and after a minute of wrapping, I felt like we were covered up as good as we were going to get.

  “Lead the way, Green,” I said.

  “It’s Cap’n Green to you, you lily-livered scum,” he replied in a pirate accent.

  About 100 yards ahead, I could see where the pasture ended into another tree line. The mosquitos stayed in the trees earlier so they were probably still there. If so, there was no better way to test this butt twine. We could run right back out to the clearing if it didn't work.

  From the tree line, I heard what sounded like fire being blasted from a small flame thrower or like a gas heater turning on. A fwoom, fwoom sound. Suddenly, a man popped out of the treeline, making “pew-pew” sounds, shooting fireballs at some unseen foe.

  Steve squinted then laughed with excitement. "Oh my God. That’s Keith! Guess he got powuhs too.”

  I cupped my hands and yelled, “Hey, Keith!”

  “Oh! Hey! What’s up, nerds!?” Keith called back, miming finger guns like this was all some sort of action flick. He took aim, shot one more fireball, and said, “Gotcha. You little bastahds!”

  “You can shoot fire?” Steve asked.

  Keith chuckled, “Heh heh, you betcha! This is great! I’m like a wizard and stuff!”

  “I know you feel great, but people have died and some are missing. We really are in a dangerous situation,” I admonished.

  “Ok…calm your jets, ‘dangerous situation’” he mocked me. “I just woke up, feeling like somebody beat me up with a bowling ball, saw some weird floating warning, joined something called Cajun Navy, killed some crazy hairy-toothy-lizard-mofos, got attacked by an alligator snapping turtle that could shoot fire, murdered that bastard by timing its fire attack, which was really slow by the way, jumped over him, grabbed him by the shell as he stretched his head out trying to bite me, then just shoved him onto a tree branch that was jutting out over and over until he died, then leveled up, learned how to shoot fire, and now I’m here. I had no idea anyone was missing or dead.”

  “Weren’t you in Ronnie’s boat?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah, He dropped me off, then he went back to Pierre Part to get help.”

  “I don’t think he made it,” I said.

  “How do you know?” Keith blinked and looked at me suspiciously.

  “I’ve got a quest to find and rescue the rest of the people who came out with me today.”

  “Damn!” Keith said. “So do you know where Ronnie is? And hold on, you got powers too?!”

  “Yeah. Steve and I both do. Jeremy unfortunately didn’t get any powers before he—”

  He exploded with laughter, “HAHAHA! You mean the nerd of all nerds didn’t get role playing game powers?! That’s frickin hilarious!!”

  “Ok. First off,” I said, getting directly in front of Keith looking down at him. “Jeremy got taken too. He may be dead. So be a little respectful. And second, we are also still in danger. There is something out here hunting us.”

  Keith mocked me bobbing his head like an insolent teenager, “Aight. I don’t mean no disrespect. I get crazy when I’m nervous, okay? I’m a little twisted, that’s all. So, do you have some kind of plan or something?”

  “I don’t, but we’re going to head that way until we find the others.”

  “Why that way. Why we followin’ you?”

  “Listen, I’ve got the experience. I’ve got the quest. That makes me the leader. If you don’t like it, you can hike your ass back to Pierre Part alone. What’s it gonna be?”

  He cracked a crooked smile, “You da boss, boss.”

  I liked Keith, but he would have to shape it up a little for this team to work.

  “Hey,” Keith said looking at the ground. “I got a notification to join your quest. Nice.”

  I handed Keith the S&W M&P compact 9 mil Jeremy brought. “Here. Just in case you run out of magic. What other power do you have?”

  “I can heal others, not myself. It’s something called “Cure”. I am strong and fast. I have the ability to relate to animals, I guess, but I don’t know what that is. Bad stat is luck…it’s at one, but I don’t really care about that. I don’t really understand all this ner—oops gamer stuff.”

  I couldn’t help but think how dumb I was for not picking the navy lineage. Really any other lineage besides the rat and the hero. Sure, I’m strong. A lot of good that did me.

  Focusing on the positive, I realized I now had a pretty good team. We had a healer and an attacker, a lucky shot and navigator, my strength and knowledge, and a cute companion and healer. Now, all I could do was pray and hope my dad and the rest of our friends and neighbors were okay.