Getting Things Rolling

  “Bandit, when we reach the gate I would like to speak to all the wolves.” Glitch said once the city was in sight. As they approached the gates, Glitch saw the wolves coming out of stealth and gathering together on the opposite side of the road. He then continued in thought to Bandit, “I’d like to keep ten close by in secret. Volunteers only. The rest will be released to Black Claw.””

  “Got it. It will probably be harder to determine which ten stay than it will be to find ten volunteers.”

  “Thanks. Have their leaders work it out. Just make sure they understand that I want it to appear as if they are all gone.”

  Approaching the wolves, Glitch placed a hand on Bandit's shoulder and in his loudest voice said, “Wolves of Black Claw pack. I want to thank you for your help. We could not have accomplished what we have without you. I will be staying in Black Claw for a week or more, so I release you to whatever your leader has commanded for your next mission and once again, thank you.” Glitch then approached each wolf putting a hand on their shoulder and trying to memorize the names he now saw over their heads, he looked them in the eye and bowed. “White Foot, I thank you. Jumper, I thank you…” Once he had thanked the last one, the wolves let out a long howl and disappeared.”

  “White Foot wanted me to “Thank you” for making it harder for him to get most of the wolves to go back to the valley.” Bandit sent to Glitch.

  “Tell him I owe him one.”

  “He says you can make it up to him by getting Jumper to agree to be his mate.”

  “Hah! Not sure I want to get involved in wolves’ love lives, but I guess you can tell Jumper I think she and White Foot make a great team and I hope to work with the two of them in the future.” Then in the distance two wolves suddenly came out of stealth as one apparently nipped the other one on his leg.

  “Whoops. I think she knows what you are doing.” Bandit said.

  The gate opened as they approached and a guard greeted them, “Welcome back sir. Captain Jean says you can use the same house as last night.”

  “Oh yeah. Glad someone’s thinking ahead. Could you let the council know I’d like to meet with them in the morning?” Glitch replied as the guard that greeted them and one other fell in behind their group. When they got back to the house, Glitch pulled out some hides and started to lay down without removing his armor when he noticed the twins watching him. “Sorry ladies, no show tonight.”

  Blowing raspberries at him, the twins turned and with an exaggerated wiggle they walked out of the room. “Tease.” one said and the other replied, “He’s just playing hard to get. He thinks he’s slick.” “Does make me wonder what Grove meant when he called him defective.”

  Later that night, Glitch was awoken by an itching sensation in his head. His mental defenses weren’t registering it as an attack, but someone was probing his mind. Taking a second to calm himself, he noticed that all his thoughts he had about the twins kept popping up. Getting an idea of what was going on, he imagined them with whiskers and cat tails wearing maid costumes feeding him grapes and fanning him. Hearing a giggle from the doorway, he then changed the image in his mind to him bending Kaitlin over his knee and spanking her.

  “He’s awake.” a voice said from the doorway “And he thinks I’m the one that likes being spanked.”

  “What are you doing ladies?” Glitch asked as he rose up to a sitting position.

  “Trying out a new skill that we picked up. It shows us what someone desires.” Ashley said as the twins moved up on either side of him. “Do you really believe we can do all that?” she asked.

  “Yes, you two can be anything…” He cut off as the girls hugged him and planted a kiss on both his cheeks.

  “Thank you.”, they said. “We’ll do our best. But you will owe us.” Ashley finished.

  “Oh. What’s that?” Glitch asked.

  “We never had children before integration.” Ashley said, running a finger down his chest. Oh Shit. Glitch thought. “But we can wait on that.” Kaitlyn chimed in. “But you really need to stop thinking of us as girls. We are almost 40.” OH!!! Glitch thought. “And I’m the one that likes to get spanked.” Ashley said as she gave her right cheek a firm slap before wiggling out the door. And Glitch couldn’t really think or breath for a few seconds.

  “Now how the fuck am I supposed to get back to sleep.” Glitch said to himself, but apparently not quiet enough because Kaitlyn stopped in the door and with a raised eyebrow asked, “Do you want to move up the baby making schedule?”

  “N-No.” Glitch answered as quickly as he could.

  “Probably for the best just in case we have a Hancock situation.”

  ‘Hancock?”

  “Will Smith. Drunken Superhero?”

  “oh….OH” Glitch said, remembering the scene she was referring to.

  Sassy and Tonya then came out of stealth and followed the twins down the hallway. Glitch then motioned Steve over whom he spotted hiding in a shadow. “Thanks for having my back buddy, but if they ever try to kill me, just let them. That way we’ll know for sure.” Steve looked confused for a second, then just nodded and moved back to the other corner that he had apparently claimed as his own.

  Early the next morning, a sleep deprived Glitch woke up the entire team and took them out the gate to the woodline. “We’re going to go play stealth hide and seek. Before we begin, I want to try something.” Pulling up his Trainer tab, Glitch selected Ashley and skill and stealth. Ashley accepted. So he pulled up Kaitlin, but received a message that she already had stealth.

  “That’s odd. Kaitlin had stealth but you didn’t Ashley…oh…let me guess…you liked being caught?” Kaitlin, Sassy, Tonya, and even Steve snickered while Ashley used her fingers to form a halo above her head. “Boris, you’re up first. Give us five minutes to hide.” About eight minutes later, Boris had found everybody. Bandit went next and Glitch instructed him not to use his scent skills, but still only took about ten minutes for him to find everybody besides Boris.

  Deciding to move on, they all took turns searching for each other, but Boris was not found until Glitch thought he heard snoring and used his detect life ability to locate Boris underneath a large pine tree. Glitch considered the morning game a success with Leo, Steve, Kaitlyn, John, and Ashley all gaining stealth levels.

  Upon returning to town, a guard informed Glitch that the council would be meeting in a few minutes, so he gathered up Kaitlyn and Ashley and headed to the meeting. Entering the meeting room, the council members were just sitting when one feeble, surprisingly old looking woman stood back up and screeched, “What are they doing here? Your concubines have no right to be here?”

  “What right do you have to be here?’ Glitch asked.

  “I am Dr Kathleen Baisly-Jones. The highest tenured professor among the educators. I have a doctorate in…”

  “Slow down Dr Screetch. Were you elected by the educators to represent them?”

  “I am the highest tenured…”

  “You already said that. Why do you feel these two should not be here?”

  “They are not qualified.”

  “In what way are they not qualified?”

  “Being your whores does not mean they have the experience or intelligence to be on this council.”

  “What are your intelligence and wisdom stats?”

  “I do not have to tell you that”

  Smiling at the system notification that popped up asking if he wanted to see the good doctors stats, he opened them. “Actually you’re right. You don’t have to tell me. I can see your Intelligence is 11 and your wisdom is 14.”

  “How can you see that?”

  “You are a resident of a town that I am in control of. How many years were you a professor?”

  “38”

  “After 38 years as an educator you have barely above average intelligence and wisdom, the system did not even see fit in giving you the trainer class, and you have done nothing to improve yourself since the integration began. Your stats are pathetic. You obviously have no understanding of the system. You have no useful skills. You were not elected to represent your peers. YOU have no right to be here. Get out and tell the educators they need to elect someone to represent them that is capable of establishing a training program for the children and research the best ways for adults to raise their intelligence and wisdom scores.”

  “I will do no such thing.”

  “GUARDS…please escort Dr Bitchy-Twat from the Town Hall. She is not welcome. But be gentle. A fast moving butterfly could crush her skull. Nature abhors a vacuum.” Turning to the remaining council members, Glitch asked, “Was anybody else here not elected by their peers?”

  Captain Jean raised his hand eagerly. “Sorry Cap. You’re stuck here.” Glitch told him. Seeing no other hands raised, Glitch went around the room meeting the council members. Pierre was back representing the merchants. Helga represented the crafters. Jose represented the farmers. Jazmin represented the artisans. Andre had public works experience that gave him a city management class and was discovered by Captain Jean and technically represented a small group of former plumbers, electricians, and city workers. Carson was representing a group of lumberjacks, haulers, and other manual labor positions that were currently just calling their group laborers. Benny represented the gamers.

  “Since I still want a representative with an educational background and some of the most important things I need to tell you I’ll also cover with the town before my question and answer session after lunch, this morning we’ll focus more on what I need help from each of you.” Glitch moved to Captain Jean and pulled up his trainer tab and trained him on the trainer class then drank from a spirit and a mana capsule. “I don’t think anybody else will have enough mana and spirit to train classes, because they nearly drain me. But I’ll focus my efforts on giving the trainer class to as many as I can. My thinking there is, more classes means faster stat gains and more diversity. A wise tree once told me, ‘Almost nothing will give you experience in all your classes, but most things will give you experience in more than 1.’ Of course, I had 9 classes at the time, so it will take some time for people to start seeing the biggest improvements.”

  Seeing Benny raise his hand, Glitch said, “Benny, is this about the benefits of Min/Maxing?”

  “Yes, sir.” Benny replied.

  “Please explain to everyone what Min/’Maxing is.” Glitch asked.

  “Well, um, min maxing is placing your stat points in the categories that will be most beneficial to their role in the party. For example, strength for a melee class, agility for a ranged attacker, intelligence for a caster, and vitality for a tank.”

  “Thank you Benny. That is a very important concept for us and our people to understand. It’s the kind of thing I will stress our education curriculum covers…once we get someone from education in here. The reason Benny was raising his hand was because previously I mentioned how adding classes can help people gain more stats quicker. Now Benny, if I was a caster class, what kind of class would you recommend I get?”

  “Something that would also increase your intelligence.”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Correct. However, because of my abilities that share various percentages of my base stats with residents, guards, crafters, party members, companions, and members of my court we have a lot of guards with much more intelligence and mana then they really have a use for. So diversification will not be a terrible thing in the short term. And getting trainers out training as many skills as possible to as many people as possible is a very high priority. So I ask all of you to identify people with trainer as a class and people who have skills that we would benefit from me giving them the trainer class. I’ll let you guys come up with a way to reimburse trainers for their work.”

  Next Glitch moved to Pierre and pulled a dagger and a credit from his inventory. Pausing when he noticed the credit was made of copper and having an idea what that meant, Glitch handed Pierre the credit and said, “Pierre, I would like to sell you this dagger for 1 credit.”

  “I will buy that dagger for 1 credit”, Pierre replied handing the credit back to Glitch.

  “I would now like to buy that dagger for 1 credit. If you accept, I will then place the next item I wish to sell you on the table and you can place the payment you wish to give me on the table. If I accept your offer, I will take your offer and point to the next item I wish to buy and place my offered payment on the table and we will continue like that while I talk.”

  “The next thing I would like to talk about is gaming the system. We are in an accelerated integration giving us ten times the normal experience, so we may be able to find ways to quickly gain experience that could almost be called a cheat. Benny, I would like you to get with the gamers and put together a list of ways that you have cheesed the system in past games and find people to test to see if any of those cheats or similar activities work. Ah…perfect timing…I have just reached level 2 Merchant.”

  “And my progression bar went up about 10%.” Pierre stated.

  “Progression bars? Let me guess, it was in the book that you all received?” Glitch asked.

  “Yes.” They all replied.

  “I’ve got to get me one of those. Pierre and I just gained experience from repeatedly doing a simple action that the system viewed as a transaction and awarded us merchant experience for. Keep your eyes open for opportunities like this and share any successes you have, so others can copy them. You’ll hear more about this later, but even though the system appears to be fair, it is in fact on the multiversal level geared towards maintaining the status quo. We may be given an integration time period to acclimate to the system, but the hard truth is when our integration ends, we will be invaded by much stronger forces with much better technologies than what a reasonable person would expect us to have obtained at that time. So we must look for every advantage we can find.”

  “I don’t want to drag this out too long, but here’s the short list of things I would like you to send someone to find out from Grove.” Glitch went on explaining how he believed the merchants at some level may gain access to an automated trading network. He wanted to know at what level crafters could begin manufacturing items that had buffs, skills, or other magical traits. He wanted to know what levels miners needed to be in order to find and mine higher quality ores. He wanted to know what skills farmers could obtain to speed up maturity rates of crops or increase crop yields. And many other things. Once done, he asked that he and Andre be excused and headed to the office that contained the town management pedestal.

  However, they were stopped by a tall, athletic, but extremely feminine looking woman appearing to be in her early twenties. “Sir, I am Claudia, the new education representative on the council.”

  “They elected you?”

  “Sort of. The old bitty committee screamed for a while about the misogynistic pig that valued pretty faces over real knowledge and experience then said they should just send me and everyone else went along with it.”

  “What did you do before integrations?”

  “I was a middle school principal.”

  “And judging by your build you were an athlete and are probably a lot older than you look?” Glitch asked.

  “Yes, I played volleyball in college and also ran track and swam in high school and never ask a lady her age.”

  “I didn’t. Did you happen to pick up the trainer class when you integrated?” Glitch asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  “You never were a marine were you?”

  “No sir.”

  “Good. Captain Jean has eaten all our crayons and I’m not sure how we make more. Do you know what’s funny, Claudia?”

  “What?” a confused Claudia asked.

  “The old bitty committee sent me the perfect candidate even if they did it for all the wrong reasons. I’ve got two things I want the educators working on. A basic education program for children that teaches literacy and arts as well as teaches them about the system and has physical training that helps them gain stats. You’ll need to ask Grove at what age children will receive classes. I suspect their training up to that point will impact their first class, so I want them learning about and trying a little of everything then the last couple years focus on activities that might help them get the class they want. I also need the educators to find ways for adults to increase intelligence and wisdom. Crossword puzzles, whatever. Benny and the gamers I’m sure will be more than willing to help an amazon like you get up to speed on gaming theory.”

  “That’s a pretty solid plan for a misogynistic pig. I think I’ll also meet with crafters and other professionals for curriculum suggestions. I think I’ll get started now. Anything else.” Claudia said.

  “Oh…one other thing. If any of the educators are engineers with managerial experience and more time working than teaching, I’d like to talk with them. I’m thinking mechanical engineer or something like that.”

  “I’ve got a couple in mind. I’ll send them your way.” Claudia said and turned to walk away.

  Noticing Andre enjoying the view, “Yeah, I noticed too brother, but let’s get to work.” Glitch said.

  “Not exactly my cup of tea, but very impressive I must say.”

  “Swing the other way do you?” Glitch asked.

  “Is that a problem?” Andre squared up and asked.

  “Not at all. We got bigger fish to fry then prying into each other’s personal business.” Glitch replied as he turned around and almost stepped into two very pissed off looking twins who only managed to hold their scowls for a second before Glitch’s “oh shit” face made them break down laughing.

  Andre looked to Glitch with his own version of the “oh shit” face and they headed on to the office with the twins following them singing, “I like big butts and I cannot lie…” Shaking his head at the twins' antics, Glitch activated the pedestal and demonstrated what all could be done in it. Discovering that improvements could be purchased by using town xp or credits and some prices could apparently be reduced by providing raw materials. Being a multi-planar empire capital, there were so many options available that Glitch was overwhelmed and figured a trip to Grove was in order. Leaving Andre to look through the sewer, water, and garbage options, Glitch and the twins headed to go track down Captain Jean.

  Walking into Captain Jean’s office, “Hey Jarhead, ready to go talk to the town?”

  “One second. Just roughing out a training plan.”

  “Let me make that a little more difficult for you.” Glitch said while pulling up his training skill and selecting animal communication and heal. “Thought with me having a couple hundred wolves as scouts it might be a good idea for your guards to be able to speak to them.”

  The group headed back to the town hall as a crowd was already forming. Glitch went up and talked with the council members while waiting for more town people to show up. After a few more minutes, Glitch figured it was about time to start.

  “Thanks for coming everybody. I’ll give you a short presentation on my intentions, what I know, and then we’ll give you time to ask your questions. Grove has informed me that we are in what is called an accelerated integration. That means we have received skills and stats based on our prior life experience and receive 10x the normal amount of experience. Unfortunately, that means we only have 100 years before a development corporation intending to profit by removing high level resources will arrive and they will have sole rights to our planet for 100 years before the planet is opened up to entities from the rest of the advanced civilizations. They will come with forces far stronger and far more technologically advanced than what would normally be considered attainable by us in such a short time.”

  “My interpretation of this integration process is that it intends to give the appearance of fairness, while in reality maintaining the status quo. However, we have a couple things that may give us an advantage. One is that fact that it is an accelerated integration means the corporation with the rights to our planet post integration might be in a situation in which they are fiscally constrained and need to make a profit quickly. That combined with the fact that an error in the integration process has granted me skills that should not be attainable for hundreds or even thousands of years, I hope to build a society and alliances in which humans will be able to advance our technology and muster a force strong enough to avoid eradication and enslavement. My skills enable me to be able to give buffs that increase stats and also boons that further increase experience gains. But I’ll talk more about the plan we have so far to take advantage of that later.”

  “However, the expeditionary forces when the integration ends will not be the first challenge we face. Much like the Alliance of Anarchy, we will see small groups of people that have power leveled themselves by murdering and robbing from other humans. The native beasts are also receiving 10x the experience and are already developing skills. Think of jaguars capable of attacking without losing stealth or rhinos with a charge ability. We will also see hordes developing and attacking our town. In 10 years time, we will start seeing native beast alphas that are 10x stronger than regular beasts with stronger skills and abilities. I expect around this time to also see warlords of humans building armies ”

  “In 20 years time, we will see extra terrestrial beasts begin appearing. Slimes, drakes, unicorns, and others. In 30 years time, we will see alpha extra terrestrial beasts. In 40 years, we will see the appearance of sapient beings. Orcs, trolls, elves, dwarves, ogres, and others from primitive worlds throughout the multiverse. In 50 years time, we will see the alphas of these sapient races. The powerful fighters, wizards, and crafters will rise up in those species. In 60 years, we will see the Beast Monarchs appear. Godzilla, King Kong, dragons, and other such great beasts capable of single handedly wiping humans off the face of the planet. In 70 years, the other sapient species will see monarchs rise. Great warlords, Wizard kings, and others driven to build their kingdoms and dominate the planet.”

  “Grove informs me that most integrated planets lose 75% of the population of their dominant species in the first 20 years and 95% in the first 40 years leaving only pockets of civilization struggling to survive. Short term we need to greatly increase our strength. Physical training will help us gain stats. We’ll have trainers spreading essential skills to anybody willing to learn. As the trainers develop, we will be able to help people gain additional classes compounding our gains. I have the resources to add affixes to gear that our crafters create, making us stronger and giving us trade items to help our allies and build our economy. So in short, my plan is to become strong enough to survive while laying the foundations for economic and technological strength great enough to help others survive.”

  “Sorry, I guess that wasn’t quite as short as I intended, but now we can get to your questions.” Glitch gestured to Captain Jean who called on the guards responsible for organizing those that had questions.

  The first question came from an elderly gentleman, “How are the elderly and less capable ones among us going to survive?”

  Glitch had expected a question like this, “Get stronger. The system has one amazing benefit. There is no reason for anyone to be enfeebled and die from old age. Increasing your vitality will return your youth and vigor. Exercise, specifically a program combining strength, endurance, agility, and dexterity will raise your vitality. Taking damage and recovering will also improve your vitality and vitality regeneration.”

  The next question came from a young woman holding a baby, “What are your plans for the children?”

  “Claudia and the educators will be developing a training program to ensure our children grow strong and will look for ways to help them gain the initial classes that they desire.”

  The next question was from a gamer sporting dual swords strapped to his back, “Do you have any plans for establishing a guild?”

  “Yes there are skills I have access to that will give boons and buffs to guild members and also give financial and training bonuses to the guild.”

  The next 30 minutes were spent with Glitch doing the best to explain what he had specific plans for and what he would leave up to the community and council members. Questions came up about if he would be placing a lord over the town or assuming the role himself, which Glitch explained he was looking for an interim lord to serve for the next few years while he and the council found a suitable candidate to become the actual lord. He also explained that the actual lord would be a permanent position because of how the buff system worked, but he and the council would ensure there would be checks and balances emplaced as needed.

  Then the guards reached the group that Glitch was least looking forward to dealing with. Set to ask her question was a young pink haired lady named Evon and surrounding her were what had to be the old bitty committee. Here comes the gotcha. Glitch thought as the woman stepped forward.

  “As the owner, editor, and reporter for the Daily Times, I would like to know what your plans as the self-imposed ruler, are for ensuring that equality is given to women, minorities, and non-binary individuals?”

  “I have no plans to ensure equality of any kind.” Glitch responded.

  “So the patriarchy will continue to dominate in the new world just like in the old?”

  “Only if they are the ones that work the hardest.”

  “So you have no plans to set up protections against misogyny and racism?.”

  “None at all.” Glitch paused, giving the outrage a second to build. “Because there is no need to. I’ve already stated plans to set up training for skills and classes. The system does not award experience based on race or gender. The system does not limit skills based on race or gender. Stat improvements impact everyone the same. There is no need to ensure equality when each and every person here is capable of becoming anything they want. Every individual is capable of becoming a great fighter, a great crafter, or a great merchant if they are willing to do the work. We need everyone at their strongest if we are to survive. It would be incredibly stupid to not give equal opportunity to all. However, I will reconsider my position if you would like me to instruct Andre to ensure that the sewage and garbage removal departments are made up of at least 50% women including yourself and the old bitty committee backing you.”

  Obviously enraged, Evon started, “You know damn well, that …” But she was interrupted by explosions and shouting from the gate. Pulling Inevitable out of his inventory, Glitch heard Captain Jean announce that a guard was down as he began to order reinforcements to the gate. The step Glitch was on snapped and dust flew as he took off for the gate activating sprint.

  “I’ve got this. If they take me down, finish them off.” Glitch sent as he leaped over the gate. Flying Glitch saw a huge man in heavy armor standing next to a less heavily armored man holding a two handed sword. Behind them was a caster channeling a shield diverting the arrows shot from the guards as well as an archer rapidly firing and another casting fireballs at the guards. A third caster stood behind them doing nothing.

  Glitch thrust the three pronged pointy end of Inevitable towards the shield as he came down on it. The shield shattered and Glitch exploded the head of the fireballer with an iron bolt as he landed. Blocking a wild swing from the swordsman, Glitch kicked the tank back before thrusting Inevitable through the chest of the off balance swordsman.

  Glitch fired a second iron bolt removing the head of the archer and charged the shield caster smashing his head just in time to spin again and impale the charging tank and lifting him in the air shouting, “NO ONE FUCKS WITH BLACK CLAW!” before tossing the dying man to the side. Seeing no other threats, he ran to the guard lying in a pool of blood.

  Seeing stab wounds in the guard’s back, he cast purify and heal to reduce any poison and prepare the body for a resurrection attempt. “Kill the fucking rogue.” He shouted and pulled a mana capsule and mana jerky from his inventory. As he cracked the mana capsule, he heard Boris’s signature “THUMP” and saw a now dead rogue go flying overhead from where Sassy had popped out of stealth and apparently sent him flying with a swat to the back of his head.

  “Nice.” Glitch sent to his companions.

  “Sassy’s idea.” Boris replied as Glitch stuffed mana jerky in his mouth and began to attempt his first resurrection spell. Seeing his mana disappearing, Glitch popped another mana capsule and broke a couple health capsules over the stab wounds in the guard’s back. Before Glitch’s mana bottomed out, the guard drew a gasping breath. Waiting a few seconds for his mana to regenerate, he cast another purify before getting up and stalking off to the cowering caster.

  “I’m a healer, they forced me to come with them.” The caster screamed as Glitch picked him up by the back of his robe. Turning to carry the man over to the guard, Glitch dropped him and said, “Then heal her.” Looking up as Captain Jean and the reinforcements reached the down guard, Glitch saw the twins by the gate with one eyebrow raised disapprovingly each.

  “A bit much?” Glitch asked.

  “Not if you were going for psychotic roid raging gymbronie.” Kaitlyn said.

  “Should have kicked one of them down a well.” Steve added.

  “Glitch, there are two more humans approaching on the road. They observed the fight and started running when you grabbed the healer.” Bandit reported.

  Moving to intercept the new comers Glitch stopped about 100 meters away. “Talk first.” He sent to Leo, Tonya, and Bandit, whom he sensed moving to surround the pair, and Boris in case the sneaky bear had come along. “Halt. What are your intentions?” Glitch called out, stopping the pair instantly when he came out of stealth.

  “The healer is our little brother. We followed them in hopes of finding a way to free him. When you grabbed him, we hoped to plead his case. We have some credits and gear. It’s all yours if you let him live.”

  “No need for that. Speak with Captain Jean when you get to the gate. If he determines what you say is true, your brother will be set free.” Turning to head back, Glitch said, “Come on I’ll show you to him.” “Tonya, Leo, Bandit show yourselves. Sassy and Boris stay close, ready for trouble.”

  “Right behind them, boss.” Boris sent as the other 3 appeared.

  “So where did you two come from?” Glitch asked the startled pair.

  “New London. It’s about a week away. We’ve been following a trail of bodies to try to catch up to our brother.” replied Sally, the sister in the heavy armor of a tank. Bret was attired in light leather armor with a bow on his back and a short sword on his side. Both were near level 50.

  “What are your plans once you get your brother back?” Glitch asked

  “Find somewhere safe to stay and adventure to gain strength and credits.” Bret replied.

  “As long as you aren’t preying on humans, you’ll be welcome in Black Claw. I’ll be going hunting tomorrow afternoon if you would like to join me.” Glitch offered. “Just meet me near the gate after lunch if you want to come along.” Receiving a non-committal response from the brother and sister he introduced them to Captain Jean and headed back inside the gate.

  Passing through, a thought occurred to Glitch. “How did you guys get outside?”

  “I shadow walked and the rest jumped.” Sassy replied.

  “Boris jumped? We need a higher wall.”

  “Yep.” Boris replied.