Alexander and Ridley sat on a hill watching a small armored SWAT team led by Brian, the former IRS agent. The team headed for the edge of the woods near the foot of the mountains. Brian had requested Alexander's presence as backup, and Alexander obliged. He, of course, respected Brian's new position as head of the region's coordinated effort to fight monsters. It had proven to be the most effective way to fight supernatural threats, as modern weapons were no longer working effectively against them.

  Alexander also enjoyed his other arrangement with Brian: first pick of magical resources when they required his help, and a small payment even if he didn't provide it. This allowed Brian's new team to coordinate with some peace of mind, having backup this close.

  Ridley harrumphed as the last of the team disappeared into the trees.

  “I don’t like being used as a compass just to be forced to sit on the sidelines when the action starts,” she grumbled.

  “I think you’ve almost won his trust. You should be able to join the team soon. I think your patience has been commendable,” Alexander consoled Ridley.

  “I’m still shocked Darrin gets to fight. The kid is only 10… shouldn’t there be a child labor law against this?”

  “I did check, and they are using a loophole through agriculture laws and a work permit. They do technically harvest resources from the monsters. He’s also the highest level among us. Well, tied for highest.”

  Alexander had hit level nine after his quest to recruit employees had finally timed out.

  \

  ^

  Quest Complete!

  Stop being awkward:

  Your boss wants you to learn how to interact with people by recruiting employees.

  Objective: Recruit new employees Quest rewards:

  200 xp per recruit

  3 silver per recruit

  Total Recruits: 122

  Total Reward

  xp: 24,400

  60 gold

  122 Inferior Magic Stones, unattributed

  The orc recruiting had been a gamble, but everything had shockingly worked out so far. The orcs had been a greater boon to Congo than one would expect, seeing as their first action was to attack it.

  Ridley had been immense help. Apparently, the slaughtering of their kin had placed Ridley in a position of leadership amongst the orcs, all of whom now generally submitted to her. Her behavior had also shifted since she started wearing the large feather hairpin. She had more self-control, and her ability to see the consequences of her actions had improved.

  Brian had been willing to utilize her, as she had a method to track monsters. Ridley begrudgingly accepted as long as they paid her and she got loot rewards. Her heart obviously wasn’t in it when she didn’t get to fight. Seeing as she had almost taken out Brian with a single hit, his caution was warranted.

  “Do you think we will get another big quest soon?” Ridley asked, resting her head on her folded-up knees.

  “I hope not. This has been a nice quiet change of pace,” he said just as a giant high-pitched shriek filled the woods, echoing off the mountainside.

  They could hear shouted orders and the telltale sound of snapping strings and a Nerf gun. Another loud shriek pierced their eardrums. Alexander and Ridley slapped their hands over their ears. They both suffered a slight dizzy spell and had to drop to a knee or fall over.

  When Alexander's ears finally stopped ringing, he heard a call on the radio.

  “Alexander, the target is significantly faster than expected. Could you reinforce?” Brian yelled into the radio.

  Alexander looked at Ridley, who rolled her eyes and shooed him off.

  “On my way,” he said into his radio as he lifted himself on a floating disc and flew into the woods.

  It didn’t take long for Alexander to catch up to the group. The team had positioned themselves behind several boulders.

  The non-class users were all armed with automatic crossbows, which were the limit to which modern technology was now effective against the monsters. In addition to crossbows, there was a mix of people with spears strapped to their backs and riot shields with swords.

  As Alexander approached, Brian teleported up to a tall tree limb with his knife. Darrin, in turn, kicked off several trees in a blur to the limb above Brian’s head. He smirked down at Brian as he spun a Nerf gun and holstered it like a cowboy. Brian just looked annoyed as he turned toward Alexander.

  “I’d be okay never having a kid after dealing with this one for a month,” Brian shared with Alexander.

  “I am told it’s different when it is your own. Paternal instinct is a curious subject.”

  Brian shook his head. “The target is a moth the size of a monster truck. It is exceptionally agile through these trees. It hasn’t attacked yet, but its ability to evade is going to be a problem for us. Every time we hit it even slightly, it lets out a shriek that renders us immobile for a few seconds.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Is there a pattern yet to how high it flies? Does it seem drawn to anything?” Alexander asked as he scrutinized the trees.

  “It was flying about forty feet up. It’s almost comical how perfect your webs might be to solve this issue.”

  “Well, you're not wrong,” Alexander nodded.

  “It was erratic when we made contact, so there is no guarantee it will pass by this way again.”

  “It’s a moth, so I could make a flame?”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Brian shrugged, not thinking of anything better.

  “I’ll set up. Give me five minutes.”

  Alexander moved between the trees with the widest path between them. He would occasionally pause and set a glyph to be activated manually. By doing so, his mana cost was lowered, and he could put them on multiple levels and angles for each location.

  After he had trapped a significant portion of the forest, he returned to the cluster of boulders that the team sat behind. As he landed among them, the team nodded in respect toward Alexander and greeted him with his call sign.

  “Paper Mage, good to see you.”

  “Paper Mage.”

  “Thanks for the backup, Paper Mage.”

  Alexander’s call sign was decided when he insisted he was simply a Human Resource Manager when he had first met everyone. He wasn’t sure who had started it, but he wouldn’t begrudge a team of law enforcement their humor. Brian revealing his abilities had made Alexander uncomfortable, but Brian said everyone involved had a non-disclosure agreement. After Alexander looked over the NDA, he had felt better about their arrangement.

  “I'm going to make an illusory flame, so no need to worry about an uncontained fire,” he assured the team.

  “Nobody’s worried about a campfire, Paper Mage. We are worried about being eaten by a giant moth,” chimed the officer next to him.

  “Relax, Paper Mage! This is supposed to be fun. I’ve been prepping for the apocalypse since I was 13!”

  Alexander had been trying to adjust to the friendly banter of the team. He normally drew a blank on any good rebuttals until an hour later. He would write down the rebuttal, never to be uttered in a clean, timely fashion, unfortunately. Today he was in rare form, however.

  “I doubt anything of your preparation included personal hygiene products,” Alexander retorted with only a minimal pause.

  “OOOohhhh!” The team responded to the burn, half in surprise that Alexander was actually participating in banter.

  “Some operational silence would be appreciated!” Brian called over the radio down to the team.

  “Right on! We are professional monster hunters after all.”

  Several of the team snickered at how ridiculous this all was.

  Alexander got back to work. He made a sign for small illusion and lifted a fire into the air at the same height as the majority of his now-armed glyphs. He touched his magic glasses, activating discerning magic; he could now see every glyph lit up in a soft blue-white glow. He could also approximate the direction they were aimed at, as a soft white pillar pointed from each one. Alexander gave the thumbs up, and everyone shifted into position.

  They waited, ready to attack. After another six minutes of waiting, a monstrous moth zipped past before any of them could flinch. It seemed to have darted around every tree so smoothly it almost seemed made of liquid.

  “Alexander?” Brian asked.

  “Um, I didn’t get a chance to activate any of the webs… Additionally, I believe that was too fast to set them to proximity trigger,” Alexander explained over the radio.

  “Can we make the flame bigger?”

  “I will try,” Alexander responded.

  He cut the original spell off and used his sign language to sign ‘illusion’ this time. He pictured how the magic he already had a basis for would increase in size and cost. Exerting his will upon it, he lifted his hand in the air, making a bonfire hover thirty feet in the air.

  It lit up the surrounding area significantly, and everyone waited anxiously to see if there would be results.

  They heard a shriek in the distance and were able to make out the moth's approach this time.

  As it neared, it shrieked and darted sideways erratically. The team had plugged their ears already, some with their hearing protection they kept for test-firing their guns on the range. Even with that, everyone twitched a little. The moth was nearly 100 yards away when it swung its wing and several trees cracked and fell in front of the monster.

  Alexander's glasses outlined the attack that showed up as a green spiraling wind. He recognized what the green represented.

  “That was a wind magic attack,” he called on the radio. “It will cut you to ribbons if you aren’t careful.”

  He saw a few nodding heads to let him know they heard him. Alexander identifying magic had been inconsistently helpful, as he didn’t always know what was going on. Acid was a different color than water, but he didn’t realize that the first time he saw a giant mutant centipede.

  The moth's attack had not been aimed at them, which confused Alexander. It was moving slower this time, and its flying was far more erratic. As he watched, the moth sped up again; moving his way, it would soon be in range.

  “Ready,” Brian called out.

  Just before it reached the first glyph, the moth darted to the side again, slowing down as it changed direction before it unleashed another attack. This time, Alexander made out a small dark figure that darted away from the attack.

  The small figure maneuvered behind a tree as a tendril of magic struck, splintering bark into the air. The small black figure shot its own wind magic, hitting the moth. The moth shrieked in rage and chased the black figure directly past one of Alexander's glyphs. He triggered it, and webs shot out in a wide spray.

  Still a bit slow, only the edge of the webs managed to catch the back of one of the moth's wings. This forced the moth to swing sideways and hit a tree. Immediately, the small black figure shot forward and smashed into the moth before darting away.

  A multitude of Nerf bullets and crossbow bolts started raining into the moth. As it staggered in the air, it shrieked and unleashed a wind attack in the direction of the team. As limbs and trees started falling, everyone clustered against boulders to avoid being crushed. Alexander cast two shields over their heads, but he never let his eyes drift from his glyphs. He unleashed two more, which were on separate levels, hitting high and low at slightly differing angles.

  He managed to catch both wings, stopping the movement of the moth altogether. Now that he got a good look at it, the moth was a wholly unpleasant sight. He didn’t think normal moths had sharp teeth and drooled black saliva.

  Most of the team managed to climb out of the brush and launch everything they had into the moth. Alexander held off on his piercing winds, as he didn’t want to accidentally free the moth. The bulk of the damage was obviously coming from Darrin and his burst-fire Nerf bullets.

  The firing only stopped after black smoke started emitting from the moth and it dissolved. The bolts from the crossbows started falling to the ground now that there was no flesh to hold them. Their clattering noise was reminiscent of a rain stick as they hit the rocks.

  “Is everyone clear?” Brian asked.

  The team sounded off as they brushed pine needles off of themselves.

  “Paper Mage?” Brian called.

  “Clear,” Alexander said as he turned toward the dissolving remains.

  Alexander was feeling giddy as he moved toward the raining debris, and as the last of the black smoke dissipated, a crystal appeared and fell. He caught it with a small floating disc and brought it toward himself. Picking it up, he smiled. As he saw a new magic pattern emitted from the crystal, green in hue.

  “Found you,” he said with a smile.

  He walked toward Brian with the crystal, and as he neared, he lifted it up for him to see.

  “My payment has been received.”

  “I see that. Thanks again for your help.”

  “We didn’t need him,” Darrin grumbled before Brian smacked the back of his head.

  “Hush, you,” Brian chided the boy.

  “Did you see the small black streak that attacked the moth?” Alexander asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Brian said, tilting his head in confusion.

  “It was hard to see in this light, but I did see magic come out of it.”

  “I will check our recordings to see if anything strange pops up. We will keep a scout in the area in case we need to return.”

  “Also, we might need to renegotiate my contract after this, as I have met my goal,” Alexander told Brian.

  “I’ll call you later then. I need to do a progress check on the orcs soon anyway, so I’ll swing by your office.”

  Alexander nodded at Brian and the boy before taking off on a floating disc. As he made his way out of the woods, he pulled out his cellphone and made a call.

  “Ben, I have it.”