Chapter 38 - I’m Not Scared

  With the remaining giant birds either fled or hunkering down in their nests, I figured I had time to check the ones I'd taken down for crystals. A quick count told me I’d taken down seventeen of them, and since they were all tier two and tier three, that was a pretty good haul. I moved quickly from one to the next, tapping each one in turn. Each released a small shard of magical crystal into my hand.

  Every monster type seemed to have its own mix of stones. The pill bugs had dropped nothing but clear crystals. The lobsters dropped a combination of clear and blue. These birds dropped a mix of clear and yellow crystals. By the time I was done gathering them up, I had eight clear and seven yellow crystals in my hand. I only had to look at them for a moment to realize the numbers didn't add up. I looked around, trying to see how I had missed one.

  I’d killed seventeen of the creatures and already got the yellow flight crystal from one, so there ought to be sixteen more. One was missing.

  I slapped myself in the forehead. It was the one Emmy was hiding under. I had left that for last so that I could snag it, pick her up, and get on the move. I walked over to the bird and peeked underneath its wing. Amy was still safely tucked away there. The kid had done an excellent job of keeping herself out of the line of fire.

  "You about ready to get out of here?" I asked.

  Emmy's head snapped up and down in a very affirmative nod.

  I chuckled. "Okay. It's safe to come out now. Come to me, and we'll blow this place."

  As Emmy scooted out from underneath the bird's wing, I reached out and touched it. To my surprise, no crystal appeared in my hand. I tried again, with the same result.

  A tendril of worry crossed my mind as I realized I hadn't been the only person to touch this bird. "Emmy, did you get one of those crystals while you were hiding down there?"

  The bird was tier three. If she had gotten a stone as a drop, it would have immediately opened up a new slot for her. She would have absorbed it as soon as she touched it.

  Emmy grinned up at me and held her hands about a foot apart in front of her face. Purple sparks shot between her palms, then turned into little bars of white and purple electrical energy. "I did! It makes sparks, see?"

  Inwardly, I groaned. I tried not to let my dismay show on my face, giving her a grin instead. "That's great! Would you like to give that to me, for safekeeping?"

  It was a tier three bird, which made it a tier three crystal. A kid with a tier three lightning bolt spell socketed could hurt someone very badly, or worse, without ever meaning to. That was a lot of power to dump into the hands of a little kid.

  She shook her head. "Finders keepers, Mr. Castle."

  The kid was so cute that I didn't know what to do with her. I quickly decided that this had just become a problem for her sister to deal with, not me. Maggie could talk her out of the stone later. For now, I needed to get her back someplace safer than this.

  I paused, considering how to best do that. Carrying the kid back on foot had been my original plan, but that carried a lot of risks. There were monsters between here and the hospital, and with the invasion in full swing, that made for a rough trip at best. As hard to hurt as I was, Emmy wasn’t. I could fight off whatever we ran into, but not without putting her at risk.

  With the Flight stone, I could zip her back to her sister quick and easy, but I was still low on mana. I felt it slowly restoring, but even at full strength I didn’t think I’d have enough to make it all the way back. I’d run out awfully fast during the fight with the birds. On the other hand, I knew I’d seen more Flight crystals among the ones I’d looted. If I could get that power ranked up just a bit more, maybe I could get more mileage from my mana. Or drop in a Will crystal. Or something.

  “Emmy, I’m going to check something quick, okay? Stay low. I don’t want to attract the attention of those other birds,” I said.

  “Okay,” she replied, ducking low again.

  I pulled out all the stones I’d gathered. First, I took a peek at the crystal I’d gotten from the giant crab. It was a tier four Natural Armor stone, which figured. That thing’s shell had been insanely tough. I wasn’t shocked to see that reflected in the drop.

  Not every creature dropped something that it was actively using, which was something I supposed I’d need to figure out in time. For example, the roc that Emmy looted hadn’t demonstrated any lightning bolt powers during our fight, but that’s the stone it dropped. There was some level of randomness to it, from what I could tell. But the crystal a thing dropped often made a lot of sense, too.

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  I held the Natural Armor stone firmly and it was absorbed into my palm, merging with the other one I’d already had. If I got a couple more like that, I’d be able to rank my main Natural Armor stone up to tier seven. Because that stone was now tier five, I could move it into the third Point, which would open a new slot for something else—ideally a Will stone.

  The easy part settled, I switched to examining the crystals I’d won from the birds.

  There were eight clear stones, all tier two and three. I found a tier three Will stone, which was nice, along with a tier three Stamina, tier two Strength, tier two Charisma, tier two Will, and three tier two Agility stones. I socketed the tier three Stamina right away, merging it with the one I already had to make it a tier four. Then I combined the tier two Strength with two of the tier one Strength crystals I already had in my pocket to make a single tier three one and merged that with the Strength crystal I already had, making it tier four as well.

  I dropped the tier three Will crystal into the newly-empty fourth Point. Immediately I felt a flood of fresh mana enter my system. It raced along my veins, filling me up with new energy. The rate at which it was coming back improved, too. That pretty much did the trick. I had no doubt I’d be able to fly us both back to MGH, now.

  It still felt wise to see what the yellow stones were, so I checked them out as well. I had three tier two Flight stones. That one was a pretty common drop from the birds, it seemed, which made sense. I was able to merge those together to get my Flight up to tier four, which also boosted my Flight time. Turned out the higher the flight rank, the faster and more efficiently you were able to fly.

  Unfortunately, I hadn’t ranked it up to tier five to open a new yellow stone slot, because the other four stones were pretty cool. One was a tier three Lightning Bolt spell, which would be an awesome power to have, but might make more sense for Alex to take. He was building himself into more of a spell caster sort, and I still didn’t have the mana for sustained casting. Then there was a tier three Air Elemental spell. I wasn’t sure what that one was. It sounded like a summoning sort of spell, which could be useful. Last but not least, there were a pair of tier two Gust of Wind spells.

  All of them looked good, but until I got Flight up to tier five I wouldn’t be able to open another socket for a yellow crystal. For now, this was as good as I could get. Fortunately, between the boost to my Will and the vastly increased Flight power, I had everything I needed to get us both home.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Strength

  Point 1, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 6) - Stamina

  Point 1, Second Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 5) - Agility

  Point 1, Third Ring: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Stamina

  +

  Point 2: Yellow Stone (Tier 4) - Flight

  +

  Point 3: Grey Stone (Tier 6) - Natural Armor

  Point 3: Grey Stone (Tier 5) - Natural Armor

  Point 3, Outer Ring: Grey Stone (Tier 2) - Regeneration

  +

  Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 3) - Will

  +

  Point 5: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Strength

  Spare Stones

  Clear: Strength x1, Agility (Tier 2) x4, Charisma (Tier 2) x1, Will (Tier 2) x1, Will (Tier 3) x1

  Yellow: Lightning Bolt (Tier 3) x1, Air Elemental (Tier 2) x1, Gust of Wind (Tier 2) x2

  Blue: Ice Blast (Tier 2) x1

  I slid the remaining stones back into my pocket for safekeeping, and was startled when one of them tumbled out of a hole. Shit, I hadn’t even realized my clothing was quite that gutted! That Natural Armor protected my skin, but not what I wore. Everything I had on was in tatters.

  That was going to get annoying really fast. I needed a solution soon, something more durable than what I was wearing, or eventually I was going to fight something that ripped the clothes off me entirely. The idea of fighting monsters naked didn’t appeal at all.

  But I was ready to go. I glanced over toward Emmy. “Okay, kid. Let’s get you back to your sister, shall we?”

  She all but leaped forward, diving into my arms. “Yes, please, Mr. Castle.”

  I held her close, scooping her up as I rose to my feet. “You ready for something fun? I’m gonna fly us back, so don’t get scared, okay?”

  “I’m not scared with you here to save me,” she replied, tucking her little head against my chest.

  That halfway broke my heart, it was so good to hear. The faith the kid had in me was heartwarming and…made me scared, too, because I was just a guy with some magic stones. She had this larger than life picture of me that I didn’t know how I could live up to.

  For now, I didn’t have to. I just needed to get her home.

  A quick flex of mana and we were airborne. I was way faster than I’d been before! We shot skyward about fifty feet before I slowed us down with a gentle mental effort and then sent us streaking over the Charles River.

  God, it was glorious, flying like this. I felt like I could do it all day. Well, not literally, because I still felt my mana steadily slipping away. Eventually I’d run out, but not anytime soon. With this power I could really move!

  The trip back took half the time my run to get there had. As I cruised over my apartment building I saw the streets still flooded with people. The whole North End was moving west as fast as everyone could flee. There must have been thousands of refugees making their way out of downtown. They filled every street.

  And not far behind them were the lines of lobster troops. Which I seriously needed a better name for, because I felt like I ought to go start melting butter every time I called them that.

  I set us down right in front of the main entry for my building, hoping Maggie would still be somewhere nearby. At first I didn’t see her, and wondered if she’d been forced to flee already, but then she came dashing out of our building, rushing straight toward us.

  “Emmy! OhMyGod, Emmy!”

  The girl squirmed to get loose, so I gently set her down and let her run to her sister. They hugged, both of them crying. I just stood there a moment, taking it in.

  Amid all the tragedies taking place around the city in the past day or so, here was something different. This, here, was worth fighting for.