“But seriously,” I said, pointing at the Essences. “My whole style is built around absorbing energy. Wouldn’t have any energy if I could shatter things all the time.”

  “It would be a good finisher.”

  Tammy wasn’t an Adventurer, she rarely entered Dungeons or fought monsters, only doing it when she absolutely had to in order to get some Levels and Essences, but she paid attention to Builds and how the Essences synergized and all that. There was a whole team in Solace that Kat and Tammy ran, whose job was to track and catalog all that stuff. We were building a database for future Adventurers. It was just one of the many teams the two women ran.

  I honestly didn’t know how they did it all. And they still somehow managed to deal with me and all my headaches.

  “I can already kind of do that just by building up the kinetic energy, adding in some force and…” I shrugged.

  “I believe your theory is sound,” Stylo said. “Destruction is a powerful Essence but that is why it is so rare. It is also a hard one to alter once you have gained an Ability from it. Destruction Essence users tend to stick to that one Ability. You, Nick, seem to have this desire to push the boundaries of your Essences and what they can do.”

  “That’s our Nick,” Tammy said, going back to cataloging the loot.

  I took a drink from the beer, eating a couple of chips, then continued.

  “I also was thinking a Speed Essence. My fighting style is basically to punch things until they stop moving, so if I could do it faster…,” I said, trailing off. “But I can already kind of do that by applying some of the kinetic energy as speed.”

  “You would gain very little benefit,” Stylo said. “There would be a speed increase but not much greater than what you can do now. Speed Essences would benefit Archers or dual wielding melee fighters.”

  I nodded, taking another drink.

  “So the other one I thought of today was Sound.”

  Both Tammy and Stylo looked at me like I had two heads.

  “What?”

  “That is an interesting choice,” Stylo said. “I am not sure how Sound would benefit your build.”

  “Adding a sonic attack,” I said. “Sound waves are a form of energy. What if I added Force with stored kinetic energy?”

  “That would be devastating,” Tammy said.

  “And would allow you to bypass more Resistances,” Stylo said, long fingers tapping at his chin as he thought. “If one has Resistance to Force, they most likely would not have to Sound.”

  “That and it adds an unknown element to my arsenal,” I said, taking another drink. “Something no one would expect.”

  “Sound Essences aren’t common but they’re better than trying to find a lot of Destruction Essences,” Tammy said. “You’d probably get a pretty good trade ratio too. More Sound for Destruction.”

  “Yep.”

  “This is rather unorthodox,” Stylo said.

  “That’s Nick in a nutshell,” Tammy said and I couldn’t disagree.

  “I’m not 100% sold on the idea yet,” I said. “Stew it over, and let me know any Cons,” I said to Stylo. “I’m going to run it by the folks back home too.”

  “You want me to hold onto the Destruction Essence for now?” Tammy asked. “Wait until you know what you want and then we can trade these for those?”

  “Yeah,” I said, holding up the chip bag, frowning when it was empty. “When we get the pub up and running, we need to introduce chips and fries to the Nexus.”

  “It’s already on the menu,” Tammy said, tapping one of the notebooks.

  “Sweet.”

  “We’re looking at places in the Entertainment District too,” Tammy said. “That’s going to be the hardest thing. We have faith that you’ll generate the Credits we need but finding the right location…”

  She sat down at the head of the table, Stylo floating over closer.

  “Unless we want to spend a lot of credits to start, we’d be looking at someplace at the end of the street and that won’t get much in the way of foot traffic. At least not at first. We’d hope that word-of-mouth would spread and draw people there but..”

  “Could take time,” I finished for her. “I have faith that you and Kat will figure it out. But it won’t matter until we get more Adventurers in the Nexus.”

  “We have a food stall, like your lizardman friends, all lined up. We just need someone to run it.”

  I sighed, getting up from the table. So much needed more people in the Nexus and we just weren’t there yet. I cleaned up after myself, storing the empty beer bottle in the back with others and throwing the chip bag in a trash can. I returned to the front, Tammy busy writing in a notebook. She didn’t bother glancing up.

  “I think most of this stuff we’ll just take back to Earth and not bothering trying to sell here. It’s pretty common from what I can see.”

  “I’m really interested in the weapons that those Crawler teeth can make.”

  “For you?”

  “Naw, bladed weapons don’t do me any good. But those teeth cut through stone, so might make a pretty sharp sword.”

  “I’ll have some sent over to Jerry.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Perfect.”

  Jerry Montford was the highest Leveled weaponsmith in the Clan. He didn’t live in Solace, choosing to live in Shale, the city closest to some mines. The man was good. Nathan used one of Jerry’s swords and swore by it. That weapon had lasted Nathan for a very long time. Which reminded me of something.

  “We should get a line on some weapons upgrades for when folks start appearing here.”

  Tammy tapped another notebook.

  “Great, I’m useless,” I mock sighed.

  “No, you have plenty of uses,” Tammy said, not looking up. I had a feeling I knew where she was going with that. “You’re very good at punching things.”

  Stylo stayed quiet, either already used to us or not wanting to get in the middle.

  “I’m very good at that.”

  “Yep, now go do more of it,” she said, gesturing at the pile. “We need more of this.”

  ***

  I didn’t go punching things after leaving the Compound. I headed back to the Market District. The plan, since Sunie and I were hitting the Tower again the next Nexus day, was to stay there and not head back to Earth. The time change, night to day or hours there not being the same on Crossroads, took a bit to get used to. Add in the time delineation between Dungeons and the Nexus, Dungeons on Earth and outside, and it was all hard on the body’s internal clock.

  I stepped out of the Solace Store and into the Market District.

  Our end wasn’t busy at all. I really didn’t understand the need to have storefronts when there was little walk-in traffic, especially as most factions just did deals with allies. Sunie had said it was pretty common for faction leaders to help outfit their members, which meant no need to windowshop for weapon and armor upgrades.

  I didn’t wear armor or really use weapons, so upgrades were useless for me. Someone like Nathan, a pure tank, relied on his weapon and armor. He needed to upgrade every ten levels or so, sometimes sooner. For me, armor just got in the way of me moving and fighting. And I didn’t need weapons, I just used them sometimes when it was easier. The tonfas and hammers. I had a couple maces in the inventory, but they served the same function as the hammers. There were a couple staves in my inventory, but anything that needed two hands like that, just didn’t work with my fighting style.

  I probably should clean out the inventory one of these days.

  I turned right from the store, heading for the woods that surrounded the Nexus District. I’d been curious about them for a while, so figured it was time to check them out. They were a short walk from the store since we were right at the end. I didn’t see Orbic at his Faction’s shop. The street was empty.

  The trees were the same odd colored ones as where I’d first arrived. More red, less greens. Gray pines. Just different. Just enough to make it seem weird. If they’d been completely different from Earth trees, it would have stood out and almost been more acceptable. Because I was in an alien world, for all intents and purposes, and the trees should look different. But these were just close enough that it was odd. Not quite uncanny valley odd, but almost.

  The fake pink sky and sun above faded a bit as I walked under the trees. They were large, spread out, leaving plenty of space to walk between them. But no real lines of sight as they were staggered.

  Great places for an ambush. I’d checked with Stylo and the same rules in the Nexus streets applied to the woods and park-like spaces between the streets. No one could attack. But as I’d seen with the Anura bullying Jhang Gho, there were ways around the rules.

  I kind of wanted the Anura to attack me. Course, by now, they’d probably have smartened up a bit and would attack me with an army. But they hadn’t proven themselves that smart yet.

  Walking straight, I came to the end of the Nexus. It was about a couple hundred feet from the end of the street, the trees just stopping and a shimmering wall in front of me. It was mostly pinkish, like the sky, but had some bright sparks of blue and green, yellows and purples. I reached out to touch it, feeling the warmth of whatever energy formed the barrier. It felt like Arcanum, that familiar feel like the Arcanum in my Core that powered my Abilities.

  I had the urge to punch the wall, but I could control myself. Tammy wouldn’t believe it, but I could. I did want to see what was on the other side. From what Stylo said, it was just the void, the empty space between dimensions in the Multiverse. The material that kept dimensions stable, allowing them to essentially float in that void and not move. If they moved, then portals and such things would not work. There were still planetary rotations to deal with, but most portals could handle that level of movement. The kind where entire pocket dimensions moved a couple light years away in a seconds, no portal power could handle those calculations.

  So the void kept everything nice and stable.

  Until it didn’t. There were collapses now and then. When a pocket dimension didn’t get enough Arcanum to keep the barriers up that separated it from the void. Then the void would come and basically eat that dimension.

  The void did not sound like a fun space.

  I looked left and right along the shimmering barrier. Which way to go? Randomly, I turned right.

  I made my way through the trees, stepping around some of the three and four foot diameter trunks, keeping the wall to my left and in sight. Looking right, I could just see some buildings through the rare gaps in the trees and then I couldn’t see buildings and saw what I thought was an opening. I turned that direction, figuring I’d hit the back of the buildings and where there was that park-like area between the streets. I was nearing the end of the trees, seeing blue grass ahead, when I heard a noise.

  Stopping, I shifted into a defensive stance, expecting an ambush. I scanned the trees around me, not seeing anything. But with how they were arranged, it was difficult to see anything. The noise was coming from more to the left. It wasn’t loud, but wasn’t trying to be quiet.

  I ruled out an ambush. Probably just someone else wandering the woods.

  I relaxed, but not completely. What better way to lull someone into thinking there was no ambush by making it seem like it couldn’t be an ambush.

  I walked quietly, moving around the trees, trying to pinpoint the noise. I found the source between some trees. Tall gray trunks with red leaves, a rope running between them and a tarp spread out. And sitting on the ground, sorting through some stuff that I couldn’t see, was a small humanoid. The clothing kind of looked familiar.

  I cleared my throat as I stepped out from behind a tree, starling the person. He turned to face me, eyes wide in surprise, a long and thin dagger appearing out of his inventory. He was a halfling and one I recognized.

  “Hi Newton,” I said.