Luke paused and examined the plants in front of him. Something was wrong with the durian-like growths in the field ahead. The spiky fruits were clustered together in groups of five across the ground. The ground was disturbed like they were planted there. He hadn’t seen plants like that on Kalibutan before. And new was usually dangerous.

  “What’s wrong?” Vanessa said as the group slowed to a stop.

  “Hey, Sandwich, does that look normal?” Luke said and pointed to the fruit clusters.

  Sandwich tapped his chin with a clang. “That looks familiar, but I can’t place it. We should go around.”

  Luke nodded. The weird durians covered an area perhaps three hundred feet long. It wouldn’t take long to walk around it.

  They turned away, but Bumblebee stayed for a moment, staring at the clusters. He raised his arm and gave one of the clusters a parting shot. The ice bolt missed and he followed the group.

  The ice magic spread across the ground and as soon as it touched one of the durians, the spiky fruits burst out of the ground. The entire cluster of growths were attached to long stalks and a bulbous body. It slurped out of the ground and slid across the ground on a thin film of slime. It was like an eight foot tall slug with clubs on the end of its five eye stalks.

  Bumblebee yelped as the monster slithered towards him. He fired ice bolts as it approached, the first going wide, but the other hit its center mass. The monster slowed as frost covered its body. It swung its tentacles at him, but he jumped behind a tree just in time. The club on the end of its stalk blasted a chunk out of the tree, the next one doing the same.

  By then, it slowed down enough that its attacks weren’t fast enough to damage the tree anymore. It froze solid moments later. Bumblebee walked up to it and kicked it, shattering the slug to pieces.

  “Flail Snails! That’s what they are called,” Sandwich said. As he talked, the ground rumbled. “We should probably run. Those flails can easily break our armor.”

  All across the clearing, Flail Snails were slurping out of their holes in the ground. There were about fifteen of them. They didn’t have any visible eyes, but they clearly knew where the humans were and were gliding across the ground towards them.

  The humans broke into a run. Their long strides easily opened up the distance between them and the monsters. Luke fired his spread of spells, each one hitting a different monster. The ice bolt spread frost slowly across the monster. The buzzsaw spell was actually blocked by one of the monster’s flails. It cut halfway through the durian, but the monster was otherwise unharmed. The lightning orb made the monster go haywire and every spiked ball went a different direction, one even hitting a nearby monster.

  Luke had an idea. It might be a stupid one, but he had used the first half of Repair Craft earlier, he could afford to be a little reckless.

  “I’m gonna try something,” Luke said and slowed down. “Be prepared to back me up if this doesn’t work.”

  “If what doesn’t work?” Vanessa asked.

  Luke didn’t answer because he had already started running towards the monsters. They had arranged themselves in a line, chasing the humans. About eight of them had bunched up together in the middle of that line and he targeted them.

  With a wide grin on his face, Luke started to activate his skills, one after another. He used Overcharge and was instantly stronger and more agile as the runes in his suit glowed brighter.

  The lead monster paused and swung its flails at him in a wide arc. Luke used Frictionless Slide at an angle to avoid the hit and dash closer to the middle of the pack. He fired all three spells, spread out to cover the group. The forest boomed and flashed as overlarge spells decimated the Flail Snails. Three of them were cooked in a dome of lightning, two more were flash frozen, and another three split apart as a ten foot wide blade cut them through the belly.

  Luke’s arms started burning, that much magic pumping through the runes had fried his spell rifles. He mentally slammed the second half of Repair Craft and sighed with relief. He deactivated Overcharge at the same time.

  The awareness that came with Machine Bond warned him that a Flail Snail was approaching him from behind. He ducked in a roll and came up shooting. The lightning spell stopped it in place and his buzzsaw spell split it in half top to bottom. He fired an ice bolt at the one lagging behind it, and turned to face the two Flail Snails he had passed to get at the group.

  Bumblebee and Sandwich had joined the fight, firing their spells at the two monsters. Sandwich had fired his lightning bolt and locked his monster down, and was finishing it off with his flame sword. The one hit by Bumblebee’s ice bolt was slowing down, but it was already up in his face. He activated Evade and Rush to dart out of the way of the swinging flails. Vanessa slipped around him and came up on the Flail Snail from behind.

  It somehow saw her and swung its tentacles behind itself. She was able to tag it with her Ice Sledgehammer before it could protect itself. Vanessa laughed as she danced back and then darted in for another attack. Each hammer strike bounced off harmlessly, but imparted a bit more freezing magic.

  Their monster shattered a few moments later. Sandwich discovered that Flail Snails had flammable secretions and stumbled back as it went up in a bright conflagration.

  Vanessa laughed darkly and said, “I wanna use the fire sword next.”

  Luke chuckled nervously and turned back to the stragglers. Four more spells and the last of them were down. The system agreed that combat was over and threw a few notices in his face.

  That was a nice bunch of skill level ups. Luke made a mental note to use his skills together more often. The only thing that could have made that fight better would be a level up in his class.

  Once he was sure they were out of danger, Sandwich said, “Sorry, Vanessa. As much as I would love to see you go all pyromaniac, you can’t use it without these gauntlets. Your suit doesn’t have the runes needed to power the sword.”

  “Oh. Why can I use the ice hammer then?” she said and looked at her weapon.

  Luke walked up and pointed at the hilt. “It’s the hilt, remember? I put a mana core in there that powers it directly. It’s kind of a waste of money since they go for 4k each, but I didn’t want you to be defenseless.”

  “Aww, you are so sweet,” Vanessa said and blew him a kiss. “Can you make me a fire hammer next?”

  “Maybe later. I’m meeting with the Inner Runewright today. I can ask her to teach me how to inscribe an Adept Fire rune. Or a master rune if that’s an option.”

  Vanessa mimed throwing a ball. “You get a fireball, you get a fireball, everybody gets a fireball!”

  “Hey, bossman, can I have fireballs too?” Bumblebee said and gestured towards his forearm. “I got one free arm, I think fireballs will give me the rizz I’ve been missing.”

  Luke shook his head, “There ain’t enough fireballs in either world to give you rizz.”

  Bumblebee threw out his arms in mock outrage while the others laughed.

  Sandwich cleared his throat. “Since no one else is gonna say it, let me ask. What the hell, Luke? How did you make the Flail Snails explode like that? Is your class insanely powerful or is that something you made with runes?”

  “Both and neither. I figured out how to overcharge the runes for a single shot. It totally fries the runes and ruins the suit. Uses a quarter of the mana core’s lifetime, too. Luckily, my class can reverse the damage to my own power armor. It’s like a last ditch Hail Mary, but I can do it more than once,” Luke half-lied.

  Sandwich slowly shook his head, “I wouldn’t mind having that class.”

  Luke snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “Speaking of which, this is the first time I’ve been able to ask you without others overhearing. You got a class, right? Tell me all about it.”

  Sandwich shuddered and stepped back. “I don’t have a class. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Bumblebee stepped up. “Nah, man you don’t have to lie to us ‘cus of that oath. It’s easy to get around. Watch. My ‘friend’ has the Driver class. He has the skills Rush and Evade. See, it’s easy.”

  “What oath? You guys are being weird,” Vanessa asked.

  Luke waved his hand. “We can’t talk about it, magic bindings. You’ll find out about it yourself in a few days, once your assessment period is over. For now, we can only talk around things.”

  “Wait. Vanessa’s getting a class too?” Sandwich said and shook his head. “Shit, just when I thought I was special.”

  Luke nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s the main reason...” his throat closed up. He was about to say that one organization had them swear oaths. Apparently that was too close to revealing the existence of SPEAR and the oath stopped him from talking. He shook his head, “Nevermind. Anyway, tell us about this friend of yours.”

  Sandwich threw up his hand towards the devastation Luke caused. “It’s not as impressive after seeing what you can do. But I guess I can tell you about my friend’s class. His class is called Soul Summoner. He is only level one for now but his skill is called Echoes of the Dead.”

  “Like a necromancer? That’s so fire,” Bumblebee said in awe.

  “Not exactly,” Sandwich said and rocked his hand back and forth.

  “You can show us,” Luke said and gestured. “You can’t tell them about your class, but you can use your class when Kalibutan natives can’t see, right?”

  “No I... wait. I guess I can. That’s a weird loophole."

  Bumblebee nodded. “Yeah, the people are low-key amateurs. They don’t have their shit together.”

  Luke said, “No, well maybe, but no. I bet they did it that way because they want people to level up. When their scientist or loader jockey gets a class, they are gonna sneak off and try it out, get stronger. That would be impossible if other humans couldn’t see it.”

  Bumblebee tilted his head back and forth. “Maybe, but that makes the whole oath thing kinda dumb.”

  “I’m sure there is a plan. Whether or not it’s a good plan is up in the air,” Luke said. He gestured towards Sandwich. “Come on, make with the magic.”

  The blond guy flipped up his visor and stretched out his hands. He took a deep breath and entoned, “Echoes of the Dead.”

  A pale pink light rose up from the body of the nearest monster. It slowly formed into a semitransparent Flail Snail. Sandwich pointed to a nearby tree and said, “Knock that tree down.”

  The pink Flail Snail slithered over to the tree and started wailing on it. It took some time for it to do appreciable damage to the tree. Every second flail passed right through the tree, and even when the spiked ball damaged the tree, it was not nearly as strong as the original monster.

  Luke walked over to the pink summons and said, “I’m assuming it costs mana to keep it summoned?”

  “Yeah, it costs him one mana every thirty seconds or so,” Sandwich said, basically talking about himself in third person. “Oh hey, skill up. Nice.”

  “Ooh, that’s pretty efficient. Is this a Silver or Gold class?”

  “Silver.”

  “Aw man. Outshined again.” Bumblebee sighed. When Vanessa gave him a look he said, “Bronze. It’s the lowest level. You get lower stats and fewer skills. Bronze classes can only keep two skills at once. My friend even had to give up a skill when he hit level twelve. Luckily, Evade is a badass skill.”

  “I think I saw that!” Vanessa said. “You almost got clobbered and then you just slipped out of the way. It was like your suit got all bendy for a second.”

  “Not my suit, space. I’m... He’s literally bending the universe over here.” Bumblebee said and struck a silly pose.

  “Sandwich, how many pink ghosts can you summon at once?” Luke asked to bring things back on track.

  “It’s not a ghost, it can interact with the world. I call them specters,” Sandwich said firmly.

  “Ok, how many pink specters can you summon at once?”

  “And do they have to be pink or is that just your vibe?” Bumblebee interjected.

  Sandwich flipped him off and turned to Luke. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried.”

  The sound of rustling leaves made Luke whip his head to the left. He focused on Machine Bond and pushed mana into the vision enhancing runes. Three large somethings were coming this way.

  “I think now is a fantastic time to try and raise more specters,” Luke said while backing up. “Like right now, now.”