“Jinx! Where are you? We're leaving now,” Luke called out as he finished strapping on his slim power armor.

  They were fully packed and only waiting on the elusive black cat. She had a tendency to slink away to find a good place to nap and he had lost track of her. Today of all days he couldn’t leave without her. They were going to buy an animal bond at the capital so Luke could communicate with her directly. She had to be there for that part.

  The tarp on the back of the hover truck rustled and Jinx jumped out of the truck bed, phasing through crates and armor. Based on where she came from, Luke guessed she had been sleeping in his Black Mamba mech.

  “Dude, don’t mess with my mech. I don’t want you accidentally turning off the safeties and blowing shit up,” Luke groused.

  She ignored him and padded around him to get scritches from Kruro. The naga obliged and they pretended Luke wasn’t there.

  Bosa flipped her hair back and leaned down to Jinx. “Hello Jinx. I was hoping I would get to meet you. I have heard many good things about you, but I see they have not done you justice. You are beautiful! Your eyes are like starry nights and your fur coat is divine.” She hopped up and reached into her embroidered robes. “I got this especially for you. I hope you enjoy it.”

  She pulled out a package and ripped open the top. Then she slid out a dried fish, one that was a full foot long. Jinx sniffed it and her eyes went wide. Bosa motioned that she was going to throw it to her and Jinx chirped with excitement.

  Bosa tossed the dried fish and Jinx caught it in the air. She chowed down on the treat and it was gone within moments. The large housecat padded over to the elf and gave her a rumbling purr as she rubbed up against her. Now that Jinx was level sixteen, she was as big as a panther and the affection almost knocked Bosa over. She laughed and made sure to give the black cat all the pets.

  Luke rolled his eyes. “One fish and you fall in love? When we first met you wouldn’t let me pet you for a week!” He shook his head. “Whatever, let’s go. It’s morning on Kalibutan now, and I want to get to the meeting spot a bit early. Kruro, you’re the biggest one, you’ve got the back row. I’m driving. Bosa you have the front passenger seat. Jinx, you can sit anywhere you want. Let’s go.”

  They climbed into the truck and Luke activated the runes that lined the bottom of the vehicle. It slowly rose into the air, hovering three feet above the pavement. Since the controls were designed by someone from Earth, Luke was able to easily drive the hover truck and trailer across the Norfolk Complex.

  Things got more difficult when they got to building A, the hulking concrete building that housed the portal connecting the two worlds. The winding hallways that served as a passive defensive measure were easily navigated by people in power loaders. But a truck and trailer had much a much more difficult time getting through the twisting winding hallways. Even with his enhanced Dexterity and Acuity, Luke still scraped the walls a few times.

  Eventually, they reached their destination. The portal between worlds was a rectangle twenty feet tall and twelve feet wide. There were dozens of runes inscribed all along its stone edge, obscured by divine magic so they couldn’t be copied. Luke knew now that the portals were powered by literal gods who demanded sentient sacrifice.

  He’d been trying to ignore that fact over the last few months. The new perspective of driving a truck through the portal with Bosa by his side made that fact fresh in his mind. He swore to himself again that he would find a way to stop the sacrifices.

  But he wasn’t going to spend time anguishing about it today. Luke waited his turn and drove through the corridor of stars and arrived on Kalibutan just as the morning sun was cresting the distant horizon. The orc guards startled when he hovered through the portal, but quickly controlled themselves. They had gotten used to Luke’s increasingly larger mechs. This was just one more bizarre machine.

  Driving down the stairs at the edge of the plateau was easier than he had feared. The stone stairs were wide enough that he was able to keep his vehicle away from the edge. The hover enchantments kept them steady as they glided over the stairs. He drove past the sleepy merchants setting up for the day and turned west towards the farming estate, Fekundaj Kampoj.

  He had never been to the estate. He had always wanted to, but something else always came up. The plan was for Vanessa to tell him all about the estate as they drove through it, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen anymore.

  His temples throbbed as he realized that he would need a new Negotiator. Someone had to liaise with the three estates around the Colorado portal. Luke didn’t want to do it himself, his last negotiation had ended with him participating in a duel to the death. He would have to assign one of his employees to the job.

  The thought of Bumblebee possibly taking the job made him shiver. That would be a disaster that would certainly end in an interstellar incident. Sandwich wasn’t the type to want to negotiate, or be any good at it. Angela’s every look promised death, so she would be worse than the others. Jeff and Gina might be good at it, or maybe terrible. He couldn’t be sure. Too bad Allen hated talking to people, otherwise he would be perfect.

  The farming estate came into view a short while later. Unlike the other two estates, this one had a tall wooden wall surrounding the village and the fields outside it. The lord’s peace field kept the monsters out of the village, but the farms outside needed protection too.

  There were guards slowly patrolling the palisade, keeping an eye on the forests around them. Inside there were row after row of crops gently swaying in the breeze. Farm mages walked through the fields, pushing their magic into the plants to help them grow faster. A second wave of mundane harvesters followed them, cutting down the crops for the next to waves to pack and ship out.

  Luke heard that this area provided food for hundreds of thousands of city dwellers. The land was particularly fertile so it could support multiple rounds of accelerated growth.

  They stopped outside the city walls and he gave the guard a little wave. They bowed slightly and went back to patrolling. Predictably, Luke was the first one at the meeting spot. Lord Momoh had said to meet at dawn, but Luke assumed that meant an hour after dawn or even later. Elvish Aristocrats were not known for their urgency.

  Luke lowered the hover truck down to the ground and got out to stretch his legs. Today was going to be a long one. The caravan would be driving for most of the day. That was a Kalibutan day, which was twice as long as Earth’s. He hoped that Bosa was a good driver, otherwise he would have to be up for way too long.

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  He turned and leaned up against the truck, being careful not to scrape it with his power armor. It was a quiet, calm morning. A perfect day for traveling.

  Jinx was laying atop Kruro’s coiled tail, settling in for a nap. She suddenly jerked up her head and turned to the forest. Luke spun and scanned the treeline for monsters. He didn’t see anything. The forest was quiet other than the sound of birds.

  He kept looking, trusting her instincts more than his own. He tapped his visor to increase the power to the mana sensing runes. The suit normally ran on low power so it was more efficient. It was one of the areas Kruro had helped him improve his designs, so they used less mana and each monster core lasted longer.

  Even with the boosted vision, Luke didn’t see anything for a long moment. Just trees and bushes. They glowed slightly in his mana vision, but some Kalibutan plants were magical so that didn’t mean much. Then he realized he was already looking at the monster.

  There was a wide cleared area all along the wall, a few hundred feet without vegetation. In some areas the ground was bare dirt, others looked like someone had burnt the vegetation to the ground again and again. The sharp edges of the cleared area spoke to regular maintenance. The smattering of bushes and ferns a dozen feet away should have been cut or burnt down well before they grew this close to the walls.

  Those bushes weren’t supposed to be there, but his eyes kept sliding off them. He activated Armor Adjunct and a shimmering field of magic enveloped his armor. The skill gave him protection from all forms of magic, including mental magic that made you ignore monsters.

  With his mind cleared, he saw eight monsters standing stock still. They still looked like bushes, but without the mental aspect of their magic, he could identify their legs, torso, and eyes. Eight eyes. These three foot tall monsters were spiders.

  They clearly still thought their magic was working and were just waiting for him to turn around so they could approach. It was like a deadly version of red light, green light. Luke found himself wishing that he had his bigger mech suit on. He could take all of them out with a single fireball from his right gauntlet cannon.

  The weapons on this smaller set of power armor were much weaker. He wasn’t worried though. These monsters looked like tier one monsters, they should be susceptible to everything this suit could dish out. And if that wasn’t enough, Luke had his class skills to pull on. He wanted to save his internal mana in case of emergencies, though. So he decided to see how many he could kill with just his slim suit.

  Slowly so he wouldn’t spook them, Luke raised his right arm and pointed at the middle of the pack where three Bush Spiders were grouped. He charged up a shot, biting his lip for the three seconds it took. Once it was ready, he fired. A ball of tightly contained plasma shot across the intervening thirty feet and exploded, lighting all three of them on fire.

  The new weapon wasn’t as strong as his other ones, but it had the advantage of not needing ammo. The plasma shot needed mana and time, nothing else. That was something particularly useful when he was going to spend weeks away from Earth and any chance of resupply. The magnets he used for the big mech were easy to source back home but almost impossible on Kalibutan.

  The burning monsters screeched in pain and anger, sounding the starting gun for the engagement. The five uninjured spiders skittered towards Luke, spreading out to surround him. He stuck out his left palm and activated the wind and fire runes there. A flamethrower shot out and he moved his hand in a wide arch. Two more monsters lit up in a conflagration.

  Luke cut off the fire before the gauntlet heated up too much. For the last three monsters, he wanted to test out his final weapon. He dropped his hands to his hips and pulled out the two batons embedded in the outer thigh of the armor. Each one was a two foot long solid metal cudgel with elemental runes engraved on the tip.

  The plant monsters attacked as one, leaping for his face with their thorn claws outstretched. Time slowed down as Luke’s Acuity gave him time to think. He leaned back and pushed off to his right. As he slid to the side, he pushed mana into his right baton and smacked it into the monster’s vine body. The Scintillating Fire rune burst outwards a foot from the tip and lit it on fire.

  The plant monster screeched in pain as it continued its forward trajectory. The monster on the opposite side had just enough time to realize it was in trouble before it hit. The two disguised monsters screeched and fell to the ground in a tumble of flaming limbs. Luke ignored them and aimed at the final plant.

  This one was smarter than the others. It used feints to avoid its own immolation and attacked Luke’s left side. His ice baton met the monster’s charge with a spray of freezing magic. A pair of wide leaves caught the magic and shattered. The rest of the monster was unharmed and continued forward to wrap around Luke. His Armor Adjunct flared, but the attack wasn’t magical.

  Both of Luke’s arms were pinned to his side with wide and strong vines. The impact had knocked him off his feet. Acuity let him experience the fall in slow motion, and he strained against the vines. Despite his high stats and the buff from his class, he wasn’t strong enough to break free. There was nothing he could do.

  Almost nothing.

  He didn’t need to use his hands to fire off Phantom Shot. He aimed for the monster’s center mass and fired the insubstantial spell. The gray and violet shot burst out of his body and through the monster’s. It immediately stopped and its limbs fell limp.

  He grumbled as he unwrapped the dead limbs and climbed to his feet. The journey hadn’t even started yet and his nice new set of power armor was already scratched. The monster might have been tier one, but its thorns had left deep furrows in his formerly pristine suit. He was distracted from his grumbling by a notice from the system.

  That seemed like a minor fight to get a level up from, until Luke realized this was the first time he used Phantom Shot without his arms to assist aiming. Stretching the skill in new ways was often rewarded by the system.

  Bosa hopped out of the vehicle and raced over to him. “Luke of Machines, are you alright? Oh I was so worried when you went down. You were so masterful, finding and killing those hidden monsters.”

  Luke rolled his eyes and replied, “You’re laying it on a bit thick. I’m fine. But since you’re my servant for the trip, go ahead and make yourself useful. Collect all those mana cores. Let me know if there are any above tier one.”

  “Of course, right away. Let me just get my sewing kit. I have my sharp thread in there.” She hurried back to the truck and dug out a bag from her luggage.

  She got out a silvery thread and had it dance through the air around her. She walked over to one of the bodies and wrapped the thread around its torso. She sawed back and forth with the thread, slowly cutting into the body.

  It was much slower than what Luke could do by just plunging his hand into the corpses and rooting around for the marble sized core. But this way he wouldn’t get dirty, so he didn’t bother asking her to hurry up.

  He glanced over to the wooden wall and saw three guards holding bows, scanning the forest. They must have run over when they heard the commotion. He was slightly miffed that they hadn’t assisted him in the fight.

  They waited there, just outside the walls, for another half hour before anyone else came. The lord and his nephew arrived together and Luke found himself quickly wondering if he should have made the journey alone instead.