Five minutes later, I hated The Wheel more than any boss I’d fought. Ever.

  It wasn’t hard. The gimmick was pretty simple, in fact. The three of us picked a spot on the wheel—Tori and I on red, to either side of Jessica, who took a black wedge. Then we waited. A massive chute started spinning overhead. A boulder the size of the Ford Explorer’s engine block rolled down.

  It landed. And wherever it landed, that’s how many monsters spawned.

  After each round, we could move. After the first one spawned thirteen Level Twenty-Five High-Roll Imps, I put Jessica on the black ten, Tori on the red twenty-five, and stood on the red twenty-seven myself. Then we hunkered down and fought wave after wave of imps and what looked suspiciously like rat men in armor made from poker chips.

  We were on the fifth wave, and I’d given up on a quick victory, when the chute stopped right in front of Jessica. The boulder fell, she dodged, and a system announcement filled the dungeon.

  Boss Defeated: The Wheel

  Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team’s experience.

  Jessica started laughing. “I haven’t beaten a dungeon boss since the tutorial. That was…kind of fun. And three levels. Not that I want to do it again, but it was pretty good.”

  I didn’t feel the same way. The Wheel hadn’t been a boss at all. In fact, at the correct level, it would have been a trap. I could only imagine a group of Level Thirty-somethings rolling thirty-six imps and being overwhelmed—or ground down by dozens of rolls. Not one of the swarms had been worth a single experience; without out-leveling it or having a healer, a group could be in real trouble here.

  “We should find the others. We’ll need to clear the whole dungeon to get out without losing levels,” Tori said. “While we’re waiting, let’s go hunting. There’s gotta be a card monkey or poker chip elemental we missed around here somewhere.”

  I agreed. We didn’t have anything better to do, and the twins weren’t as strong as the two of us. They were more than capable of clearing this dungeon and beating The Dealer, but it’d be a touch slower. Even if we only found one or two enemies, the full clear reward would be worth it.

  And it gave me time to think.

  The Fireborn Crusade wasn’t going to go away, and as powerful as community-building could be, we were out-gunned right now. I’d thought about killing Liu while he was alone in the City Hall. Between Tori, Zane, Carol, and me, we’d probably have had a better than even chance, and removing the head of the rattlesnake usually killed it. It would have solved the problem.

  I hadn’t because Calvin and Jessica were in the room. With three powerful enemies in Liu and his two Flamecallers, and an unknown but weaker threat in the Fireborn Crusader’s grandfather, I couldn’t risk an all-out fight. The odds of my people dying were too high. There was a different solution. It’d take longer. It’d be riskier. And even if it worked out, it might not end the Crusade for good.

  But all the risk could be managed, unlike a close-quarters fight with multiple fire Mages and a powerful melee fighter—not to mention his guards.

  After a few minutes, we got a notification.

  Boss Defeated: The Dealer

  Dungeon Delvers who were not in the arena will receive fifty percent of your team’s experience.

  Even that wasn’t enough to level me, but the next two messages were a good consolation prize.

  Congratulations! For completing one hundred percent of a Tier Two Dungeon’s first floor, you have received the following reward:

  One [Voltsmith’s] Supply Box (Rank One)

  Area Message: The Wheel of Fate’s second floor has unlocked. This floor will remain unlocked for twenty-four hours, after which time the first floor will reset.

  We’d knocked out the first floor in record time; it had only been forty minutes or so. “Come on. Let’s meet the others and get ready for the second floor,” I said.

  Tier Two Dungeon: The Wheels of Fate (Floor Two)

  Objective: Defeat the Whale

  Objective: Survive (0/1)

  Completion: 0%

  Paid Exit: Dungeon Delvers may leave this dungeon, but only by sacrificing a level.

  Safe Passages: There are no traps or surprises in this dungeon.

  Magical Flux: Spells’ effectiveness will be unpredictable based on location.

  Open Floor: Once triggered, the dungeon’s boss will roam freely.

  That last dungeon rule didn’t fill me with confidence.

  We’d climbed an unmoving golden escalator into a wide, open room that was, if anything, more painfully ostentatious and over-the-top than the casino below. The whole floor had pools that looked a lot like the ones outside that one casino in Vegas, complete with huge fountains that sprayed water hundreds of feet toward the nonexistent ceiling. The mist mostly splashed down into the tile-lined ponds all around the edge of the room, but enough of it hung in the air that I couldn’t see the far wall.

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  “The Whale, huh?” Calvin grumbled. He kept side-eying the whole place; I could kind of understand. This entire building reeked of greed and pointless money-spending—exactly the opposite of how I’d been raised. Mom and Dad would have hated every bit of it. And for Calvin, who’d been living on he street most of his life, it had to be even worse. “What a waste.”

  “How do you—“ Tori started. Then she cut off as the farthest fountain erupted.

  It looked like a tidal wave, a massive pile of water that crashed across the red plush carpet and swamped the single poker table in the center of the room. The wave surged toward us, and Tori double-cast Gravity Well in front of us, forming a barrier that the crest broke around. The table shattered against the floor a few feet away. Splintered chair parts flew everywhere.

  And something gigantic flew overhead.

  The Whale: Level Fifty-Four Elite Dungeon Boss

  Current Difficulty: Trivial

  Hey, big spender! The Whale could have owned this entire dungeon with the fortune it’s dropped at the high-stakes VIP table. Instead, it’s taking advantage of the comped accommodations and making itself at home. Massive destruction? Flood damage? Thousands of bottles of the most expensive booze imaginable? Put it on the Whale’s tab—just like your demise.

  Insatiable - This boss will feed on any viable wealth sources within its range.

  Dominion Aura - This boss’s lair grants it the Elite status.

  Elite - This monster moves faster and hits harder than a similarly powerful monster.

  Competitive - This boss’s power grows the longer its winning streak continues.

  I stared at the list of boss rules. The obvious—and only—solution to the Whale was to put it down fast. Otherwise, its Insatiable and Competitive rules might let it scale to the point where we couldn’t handle it. It was already almost as powerful as the Queen Tyrant had been the first time we encountered it.

  And worse, the gigantic blue whale splashed down right in the center of a fountain. As it hit, more water surged across the arena floor at us, and the golden fountains around its edge collapsed inward behind the monstrous boss.

  “Plan?” Tori yelled.

  “Working on it!” I shouted back.

  The fight should be simple. The boss wasn’t that strong, even with its Dominion Aura. But just like the GOAT, it had a mechanic that caused it to grow in power—and unlike the GOAT, there wasn’t a glaring weakness like the ball. In a way, The Whale reminded me of…I couldn’t quite think of it.

  “Try stopping it from leaving the pools!” I said. “Pin it in place!”

  “I’ll try!” Tori sprinted toward the nearest pool—the one the Whale had vanished into—but just as she got ready for a Push or a Gravity Well, the boss erupted from a different one. This time, we were out of position, and she was already casting, and she couldn’t form a barrier to shield all of us. I threw myself in front of Calvin. Carol had the same thought and shielded Zane.

  The water slammed into me. It felt like when the pigs rammed into me in an attempt to get to their slop. Dad always said that in the pigpen, you never went down. You fought for your footing no matter what. I did, the wave breaking around and on top of me. The Trip-Hammer’s spike slammed into the carpet, and I held on with everything I had.

  Calvin grabbed my backpack. Tori Levitated herself over the wave. And Carol and Zane rode out their wave behind the whip; she’d used the weapon’s size-increasing ability and slammed it into the carpet, cutting the water in half in front of her.

  Then Toi yelled something about her mom. We hadn’t covered Jessica.

  The Whale vanished into another fountain, pulling statues and golden inlay under as it went. As its massive fluke slammed into the water, I caught Jessica’s hand and reeled her in. She was fine. She’d have some bruises, and she was pretty cut up from the splintered tables and chairs, but she was fine.

  The boss had started glowing; I caught a glimpse of its level as it dove under.

  The Whale: Level Fifty-Six Elite Dungeon Boss

  Things weren’t out of control, but it’d only be a matter of time.

  “Idea.” We’d braced ourselves in a corner. Tori and Zane were doing their best to keep a bubble of sanity around us as the water rose over my knees. Poker chips and wads of soaked thousand-dollar bills drifted on the churning sea, and the Whale had started consuming the walls and velvet curtains. It was almost Level Sixty now, and showed no signs of slowing down.

  But I’d noticed something. And it had given me a possible path to victory.

  Two, actually.

  First, it always crossed the room either east to west or north to south, and it never came out of a pool on either side it had just used. It had rules. We could exploit that.

  And second, the pools weren’t very deep. If we drained them all, it’d only raise the overall water level to mid-thigh or so.

  I explained my thoughts. It’d be messy—especially with the water rising all the time—but we could get it done. It’d require some coordination, though.

  The Whale had just crossed from north to south, so I sent Carol south and went north. Tori and Zane readied another wall of Gravity Wells and churning walls of flame; the room felt like a sauna already, but Zane couldn’t stop. And we waited.

  “Whale airborne!” Jessica yelled. “East to west!”

  “On it!” Carol slammed her spear into the nearest fountain pool, then hit it again. I watched to make sure she could do it. Three hits. Four. The tile shattered. Water started pouring out.

  I revved the Trip-Hammer and started breaking concrete and terra-cotta on my side, too. We had to knock out as many as possible, and we had to do it right here and right now. The Whale had a set of rules. It was a machine, not a monster. Kind of.

  And while I usually fixed machines, that meant I knew how to break them, too.

  We needed a predictable path—the Whale had to go somewhere, and we needed to control where that was. We could do that by eliminating—

  The next wave hit me as the boss’s east-to-west transit finished. It almost blew me off my feet. The Whale had reached Level Sixty, and with it came a massive power spike to the wave. It shimmered a bright gold, and this time, when I thought it was past, it rippled off the walls, climbing almost to the ceiling, and crashed back down over us.

  “Hang on!” I shouted.

  This time, it felt like a semi-truck, and I couldn’t keep a grip on the Trip-Hammer. My ribs and spine popped, and I spun five directions at the same time. It was like being trapped in a washing machine—water went everywhere, and I went everywhere with it. Worse, there were still two possible exits and two possible entries for The Whale. We needed there to be one.

  This wasn’t going to work.

  Calvin popped up, sputtering in the waves. I couldn’t get to him, but he could get to Jessica. They bobbed in the water. Then he picked her up, head going under, and threw her toward the second exit fountain.

  The effort shoved him toward the first. They were only a couple dozen feet apart.

  The whale erupted from the entry farthest from me. Tori was out of position and struggling to stay afloat. She couldn’t get a Gravity Well in place. We were—

  Calvin raised a hammer and slammed it down into the waves, and a wall of razor-sharp brambles erupted from around him—and around Jessica.

  The Whale got a set, too, though. And it crashed down toward Calvin from fifty feet up, an unstoppable force.

  And Calvin was far from an immovable object.

  Hello, Voltsmith readers,

  Here we go! Voltsmith’s first book launched on Kindle yesterday (it took way less time than I expected to get through the review process; I’d expected to be at least a day based on their timeline). I did some refinement to it, added a few elements and took a few others out, and did a fairly extensive editing pass to the story as a whole, and I think that while it’s very much the same story, it’s stronger than it was in its Royal Road form.

  Full-time authorship is a dream I’ve been chasing for a long time. I’ve been very fortunate to have a support network that’s been willing to let me focus on writing, and that’s resulted in 12 completed books in two and a half years—a wild pace. Making enough money to live on, however, has kind of eluded me so far. Moving stories to Kindle is hard on you guys on Royal Road, but it’s a necessary step for me. I hope you understand.

  I know you’ve enjoyed Voltsmith, for all of its (hopefully addressed) flaws, and I know some of you have enjoyed my other stories. If you have, please lend me some of your support, and consider picking up a Kindle copy of Voltsmith—or if you have Kindle Unlimited, giving it a reread on there when you get a chance. I’d appreciate it.

  Thanks,

  Aest Belequa

  To Hal Riley, the apocalypse is just another problem to solve—all he needs to do is build the right tools.

  It's rush hour in Chicago when a system integration ends the world as Hal Riley knows it. Forced into its hardcore tutorial, Hal adapts, thrives, and emerges with the perfect class for an auto mechanic: [Voltsmith].

  His new class promises to teach him the very secrets of the Universal Order. All he needs to do is understand the underlying principles of magical engineering, use them to build bigger weapons and greater tools, and perhaps even uncover the inner workings of the system itself.

  But as Hal builds his creations and grows in power, his enemies grow stronger, too—and not just the ones in the dungeons across Chicago. Gangs looking to rule, rogue tutorial survivors, and powerful world bosses roam the city, and beyond its borders, there’s smoke on the horizon.

  Hal’s ready, though. The apocalypse is just a bunch of nails, and he’s making hammers. It’s time to engineer his way through the apocalypse.

  Kindle/KU: