Chapter 6 - Merging Stones

  We’d barely made it twenty feet before I heard scuttling sounds from somewhere up ahead. By that time, I knew those sounds. I’d heard them a few times. Three giant bugs came around the corner, scurrying across the thin sand toward me. They were only a few feet back, and I still had one of my hands full.

  “Back up, everyone! Hurry!” I said.

  The kids backed away, clearing a little space behind me. I set Emmy down. “Make sure to watch her.”

  “I’ve got her!” Maria said.

  “Me, too!” That was Mike. Good. Between the two of them, they could hopefully keep the girl safe.

  I had bigger problems to handle.

  I turned back toward the bugs, holding my spear in both hands again. They kept moving toward me. When I shifted to the right, they still arrowed right at me, curving to match my movements. That was fine with me. The last thing I wanted was them chasing after the kids.

  My spear bounced off a carapace on the first hit. I tried again, and this time it stuck in, impaling the critter. The other two rolled up into balls instantly, so I yanked the spear out of their partner and aimed for another.

  “More bugs!” Manuel shouted from our rear.

  I glanced back, over the kids’ heads, and saw three more of them that way. Crap! They were coming at us from both sides, now? I looked around for another way out, and spotted one—a side passage branched off to the left.

  “This way, kids! Let’s go!” I pointed down the side tunnel. “Manuel, lead out. Use your light to show the way, but shout for me if you see any more bugs, okay?”

  “You got it!” He turned down the passage, and the rest of the kids followed.

  I scooped Emmy up to my shoulder again and followed them in. The kids kept moving ahead of me, but the bugs followed us into the side tunnel too, so I let them keep moving. We needed to find someplace defensible where I could set the girl down and fight these creatures off.

  Then I saw the kids had stopped. “Manuel? Why’d you stop?”

  “Dead end, Mister Castle. There’s nowhere else to go!”

  I froze, worried for a moment, but realized that might work to our advantage. “Check the walls, floor, and ceiling carefully with your light. Make sure there are no small holes, nothing any of those bugs can get in through.”

  If there was no other way into this space, then we could rest here a while, maybe even get Emmy back on her feet before we tried following the path back out again. I could hold these creatures off if they could only attack us from one direction.

  The pill bugs chasing us were closing in, so I gently lay Emmy down on the sand behind me and took up my best fighting stance, spear held high so I could stab it down with force.

  “I can’t see any holes!” Manuel said.

  “Me either!” That was Troy.

  With a couple of the kids looking, odds were they’d have seen another hole if there was one. The last thing I wanted was some of these critters sneaking up behind me and taking me out while I was distracted by the ones in front of me. I stabbed down at the nearest one, my spear punching right through the shell. I yanked the spear back just in time to whack another one as it approached. The blow glanced off, not enough to kill it, but at least it was knocked back some.

  I had four more of the things to deal with. One darted forward toward my leg, but I sent it flying into the wall with a quick kick. It rolled into a ball as it sailed through the air, so it bounced off the wall and hit the sand. As soon as it was on the ground again, the bug unrolled and came back after me.

  Another stab with the spear took one out. Even feeling extra-strong like I was, it still took a lot of effort to punch through those shells. Emmy wasn’t easy to carry, either! My arms were starting to get tired. I dug deep and kept moving, because there wasn’t a lot of choice. Either I fought these things off, or they’d rush in here, bite us all, and then probably turn us into pill bug snack food.

  One came in close, and I stomped on it, shattering its carapace and sending sticky goo in a circle around the body. Gross, but effective. The final two rushed me at the same time. I stabbed one with the spear, transfixing it, but the other one ran to my foot and bit down. Once again, my shoes were tough enough to save me, but then it climbed higher. The mandibles slashed down, biting into my jeans but not quite slashing through them. I felt pressure on my shin as it tried to chomp me, but no pain.

  “Gah!” I shouted. Not the most verbose, but you try being eloquent when a two foot long bug is climbing your leg! I shifted the spear horizontally and slammed it down on the thing with both hands.

  That knocked it free from my leg, at least. It rolled into a ball right away, trying to play defense, but I knew that game. I kicked it toward the wall, where it rolled to a stop. Pinned against the cave wall, it was easy enough to crush it with my foot.

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  I panted, trying to catch my breath. Fighting like that took a lot out of me! I’d been into sports, back in college; I used to sail and run cross country. But that was a couple of years ago, and I hadn’t been keeping up on it as much since graduation, something I was regretting in a serious way now.

  “You all okay?” I asked the kids, glancing back to check on them.

  They were fine, all huddled around Manuel’s glow stick. He held it high enough so they could all see, and flashed me a grin. I was glad someone was having fun here!

  Then I knelt on the sand to check out the dead creatures. I didn’t remember if these were insects or crustaceans. Some fragment of old memory made me think the latter was true, but they sure looked like insects. Whatever they were at small size, these bigger, tougher models were a serious hazard compared to the tiny brethren.

  I tapped the first body, unsure what would happen. Sure enough, a tiny crystal popped into my hand. This time I was watching carefully, so I knew it had actually appeared there. Just popped into existence like magic.

  There it was, the word I’d been avoiding even thinking quietly to myself since all this started. First all the power went out. Then rat-monsters attacked; those were creatures which as far as I knew simply didn’t exist. On top of that were the crystals appearing in my hand when I touched dead monsters. Now we had giant pill bugs, too, also dropping crystals.

  In a lot of ways, the word ‘magic’ fit the bill in a manner that nothing else did. I wasn’t willing to say it aloud. Not yet, anyway. But my thoughts were drifting in that direction.

  Unlike the last few times I’d gotten a crystal, this one sank into my palm, just like the first had. It was the same as the first stone I’d gotten, I realized. This was a second copy of the Strength gem. Somehow, getting a second copy did something new, flooding my mind with new memories that were more than a simple repeat of the first set. This time, there was more context, more information.

  A vision unfolded in my mind, showing the two gems coming together and merging into a new, slightly larger clear stone. I knew intuitively that I was now substantially stronger than I’d been before. Better still, I knew that I could do this again—merge more stones. Two more Strength stones would enable me to merge them all into an even larger crystal with greater power.

  That place in my mind where I could see the embedded stones, the crystals I’d absorbed, looked different now as well. The Strength stone was still there, but larger than before. And the next slot over, which had been blocked before, was now open and empty. The other three slots were still locked, but by ‘leveling up’ the Strength crystal, I’d unlocked the second slot!

  I reached into my pocket, touching the other stones, but as soon as I touched them I felt one trying to socket itself. I jerked my hand away, then used a bit of gauze to scoop them all from my pocket without touching them. All three of them were clear crystals. There was nothing that marked any of them as being different from the others, which was annoying.

  It was an easy guess that each stone did something. I’d found two which boosted Strength, and Manuel had one which added Agility. It would be nice to know what the other ones did before I went and touched them, though! Odds were that these three other stones did something other than Strength, though; if they were Strength crystals, they’d have merged with the one I had socketed as soon as I touched them.

  Since there was no way to tell them apart anyway, I just picked one up at random. It sank into my palm, feeling every bit as weird as the last two times, and filling my mind with yet more memories that didn’t belong to me. This time, they were about Stamina.

  This stone granted increased physical health. I’d heal more quickly, survive wounds better, overcome poisons more readily, not get sick as much—all of which sounded amazing. Even the stab wound I’d taken in my leg felt better after the stone socketed itself.

  I picked up both of the other stones, and to my shock, another one was absorbed as well. More Stamina, this time, ranking my Stamina stone up to the second tier as well. I wasn’t sure if I was getting lucky with these, or if there were only so many types of stones out there. Maybe a little of both? Either way, I’d take it. The last stone just sat in my hand, so I returned it to my pocket.

  Then I went and collected crystals from the other four dead creatures. I got two more clear crystals, but two of them dropped grey stones instead. These looked just like the others—they were small, faceted stones that looked a little raw. Not like something a jeweler had shaped, but more like a natural crystal. Where the clear ones looked like glass, the grey ones were more like a smoky quartz.

  None of them were absorbing into me just then, though, so I’d reached the limits of what I could do with them for now. I checked that inner map showing me how they were socketed again.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Clear Stone (Tier 2) - Strength

  Point 2: Clear Stone (Tier 2) - Stamina

  Point 3: X

  Point 4: X

  Point 5: X

  Spare Stones

  Grey x2

  Clear x4

  It was too bad that bringing the Stamina stone to tier two hadn’t unlocked the third slot. I was sort of figuring that would work, but apparently not. My best guess was that I’d need to rank one of the two up to tier three before the third slot would open up.

  But even when I scooped all four clear stones into my hand, they didn’t merge and socket themselves. I knew I needed two more of either Strength or Stamina to rank the socketed stone up. Just needed to keep looking, I guessed.

  “How’s everyone doing?” I asked, turning back to check on Emmy. She was still breathing and her color looked good, but even when I shook her gently, she didn’t rouse. I hoped she would wake from the bug venom soon, but until then we were probably best off staying where we were.

  “Good here, Mister Castle,” Manuel replied. He’d turned into a de facto leader for this crew, which was good. I needed help herding this many kids around, and even if it was help from another kid, I’d take it. We were in too tight a spot to refuse assistance from anywhere it was offered.

  “I think we need to wait here until Emmy wakes up,” I said. “Then we can all walk out together.”

  The kids seemed to think that was a good plan. I just hoped we had enough glow sticks to make it that long. If Emmy slept for hours, that wasn’t going to be an option. I checked my bag, and we had just two of the things, plus the other flare. Glow sticks ought to last for hours, so we had some time yet before we had to worry. I figured if Emmy didn’t wake up by the time the two glow sticks we were using expired, it would be time to break out the last two and start walking.

  There was no way I wanted to be stranded in these tunnels without light, that much I knew! I shivered at the idea of being down there in the dark, surrounded by those monsters, with no way to even see them coming.

  Even as I had the thought, I heard more scuttling from the passage ahead. More pill bugs rounded the corner, marching toward us like a little army. I braced myself, spear in hand. Time to smush some more bugs!