Chapter 7 - The Courage of Children

  There were more of them this time, way more. They rushed in too fast for me to count them easily. One scuttled along the wall, trying to get past me to the kids, so I swiped at it, using my spear like a bat. The blow sent it flying a good five feet down the passage, although it didn’t seem badly hurt.

  I flipped the spear around and stabbed one, killing it. More were coming, though. I dropped the stupid messenger bag; it was only messing up my strikes. Not carrying it gave me a little more freedom of movement, and everything I could do to improve my fighting ability was a plus.

  Another stab, another dead pill bug. I was now incredibly convinced that those crystals were the real deal, because I was far stronger now that I’d ranked that crystal up. Before, about half my blows just bounced off the bugs’ shells. Now, every stab punched through. I still had to hit them as hard as I could—there was no room for holding back, here! But I was able to hurt the things much more easily.

  It didn’t matter. There were still just too many of them. I killed a third, and a fourth, but then I had two crawling along the floor while one approached alone each wall. I backed up, stabbing one of the ones on the floor while avoiding the other, but the ones on the walls just kept going right past me.

  “Kids, watch out! Bugs on the walls!” I cried out, trying to kill the one right in front of me so I could turn and fight the two that had slipped past.

  “On it!” Manuel shouted.

  “No, just avoid them!” He was a kid! He wasn’t going to be able to squash one of them. Maybe if he’d gotten a Strength crystal, but his was Agility. I doubted he had enough Strength or weight to stomp one to death, and he wasn’t armed!

  I stabbed the other one on the floor just in time, because it had reared back and was about to chomp my kneecap. The spear tip went right into its belly and out the back. I knew it was dead and didn’t waste time trying to pry it from my spear, instead just turning with the bug still pinned.

  Manuel had all the other kids behind him, their backs to the wall. One of the pill bugs was already dead—but how? He was facing off against the other, a knife in his hand.

  A glance at my bag told the story. He’d gone into it and grabbed the blade I got from the rat-creatures, then used it to defend the other kids. That was one hell of a brave kid!

  I stabbed out, pinioning the last bug on the end of my spear. It wriggled there for a few seconds, then died.

  “Nice work, Manuel! Good thinking to grab the knife,” I said.

  “Thanks, Mister Castle.”

  I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re past last names at this point. Call me Cam, kid. You’ve earned it.”

  His chest swelled with pride, and I knew I’d said the right thing. All the same, did I want a pre-teen running around with an eight inch blade? What if he fell? What if he stabbed one of the other kids?

  What if the blade saved him from a monster?

  Crap, this was one of those things where there wasn’t going to be a right answer, huh? Where no matter what I did, there was a good chance it would end badly. I hated decisions like that. Should I let him keep the knife, or take it back?

  I made the best call I could. “Manuel, I’d like you to put the knife back in the bag, for now.” He looked crestfallen. “Just for now. If the pill bugs attack again, pull it back out and defend your friends, okay?”

  “You got it, Mister—I mean, Cam.” He looked proud enough to burst again.

  A few of the other kids looked jealous, so I turned to them. “Guys, Manuel did good work there. If we find more things we can use to fight the bugs, I’ll get you into the action too, if you want. But these things are not ordinary bugs. They’re hard to kill. I’m surprised Manuel managed, but he did. If he hadn’t, those bugs might have bitten one of you.”

  “Then we’d be like Emmy, right?” Maria asked.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  Speaking of Emmy made me want to check on her. There was more color in her cheeks. Was she starting to come out of it? I could only hope. We still had plenty of time on the glow sticks, so it wasn’t a pressing issue, yet. But it would become one sooner or later.

  As dangerous as losing our light would be, the increasing numbers the bugs were using for their attacks bothered me even more. There had been eight of them, this time. What was coming next, a dozen? Maybe twenty? More?

  I thought back to when I’d seen the tiny ones as a kid. They loved damp places, enjoyed rotting wood and moist dirt. Turn over a big log or rock in the right place, and you’d find a swarm of the things underneath. They never bit people, not the little ones. They weren’t aggressive. Pretty harmless, really. There were always a lot of them, though. Whenever I found one, I’d usually see dozens.

  How many of them would be down here? I had no way of knowing, but my best guess was ‘a lot.’

  Eight more dead creatures meant eight more stones. I went to each one, touching them and collecting the tiny crystals. None of them were sucked into my skin, but I wasn’t expecting them to do that, not until I was holding two Strength or two Stamina crystals at the same time, anyway.

  Manuel came over to me, holding a grey crystal. “This one popped out of the one I killed, but I guess I can’t use it?”

  I crouched down in front of him. “Yeah, near as I can tell, you need to find two of a kind before you can add any more.”

  “So I need another Agility one?” Manuel asked.

  I nodded. “Yup.”

  “Huh. Okay, I guess you can have this one, then,” he said, handing it to me.

  I took the stone from him, staring at it thoughtfully. I had an idea. Wasn’t sure if it would work, but maybe? I took all eight stones we’d just gathered and then added the other six from my pocket. With all fourteen stones in hand, glistening in my palm, something happened.

  Two of the stones jiggled, then snapped together, becoming a single, larger crystal. As soon as they merged, the larger stone sank into my palm, and I knew that my Stamina had just risen to tier three. I’d done it! That was an awesome step forward.

  Best part was, that did open a new socket for me, the third one. One of the grey crystals sank into my hand, dumping a new set of memories into my mind as it did. This one was something called Natural Armor. According to the memories it passed along, it made me tougher, harder to injure.

  With some of the bugs being especially difficult to stab with my spear, that sort of made sense. The pill bugs had external armor. Now, I supposed, so did I.

  A second grey stone sank into my palm, too, merging with the first. It had also been a Natural Armor stone. I was starting to think that whatever these things were, there couldn’t be that wide a selection. I seemed to be getting the same ones over and over, which only really made sense if there was a limited selection out there.

  Or maybe certain types of monster were more apt to drop certain crystals? That could be, too. There was a lot about this stuff I didn’t know. I had to remember not to take anything for granted. All of this might feel like I was playing a very realistic video game, but I wasn’t. This was the real world.

  “Whoa…!” Manuel said. He’d been there watching as the stones slid into my palm. “That is so cool to watch.”

  I looked at the kid. He had one stone, and I was holding nine more clear ones. Maybe one of them would be another Agility crystal, to rank him up? I wasn’t sure about handing any of the kids more crystals. They were kids. They didn’t belong on the front lines of a fight against monsters.

  On the other hand, they were on the front line in a fight against monsters whether they liked it or not. Manuel had been a big help in that last fight with just one stone. What if I handed him more? If I could rank up his Agility to open a new slot, I was betting that one spare grey stone I had was another Natural Armor, just like the other two. That might save his life.

  “You want to see if one of these will rank your Agility?” I asked him.

  “Sure!” His eyes were practically glowing with excitement. I grinned, too. The kid’s enthusiasm was contagious.

  I handed him one clear crystal after another. I didn’t want to hand them all at once, because I wanted to get him the grey stone if he ranked up. It took a few tries, but the fourth crystal I handed him was the winner. It sank into his palm just like the others had into mine, merging with his Agility stone.

  “That should have opened up a new slot,” I said. “Did it?”

  “Yup. It’s like a level two stone now, it says, and I can add another.”

  “Good! Here’s one for you,” I said, handing him the grey stone. Like the Agility one, it was absorbed into him.

  “That one is Natural Armor?” Manuel said, his voice hesitant. “I’m not gonna grow scales like those bugs, right?”

  I chuckled. “I haven’t, and I have that crystal too. I think we’re safe. It just makes it harder to hurt us, so next time one of those things tries to bite you, maybe it won’t be able to.”

  “Cooool!”

  Now we were both a little more ready for whatever came at us next. I mentally reviewed my stones again.

  Magical Stones

  Point 1: Clear Stone (Tier 2) - Strength

  Point 2: Clear Stone (Tier 3) - Stamina

  Point 3: Grey Stone (Tier 2) - Natural Armor

  Point 4: X

  Point 5: X

  Spare Stones

  Clear x8

  I felt a lot more confident about facing more pill bugs, with the big boost we’d both gotten. Yeah, he was a kid, but it was good to have someone watching my back, even if he was a minor. I just needed to be sure I kept him away from any serious danger.

  I flashed him a grin and stood—only to find myself staring into the eyes of ten very jealous kids, all of them glaring at me.

  “How come he gets magic stones and we don’t?” Troy asked.

  “Yeah! I want super powers, too!” Mike added.

  Oh, boy. This just got a hell of a lot more complicated.