Sandwich didn't understand Luke's suggestion at first. Then he heard the rustling bushes. He cursed and ran over to the monsters they had just killed. He held his hand over them and chanted Echoes of the Dead over and over again.

  One after another, three pink specters rose up from the bodies and resolved into semitranslucent Flail Snails. He tried to raise more, but he couldn’t.

  “I’m almost out of mana. I can keep these guys up for ninety seconds and then I am out,” Sandwich said.

  Luke said, “That’s fine. This should be over quick, the monsters are heading right for us. Set up your snails as our frontline. We’ll try to kill the monster with our ranged attacks. Vanessa, watch our backs.”

  Sandwich gestured and the snails moved to obey. As the four humans huddled together behind the line of pink specters, he said, “This is all your fault, Luke. If you hadn’t exploded the snails with your overpowered spells, the other monsters wouldn’t have heard us.”

  “Yeah, maybe. But it’s not like we can’t handle the new monsters. We’re professionals,” Luke said with more confidence than he felt. He didn’t have enough mana to cast Repair Craft again so he would be in real trouble if they couldn’t kill these monsters from a distance.

  The monsters broke through the underbrush then, barreling directly towards them. Each one was a fifteen foot tall humanoid with pebbly skin that writhed as they ran. They had indentations instead of eyes and a mouth that stretched across its entire face. They were naked and every step jiggled their form out of place for a moment before it slurped back together.

  “Trolls!” Luke yelled. “Fire works best. Sandwich, get your sword out.”

  Sandwich grabbed the Fire Sword off his hip and handed it over to Luke. “Here. I have to concentrate on the specters.”

  Luke gratefully took the sword. He didn’t want to be in melee range of the monsters, but at least he had a melee weapon now. Up until now he only had his spell rifles. He checked his mana. Ten points. That meant he could use Frictionless Slide five times or the Fire Sword for forty seconds.

  The three trolls thundered across the ground. Luke, Bumblebee, and Sandwich fired their spells as one. The two lightning shots played across the monster’s skin, burning small bits that sloughed off immediately. The trolls were made up of small individual parts, they couldn’t shock the whole with lightning.

  The monsters didn’t even pause. The ice bolts were more effective, freezing basketball sized chunks. One stumbled as its foot froze to the ground, but it just left it behind and reformed the leg. Another had been hit in the shoulder and didn’t even pause as it left a chunk of itself behind.

  The trolls hit the pink Flail Snails like a car crash, slamming together with an ugly violence. The fake monsters slammed their spikey balls into the real ones with a resounding thud. The impact echoed across the forest, but didn’t stop the trolls on the left and right. They stumbled back and attacked again. The biggest troll avoided the summon’s spiked balls and stomped down atop the center Flail Snail. The pink construct held up for an instant and then was overwhelmed and popped. Sandwich fell to the ground, clutching his head.

  The pink summon dissipated into a cloud that distracted the big troll for a moment. Luke and Bumblebee continued to fire spells at it, one after another. It growled and ripped the chunks of frozen flesh out of its body and stomped forward. The holes in its torso closed shut in seconds and it shrunk slightly.

  Luke dashed forward, igniting the Flame Sword at the last moment. He started counting in his head as he slashed down from above. Tight, controlled flames burst out of the edges of the sword, just in time to impact the monster. It interposed its forearm to block the hit, but Luke's strength stat helped the Flame Sword cut the monster’s hand off. The flames burnt the hand to a crisp and created a stump.

  The troll reformed the arm and sent both arms forward as if it was trying to give him a bear hug. Luke activated Frictionless Slide and slipped out of the unfriendly embrace. He canceled the skill early so he was just outside the monster's range. While it was still figuring out how it could have missed him, Luke leaned in and sliced off both arms this time.

  The regenerating monster didn’t seem to care that it kept losing arms. It just regrew them, its form having shrunk a bit. Luke used that regrowth period to slice the monster’s head off. He knew from experience that it could survive without a head, but it would be slow and uncoordinated for a bit.

  Luke used that narrow window to strike down from above, cleaving the troll from neck to groin. It would take even longer to recover from that. He moved in to burn the remaining pieces, but something caught his eye.

  The monster on the left had beaten Sandwich’s pink summon and tried to bash Luke when he wasn’t watching. It would have succeeded if Luke didn’t have his buff from War Machine. His perception gave him a sense of what was all around him within a few feet. As soon as he felt something coming at him, Luke retreated with a quick use of Frictionless Slide.

  He fired a sawblade spell at the troll, but it was entirely useless. The cutting line separated the monster for a moment, but it repaired itself without pausing. A pair of ice bolts to the feet locked it in place long enough to knock it prone.

  Luke checked his mana. Four points left. He ignited his sword again and sliced off the arms it was trying to use to stand back up. When it faceplanted, Luke stabbed its head and drew a fiery line across its back.

  Trolls one and two were down, and would take a minute to reform, small enough that he trusted the others to handle them. Luke turned to the final standing troll. It was being attacked by everyone else. Bumblebee and Vanessa were freezing parts of it while Sandwich’s last Flail Snail summon was slamming its flails into the icy sections and shattering them.

  Luke started to relax and turned his attention back to the trolls he had taken down. He used his last two points of mana to turn the troll parts in front of him to ash. A small core appeared among the cinders.

  The troll the others had been working on fell then, and didn’t get back up. Luke started to relax when he realized there was no mana core in the ashes of the first troll he hit.

  “We got a runner! Anyone have eyes on a tiny troll?” Luke asked as he scanned the forest.

  “There’s something in the bushes over there,” Bumblebee said and fired his ice bolt towards a rustling bush.

  He missed his target but it alerted Luke to the toddler sized troll trying to run away. At this distance, Machine Bond allowed him to hit anything he could see. He froze it solid with two ice bolts.

  Luke ran over and held his breath as he broke apart the troll ice sculpture. An explosive sigh of relief left him as he found the monster core inside. There wasn’t another tiny troll they had missed.

  Luke smiled at the notice. This skill was advancing faster than his previous skills had. There was something about it that just made sense to him. He hadn’t even known he could cancel the skill early, and had done it in combat without pausing.

  They waited there for a moment, but no more monsters appeared. They collected the spoils from the fight, fifteen tier one cores from the snails, and three tier three cores from the trolls. It was a lucrative day for Monster Jaegers Inc.

  Sandwich told them that his friend had leveled up three times from the fight. Luke counseled him on investing his points into Memory first so he could summon more specters at once. Then he could add to Acuity and Perception to make the summons easier to control and less painful when they were dispelled.

  After he advised his employee, Luke turned to his own stats. He had leveled up again in the fight. He had two free stat points and already knew he wanted to put them into Acuity or Strength. They were both close to the next threshold and would have outside effects with an investment.

  Acuity would be good so his mana would refill faster and so he could think faster in combat. According to the book Cormac gave him, adding to his Strength might have a multiplicative effect when he was in his power armor. It didn’t have a listing for War Machine, but the druid's wooden armor was sort of similar.

  Both choices had merit, and he would pick them both eventually. The only question was which one would be useful right now. Faster thinking or stronger muscles.

  Eventually he chose to put both free points into strength and brought it up to six. The temptation to get stronger without years of gym was too strong.

  He felt the change wash over him, every muscle contracting slightly and releasing. Even the muscles in his scalp got the treatment. When it was over he felt stronger, much stronger than he had expected. He felt like he was on the moon. Every move was effortless and he didn’t feel like he was even wearing his power armor.

  He hopped in place to get a feel of his new strength. To his surprise, he jumped four feet. His Twelve foot frame might have leaf springs in the legs, but it was still half a ton of metal and chitin. It shouldn't be so easy to get it off the ground.

  Luke eyed the tree Sandwich’s summon damaged earlier. Could he knock it the rest of the way down with a punch?

  As tempted as he was, he knew his suit hadn’t gained any durability, so he might mangle the gauntlet. And his hand if he hit hard enough.

  Maybe he should devote a level up to constitution sooner rather than later, then he could afford to test his limits.

  Speaking of limits, his Frictionless Slide was level five now. The skill description said he could slide 2.1x yards. Now that he was level five, that translated into 31.5 feet. That was some serious distance. He checked to see how much mana had regenerated.

  Five points was enough to experiment with. He aimed himself away from the trees and over the bodies they had just looted. He wanted to see how it handled the obstacles. With a mental flick, Frictionless Slide activated and he slid across the ground like he had been shot out of a slingshot.

  His Acuity wasn’t high enough to fully register the journey, but he sensed it when he suddenly bounced up and over the bumps on the ground that had once been monsters. He didn’t feel the change in elevation, he just saw his vision wobble a bit before he came to a stop thirty feet ahead.

  “Hell, yeah, bossman. That’s an awesome skill. Almost as good as mine,” Bumblebee said.

  “Just wait. I’m gonna try something else,” Luke said.

  He excitedly moved to a tree he had seen earlier. It was dead and had hit another tree when it fell. It was at a forty-five degree angle now. He grabbed stones and dirt to build himself a quick ramp to the tree. Then he lined himself up and activated Frictionless Slide.

  He zipped across the ground and up the ramp and onto the tree. He was fifteen feet above the ground when his skill cut out. The sudden change in momentum caught him off guard this time and he stumbled. He placed a foot out, which caught only air. He tilted to the side and saw the ground rushing up at him.

  His dexterity stat came into play and he threw himself into a ball as he fell, twisting around so his legs would land first. He slammed into the forest floor with all thousand pounds of mech and man. Metal complained, but held. He took deep breaths as he realized he was fine.

  “Whoa. That was epic,” Vanessa said. “You almost broke a leg, but it looked magnificent.”

  She walked up to him and patted him on the back with a clang.

  Sandwich shook his head. “Heavy metal machines don’t do well with heights, for future reference.”

  Luke nodded and didn’t refute the point. He really should have waited until he had Repair Craft loaded before he experimented like that. It had just been too tempting. Magic was fun.

  “Alright, let’s head out. I got an appointment at the estate I need to keep,” Luke said.

  “We were just waiting on you to finish playing on the jungle gym, bossman,” Bumblebee said with a smile in his voice.

  Luke didn’t respond and started jogging. Everyone else fell into line and they headed out through the forest. They made good time, the monsters they had killed must have been the only ones in the area. The tall grasping evergreens transitioned into rolling hills and scraggly trees. The new trees were short and had twisting branches that didn’t seem to know which way was up.

  They avoided them just in case they were some new danger and made it to a tall bluff overlooking the fingers. They were a set of four long landmasses stretching out from the main peninsula. Each one had a sharp ridgeline running through its center and thick blue and gray trees. They were a shorter version of the ones in Blue Valley.

  “Are we going to search every finger? Do we even have time before your appointment?” Vanessa asked.

  “No, I was planning on doing a little investigation. If the fingers are hiding enough Hive Wolves to cause a problem, there will be tracks into and out of the area. We just have to find them,” Luke said.

  Sandwich pointed out towards the leftmost landmass and said, “I don’t think you have to play Bear Grylls and sniff dirt. There’s a Hive Wolf over there. It’s just standing there, staring at us.”

  Bumblebee pointed to the rightmost finger and said, “There’s one over there too.”

  They quickly realized that there were Hive Wolves on every finger. They stood motionless, staring up at the mechs, until they turned as one and disappeared into the brush.

  “Well, that’s not ominous at all,” Sandwich said drolly.

  Luke clapped his gauntlets together with a clank. “Welp. Nothing can be done about it now. There is no way I’m taking on four fingers worth of Hive Wolves with just the four of us. Let’s head back to the estate village.”

  If the Hive Wolves let them see four of them, then it probably meant there were dozens, if not hundreds of them tucked away among the small blue trees. Luke decided he would have to spend tomorrow creating some heavy magical ordinance. This looked like it was going to be a battle worthy of his War Machine class.

  Luckily, he would have three new runes to use in his crafting session, because his appointment with the inner runewright was in a few hours.