Today's Earth date: April 10, 1992

We just got back to Iomallach, but we won't be here for long it looks like. We were barely through the gate when we were told sea monsters are attacking ships going to and from Bata, so we'll probably head out as soon as we can to help.

Seeing the city again after that long ass run? It's a good feeling to know I saved all of their lives. Every man, woman, child–if we didn't kill the demons, this would have been one of the first cities to get attacked. But now they're safe and get the chance to chase their dreams.

I need to remember that the next time I start feeling sorry for myself.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

The mantis shrimps on Earth weren't the size of elephants. They were only a few inches long, but that was part of their mystique. These small ocean creatures could use magic to punch with the force of a bullet leaving a firearm. They could, and often did, shatter aquarium glass when they were kept in captivity.

If the power of the mantis shrimp's punch scaled to the size of the monster that Wayne now saw before him, he knew one element of the battle strategy that was absolutely nonnegotiable.

"Under no circumstances is anyone to take a hit from that thing," Wayne said. "We have these on Earth. Do NOT get hit!"

In the final milliseconds of the Flag Girl pause, Wayne noticed the pinball frozen in mid-air, its trajectory taking it back toward the party's side of the chamber. Wayne's Morale buff would run out soon, but the pinball buff was still in play. If he acted fast enough, he could keep the buff going.

Did that buff have a cap?

Wayne hoped it didn't because that was the only strategy he had.

Mashing Blitz even before the pixel art babe dropped her flag, Wayne barely grazed the ball with his sword but managed to bounce it back into the room.

He summoned all of the football robots and gave orders via Voice at the same time.

"The strategy is to juice the pinball buff," Wayne said. "Everyone stay near our wall and focus on that. I'll take care of the krakens."

Wayne ordered both Skycats to blanket the battlefield with burning bushes. There were too many krakens for Hector's fire field to kill enough of them, so Nee enhanced with Flame Bracelet would have to suffice. At the same time, Wayne ordered Quarterback bot to run the pinball play Wayne had preprogrammed during a recent rest.

And that play was simple. All three robots moved like pong paddles along the back wall to keep the pinball active. Armond buffed all of them with Ner so they could keep pace with the pinball's ever-increasing speed.

Wayne Blitzed across the room, using Missile to get the shrimp's attention.

"Hector, you're going long to draw aggro away from our wall. Fergus, use Fly to do the same. No one be ashamed to call for Home. Armond, Margo, chip away at the krakens to make yourself room and support the pinball bots."

"Up!" Hector called. Wayne hit the barbarian with an Upsi-Toss to launch him across the battlefield.

Wayne Braked as he neared a far corner of the chamber.

Tyris-Flare Fire Magic (3 Pots).

Dawning his skimpy bikini, Wayne reached into the air and called upon two flame spirits.

Guard the Net!

Two mantis arms zoomed toward Wayne, moving quickly even under the slow-motion effect of Blocking a Dunk from Pat Riley Basketball. The fragments of Wayne's Defensive Shields spiraled through the air, already shattered by the mantis' attack.

Block-Block-Block-

For a brief moment, Wayne realized he was about to see what happened when Block a Dunk failed, an experience he had yet to have.

And then the world went white.

Wayne coughed, struggling to expel the liquid trying to drown him as he woke.

Armond slapped a hand over Wayne's mouth. "You need every drop. Swallow it."

Reflexively, Wayne checked his system.

HP: 1/306

"What's going on?"

Wayne remembered where he was: At the bottom of the Earth Dungeon with a shrimp that found the same ooze as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The ooze may have also had preworkout mixed in, or even meth, or weren't those things kind of the same?

"What-"

"You died," Armond interrupted. "No time to dwell. Get your Super Fanbi drain going while I heal you. Be ready to Home Row us. Margo and Hector can't distract it forever."

Super Fanbi.

Adding the Super buff to the spell accelerated the effects of the drain.

Wayne targeted one of the few living kiddy krakens and used its hit points to replenish his own. He looked down, pleasantly surprised to find all of his body parts in one place. Sure, he died, but he expected the consequences of eating a mantis punch to be more extreme.

"Home!"

Wayne followed Armond's call. The jump from 1 hit point to over 200 in seconds was an odd feeling, like waking from a deep sleep with a surge of enthusiasm growing within you.

Quarterback bot was the only robot left, but the pinball was still in play.

Fergus and Margo had been in the midst of trying to use arrows and spells to get the shrimp to turn away from Hector when Home Row hit. The whole party was together and alive in one place again.

Wayne's mana was nearly full and the right spells weren't on cooldown.

"Hidey Hole me, please!"

Margo's spell cloaked Wayne halfway through his first Blitz. He dashed as far wide as he could, trying to circle around behind the shrimp.

"When it turns away from me, blast it."

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Hidey Hole ended when he sent a flaming cannonball shooting away from himself and the shrimp with Fire a Broadside! Then Wayne followed up immediately with Slyway Robber to sap strength points from the boss.

The shrimp had been focused on attacking the Zeroes but turned at the sound of the cannon. The shrimp sprinted across the dirt, its two bulging eyes low to the ground like the head of a charging bull.

The cannonball changed course from its homing buff and blindsided the shrimp. The force of the lead spun the boss a full one hundred and eighty degrees. Wayne used Burner Max to replenish his mana and cast Gra on the slim chance it slowed the shrimp.

The rest of the party did as Wayne instructed. Fergus sent a Water Elemental at the boss and cast Twine Time to slow it with vines. Hector hit the shrimp with Distract to draw its attention and dropped Wall of Fire over top of its back, putting the boss at the middle of a curtain of flames. Margo used Arrow Arrow to fire several projectiles in rapid succession and used Laser Shot to turn those lasers into arrows. Armond hit the shrimp with Shiza, hoping it would disable the shrimp's punch ability.

Wayne stacked all the buffs he could think of: Chicken, Pinball, Slyway Robber, Two-by-Four, and even Flame Bracelet.

He crashed into the boss monster with a powerful chop of his sword.

His sword broke through the shrimp's glimmering blue-green shell, the blade traveling with grace and ease all the way into the dirt beneath the boss. The lower half of the mega mantis shrimp flapped open, its body held together by a small knot of flesh.

Wayne mashed Easy Out just in case. He stopped on top of one of the outer hills.

The mega mantis shrimp health bar hit zero, and the few remaining kiddy krakens died instantly. Wayne collapsed onto his butt.

"Probe says we're clear except for some gold dots where the shrimp spawned. See anything stealthing, Margo?"

"Looks clear."

"At the risk of being too forward," Fergus began, "but my curiosity has-"

"No. I am not talking about what dying felt like."

"As in not at this present moment or do you mean to withhold that insight indefinitely?"

Wayne laughed and let himself lay down in the dirt. "It didn't feel like anything. I was conscious and then I blinked and I was conscious somewhere else."

"Please don't do that again," Margo said. "Seeing you like that… I don't ever want to do that again."

"I didn't look too bad," Wayne replied.

"Sorry, Wayne. You were hamburger meat until I cast Born Again. Spread all over."

"And I reformed?"

"Yes."

"How handy."

The party members sat in silence for some time, each having done exactly as Wayne did. They dropped to the ground to rest, embracing their mental and physical exhaustion as soon as it was clear the fight was over.

Wayne didn't advance a level, but he did upgrade a few of his Christmas List games. Since looking at his system menus was his favorite hobby, he was happy to catch his breath while trying to deduce what his new unlocks actually did.

It Came from the Desert gave him:

Chemical Spray – Your plane has a limited supply of lethal chemical spray which may be used as a weapon against certain giant creatures (namely, the ones in this game!).

When Wayne activated Fire Extinguisher, also from the same game, he could choose Traditional or Chemical Spray.

Centurion added:

Faciones – Chariot races were run between professional companies.

With this unlock, Wayne could choose to equip his football robots with chariots for a nominal amount of additional mana. He was looking forward to seeing how that worked.

LHX Chopper unlocked:

Radar Warning Receiver – Your Radar Warning Receiver displays potential threats in your area.

When Wayne viewed Radar Warning Receiver in his overview of unlocks, it had a tag attached to the end that said "(replaced Probe)." Flipping through his menus and trying his own mental activation, Wayne found that Probe was indeed gone. His new upgrade scanned perpetually instead of once every ten minutes.

And Wolfpack, a submarine game of all things, was the most exciting of them all:

Repeater Telegraph – It transmits the captain's desired speed to the engine room.

When Wayne activated Telegraph, a blank screen appeared on his HUD with a blinking typing cursor in the top left corner. A gear icon was in the opposite corner, and Wayne clicked it.

This menu had a variety of settings related to notifications from Telegraph. The options reminded him of text messaging from Earth. He could choose to mute notifications, he could have them appear in full screen or in a corner of his HUD as soon as they arrived or only when he checked his notifications, and he could set exceptions for messages marked "urgent."

What he saw next was what made Repeater Telegraph so exciting: Wayne had four out of eight seats filled in the "room." As the administrator, he was apparently exempt from that count, because when he clicked into those seats, he saw the names of each of his party members. Four Score must have added them automatically.

And there was an Invite button. He hoped upon hope that he could add people without system access–like Sammy and Vanilli.

[chat]

W: We have this now.

F: What's it do?

W: Imagine we're in a room together but can only write down our conversation.

F: Interesting.

H: Do I hve to us it?

W: We can leave this be for now. I might be able to invite Sammy and Vanilli. We can stick to Voice until then.

[/chat]

"Can I check out the loot?" Fergus asked.

Without even lifting his head, Wayne replied, "Go for it."

A few minutes later, Fergus said, "Well, it's good news and also incredibly disappointing."

"Go on."

"There's only one item. Cut the Earth Sigil into four pieces in your mind. Like that but with puzzle pieces edges. You'll have to confirm it, but I think it's what we were hoping for. Or one fourth of what we were hoping for I guess is more accurate."

"And treasure?" Hector asked.

"Only friendship," Fergus confirmed. "Ah, there is script engraved on the back of the sigil piece. I smell a riddle."

That certainly sounded like a puzzle setup to Wayne. Find the first piece and use the clue to find the second. Lather-Rinse-Repeat until they reassembled the whole sigil.

"I suppose we'll translate when we camp next."

"Can that be soon?" Armond asked.

Wayne thought for a moment. "I was going to say we should open one of the hatches to the basement first, but screw that. Let's camp in the stairwell again and head down when we're feeling better."

"You've earned a break," Fergus said. "Getting obliterated must have been very tiring for you."

"Really that bad, huh?"

"Armond had to use healing spells to repair our eardrums."

"The Chosen Heroes never got resurrection spells." Wayne said. "Can you imagine the Chosen Heroes walking into this place? How many would even get to the point where they had the chance to be vaporized by that shrimp?"

Wayne wanted to rant about his disdain for video game bosses with one-shot abilities. He believed a player deserved a chance to learn a mechanic before dying to it. If seeing the new attack also killed you, then you had to reload and hike all the way back to the boss to try again.

To Wayne, that was a pointless exercise to put the player through when the ability could just be tweaked to not instantly end a player.

Memories of Mike Tyson's Punchout came flooding back. All those nights grinding his way to the final bout only to get zapped by Tyson almost immediately. Even later as an adult with Save States on an emulator, he couldn't do it. At first, he reset to the start of the Tyson fight to skip having to run through the earlier bouts yet again to reach the fight that mattered. Then he was reduced to save-scumming every successful punch and dodge he landed, turning his fight with pixel art Tyson into a sort of stop-motion gameplay experience.

And he still couldn't beat it.

Thinking of Tyson brought a strange Earth memory to the front of Wayne's mind: The legendary boxer once famously offered a zookeeper $10,000 to let him into an enclosure to fight a silverback gorilla, which got Wayne thinking about how much he would love to watch an isekai where the main character was prime Mike Tyson.

"You okay up there, Wayne?" Fergus asked.

"Oh, yeah, I'm good."

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