Today's Earth date: February 14, 1992

Now that I'm a Paladin, I feel like I'm man enough to admit that Mad Max 1 and 2 scared the hell out of me. No way could I live in a world like that.

The desert orcs don't drive cars, but otherwise, they're out to murder and pillage like any of the bad guys in those movies. They're cruel and ruthless, and their gear is covered in "trophies" from their past kills.

We slaughtered them. Horcus blew their chief clean off his warg with his first fireball of the fight. There was nothing left but pieces. They couldn't run fast enough, and the XP sucked for all the walking we had to do.

On top of that, I got a sunburn.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

"May I speak with you?" Vanilli asked Wayne quietly as they looked for a campsite farther up the road. Sleeping downwind of a rotting kaiju eel wasn't appealing.

"What's up?"

"Would it be helpful if I learned to use the dwarf tools?"

"As in fleshmancy?"

"Yes."

Wayne looked at Vanilli curiously. "Tell me more about what's on your mind."

"The glitched prisoner you told me about is on my mind. I am familiar with the logic of dwarven systems from my time in the Temple, the tools use demons like me as material, and I have downtime. I could learn how the tools work, so maybe we can help the next glitched person we find."

"That's umm… That's interesting."

"You seem concerned."

"Stitching living things together like that isn't something I'm comfortable with."

"Is that a mandatory part of this process?" Vanilli asked.

"Now that you say it, maybe it's not. It could be that demon material is all you need, but those are still living things."

"If we recycle bosses, we are not imparting any additional suffering."

"Bosses like Charybdis."

Vanilli nodded.

"She's going to be pretty foul by the time we come back through."

"Can we preserve a portion?"

Wayne thought for a moment. "Maybe."

"Vanilli is asking me about using the dwarf tools," Wayne told Fergus via Voice. "Thoughts?"

"Are we discussing fleshmancy when you say 'dwarf tools?'"

"We are. Vanilli is comfortable working with demon material only. Nothing living. This might be how we learn to fix a person's glitch if we encounter that again."

Voice was silent for a long stretch. "The path is ethically precarious even if demon material is all we use, so we can not deviate from that whatsoever. I'm not sure how I feel about Vanilli creating life as a side hobby."

"I have similar concerns."

"I am in favor, provided we move carefully."

"Deal."

Wayne looked at Vanilli. "Fergus approves. Let's give this a try."

After pulling an axe and two shovels off of the wagon, Wayne and Vanilli backtracked to the recent battle site while the others set up camp.

"I'm not sure how much we'll be able to preserve, but my best idea is to pack it in ice and bury it deep. Maybe enough will still be usable when we get back to it. Could also not work at all."

"I understand," Vanilli answered, accepting a shovel.

How much Charybdis meat they ended up burying was difficult to estimate, but it looked like a whole cow's worth to Wayne. He dug several feet down, used Sword of Water to set down a thick layer of ice, dropped the meat in, covered that with ice, then covered the whole thing with dirt. He made a mental note of where they buried the meat on his HUD and started their walk back to the wagon.

"Will it be weird crafting from your own kind?" Wayne asked. "That would be pretty horrific for a human."

"I do not love my brothers and sisters. They would have eaten me the moment it benefited them."

"Yikes."

"For demons, surviving is a single-player game, to borrow some of your words," Vanilli said. "I wish only to be useful to the party."

"You're doing great. I mean that. Let's keep this work with dwarf tools to party conversations only, though, okay?"

Vanilli nodded.

"We'll have to get you one of the work benches…" Wayne thought out loud. "I might need to make a run to the Lighthouse to liberate the one. Then we can set you up in one of the Storage containers. Totally private."

"That sounds acceptable."

Sammy had dinner ready by the time Wayne and Vanilli caught up with everyone else. The cook had made a stew using spices he learned about in Mudsville, giving the recipe a spicy-sweet flavor profile, which was a little odd for stew. It was better than anything Wayne could have cooked, and for that, he was grateful.

The tone at camp felt a few degrees off to Wayne. His party members were all being nice enough, but there was something missing from their usual levity. Scanning the group, he saw that Armond had his head down and shoulders hunched. The old military medic wasn't ever as talkative as Fergus, but he had taken well to the leadership role Wayne assigned him. He seemed to always be connected to the group, even if he didn't have a lot to say.

Right now, the cleric was completely withdrawn.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Wayne nudged Fergus and gestured subtly toward Armond.

"Look at our new unlocks," Fergus whispered back.

Pulling up his system, Wayne went to the party menu and scrolled through their unlocks from fighting Charybdis. They all gained two levels, but only Fergus was set to a game with more than one unlock remaining. Everyone else maxed out Tunnels & Trolls when they advanced to level 15. When they moved to level 16, they were still set to the game but had nothing left to earn.

A somewhat wasted level, but it couldn't be helped.

From Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, Fergus learned two new skills:

Use Jet Pack – Is the skill to operate a personal jet pack.

Maneuver in Zero-G – Is the skill used to move and work in a gravity-free environment.

And for Tunnels & Trolls, Hector learned:

Wall of Fire – Creates a sheet of flames between the caster and his foes for one normal round.

Margo learned:

Cateyes – Allows the caster to see in the dark for one normal round.

And Armond–Oh, wow. Wayne could see why Armond might be bothered by his new spell:

Born Again – Returns a dead party member to life.

Giving a middle-aged medic the ability to resurrect people at this point in his career was a bit cruel on the part of the universe. Undoubtedly, Armond had wished for such a spell many times over, and now that he had it? He was a thoughtful person. Surely, suddenly having a say over life and death would make someone like him introspective.

Wayne was a bit disturbed by the spell himself, if he was being honest. In video games, character death was rarely a true death. Resurrection magic was standard in most RPGs, and not many of them treated death as a serious problem. In the average JRPG, for example, a player could stock up on resurrection items in the very first town.

Which made sense in a video game. The goal was to have fun, and it's not very fun if you always have to find new bodies to fill your party because you walked into a dungeon before you were ready and wiped.

But in real life, like this? Armond could become a religious leader tomorrow if he wanted, provided the spell could be used on anyone. Wayne was very aware that the spell description specified bringing a "party member" back to life. Did that mean only the people connected by Four Score could be resurrected, or was that a looser, more communal interpretation of "party member?"

After thinking about it, Wayne decided to give Armond the evening with his thoughts. He could wait to talk to the cleric about it tomorrow after he had time to process.

"How close are we to the Dead Zone?" Hector asked.

"Be there about noon tomorrow," Kenny answered. "Maybe even late mornin' with how hard all y'all travel."

Sammy raised a fork to ask a question. "Hector said you'll be tied together. Was he messing with me?"

"I'd never lie to you, Sammy," Hector said.

Kenny laughed. "He wasn't lyin'. We'll all be tied off, so if someone steps in a puddle we can pull 'em out. Before you ask, a puddle is what we call the mixed-up spots. You can get real sick real fast if you step in one. Could go poof completely even."

Hector leaned forward to speak around Sammy to Kenny. "You're talking like you're going in with us."

"I'm no chickenshit," Kenny said. "Only reason I wouldn't go in is if you were all out of your gourds, but it seems like this might be the safest trip into the Dead Zone I'll ever get."

"We could run into another Spawner, even in the Dead Zone," Wayne cautioned. "Best case, we get away before it triggers. Worst case, you're tied to us while we're fighting."

"Being tied to you don't sound so bad."

Wayne swallowed. Fergus smirked. Margo rolled her eyes. Hector slurped his stew. The rest of the party either hadn't heard or pretended not to.

Much to Wayne's relief, the conversation around the campfire shifted away from innuendos and to more banal topics like what Sammy had planned for breakfast and dinner the next day. Wayne couldn't remember a night where someone hadn't asked about tomorrow's meal plans, actually. Hector was near-religious in his timing with that question, in fact.

Right when Wayne was thinking about seconds, his HUD map picked up reds closing on the camp.

"Incoming," Wayne announced, grumbling as he stood. "Sammy, please keep the stew warm."

At the end of the battle, Wayne found himself near Armond. Though he had intended to wait until tomorrow, the cleric was right there right then. Walking away from that seemed wrong.

"You okay?" Wayne asked quietly.

"Yes, sir. Reason I shouldn't be?"

"I saw the spell you got. You've seemed pretty quiet since."

"I'm okay."

"You're sure?"

Armond nodded. "I'm not upset by it if that's what you mean. I'll admit it's a strange moment to navigate, though. Resurrection? Gods, I was a medic. They didn't think I was responsible enough for my own horse, and now I get this?"

Wayne laughed. "You didn't mention that horse thing in the interview."

"I think what's weirdest for me is that the system makes a resurrection spell possible, right? If the entire world is connected to the system, was that potential always there? Did a first dwarf decide to lock us out of that menu? Why?"

"That's an interesting thought."

"And meaningless, but it's got me thinking nonetheless," Armond said. "I'm good though. Appreciate you checking on me."

Wayne clapped Armond on the back. "Yeah, of course."

"I also appreciate you giving me the chance to be a part of this. For all the talking folks do about the military making you more responsible, it did the opposite for me. No one's giving me orders? I don't know what the hell to do with myself."

"You're leading here, though."

Armond shook his head. "I'm still not in charge of myself is what I mean, and I prefer it. You and Fergus deciding what direction we go and when means I can just hang on for the ride. None of the real adult stuff is up to me. It's the best job ever. And don't look at me like you feel bad. I'm telling you I'm grateful for how it is."

Wayne nodded thoughtfully and stepped away, but he paused a moment later. Chuckling to himself, he turned back to Armond. "The entire time you were talking, what you described sounded so familiar, and it just came to me why. I'm following the path of the Chosen Heroes for the same reason you said. The structure is laid out for me."

"I would still say it's different," Armond replied, "but I do see your point. It's nice having a script to follow. See you in a few hours."

"Goodnight."

Getting back into his bedroll after an encounter was always a strange feeling for Wayne. The abruptness with which he went from resting to fighting and then back to resting made the whole experience feel very dream-like, as if he was living‌ between realities somehow.

He hadn't gotten his full two hours yet, so he pulled his blanket up to keep out the bugs and closed his eyes.

A thin body slid in next to him so smoothly that he barely felt the blanket move. Kenny bit his ear and ran her hands over him. His first instinct was to protest on some employer-employee unbalanced power dynamic grounds, but then he relaxed.

Why shouldn't he enjoy some spontaneity?

Kenny continued kissing down Wayne's neck.

"Wayne, honey," Margo said. "Please don't do this to me."

"...Do what?"

"You think you're being quiet, but you aren't."

"Not remotely," Hector echoed.

"Might as well be on stage," Fergus said.

"It's uhh… yeah, it's pretty obvious what's happening," Armond added.

"This really didn't need to happen over a group Voice channel," Wayne replied. "And she only kissed me. She just got here."

"It wasn't the time for half-measures," Margo said, deadpan. "We're doing you the favor of telling you now instead of in the middle of it."

Hector and Fergus giggled on the other side of camp.

Wayne gently squeezed Kenny and whispered, "Hey, I appreciate it, but not tonight."

She lifted her lips from his chest and rested her chin on his sternum. Her eyes twinkled in the campfire light. "Nobody can hear us."

"That is incorrect," Vanilli said from his spot inside the wagon.

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