Taylor Hebert, Dungeon Girl Chapter 2 (Patreon)

Danny scowled as he dodged behind the wall as the bulletproof or at least bullet resistant goblins tried to put several holes him in with arrows. Shooting the goblins had worked for a decent length of time until they’d went down a set of stairs then everything had gotten tougher and more durable. “I wish I had a grenade.”

“I have an idea,” Taylor replied as she tightened her grip on her admittedly crappy shield and her lightning staff and waited for the arrows to stop.

Danny glanced back down the hallway they’d come in, there was no way they could retreat at this point without giving the goblins a decent line of fire. He was seriously regretting not just turning around the second he realized he couldn’t shoot through the goblins’ armor anymore. Sadly he hadn’t really noticed until the last group as most of the goblins only had a couple of pieces of armor each which meant that he’d usually had somewhere important he could shoot, chest, head or legs. Unfortunately the group on the other side of the bridge all had glassy green chest armor, leg guards and helmets that were bulletproof or at least bulletproof enough to take a 12 gauge slug to the chest without their health bar going down. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Because you worry too much?” Taylor asked as she raised her shield to cover her face and torso then ducked out from behind the corner and used her staff to send a bolt of lightning at the goblins making their way across the old wooden bridge. Her slight smile at hearing their screams was wiped off her face when several arrows bounced off her shield. She twitched then dove back behind the wall after an arrow pierced her shield almost cutting into her arm. “Shit!”

Danny chanced a glance at the group then quickly pulled his head back. “You managed to knock several of them off the bridge into the chasm.” He grabbed his shotgun and waited for the first goblin to dash down the hall. It was mostly luck but he managed to stick the end of the barrel into the first goblin’s neck where it didn’t have any armor and pull the trigger. He tried not to think about the sheer amount of gore as the goblin vanished in a cascade of pixels. He chambered the next shell which in this case was a slug and fired at the archer on the other side of the chasm managing to hit it in the open part of its helmet. 

Taylor stepped into the hallway as her father stepped out and unleashed a blast of lightning with her staff. She held the lightning on the goblins until they vanished in a shower of pixels then stepped back behind the wall as an arrow bounced off her shield. “I’m starting to dislike ranged weapons.”

Danny chambered his next shot. “I’m going to have to reload soon.”

“You’ll have plenty of time once we kill the last archer unless you want me to blast him?”

“You’ve got a shield, try moving up to the bridge and drawing his fire, I’ll take the shot when I can.” 

Taylor did her best to calm her nerves as she moved into the next chamber and advanced toward the bridge. The problem with hiding behind a shield was it made it really hard to see your enemies. ‘I really need a clear shield.’

Danny felt slightly bad about using his daughter as cover but she had a shield and better armor. He lined up his shot then pulled the trigger dropping the goblin’s health with a well placed shot to the archer’s head. 

Taylor followed the shot up with a lightning bolt which finished the goblin off. She smiled at the book that dropped. “That was messy.”

Danny sighed as he looked at the pieces of armor and other loot scattered over the path that led to the walkway and the next chamber. ‘Somehow I don’t think I’m going to be able to get her to stop running through her dungeons.’ He frowned slightly as she picked up a sword that looked like it was made out glass. “Anything interesting?”

Taylor smiled as she read the information the popup was telling her. “It’s a glass sword, if I’m reading my popup right, it does more damage than my knife or any of the other swords we’ve found.”

“I can’t see the PRT being happy about you running around with a sword.”

“I’m fairly sure my lightning staff does more damage, I don’t think I’m going to find a nice non lethal option here.”

“I can hope,” Danny complained as he watched Taylor walk over to the cart they’d dragged into the dungeon with them and carefully set the sword in a bucket with several other swords. “This would be easier with a couple of bags of holding.”

“No kidding,” Taylor complained as she walked back over and picked up a glass chestpiece. “This isn’t nearly as heavy as I was expecting.”

“Good, because you’re wearing it.” Danny figured if it could stop a 12 gauge without doing any damage to the goblin wearing it, it would help keep his daughter safe.

Taylor dragged the chest piece to her equipment page and swapped it for the crappy leather armor she was wearing. “That’s better.” She walked back over and set the leather chest piece in her cart. “Someone might pay a decent amount for the armor.”

Danny frowned as he looked at the cart that was starting to get overloaded with the random pieces of gear they’d found. “Getting this back up the stairs is going to suck.”

“We can always unload it if we have to,” Taylor replied as she grabbed a left handed glass like gauntlet. “Shouldn’t these things come in pairs?”

“Probably,” Danny replied as Taylor pulled the gauntlet on over her fingerless glove. He walked over to the wooden bridge and carefully tested the planks with one foot at a time while Taylor worked on sorting the loot that had dropped off the goblins. “It seems solid enough to walk on though I don’t think I want to try to haul the cart over here.”

Taylor grinned as she found a silver and emerald ring on the ground that one of the goblins must have dropped. “What does the cover of the book say?”

Danny gave a wary look at the dark tunnel that led further into the dungeon then walked over to the book and read the title, “Weapon conjuration, bows.”

“That could be interesting,” Taylor replied as she reached down and picked up the ring. She grinned as she looked at the description for the ring. “Minor ring of jumping and safe fall, adds up to ten feet to my vertical jump and lets me safely land from any height without injury.” 

“That should help keep you safe.”

Taylor equipped the ring on her left hand using her character sheet. “Between my boots and my ring, I might count as a low grade mover.”

Danny pulled a box of shells out of jacket pocket and started working on reloading his shotgun thile Taylor carefully made her way across the bridge then over to the book. “Hopefully the boss won’t be a complete nightmare.”

“That would be nice.” Taylor picked up the book then looked at the popup. “Huh, I might get a low end blaster power out of this.”

“Oh?”

“It teaches me how to conjure a bow and arrows. Do you mind if I use it?”

“Go for it, I’d feel safer if you always had a weapon,” Danny replied firmly as he continued reloading his gun. He’d rather Taylor stay at home safe but they lived in Brockton Bay, safe wasn’t really an option though he was going to talk her to about making safer dungeons if she could once they got back home.

Taylor opened the book and smiled as the book vanished and she realized she knew how to summon a bow, quiver and arrows. She focused on her new skill and summoned a dark red almost black bow in her free hand then frowned as she realized she had an internal source of energy and summoning the bow cost a small amount of it. “That takes energy.”

“As in you feel tired or something else?” He asked warily.

“It’s more like I have a pool of energy and summoning the bow used some of it.” She opened her character sheet then stared at the mana bar under her health bar that hadn’t been there before. “Hey, I have a mana bar.”

“You might want to call it an energy bar if anyone asks,” Danny pointed out absently as he finished reloading his shotgun.

“It’s labeled mana,” Taylor defended herself as she let her bow vanish, she’d rather use her lightning staff. She tightened her grip on her staff as she headed toward the tunnel.

“Right…” He sighed as he realized his daughter was going to get laughed at like Myrddin for claiming to be a magic user. He made a mental note to have her read up on the Protectorate hero before she told anyone about having ‘magic’. “Any idea how we’re going to avoid getting killed fighting the boss?” he asked as he followed her into the dimly lit tunnel.

“Let’s try stealth, hopefully we can get some idea of the layout then come back with a decent plan. If nothing else, we might be able to lure him to the bridge then knock him off.”

Danny briefly considered pointing out that stealth was probably blown at this point considering he’d been using a shotgun but nothing had come to investigate the noise so maybe she had a point. He wasn’t sure how well knocking the boss into the pit would work but it might be worth losing out on the loot if that was the only way they could win. “We could always leave, it might be safer.”

“I have health potions and armor, I’ll be fine,” Taylor complained almost too softly for Danny to hear thanks to his earplugs.

Danny sighed as he followed to the metal door at the end of the tunnel hoping they weren’t making a huge mistake.

Taylor carefully opened the door a touch and winced as it creaked open the rest of the way on its own ruining any chance of stealth.

A man cheerfully announced, “Come in, come in, I need souls for my new creation.”

Taylor glanced around the large circular room with stone walls filled with an abundance of tools that she vaguely remembered from various pictures she’d seen over the years of a smithy. “Souls?”

“Ah yes, yours will do nicely,” the goblin replied as he picked up his large hammer.

Danny stepped into the room as he noticed the heavily built goblin smith go for his shield and opened fire with his shotgun.

Taylor stared in shock as her father went to town on the boss, firing as fast as he could and taking a tenth of the boss’s life with each shot. The goblin’s shout of, “Traitorous fiends!” snapped Taylor out of her shock. She brought her staff up and unleashed a blast of lightning at the boss’s shield, sending it skittering away from the boss.

The goblin smith changed direction as he shouted, “Fiendish bastard, I will rip you in two when I get my armor!”

Taylor turned her stream of lightning onto the armor as her father continued shooting the goblin smith as best he could.

The goblin raised his hammer and screamed as he charged Taylor, “Old School!”

‘Shit!’ Taylor ran and jumped off one of the benches and up to the wall as the goblin charged at her. She was more than a little surprised that she managed the jump without falling on her face even with the ring of jumping.

The goblin shouted, “Cheater! Get back down here you-” whatever else he was going to say was cut off by Danny shooting him in the back of the head which dropped his remaining chunk of health to nothing. The goblin fell down, “Alas I am defeated, the great and mighty-” he cut off and turned into pixels as Danny shot him one last time in the face for good measure.

“Die already.” Danny wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel as he looked at the book and old fashioned skeleton key the boss had dropped.

Taylor blinked as a popup appeared, “As a reward for beating the boss you may now create a persistent blacksmith workshop where you can store your blacksmithing supplies and create projects.”

Danny shook his head. “You have the weirdest power I’ve ever heard of.”

Taylor jumped down from the wall and smiled as the fall didn’t hurt, not even a little bit. “I’m a fan. What does the book say?”

“Blacksmithing 101, I’m guessing the key opens the treasure chest.”

Taylor walked over and picked up the key. “Huh, my popup doesn’t say what it unlocks.” She stuck the key in her pocket then picked up the book. “Do you want it?”

“I already have a job, go for it.” He doubted he could even use the books that dropped but he didn’t want to steal her thunder on the off chance that he could use them and they couldn’t find more.

Taylor opened the book and blinked as crafting menu appeared. “Yeah, I’m a fucking game character.”

“Language and what do you mean?”

“I mean I have a crafting menu. I have patterns, lists of material and apparently the ability to deconstruct things for material.”

“Weird. You’re going to have to do some research but I’ve never heard of anyone’s power working quite like yours.”

“I’ll add it to my todo list,” Taylor complained good naturedly as she walked over to the wooden pirate chest. She reached down and pulled on the lid. She wasn’t all that surprised that the chest was locked as that seemed to be a thing in dungeons. She pulled out the key that had dropped off the boss and unlocked the chest. She was faintly surprised when the key didn’t vanish. She opened the chest and looked inside at the stack of steel bars and a leather apron. “Can you look at this, it seems larger on the inside than it should be.”

“Right because your power isn’t weird enough already,” Danny replied sarcastically as he walked over to look at the contents of the treasure chest. He looked away from the eye twisting interior of the chest that did in fact look larger on the inside than outside. “I think you’re right.”

Taylor reached down and grabbed one of the heavy ingots of metal and pulled it out of the chest. It looked larger once it exited the chest. “Right… let’s see if I can put it back.” She stuck the ingot back in the chest caused it to shrink or at least twist to match the rest of the ingots. “If can get this back to the house, we could use it for storing loot.”

“That’s assuming we can even move it.”

Taylor closed the lid then tried to lift it, she was rather surprised when she found that it was only about twenty pounds which wasn’t nearly heavy enough for the contents. “I’m keeping it.”

Danny rubbed his temples as he realized it was going to be a long couple of weeks.

0o0o0

Taylor yawned as she walked into the kitchen. She smiled at her father who was standing in front of the stove making breakfast. “Morning, how did you sleep?”

Danny handed Taylor a plate stacked with pancakes. “Better than I was expecting all things considered, you?”

“Better than I have for awhile,” Taylor admitted as she sat down at the table. They’d crashed out after checking out her new blacksmith dungeon, thankfully there weren’t any monsters and there were plenty of chests to store crafting material.

“Good, can you help me with a project today?” Danny asked as he worked on flipping one of the pancakes on the skillet.

“What do you need?” Taylor couldn’t remember the last time her father had asked for help with much of anything.

Danny turned to look at Taylor. “I have this daughter with a rather strange and dangerous power, and I’m trying to figure out how to convince her that there should be some ground rules, any suggestions?”

Taylor raised her eyebrows at her smirking father. “Funny.”

“I thought it was,” Danny replied before continuing, “I’m trying not to freak out; the goblin boss was a minor brute, and the rest of the goblins on the second level had bulletproof armor.”

Taylor worked on cutting up her pancakes as she replied, “And the other dungeon was a bunch of high school students; most of whom didn’t have weapons and were just slapping at me. I have a weird power, I’m going to have to use it to figure it out. Not to mention I have thousands of dollars worth of clothes I can probably sell at Lords Market.”

“What are you going to do if someone asks where you got the clothes?”

“I’m going to tell them that I’m working for someone that buys stuff at auctions. I’m a teenager in Brockton Bay that needs extra money, do you really think the cops are going to assume that I know anything more than someone gave me a bunch of stuff to sell because they had better things to do with their time?”

Danny moved the pancake he was cooking onto his plate then turned the stove off. “That’s a good point.”

Taylor grabbed the bottle of syrup and squirted a generous amount on her pancakes. “Worst case, I finish selling what I’ve got then stop but honestly cops have better things to do with their time then hassle teenagers working at a flea market.”

“Like eat donuts,” Danny replied sarcastically as he sat down.

“That’s probably more important to them,” Taylor agreed and started eating her pancakes. 

“After breakfast, I’ll give you a lift, we should be there early enough to rent a table.” Danny figured the Boardwalk was safer than her dungeons at least.

“That works.” Taylor was just glad that she’d already priced everything.

0o0o0

Lisa frowned slightly as she glanced between the enthusiastic girls buying inexpensive designer clothing and the girl sitting behind the table selling them. Normally she’d just assume that they were stolen and the girl was trying to unload them quickly but the prices were at least borderline reasonable for used clothes though none of the clothes looked particularly used. She probably would have blown it off as a thief selling stuff they’d stolen or someone getting stuff at auction but there were a couple of dresses with labels from companies that had gone out of business for one reason or another years ago. Which brought up an interesting question, how did a teenage girl get a bunch of ‘current’ clothes from several old companies that had went out of business over a decade ago in some cases. ‘Great, this is going to bug me. Nice deals though.’ She smiled as she went back to looking through skirts.

Dean rolled his eyes as Victoria squealed over yet another dress or maybe it was one of the purses for sale, he wasn’t sure. He’d been hoping for a nice quiet walk down the boardwalk with his girlfriend but then she’d found a sale. He was a little surprised how many teenage girls and young women there were looking over the stall filled with clothes. Sure, they were nice clothes but that didn’t really explain the large collection of girls mobbing the stall. He looked over at Amy. “Any ideas?”

“Be happy they don’t take credit cards?” Amy replied sarcastically.

Dean winced as he swatched one girl happily pay two hundred and some dollars for four dresses, “Expensive things.”

Amy shook her head. “Each of those dresses is over a hundred dollars in the stores.”

“How do you know that?”

Amy turned and looked at Dean like he was stupid. “Did you forget who my sister is?”

“Point,” Dean admitted. Now that she mentioned it, the prices were a bit low though there were probably perfectly legitimate reasons for that. He glanced around at the small mob of girls and decided that he wasn’t going to be the one that caused problems.

Victoria grinned as she came over holding one of the dresses that she thought would look perfect on Amy. “What do you think Amy?”

“Looks okay, why?” Amy asked suspiciously.

“Because you could stand some nice clothes for dates.”

Dean took a step back as he felt a spike of frustration from Amy.

Victoria pouted. “Come on, it would look good on you and it’s only like twenty dollars.”

Amy sighed as she realized her sister had a point and she did need a dress for the charity event next month. “Fine.”

Dean muttered as he glanced around the crowd, “Girls.”

“Can I see the tag?” Taylor asked then froze as she recognized Victoria and Amy from the news.

Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes as her sister showed the girl behind the counter the price tags on her collection of dresses. “Here.” She showed her tag.

“Thanks,” Taylor mentally reminded herself that she was also a cape and didn’t have to turn into a crazy fangirl over Panacea. “Twenty dollars for the black dress and one hundred total for the other three.”

Victoria paid for the four dresses. “Thanks, are you going to be back next week?”

“With any luck.” Taylor put the money in her lock box.

“You’ll have more dresses next week?” Victoria asked in surprise as she stepped to the side with her dresses.

“Hopefully,” Taylor accepted a fifty from the next girl that was trying to buy a rather cute red silk dress. “Thank you.”

Lisa smiled at the girl behind the counter. “You’re welcome.” Her smile turned into a smirk as she headed to the next stall in the market. ‘I’ll just have to swing back around when there are less people, maybe closing time when she’s packing up.’

“I’ll have to come back next week.” Victoria smiled as they continued on their way through the market. She was looking forward to coming back next week to see what else the girl had.

“Sounds good.” Taylor pulled her attention back to the next customer. 

0o0o0

Taylor looked up from packing up the various unsold dresses as a blonde teenager walked over. “I don’t have much left but you’re welcome to take a look.”

Lisa glanced over the few remaining dresses on the counter then gave the girl a smile. “That’s okay, I was here earlier. I bought a nice red silk dress and noticed something strange about it.”

“Strange?” Taylor asked warily.

Lisa had to suppress the smirk that wanted to form on her face when she realised that the girl knew more than she was telling. ‘Gotcha.’ She shrugged. “The company that made the dress went out of business years ago, I was wondering where you found your stash?”

Taylor twitched slightly as she said the lie she’d thought up earlier, “I don’t know, I just work here.”

‘You’re a terrible liar,’ Lisa thought to herself as she smiled. “I see, any chance of them finding more stashes?” 

“Hopefully, I could use another fifty,” Taylor replied as she went back to work on packing up the rest of the dresses.

‘Fifty, right.’ Lisa smiled. “Cool, maybe I’ll see you next week.”

“Hopefully.” Taylor resisted the urge to smile as her father pulled up with the car.

Lisa smiled as she turned and looked at the driver of the car that the girl obviously knew then down at the license plate, she wasn’t sure why the girl’s story bothered her as much as it did but there was something weirder than normal about the dresses and the girl knew it. She repeated the license plate number to herself a couple of times as she walked off. ‘It’s probably nothing all that important but it’s weird.’ 

Danny opened the door to the car and got out. “How did it go?”

Taylor smiled brightly. “I sold just about everything, so not a bad day.”

“That’s a pretty good haul,” Danny admitted as he walked over to help her load the remaining dresses and the lockbox. 

“Do you want to grab ice cream, I’m buying?”

“Sure.” Danny wanted to get the lockbox back home but after that, he wouldn’t mind buying an entire bucket of ice cream to celebrate Taylor making a rather large amount of mostly legitimate money.

0o0o0

Taylor blinked as she saw two go-carts come flying around the corner of the store being driven by what looked like demented versions of Mario and Luigi. “Neat, I can has one of those?” she asked hopefully.

Danny frowned slightly as a motorcycle come roaring around the same corner. “Not a chance.”

“I meant the go-carts not the bike,” Taylor replied as she watched one of the go-carts shot oil out of a pipe on the back of the cart.

Danny winced as Armsmaster hit the patch of oil and nearly took a rather nasty tumble until his bike seemed to auto correct and spray some type of foam on the tire that dealt with the oil or at least that was the only thing he could assume the foam was for as Armsmaster vanished around a corner after the two go-carts. “Where would you be riding this go-cart? Because riding it like they’re doing gets you chased by Armsmaster. Not to mention arrested when he catches you.”

“It was just a thought. Besides, he hasn’t managed to catch Uber or Leet, like ever.”

Danny shook his head as he walked back to his car. “Not your best argument. They’ve been doing this for a while and Leet is a tinker, which means he has plenty of tools for getting himself out of trouble, damned shame he doesn’t use them for something more useful than pulling stunts.”

‘Useful, like exploring dungeons… Dad would never go for it.’ A little voice in the back of her head said, ‘He’d never have to know.’ Taylor shook her head then headed to the car, got inside then shut the door. “So, any ideas for which dungeon we’re going to run tonight?”

Danny frowned slightly as he started the car. “Are you sure you don’t want to just relax and watch a movie?”

“Is that your way of saying you’re too old to have fun?” Taylor asked with amusement as he started the car.

“I’m pretty sure you have a twisted definition of fun,” Danny replied as he checked the mirrors then backed out of the parking spot.

“I guess I can work on my tinkering or I can farm more dresses in my first dungeon.”

“Good, you need better gear.”

“I have better gear than I can make.”

“For now, you’ll probably get better with practice. If nothing else, farming more dresses for next week wouldn’t be a bad use of your time.”

“I should be able to do both, I’ve got a decent amount of steel to use up then I can try to farm some more dresses.” Taylor opened her crafting menu and looked over her available options for blades. She frowned slightly as she realized that a decent number of her starting patterns took leather for the hilts. “Can we stop somewhere that sells leather scraps?”

“Sure, I know a place.” Danny was just glad that Taylor wasn’t taking apart all of the appliances in the house or cutting apart the furniture like other tinkers had been known to do. 

0o0o0

Taylor smiled slightly as she tossed the poor quality blade into the disassembly box on her crafting menu and got back leather scraps and a steel ingot which was enough to remake the blade. “Better than last time,” she muttered as she selected the knife pattern and hit accept. She picked up her hammer and went to ‘work’ on the ingot. Thankfully she could skip most of the actual process, a hit here or there on the ingot turned it into a metal knife blank then she wrapped the handle then took it to the grinder for the edge. She looked over the average quality knife she’d just crafted. “At least it looks like a knife.”

“As opposed to what?” Danny asked from the doorway of the smithy where he’d been watching her make her knife.

Taylor turned to look at her father. “As opposed to a bad prison shiv.“ She was just glad that she could recycle her stuff because her first couple of tries had sucked. 

“At least you’re getting better, right?”

“A little bit each time I craft something, at least according to my experience bar and skill level.”

Danny frowned slightly as he thought about his daughter’s rather strange power. He’d done a decent amount of reading about tinkers today while Taylor was at the market and none of them had mentioned having anything like a crafting menu. “That’s good... and weird.”

Taylor shrugged. “Every tinker is different. Besides, I’m more of a blacksmith than a tinker.”

‘For now,’ Danny thought mentally. He had a sinking feeling that this was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to her powers. 

“On that note, I’m out of steel so I’m going to see if I can farm some dresses unless you think I should try to sell knives next week?”

“How good are they?” He asked as he walked over to the anvil where Taylor was standing.

Taylor carefully grabbed the blade and handed her father than knife handle first. “This one is average quality, I scrapped the poor quality knives.”

Danny carefully took the knife and looked it over. “Nothing special other than being hand forged. I think the dresses are worth more right now.”

“Do have any idea where I can get cheap steel other than mining the boat graveyard?”

“That’s an option?” Danny asked warily.

“I can scrap things for metal so, probably?”

“Let’s avoid that for the moment. I know the Union has a decent amount of scrap steel and iron that I could grab for an art project that no one would miss.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’ll call Kurt and check while you farm more dresses but yeah, it should be enough to get you started.”

“Thank you.” Taylor smiled brightly as she thought about getting another rank in her blacksmithing.

“You’re welcome.” Danny glanced around the blacksmith shop, it wasn’t modern and it was missing a couple of tools that might be nice to have if you were actually making daggers or swords the normal way but it had everything that Taylor seemed to need and didn’t cost anything to run which was a pretty sweet deal as far as he was concerned. Not to mention her ability to reach it from any door. “Do you want the knife back?”

“Nah, just leave it on the anvil, it should get sorted into the finished weapons chest when I close the dungeon.

“Being lazy?”

“I prefer to think of it as testing with something that doesn’t matter,” Taylor replied as she headed for the door to the dungeon.

Danny set the dagger on the anvil then followed her out of the dungeon into the living room. 

Taylor closed the door to the broom closet then focused on Winslow, Emma and her bitchy friends and opened the door again. She smiled as the door opened revealing the same hallway in Winslow as the dungeon she’d farmed for dresses. “I’m getting better at that.”

“Best of luck, I’m going to call Kurt and see if I can pick up some scrap. Come back if it isn’t the same dungeon.” Danny headed toward the kitchen to make the call.

Taylor walked over and used her key to unlock her treasure chest so that she could get her armor and staff. She opened the chest and started pulling out pieces of her armor. She frowned slightly as she lifted a pair of crappy velcro shoes off her armor then frowned as she looked at the velcro straps that replaced the laces. “A little bit of duct tape and I bet you’d hold my staff.”

Danny frowned slightly as he caught something about his daughter and duct tape as he dialed Kurt’s number. ‘Great, I wonder if there are support groups for parents of capes.’ He brought the cordless phone up to his ear.

Kurt’s voice came over the phone, “Hey Danny, what’s up?”

“Taylor is working on an art project do we still have that scrap chunk of I-beam you were bitching about needing to get rid of?”

“You mean the one that keeps tripping people, yeah, you want me to drop it off?” Kurt asked hopefully.

“If you wouldn’t mind, I have a couple of beers here.”

“We were just about leaving, consider it done,” Kurt replied.

“Thanks.”

“No worries, it will be nice to see Taylor again.”

“Sounds good.” Danny hung up the phone after Kurt ended the call then walked into the living room to see what Taylor was working on. He raised his eyebrows as he saw her duct taping a velcro strap to the back of her armor. “Is there a reason you’re taping velcro to the back of your armor?”

“I need a place to stick my staff when I’m using my bow,” Taylor admitted.

“Kurt and Lacey are going to be here in fifteen to twenty minutes to drop off a hundred pounds of scrap steel, we should probably clean up and hide your dungeon.” 

“I can always farm my dungeon later,” Taylor agreed.

“I wasn’t expecting him to bring it right over, I told him you were working on an art project, so you might want to figure out what to tell them before they show up.”

“Thanks,” Taylor replied semi sarcastically as she worked on putting her armor back in the chest.

“You’re welcome.” Danny was just glad that he had a couple of beers in the fridge and not a whole case or anything.