Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Finding a sanctuary was difficult, even with the help of Maddox’s new Sonar ability.  More than once they found themselves looping around to an area of his map that they had already explored, forcing them to retrace their steps and take a different turn.

Along the way, they ran into two more small groups of shades aimlessly wandering the hallways of the Great Labyrinth.  Without the flares of energy from their gear being destroyed or abilities being activated, it actually wasn’t terribly hard to sneak up on them.

Bruce probably could have soloed both groups, a pair of bipeds and a trio of the longer snakelike versions, but there wasn’t a need to try.  Maddox was able to kill both of the bipeds with one use of Multi Bolt.  He wasn’t as accurate the second fight, only bringing down one of the snakes before Bruce stormed in, ripping both apart with his hammer before they really had a chance to react.

Finally, after maybe four hours of looking, they found what Treekipp identified as one of the maze’s sanctuaries.  It was a room.  Maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet with a fire pit in the center.  The second he stepped inside, Bruce felt a tingle run over his skin, like his entire body had become statically charged at the same time.

The squirrel jumped off of Maddox’s shoulder, running two circuits around the room as it chattered to itself in the unknown language.  Occasionally it stopped to sniff the air before it finally ran over to the fire pit, hopping up onto the lip of gray stone and raising itself up onto its haunches.

“There!” It chirped.  “I doubled checked.  The seals are in place and any activations that take place in this room won’t bleed into the outside world.”

“Well,” it amended, cocking its head to the side.  “Any activations you are capable of.  No promises if you dumped five thousand EXP into activating the eighth tier of a path or something foolish like that.  Now that your excuses are out of the way, are the two of you finally ready to buy some patterns?”

Maddox walked around the room as if he were looking for something, tapping the walls with his knuckles from time to time and listening to the sound it made.  Bruce just ignored him, plopping himself down next to the fire pit and nodding in Treekipp’s general direction.

“What’s with the pit?”  He asked the squirrel.  “If no one needs to eat, I doubt anyone needs to cook.  It seems like a pointless addition to the room if no one is going to use it.”

“The pits aren’t used for cooking,” Treekipp answered with a sniff.  “There are higher level patterns that let travelers invest certain powers into sanctuaries through the use of flames that burn in the pits, empowering everyone who enters them.  I’d be happy to sell you one that increases Body and WIll by a point for a day or so, but I’m afraid it costs around one thousand EXP.”

“Yeeesh,” Bruce replied, raising both of his hands palm out as if trying to ward off the bundle of lime green fur.  “A bit rich for my blood..  All I have right now is fifty EXP. Twenty points to bump all of my attributes up to three, ten points for Ether Map in case I get separated from Maddox, ten points for Phase Armor, and ten points for something else.  I’m considering saving up for Multi Bolt, but-”

“May I make a suggestion,” Treekipp cut in, its nose twitching thoughtfully.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug.  “You’re the one with the actual catalog of everything available.  If I’m missing out on something juicy, by all means, let me know.  I don’t plan on saving up for the survival and radio packages you suggested until I feel comfortable fighting a large number of shades at the same time.

“A wise decision,” the squirrel responded, nodding its small head.  “After all shades are but the least of the monsters that populate the Great Labyrinth.  The further you travel from the energy signatures of the maws, the more likely you are to run into some truly distressing creatures.  I would hate for the two of you to become overconfident and perish at the tendrils of a hunger forge or a void maw.”

“Plus,” it continued, its voice taking on a conspiratorial tone, “the more abilities you purchase, the more EXP I am paid.  Truly a win, win.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s just a win for you little guy,” Bruce replied, shaking his head at the squirrel’s antics.  “Regardless, suggest away.”

It scurried over to him, hopping onto Bruce’s knee so it could look him directly in the eye while talking.

“Your new weapon patterns both come with a level one enhancement slot.  It will hardly turn you into a world ravaging heroic figure, but I have been watching you fight and I think you could benefit from Kinetic Burst for your shield and Ground Slam for your hammer.  Kinetic burst would let you send opponents flying away from you.  It doesn’t do any damage, but it can help clear out monsters and prevent you from being surrounded.  Ground Slam is similar.  Shorter range but it does damage to anything around you that’s in contact with the ground.  Fairly useful as most things tend to stand on the ground.”

“Those both do so sound useful,”: Bruce responded, dragging the sentence out.  “That said, I wouldn’t suppose that either of those abilities would be cheap?  In fact they both sound quite expensive.”

“That’s the best part,” Treekipp chirped excitedly.  “They’re very expensive.  You’ll have to pay me thirty EXP for each ability and it costs the same amount to activate them.  If you save up enough to buy the enhancements I might even manage to turn a profit on this entire endeavor.”

“Glad to help,” he said dryly, nodding at Maddox as the other man sat down after doing a couple circuits of the room.  “I think I’ll stick with Phase Armor, the map, and upgrades to Agility and Will.  After that I’ll save up for one of the pattern enhancements.  At a very minimum, the shield one sounds fairly useful.  I can handle shades fairly well one on one.  If an upgrade to my shield can  help me avoid being surrounded, that sounds better than good to me.”

“The two of you are already talking about next steps,” Maddox cut in with a chuckle, plopping next Bruce and the squirrel.  “I personally thought that we should take a nap first before we fiddled around with any of that stuff.  I know that my nerves are shot.”

Treekipp bristled, jumping off Bruce’s knee before scaling the scuffed leg of Maddox’s tracksuit and leaping onto his shoulder.

“No, no” it chattered, bushy green tail twitching with agitation.  “If you fall asleep there is a chance that shades come and kill you before you awaken.  It’s better for you to buy now and preserve critical profit margins.”

“Actually,” Bruce agreed, nodding slowly as he fought to keep a grin off of his face.  “Now that you mention it, I’m pretty beat too.  I already know what I want to buy, so there’s no real need to get it right now.  The patterns will still be there tomorrow morning.”

The squirrel shrieked.  It reared up onto its haunches and leapt into the air, stretching out its hands and feet to glide across the gap between the two of them and land on Bruce’s shoulder.

“Valued customer,” it whined, grabbing hold of his earlobe with its tiny adorable paws and yanking on it insistently.  “You have EXP and you are in a sanctuary.  There is no reason for you to hold off on your purchases.  I am right here, ready and willing to validate your expenditures.  Just think, what if monsters attack while you rest and the abilities you refused to buy are what would have preserved your life?  How foolish do you think you will look as their violet claws remove your soul core from your still kicking and screaming body?”

“I think that I’ll look dead,” Bruce said with a shrug.  “I’m not sure I will care if I look silly or if you get to do a little dance and say that you told me so.  Dead is dead.”

“But-” Treekipp began only for Maddox to cut the excitable little animal off.

“If you’re really worried that we might die in our sleep, the answer is simple.  Stand guard.  It’s not like either of us will need to put on gear once you give us a warning.  Bruce can just turn on his hammer and shield and I can start blasting.  Hell, I’m not sure I even need to stand up.  Bad accuracy barely matters when we have a narrow doorway to funnel them through.  I bet between the two of us that we could take on at least twenty or thirty of the suckers.”

Treekipp sputtered, but Maddox ignored him, instead bunching up his left arm beneath his head and laying on the nondescript gray material of the maze’s floor.  Bruce chuckled, leaning down the other way to join his team leader, leaving only the six inches of outraged squirrel perched on his left shoulder.

It made a number of indignant noises before scurrying off toward the doorway of the sanctuary.  In all likelihood it was following Maddox’s instructions, but even if it wasn’t Bruce didn’t really care.  He could feel the strange pressure of the sanctuary room wrapping itself around him.  Somehow, he knew that unless directly provoked ordinary denizens of the Great Labyrinth were likely to give him a good night’s rest.

He woke up to a bare foot tapping his shoulder.  Bruce rolled over groaning until he was looking up at Maddox’s grinning face and the never ending gray of the ceiling past him.  His shoulder and side felt like he’d been in a low speed collision and his eyes were gummed up and blurry from a poor night’s sleep.

“Wakey wakey,” Maddox said cheerfully.  “Time to get the eggs and bacon.”

“God,” Bruce grumbled, sitting up despite his body’s clearly articulated complaints.  “I forgot that you were a morning person.  That’s an even worse sin than being management as far as I’m concerned.”

“If you don’t hurry up,” the other man chided, a massive grin on his face, “you’ll miss breakfast.  You wouldn’t want to start fighting monsters without eating the most important meal of the day.”

Bruce blinked a couple more times before glaring at the man.

“That’s cruel you know,” he muttered, massaging his side and standing up at the same time.  “We both know that there’s no food.  The squirrel itself told us.  There’s no need to torment me like that.”

“But that’s where you’re wrong,” Maddox crowed triumphantly, producing a plate of gray plastic heaped with scrambled eggs and slightly soggy bacon.  “I was going through Treekipp’s store before you woke up and picked out some things that it didn’t bother to mention.  I don’t know if this would surprise you, but there are a number of cheaper utility abilities that don’t directly impact combat that seem immensely helpful.  The food production slightly increases stamina recovery for four hours.  I can make it look and taste like any ordinary food I want, but that’s not even the best part.”

He shoved the plate into Bruce’s hands.  It was made from the same material as the floor, a matte gray something that wasn’t quite stone, metal or plastic.  A fork of the same substance was stuck in the side of a yellow pile of egg.

A second later Bruce’s eyes widened.  A rich earthy scent wafted away from Maddox, and with a flourish, his team leader produced an honest to God cup of coffee.

Sure, it was in a slightly misshapen mug made from the strange gray material as everything else, but there was no hiding the smell of a dark roast.  Supply shortages caused by infrequent freighter runs from Earth had left MarsCorp with only the coffee beans that they could grow on planet, and although the result was brown and it had caffeine in it, it was a misshapen abomination next to the real thing.

“I could kiss you,” Bruce said, setting his plate on the floor with a clatter as he reached for the cup with both hands.  “Seriously, you’ll be the most popular person on the entire security team the second you get back to Eagle Base.”

Maddox chuckled, handing the mug over.

“Going to have to take a rain check on that kiss.  You know MarsCorp’s rules on fraternization between employees.  As for the rest of it?  Unfortunately I won’t be able to take up the life of a coffee mogul and retire.  It wasn’t super expensive for me to buy the food and drink patterns, but there was a reason for that.  Their effects are modest and they take up a ton of mental energy to use.  Summoning breakfast probably took as much out of me as using Multi Bolt.”

“I don’t care,” Bruce replied, eyes closed rapturously as he took a sip.  It burned his throat, rich, earthy and a bit bitter.  All in all, a bit worse than he’d expect from a coffee chain and a bit better than he’d expect from a gas station or fast food joint.

It was perfect.

“Seriously Maddox,” he continued, taking another drink before the liquid was anywhere near cool enough to safely drink again.  “I’ll take point on the next encounter and fight as many shades as you need me to.  Just keep the coffee flowing.”

“By the time you’re done with breakfast and finishing off your purchases from Treekipp I’ll be fine,” Maddox said with a chuckle.  “Just enjoy the coffee now, we have a busy day in front of us.  After all, we have a portal to find and a lot of EXP to earn.”

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