This is still a story of the Becoming Monsters universe by Ai Loves, setting used with permission. All canonical and mechanical errors are my own. The yarrb is the exceedingly cute creation of FelisRandomis, used with permission.

  Also making an appearance in this chapter, once again, is Quiverbow. The sharp-dressed weaponsmith is the creation of Domochevsky, my cover artist and foam-weapon creator, and also shares a name with a Minecraft mod he made. The Stormbreakers (including Suri, here) are the creation of Xel_Artz, and Saber is the creation of Golden Saber, from the Eye of the Storm Discord server. All are making cameos with the permission of their respective creators.

  —

  Chapter 44: Great Expectations

  “What…” I was slow to wake up coming out of the dreamscape, still tired from my efforts overnight. My scars were resisting the sudden movement after being still for half the night, my brain resisting the attempt to come to alertness. Nibbles the yarrb was nudging me with his left front paw to wake me up. Nice of him, really, he had quills which would have worked much faster.

  As soon as my head caught up to the situation, I moved more quickly. My sword and shield gauntlet were on the nightstand, belted on in seconds. Lucy was still deeply asleep, and given everything I decided to leave her be. If I yelled, she’d probably be the first to make it to me either way. What was making the yarrb so nervous was immediately apparent, as I made my way out into the living room. The sword stayed sheathed, this didn’t look like a problem I could ssh my way through.

  The source of it all was a soft white glow coming from Sarah’s enchanting table. Nibbles was standing close, looking curiously at what was happening under the gss dome she had pced there. The circle it was locked into was giving a pale blue light, but that wasn’t what drew the eye. Inside looked full of mist, each particle glowing, and they were behaving quite oddly. Even for Sarah’s table, I mean. The glowing mist was stopping as if hitting something. A vague form was within, not quite identical to the Greater Masterwork it surrounded.

  I didn’t know what to make of it… but I knew someone who might. “Nibbles. Go get Sarah. She needs to see this.” Nibbles, looked at me with one eyebrow raised. Oh. Right. Sarah was a SLOTH demon. Trying to wake her up at two in the morning stood approximately a 0% chance of success, short of setting off a grenade in the room. If I did that, it might get up to 10%. “Sorry, forgot. Okay, thanks for letting me know, Nibbles. I need to sleep more tonight, but I’ll tell her about it in the morning.” The yarrb nodded back at me, then padded over to the table and id down next to it. He seemed… protective, somehow?

  He knew something I didn’t, and just couldn’t convey it. Yarrbs were smart, Nibbles more so than most, but the one thing they couldn’t do was speak. Not in English, anyway. Not usually an issue since he understood me just fine, but times like this it was incredibly frustrating. As I tried to settle back down to bed for the st stretch of the night, it nagged at my mind. This was potentially important, and had everything to do with the project I was absolutely depending on right now.

  Though troubled, I must have gotten some rest in there somewhere. I didn’t get to step back out onto the bck pin. The next time my eyes opened it was to the sound of my arm. Time to get the morning drinks ready. We had a lot to do today.

  This night’s efforts had been good ones, if still exhausting. The projections were… back to being close. Within margin of error. As coffee brewed and milk warmed, smells drew the others. I accepted my gentle removal from the kitchen at Gloria’s hands, since I had my caffeine first. We were all taking this one seriously. One does not simply discount warnings of the magnitude given to me. Gloria managed eight different ways to cook eggs on four burners (nine if you count Nibbles, though since his was “two raw ones in a bowl” I personally didn’t), we got ourselves equipped, and slowly inventoried our gear. Swords and wands, batteries and charms, shields, a bow, a stave. We were about to go get our armor and badges when I remembered the important bits of the night before.

  “Sarah, Amber, before we leave I need you to check the Greater Masterwork project. It was doing something st night that I am not sure how to expin. Any thoughts as to what might cause a glowing white mist to form within the dome?”

  Sarah’s head quirked. “No, not really, but then again this is a lot of power and potential in one pce. I’ll give it a look, if it needs course corrections I’ll have to stay here to do them.” She was pulling out a couple of her tools.

  “I’ll give it a full Identification, too. We have enough time.” Amber was stretching out. This would be the first time she used the ability on something she didn’t already know the answer to. The two together worked as best they could without opening the sealed dome. It interfered with things a bit, but not as much as you might expect. The device was intended to let an Enchanter keep an eye on their ongoing projects, after all, while keeping random energies out. What they were doing was specifically non-intrusive. We needed information, but we also needed this project to not get knocked off-kilter by a barrage of Thaumic energies at this te stage.

  Some few minutes ter both were shaking their heads. Sarah looked like she was getting a headache. “Something’s up that I can’t account for. Not sure what. Thing is, it’s not interfering with the main function. It’s a side effect, like your bde edge.”

  “You seem to do that a lot, Sarah.” Amber’s tone was, understandably, a bit irritated.

  “Look, it’s only on my experimental stuff!” She pleaded right back. “It’s not like the mana batteries or shield charms are turning themselves into grenades!”

  “Alright, both of you, that’s enough. And not only because I’m wearing one of those batteries. We have a lot to do today, and the bus gets to our stop in thirty minutes, so you can discuss the finer points ter. Armor up and badge up.”

  It took remarkably little time for us to get down there. Some was certainly saved when Lucy came out and threw both of them their change of clothes… and when neither saw the need for modesty while changing on the spot. Paige’s raised eyebrow directed both to utilize undry baskets instead of just leaving their dirty clothes where they nded, which was a lot to unpack.

  The Saturday morning Hospital bus was quiet when leaving the area. The Guild Hall route was more crowded, though. Saturdays were very popur for going Below. The morning would be most crowded as everyone got to their pces and tasks. The bus was no exception. A decade ago, and an onlooker would have been forgiven for thinking we were all headed to a convention or Faire. Today, though, everyone on board was surreptitiously checking out everyone else.

  That bus full of Delvers and other assorted Guild Hall folks represented a lot of power. Perhaps not the greatest concentration of it in the state, but anyone interfering with the bus route would swiftly find their day, week, month, or millennia ruined. Other cars tended to stay out of the way of buses on this particur route. Couldn’t bme them. I generally didn’t like being on this bus either, at least when it was crowded. Things could get rowdy until we got to the Hall. The drivers got hazard pay.

  This time around, though, there weren’t anything more than a few rounds of smack talk. My team did not get involved, at the shake of my head. We did not need to risk the others dogpiling us. The bus let us off at the gate, and the contents scattered. Some went straight to the stop for the Dungeon Gate. Others went to eat, or schedule, or stock up. The eight of us had other goals, and mine would be at the Officer’s Hall first. Not the gathering I was here for, no. Something a bit more personal.

  The Hall was mostly empty, but one table held three friends. One was a Human, in blue-trimmed bck robes. Lightly salted brown hair and wireframe gsses. One was a green insectoid, nearly my height and with bdes for arms. The third was bigger than me, covered in red hair. Jake, Vish, and Grits. Officers from three of the rger Guilds around. “Gentlemen, thank you for coming. I’ll try to be quick, there’s a lot to do today.”

  The insectoid Vish buzzed a bit. “I must admit to curiosity. This is not like you.” The other nodded.

  “I’ll get to it, then. Vish, you are here as a witness. Jake, Gregory. I’m here to notify you that I have received petitions from members of your Guilds who wish to join my own. Per the Bond, I will not name them, but I don’t think they will be any kind of surprise to you.”

  Jake nodded. “The Twins from me, I presume. I have no objections. They’re a poor fit for Munin’s Wing, even if they don’t seem to fit your recruitment pattern either. I assume you have no objections to their performance under contract?”

  “Correct on all points. I will continue to pay their contract for its present duration, but I do want to take them in officially. They fit in well, and have been invaluable to me and mine. Should this week work out, next week I will be taking them Below. They proved themselves enough for that.”

  “That is enough to keep the peace for me. Thank you for following protocols.”

  Grits, though, was more puzzled. “I’m not aware of anyone in Flight of Fury who wishes to join you. The only one who I’ve even heard discontent from is… no, please don’t tell me it’s him. Alvin will pull my hairs out one by one if it’s our man on sabbatical. He’s valuable, Kithkin.”

  “He is doing nothing for you right now, and does not want to return. Not your fault, Grits, but even if he switches to my team tomorrow I’m running him light for a few days. Even intense training runs for him specifically will have to wait for him to get his wings back under him. Tell me. If your Dimensional Magus were to fly back in on Monday, what would be the first thing he was tasked to do?”

  “He’d have to set up a ritual to unch our main strike team to their next Biome mapping dive. You’re preaching to the choir, but you will need to talk to my boss. I can’t release him personally. Even if he was in my section, which he isn’t.”

  “I was afraid of that. Guild Leader Socorro, correct? I have his information, used to contract for him a ways back.”

  “That info is out of date. Socorro retired a few months ago, He was repced by his old second-in-command. You need to talk to Guild Leader Tristan Cartwright.”

  “TRISTAN is your Guild Leader now?” That was not nearly the news I had hoped to receive. Tristan Cartwright was… a bean-counter. An amazing second in command, to be sure, but as the Leader himself I had few hopes that he would let go of one Stephan Goa, Owlfolk Dimensional Magus. “Okay. Thank you for the information, I should be able to talk to him on Monday. Is there anything you need from me? I do need to return to my bunch.” There were three heads shaking. “Alright. One st tip from me. You three, along with the officers of your Guilds, probably want to stay clear of here for the next… call it three hours. Bunch of folks who are not exactly fans of yours are going to be gathered up, and I don’t want a major fight on my hands. If you’re not going to the Dungeon or leaving the area, then a long walk through the forest will likely be the safest pce for you.”

  Vish buzzed again. “That bad?” The forest around the Guild Hall was, to put it lightly, extremely hazardous to be traveling alone. They’d need to go as a team in order to ensure a random monster ambush didn’t keep one of them from ever going home.

  “Possibly worse. I will be giving the details at the Concve, but they aren’t mine to disclose at this moment. Please take my advice. Now, I need to get back to my people to finish preparations.”

  We split up and got going. Those three were good folks, and I could count on them to do the right thing. I had, however, left Whitney and Paige alone for a bit too long. My front-liners could be a bit votile if insulted, and they did not have specific tasks here today. They came with us to be protective. Best pce to find Whitney would be with Gloria, so my first stop would be what she was supposed to be doing. Ranged weaponry, and that meant Quiverbow. Getting there was a matter of a few wingbeats.

  Whitney and Gloria were there alright, along with Amber and Nibbles, speaking to the proprietor. Quiverbow was a sharp-dressed woman, long-sleeved white shirt and red tie under a brown vest. Her red hair offset her pale skin, and her hands were gloved as she gestured animatedly at her wares. Sitting on the counter was a carbine, and I could see the myriad components of it reflecting light oddly. Enchanted, and that was telling.

  Quiverbow wasn’t just an Enchanter. Before the change, she had been a hobby gunsmith. Afterwards, she decided to apply her Css to her hobby… well after most of the rest of the world decided it wasn’t worth the effort. One basic truth about Enchanting was that you needed to make sure every piece of the item was imbued with power. On armor, even with as many parts as chainmail, this was not much of an issue. On weapons, even bows, it could get complicated. On a firearm? Almost literally two hundred separate rituals had to be conducted to make sure your gun wouldn’t explode in your hand, and all of them had to be perfect. Nobody had yet figured out how to get a bullet to hold one through the firing process, but I wouldn’t put it past this particur shop owner to be the first to do it. Quiverbow didn’t sell many firearms. Those she did tended to be the most hideously dangerous weapons in the state, and few could afford the fact that each one was a Masterwork in its own right.

  My wallet was gd Gloria preferred bows.

  “Kithkin, just in time!” Her voice was as animated as the rest of her, with a bit of a German accent. “Gloria here says you sent her to get one of the best weapons ever to come into Delver hands, can you tell her my guns are second to none?”

  “Certainly can, Quiverbow, but she’s a Trap Master Hunter. Different style. We’d like to see the best bows in the state, not the best firearms. Those particur wares are for when we finish our primary pass and can get sidearms for myself and our Ingeniator here.” I nodded at Amber, who like me kept a pistol in easy reach.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? Got a few on the rack. What do you need?”

  Gloria was, thankfully, also sharp on this part. “Other than striking, you mean? I’m sure they all do that much well. I need either something that can transmit traps to my target or that aid my accuracy at a distance.”

  Quiverbow shook her head. “Trap transmission is on the arrows themselves, and I don’t have those pre-made. Not much market for them. Striking and accuracy, though, I certainly can handle right here.” She pulled one recurve off the wall, the dark-stained wood reflecting light in that odd way enchanted items do. At the front, blending into that wood pattern, were carved the letters GEN. The meaning of which I wasn’t certain, possibly a maker’s mark. Even the string seemed silvery. “This one’s my high-end standard model. Strength and accuracy, and it’ll adjust to your draw weight. The nock notch will hold the arrow shaft better than anything, too. Tell you what. You feature her in one of your videos, Kithkin, and I’ll knock a quarter off the price. Need the advertising, and you’re it.”

  I shook my head. “Generous offer, but I can’t accept it. We’ll pay full price for this, and you can enjoy the advertising if it makes it into a video. The day I start working on Influencer rules is the same one I retire.” I gnced at the price tag. Nowhere near as painful as the shotguns and SMGs, but it would hurt. Well worth it, though. “You have a warranty?”

  “Psh. Of course, but nobody’s ever had to call me on it. Coin or credit?”

  “Amber, I’m pretty sure you have the Coin in your Pockets. Settle up, then again for the warranty just in case. We aren’t exactly easy on our gear. Gloria should have time to break it in before things get interesting.”

  Quiverbow was looking at me with an odd intensity. I’d seen the look before. The look of someone with a million more questions than answers. Sizing up the person before them. “Kithkin, I hear you got an invite to our little get-together. I’m an Independent, my shop has never been under a Charter, but I’ll be representing some of the folks on this row. I’m curious. You are not like the others. How is it that you find yourself here today?”

  “I wish I knew. Five of the participants invited me. We will speak more in about an hour, I think, but my own duties call.”

  “Alright. I’ll let you know if I ever knock together a batch of transmission arrows.”

  “Thank you. Gloria, once you have your new weapon, drop by and talk to Lucy for a bit. Look for the glow, she’ll be easy to find.” Amber settling up would give her a massive overcharge on her Hunger, which would be shared with the other two present thanks to our uniquely free-flowing energies. Then another boost from the additional arrangements. If they proceeded to go talk to Lucy afterwards? That meant both that Lucy would be near-full, and our daughter would have the best environment I could give her to develop.

  My life had not exactly been simple this past month, but as I walked Enchanters’ Row I felt reassured that this much, at least, had gone right. Though Paige was nowhere to be found, I at least found Sarah at the Open Tent. A pce set up with several basic tables and extremely basic tools for several crafting Csses, the Open Tent was where people went to talk shop. To show off away from the people hawking their wares, to trade tips and tricks. Given what exactly Sarah had dealt with that morning, I was not shocked to find her here.

  Rather, it was who she was talking to that was a surprise. Two Beastfolk were seated around an Enchanting table with her, and I could tell by the excited tone that they were enjoying themselves thoroughly. The first was a rather fmboyant-looking bipedal Golden Retriever… or maybe a Husky mix?... in white and gold colors. He looked quite young, either just barely old enough to be a Delver or not quite there. The other, though, was more familiar. The Border Collie had a smile on her maw and her tongue slightly out in concentration, one ear folded over unconsciously. Her suit seemed skin-tight and made of hexagonal ptes, both arms repced with cybernetics, with her forearms looking almost like va mps. Well, maybe what was familiar was not her in particur, but rather her Guild Badge depicting a tornado and two lightning bolts. A member of the Stormbreakers, people I’ve worked with before and who had invited me today. Her voice was pleasant and smooth, not at all what I expected from her Race.

  “Jeremiah! Good of you to drop by here before the meeting. I’m Suri, and Sarah has presented us with some absolutely fascinating data.”

  The Golden nodded enthusiastically. “I’m Saber! Nice to meet you!” Okay, so some stereotypes were more correct than others.

  Sarah gnced over her scaled shoulder at me. “Neither had much idea what was up with the Greater Masterwork, but since that one is super experimental I’m not surprised. We’re chatting about armor now.”

  “Just as fascinating. Your method is very, very different from my own for what you propose.” I noticed a handful of chainmail links on the table, Suri had several in front of her. “But then again, perhaps not quite. Saber,” his ears perked up, “remember what I told you about the Principle of Contagion? It is relevant to this project, just like it is to my own suit.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Not all components need to be individually enhanced if they are otherwise simir, the effect of empowered pieces spreading like to like with only a basic charge.”

  “That’s right. For my suit, it lets force distribute across the surface evenly, which in turn means far less is focused on any given point and is thus much easier to withstand. For this construction, it permits the spread and linkage of a force effect.” Suri’s lecture voice was a powerful one. I had to resist the urge to pull out a notebook and jot things down.

  Sarah had pulled out a notebook and was jotting notes. Good, at least one of us was. “Can the distribution effect be applied to force? Right now I’m relying on point focus.”

  Suri’s eyebrow raised. “You happen to have a lot of spare links to enhance, so you should be able to. Any good components that represent flow and adaptation?”

  I knew the answer to this one. “How about Pure Waters? Just closed out a Gate full of Water Elementals, we got a bit of a stock.”

  “Those would be perfect. If you have any left afterwards, I could use them.” Suri quirked her head then. “You seem oddly knowledgeable on these matters for someone who is not themself a crafter. Even for a Guild Leader. Perhaps you are the right one to invite, at that.”

  I felt my hackles raise a bit. The shoe was about to drop. “I had to be. Shield Against Shadows spent far too long as an in-name-only charter. We weren’t full time Delvers, just a coder and a teacher who hunted monsters when we could to make ends meet.”

  Suri nodded. “Tell me, Guild Leader Kithkin, why do you think I’m here, tutoring this talented young man not of my Guild?” Saber’s tail was wagging at the compliment.

  The question caught me off-guard, but I had a quick response. “It is our duty to continue the profession. The better we train those coming after us, the better off we all are and the fewer lives are lost.”

  “You are thinking with some truly noble ideals, but no. Stewardship alone is not the answer. I’ll pose the question in a different way. Your Guild is eight people st I checked. How many projects do you think Sarah here has in front of her? Not counting theoretical experiments, only ones which are relevant to your fighting force.”

  I was much less ready to answer that one. “Um. The Greater Masterwork, two sets of armor… wait, three, forgot my own… at least another three Batteries, two Shield Charms, and probably a couple of extra tools for Amber to use helping her.”

  Sarah shook her head. “You did better than Suri thought you would, but that’s only about half of them.” My eyebrows climbed up and tried to join my hairline at that.

  Suri nodded. “And that is for a retively tiny bunch. Nearly twenty people call the Stormbreakers home, and I am our only Enchanter. I daresay that we have no less demand per person. Most of the Major Guilds have a much worse ratio than that. Independents? Well, independents like Saber face an eternal struggle of doing projects for money, doing projects for their own growth and theory, gathering components, and trying to rest. This besides fighting to get fair value for what they do, rger Guilds undervalue their contributions heavily unless they stake a major name for themselves. Burnout is high, even among those who do not wish to Delve alongside those who are using the gear they make, and that only makes the problem worse for the rest of us.”

  I got it then. “It’s a self-feeding cycle. The worse the conditions are, the worse they will get, and we risk a major failure point that can cause a mission to colpse at a crisis point. At best, that means severe, possibly permanent, injuries to one or more powerful Delvers. At worst, that means the deaths of dozens.”

  Saber’s voice was small. “Or hundreds. I saw the video, sir. Of the Bar, in front of Central Cascadia Hospital. My dad got to watch from his window, he was there for a broken leg. If that thing had looked up and decided it didn’t like the building in front of it, he would have been one of the first to die. I saw the baton you used, the shield, the batteries, your Berserker’s sword, your Sorceress’s staff, your Enchanter’s wand and shield charm. All of it. Before that day I was considering ignoring my Css. I don’t come from money, I can’t afford to level it reliably. The next evening, I bought my starter kit and started grinding. We’re needed. Badly.”

  “And that is not all.” Suri, apparently, didn’t believe in withholding bad news. “I know it’s the same for Alchemists across Camp. Same for the Smiths, same for our Dimensional Magus, same for Imbuers and Shapers and crafting-focused Magi and Witches and Clerics. You were isoted from it for a while, you didn’t see it get this bad, but that is where we all stand.”

  My watch pinged at me. I had perhaps ten minutes to get to the meeting. The big difference now was that I knew some of the stakes I was getting myself into.