Today's Earth date: February 9, 1992

We've been off of our road patrols for a little more than a week, and the monsters noticed.

There's a tribe of orcs known for patrolling the Bata Desert. They're so good at surviving out there, that the desert itself is like a form of defense for them. If they leave the desert, raid a caravan, and get chased all the way back to the desert? Most people will give up on the chase right there rather than go into the wasteland.

We've been asked to scare them out of being so bold.

Also, not that this is any surprise, but there is drama among the squires. Horcus explained to his squire/girlfriend that she was an NPC, and she very much did not appreciate that. She liked it even less when he said that it wasn't possible to cheat on an NPC.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

"Fucking finally," Hector said when the last clob of that particular raid slid off his sword. "It's been forever since we've gotten a level."

Wayne checked his own system. Damn. No level-up for him.

He was happy to see that Fergus had maxed out his unlocks for Tunnels & Trolls, so he switched him over to Buck Rogers. Being one level ahead of the rest of the Zeroes–Fergus at 15 and everyone else at 14–he was the only one to hit that milestone. The others needed one more unlock to move on from Tunnels & Trolls.

The best part of these moments was seeing everyone test their new skills, but no one unlocked anything that they could show off immediately.

Fergus unlocked:

Hellbomb Burst – Creates an explosion that envelopes the casters foes.

And Armond:

Smog – Enables caster to project a cloud of poison around the party of monsters.

Then Hector:

Oh Go Away! – Drives monsters from the battle field. If the spell fails, the monsters chase the magic user to the exclusion of his or her comrades.

And lastly, Margo:

Second Sight – Allows a person to see mirage monsters.

Reading them over a second time just made Wayne more jealous. Hellbomb Burst? That sounded bad ass. He had unlocked some powerful spells and skills, but Fergus got the most destructive magic, it seemed. That made sense, given his selected class was wizard, but what class did the system consider Wayne? Some variation of fighter, probably, but that felt too vague to account for the spectrum of skills he had.

The party continued on without incident for the rest of the day, but two hours or so before they planned to stop and make camp, Wayne spotted yellow and red dots on his HUD.

Wayne pulled Outlawson to a stop.

"Why are you smiling?" Fergus asked when Wayne turned around to address the party.

He hadn't realized the sight of potential mobs made him smile. "Be careful about going any farther north until we're ready," Wayne said. "I've got some Spawners on my map, and we don't want to trip them early. I can't say for sure, but the layouts are like the crab knight we fought by the Water Temple. Everyone, get your chain mail on."

"Are you using the plural intentionally?"

"There are four clusters. Arranged in a triangle with the extra halfway across one of the three sides."

"That's a lot of spawners," Hector said.

Wayne nodded. "This isn't a generic encounter. Get your heads right for a tough one."

Hector nodded as did the rest of the party.

"Know anything about what we might find in that general direction?" Wayne asked Kenny.

"We're pretty far from Mudsville stompin' grounds at this point," she answered. "I can get you to the Dead Zone but don't got the whole jungle memorized."

Pondering a potential plan, Wayne zoomed out on his HUD. The reds were almost directly north, and the road gently bent toward the northwest a little ways ahead. From his map and what little he could see from the wagon, Wayne had no reason to believe the jungle suddenly thinned out or opened up near the Spawners, and throwing his party into that mess of plantlife wasn't a good strategy.

"There are demons that way," Vanilli leaned over the edge of the wagon. "Lots of them."

"Thanks, Vanilli. Armond," Wayne said to the party's cleric, "What do you think about taking the party up the road and around that bend, setting up your position there and then I bring them to you?"

"Draws them away from the wagon and keeps us from fighting in the weeds. You sure you want to go in alone, though?"

"Not sure at all, but I don't see better options."

Armond scratched his stubble, thinking. "Screw going through the jungle. We can clear a hole in the canopy. Blitz over, trigger the spawners, and drag them back to us from there?"

"You think they'll know to target me in the sky?"

The cleric shrugged. "Could drop Running Back bot if you're not attracting enough attention. I'd rather figure out this approach doesn't work than have you hung up on some branches with three mini bosses running you down."

"Worst case, I end up hoofing it through the jungle anyway."

"Best case, you skip that bullshit altogether."

Wayne nodded. "Alright. That's how we'll do it."

"We'll get into position and punch a hole in the canopy for you."

While the Zeroes jogged down the road, Wayne fired Missile into the air several times over to clear the largest tree branches from his path.

Stolen story; please report.

"This one seems worse," Kenny said, peeking over the edge of the wagon.

"That's 'cause it is," Sammy said. "Last fight we had like this, the Zeroes faced down a small army of mutant crayfish. Dozens of them."

"Uhh…"

"Same drill," Wayne said. "Stick with Sammy and Vanilli. They know to run with Outlawson if they need to."

Before Kenny could respond, Wayne Blitzed straight up into the sky, covering his face to keep twigs from stabbing him in the eye.

He emerged from the canopy. A thick mist lingered over the Cuts and dark clouds formed on the horizon. After taking a deep breath, he Blitzed toward the three clusters of red, watching his HUD and the canopy below for signs that he triggered the Spawners. As he closed in on the reds, he began to think that, perhaps, these Spawners were permanently dormant.

Then the trees beneath him began to shake, wobbling back and forth like a tornado worked to yank them from the soil.

The red dots spread.

And spread.

And spread.

Wayne's HUD lit up with so many health bars that he dismissed several of them to keep his vision clear. Most of the bars were labeled "proelium ranae" and three were labeled "hopster lobster." Curiously, the one Spawner not on a point of the triangle was undisturbed. Where red dots spread away from every other Spawner, nothing stirred around that particular area.

The toad warriors they fought were called proelium bufos. Wayne's best guess was that these would be the frog variety, the original iteration of the monsters before the first dwarves decided to drain the ocean entirely.

As for hopster lobsters, he saw one for himself when trees began to fall. The growing tears in the jungle canopy revealed three school-bus sized lobsters chopping the largest trees down with their pincers and smashing over the others with the size of their bodies alone. Warrior frogs armed with tridents rode on their backs and several followed behind on foot.

"Don't hold back. We've got three minis and a bunch of frog men."

Before the hopsters began to clear-cut their way through the jungle, Wayne had reservations about needlessly burning down part of a pristine rainforest. This world wasn't in danger of running out of trees like Earth, but dynamiting a bunch of beautiful plants still felt wrong.

It felt less wrong now that the hopsters did it first.

Super Dynamite.

Wayne dumped a stream of dynamite onto the hopster cluster farthest from his party. The first few connected and then the next several were blocked by magic shields, explosions rippling across the barriers like fireworks in the sky. Meanwhile, the other two clusters ran toward the Zeroes.

No. They hopped. Instead of clearing the way with their pincers, the hopster lobsters took to leap-frogging one another. The rearmost hopster of the two launched itself over the other, using its body to flatten the jungle in the way. Then the second hopster repeated the motion.

"They've got casters among them. Buffing the lobsters, I think."

Wayne cast Slyway Robber on the hopster he tried to Dynamite, focusing on draining its vitality. He tapped Brake over and over to keep himself relatively airborne, but he felt his spell burning through his mana at a rapid pace. His vitality jumped from 19 to 41.

Right when he felt lightheaded, he used Burner Max to refill his mana and fell from the sky to attack the hopster and the ranaes.

Using Insult Duel on the hopster made him shout, "You're no match for my brains, you poor fool!"

As soon as Wayne neared trident range, he saw a stream of bubbles squirting up to halt his approach. Activating the orbiting Fire from ESWAT cut through some of them, but not enough.

Wayne smashed Easy Out to escape being paralyzed and dropped Linebacker bot to pull the aggro away from him.

The poor little robot exploded as soon as it hit the ground, but its sacrifice worked as intended.

Before the ranaes looked up again, Wayne landed on the hopster's back.

Righteous Cloud.

Four ethereal blades chopped down around Wayne, cracking two ranae skulls entirely and wounding another. Then he used Fart to buy himself space as well as time.

Castling.

As the walls surrounded him, building midair on the hard yet slimy back of the hopster, Wayne used Two by Four and stabbed down into the hopsters back as hard as he could.

With its vitality drained, its natural exoskeleton broke apart like drywall, Wayne's sword easily finding its spine. The beast thrashed but a second stab stilled it completely.

A trident bounced off of Wayne's Defensive Screens, then he ducked the next, seeing that his castle walls had quickly been chipped apart. A spear of ice struck him in the back of the thigh. His mind registered that the blow was substantial, but his hitpoints only dropped by five, leaving his leg feeling like he had walked into a bedpost in the dark, a far more preferable feeling to getting stabbed.

41 vitality was the tits.

As Personal Foul blew a whistle in the ears of the frogman who dared strike him, Wayne sent Skycat and Running Backer bot after the two hopster squads closing on the Zeroes. Then he turned his attention to juggling the ranaes trying to surround him. He yanked them forward, tossed them into the air, increased gravity, and even mixed in the occasional Hrglut to keep them confused.

He quickly learned that ranaes were stronger than bufos, but his amplified vitality made their strikes trivial. The bubbles were still a danger, but between his own movement and his ability to physically manipulate his enemies, he kept himself out of range.

The rest of his party, however, didn't have amplified vitality. In fact, they were all several levels lower than he was. Instead of mopping up the entirety of this squad, he turned his back to the remaining two hopsters and spammed Easy Out to hurl himself backward.

As he moved, he used Fire Extinguisher from It Came from the Desert, hoping to obscure the battlefield enough to delay the ranaes he hadn't managed to kill.

A shockwave rocked Wayne, taking his Easy Out off course. He crashed through a tall piece of blue coral. His hit points fell by a negligible 23. Between his chain mail and his boosted vitality, the coral seemed to be much less of a threat.

The bigger threat was the small mushroom cloud of fire that blossomed in the direction of his party.

"Guys?!" Wayne asked in a panic.

"Fergus's new spell is a doozy," Armond answered. "We're fine, though."

Skycat managed to avoid the explosion of Hellbomb Burst and strafed back and forth casting Missile. When the smoke cleared, Wayne saw that one hopster was injured but still flailing its giant pincers at the party, the claws bouncing off of Deban air barriers and Hector's Wall of Iron. The second hopster was healthy, as was the squad of ranaes supporting it.

Fortunately, the wounded hopster blocked the healthier hopster from getting to the party immediately.

"Backstab Bomb?" Margo asked.

"3… 2… 1…"

An invisible Margo soared over the hopsters. Wayne had to use Wink-Wing on her two more times to cover the full distance. The rainforest around the rear unit of enemies descended into sudden darkness–utter, complete, and impenetrable.

That was Margo's Darkest Hour. Wayne Blitzed above the artificial shadows and used Missile, Sword of Water, and Upsidaisy to give his frontline support, chipping away at the swarm of enemies struggling to get around Hector's defenses and the wounded mega lobster.

The health bar for the rear hopster dropped to a fourth.

"Up!" Margo called.

Wayne fell to the ground as the dark faded to nothing. He tossed Margo in the air with Upsidaisy to get her out of trident reach and buffed her with Defense to give her extra protection. As she floated upward, she used Arrow Arrow and Laser Shot to rapid fire lasers at the frog men reaching for her.

The Zero Hero Blitzed beneath the rogue, his sword rending frog flesh with every swing. Margo landed with her back to Wayne.

Fart.

"Sorry."

While immediate threats shirked away from the stench, Margo stabbed her Chosen Rogue daggers into the back of the hopster repeatedly, dropping its health to zero. Wayne protected her from melee attacks and bubbles while she sniped the ranaes bearing down on the rest of the party from behind with her bow.

As quiet fell across the jungle, Wayne felt the glorious sensation of a level up.

The ground began to shake before he could check his system, and he watched with wide eyes as the largest line of red he had ever seen emerged from the lone remaining Spawner.

Emverdoo added one health bar to his HUD, and it read, "Charybdis."

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