Chapter 52: It’s 1000% a Trap

Thomas stood by and watched Zach consolidate the third layer of his core. Frankly, it was a little boring sitting there as someone just sat in a lotus position and breathed. If Thomas wasn’t saving the battery on his phone (because it wasn’t like Elf World had any place to plug in a charger), he probably would have been playing a mindless game.

But he was the designated healer, and Zach had a history of setting himself on fire. Thomas had their very last level 3 Air crystal and a Healing crystal, just in case both were needed.

Suddenly, Zach took in a deep breath and said in a monotone, controlled voice, “You two are going to want to step back.”

Uh-oh.

Thomas quickly heeded his words and backed up a good ten feet. Jo did the same, collecting the Blood Thirsty sword that she had been busy sharpening using a whetstone that had hopefully been left in their room.

Zach took another deep breath, and as he did, a ring of living fire suddenly bloomed out from his core and crawled out over his body. Thomas would have been extremely alarmed, but the flames didn’t burn clothing as they passed over him.

They were odd-colored too, orange at the bottom and flickering to black at the top, with sparks of glittering white here and there. It was an accurate juxtaposition of Zach’s mana mix: mostly Fire, followed by Teleportation, Air, with an overlay of Adaptation.

The fire quickly crawled around him and then puffed out.

Aware of his own slight transformation, Thomas looked closely. Sure enough, Zach looked a little different after his level up too. He was already young, so thank goodness the mana didn’t Benjamin Button him. Instead, he looked a little more refined, as if he had matured his features ever so slightly.

“Level three?” Thomas guessed, though he knew.

Zach opened his eyes. “Level three,” he confirmed. Then he stood in one smooth motion and went through a complicated back stretch. “Bro, I feel like I could take on the world.”

“Maybe wait until you absorb some of that level 4 Fire mana you bought,” Thomas advised with a smile.

“Yeah, great, we’re all level 3 and we’re all too tough to take on,” Jo said dryly. “So are we going to talk about the fact that this meeting with the Ross-Astors is clearly a trap?”

She had been a little on edge since they’d received the note. Not that Thomas blamed her. She was overdue back at home, had a daughter to think about, and had been kind of sort of pulled into this pissing match with the coven, even though she had nothing to do with it.

Zach had wanted to reach level 3 before they got into this conversation, and Thomas had backed him up, because they’d have other issues to deal with if he exploded into volcano demon mode again.

“It may not be a trap,” Zach said. Then, at Jo’s snort, he added, “Think positive.”

“When does positivity start denying reality?” Thomas asked. “Because it’s a thousand percent a trap.”

Zach came back up from a stretch where he had practically folded himself in half. “No, really,” he said, “most of the Old Families are super old school, like fax machines and face-to-face meetings.”

“We could just not go,” Thomas suggested. “The message has been given, and if they’re interested at all, they’ll send someone down to their land to check out the evidence of dark magic. They’ll be able to put two and two together.”

Jo bit her bottom lip, then reluctantly shook her head. “No, I need to be sure that they’re going to follow up and take care of this coven problem for us. The last thing I want is for those witches to show up on my doorstep. But I still think that this meeting is a bad idea. These Old Family folk won’t be happy if they figure out we’ve been in their dungeon, right?”

“They’ve probably noticed that they have two dead guards on their hands,” Zach said, “but… you’re right. I don’t think that all of us should go to this meeting, just in case.” He shrugged. “I’ll do it.”

“Um, don’t your family and their family have bad blood?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah,” Zach admitted.

“And didn’t you say that they’re less likely to believe anything that came from you?” Thomas pressed.

Zach shrugged again, though the motion was a little sharper and annoyed. “Yeah, that’s true too, but what choice do we have? I can’t ask Jo to go. She has a daughter and doesn’t really have anything to do with this. And you…” He threw Thomas a slightly guilty look.

Thomas felt a spike of annoyance. First Jo wouldn’t cut him for the blood she needed in the swamp dungeon, and now Zach, the youngest, was trying to baby him? He remembered Akilah’s warnings that enemies pulled their punches around healers. Apparently, that worked for friends too.

“I’m just a poor little healer, is that right?” he snapped. “Can’t defend myself?”

“Woah, man,” Zach held up his hands. “That’s not what I said.”

“Good,” he said, “because I’ll be the one that goes.”

That got a satisfying protest from both Zach and Jo, but Thomas cut them off. “Look, as far as the Ross-Astors are concerned, I don’t have Old Family baggage. And I don’t have a kid depending on me,” he said, with a glance to Jo. “Finally, I know there’s a weird reluctance people have to hurt healers, which might give them the excuse not to beat the shit out of me.”

Zach and Jo exchanged a look.

Thomas pressed his point. “I can tell them that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not like they had no trespassing signs around. They can look at my records with the National Guard and know that I’m a regular diver. I’ll say I found this kick-ass dungeon, and ran into the coven instead.”

“I don’t like this,” Jo said. But it was notable that she wasn’t volunteering to go with him. She knew he had a point.

So did Zach, apparently, though he sort of looked like he had sucked on a lemon. He paced back and forth, running a hand irritably through his hair. “You gotta have backup,” he said at last.

Thomas, still a little annoyed over their overprotectiveness, snarked back, “What? Call in an airstrike if things go wrong?”

“Call in the guy who can teleport and get you out,” Zach replied smugly.

Thomas opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and considered what he had to say. “Are you sure that won’t kill you? You were on death’s door last night.”

In reply, Zach was suddenly on the other side of the room. It was like watching a frame jump from one movie to another. Then, just as quickly, he was back. He grinned. “I won’t overdo it, but this Teleportation mana helps a lot.”

“Thomas still has to get the word out that he’s in trouble,” Jo said doubtfully.

“I could keep my phone on but in my pocket,” Thomas suggested. And then it hit him a little late that, oh shit, he had just volunteered for this. He needed to stop making decisions based on spite.

“No, can’t risk bumping your phone wrong and then the line gets cut.” Jo crossed her arms then turned to look out the window at the alien landscape. “They were selling all sorts of doodads in the marketplace. I wonder if they have something for team members to communicate with each other in dungeons?”

They did indeed have a magical doodad for just that purpose: A pack of three communicators that were all linked to each other cost Thomas the last of the shadows he’d built up in his account, plus Shadow mana to activate and run. But if it saved him from a beating or worse, it was money well spent.

Best of all, since it even worked in dungeons, which had limits on higher technology, it wouldn’t be the type of thing that Old Families would scan for. He hoped.

The communication device was meant to wrap around an elf’s long pointy ear with the microphone nestled inside. Obviously, that wasn’t going to work for him, so Thomas just hooked it into a vest pocket on the inside of his jacket. Conversations would be a little muffled, but it should pick up if he started screaming.

The elders were still discussing things, apparently, but they had been given permission to go back and forth from Earth to Elf World. As soon as the portal opened that evening, Earth time, they walked back out.

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Though almost 24 hours had passed at this point, it was still nighttime on Elf World. Apparently, they had a long day-night cycle.

There was so much to learn and find out, and he hadn’t even hit the crazy dungeons yet. Thomas felt a little resentful for having to deal with this coven business. It was butting into his diving time.

I’ll just go to the meeting, and the Ross-Astors will come down like the flaming fist of God on the coven, he thought, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to think positive after all.

Thomas’s car, bullet holes and all, was just where he left it. Thanks to his kind-of-sort-of alliance with the Dark Elves, who apparently owned the conference center, he didn’t even have to pay the overnight fees.

They piled in, and after a quick trip to Trader Joe’s—apparently bringing a gift of wine was traditional, though it didn’t have to be good wine, thus the Trader Joe’s—they headed back up the mountain.

It might have been his anxiety talking, but the closer he got to the appointed time of the meeting, the worse this plan seemed.

Then again, what was the alternative? Fighting off an entire group of crazy witches himself? Pass.

Also, how was this his life? A month ago, he was up to his elbows in helping his boss sort out family law and child support claims from opposing counsel.

Weirdly, even as Thomas thought of it, he realized he didn’t want to go back to that life. He liked dungeon diving, he really liked the loot, and despite the drawbacks, the power to heal people with a touch was amazing.

So yeah, he would tattletale on the coven and then go to another planet and dive into their higher-level dungeons for weird loot. That was his life now.

It was pretty damn cool.

It took some time to get to Jo’s truck because his sedan was not an off-road vehicle.

But the truck, too, looked unmolested. Thomas got out, leaving his keys and extra storage backpack behind. The only things on him were a communication device tucked in a pocket, the cheap-ass wine, his new halberd, and hopefully a winning smile.

Jo gave him a hug. “You’re going to be fine,” she said, in a way that was probably meant to convince herself more than him.

“Just head east,” Zach advised. “We’ll be listening, and I’ll pop right in and grab you if anything goes wrong.”