Todd chews on his ugali and stares down at a writhing pit full of rats.

  “Did they smell us, or…?” Candra speculates.

  Todd shrugs. He’s on watch duty, and the rodents have been arriving in small clusters for the last few hours.

  “You’d think they’d get bored or something,” Candra huffs in frustration.

  “You’d think,” Todd repeats.

  The group isn’t worried yet. The plan is for Randall to use his skill to clear out the whole swarm at once. He simply needs to recuperate enough energy to use it twice, just in case.

  Todd pulls up his quest list again, for the third time in an hour. He lets out a displeased sigh. This second and third floor of the mansion have been emptier than the bottom one. Only ash and stones are left, and the walls are even more blasted than below. Only at the inaccessible top level are there windows facing outward.

  Joe and Sue Ann are cultivating. Randall is studying his new cultivation manual and making adjustments to his technique. Candra can’t sit still. The damage to her hair has upset her more than she admits.

  “Sorry you’re stuck doing most of the heavy lifting,” Todd apologizes.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been killing most of the rats. And you saved me from that thing.”

  “I just got lucky with my stick thing,” Candra waves him off.

  “No, really. You’ve been a real badass. I’m serious.”

  “I guess. Thanks. It’s still awful killing them. I feel like it’s only the adrenaline that lets me do it.”

  “Still.”

  Todd twists off a tiny corner of his meal and drops it below. He watches the rats surge in activity as they fight over the morsel.

  “I should have picked a different skill,” he muses.

  “Yours is ten times as useful as mine,” Candra counters. “And you said you liked it.”

  “I do like it. It just feels like Randall and Sue Ann made the best choices. I could have chosen [force arrow] or an electrical move.”

  “I had one that made a ball of energy that I would hit like a baseball,” Candra supplies.

  Todd thinks about it. “That sounds kind of awkward to use though.”

  “I guess so,” she sighs, “it would still be better. It’s just that my skill is so fun to use. I know that sounds stupid.”

  “No, I get it.”

  “Shit. This sucks though.”

  “Yea. But we knew it was going to suck before we went in.”

  “Still.”

  “Yea.”

  Joe crashes out of his meditation, nearly causing a cultivation backlash. “I’m sorry. I can’t concentrate like this. I need to move around.” He gets up and stalks off towards a far wall, picking out a path through the debris. Feverish and manic, he starts doing deep lunges.

  Todd and Candra watch him go.

  “How many nexus coins do you have?” Todd asks her.

  “How many nexus coins?”

  “So we can buy more food,” he explains himself.

  “Oh. I’ve got about two thousand. You?”

  “Eight hundred ninety eight.”

  Candra shakes her head. “But if we keep doing this, all our stuff keeps getting trashed. We need more money for ourselves.”

  “Yea. It’s a conundrum.”

  “A conundrum?” Candra spits out.

  “A difficult situation,” Todd explains.

  “Dipshit, I know what it means. I just can’t believe you used it in a sentence.”

  “Right.”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean dipshit.”

  “S’fine.”

  Their conversation falls into silence.

  Joe chooses that gap to pipe in. “How’s it looking down there.”

  Todd leans backwards. “It’s getting worse.”

  “Great,” Joe says loudly.

  “Arg!” Sue Ann bursts out. “Now I can’t concentrate!” She slaps her hands on her knees and stands.

  “Maybe its better that way. I sort of feel like we should practice fighting,” Joe declares.

  “What do you mean? How?”

  “I don’t know. Just practice. Those chicken ferret things nearly got us.”

  Randall sets down his cultivation manual and joins the conversation in excitement. “Oh, oh. We should do katas!”

  “Do you know any katas?” Todd presses him.

  “They should be simple enough to figure out,” Randall protests, “we just start with simple strikes and do them over and over again.”

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  “What good will that do?” Candra inquires.

  “The goal is to turn the basic moves into muscle memory so that you do them automatically,” Randall says.

  The others look at each other. Joe moves back over and shrugs.

  “I don’t have a better idea,” he says.

  So for twenty minutes, Todd finds himself standing there thrusting his ixwa into the air. Over and over. Boredom sets in quickly. The worst part is that at no point whatsoever does he figure out what to do with his left hand. After a while, he squats down low to simulate striking the low to the ground enemies they’ve been fighting. His improved stats ease the burn in his quads, but it’s still hard to hold the position for long.

  “I feel like an idiot,” he repeats.

  “Just keep going,” Randall reassures him. “Just do what feels most natural for your body.”

  “Except none of this feels right,” Todd exhales. He changes his grip to a downward stab and drives a falling strike. It doesn’t feel immediately unnatural, so he does it again.

  Randall goes around the circle, eagerly offering advice about stances and grips. In particular, he corrects Sue Ann aggressively. He tells her where to hold the sword and where to put her feet. Finally, she has to tell him off.

  Todd isn’t sure whether Randall’s advice is sound or not. Everything the man knows comes from movies and pop culture. He doesn’t do real fighting. But at the same time, Todd doesn’t know enough to countermand him. It’s getting annoying, but it may just save his life.

  In the end, it’s Todd’s brain that gives out before his flesh. This activity is just too mind numbing. He excuses himself and sits down to cultivate. Instead of advancing his cultivation further into the more sophisticated circuits, Todd cycles the pathways he already has. It’s too easy to get interrupted, and cultivation deviation is a painful mistake to make.

  Eventually, Todd comes out of his trance and asks Randall if he can look at the new cultivation manual. Inspecting the contents is interesting. The methods inside are contradictory to the strategies employed by [root of the limitless promise]. He comes to realize that he’d have to undo some of his existing work in order to implement the new one. Maybe a lot of it.

  Nothing in the manual itself gives him a hint about its quality in comparison to his own. Is it better, is it worse? There’s no way of telling. Plus, there’s damage to pieces of the data inside, and some of the advanced methods are scrambled or burned out.

  Unsure what to make of it, Todd decides to continue on with his current path. Randall can use it if he wants to, and later they can compare results.

  After another half hour there is a touch on his shoulder.

  “Wake up, Drips,” Joe whispers.

  Todd marshals the cosmic energy in his body back into place, opens his eyes, then accepts an offered hand and is lifted to his feet.

  “The rats are fighting something,” Joe tells him.

  Todd moves over to the open gap in the floor and looks down. He sees nothing but the shadowy bodies of moving rats. There’s a noise though, a raucous squealing interspersed with guttural grunts and meaty impacts.

  “Can you see it?” Todd asks, moving his head and stepping around the lip of the hole to get a better angle.

  “We’re about to stick our heads down.”

  Todd looks at him like he’s crazy. “You have to be careful. They jump pretty high.”

  “We’ll just have to be quick then,” Candra says.

  In the end, Joe lies down at the edge and they grab ahold of his legs. He pushes off to dip down around, and a short moment passes with his head below.

  “Shit!” he cusses, bending at his abdomen to stick straight out.

  The others pull him away by his pants and he climbs to his feet.

  “So?” Candra asks.

  “I couldn’t see anything clearly. It’s too dark. Then: rat nearly got me. They do jump high as hell.”

  “I know, they can almost get up here,” Todd informs the others.

  “So what do we do?”

  “Let them war it out, I guess.”

  “That’s all well and good until something stronger comes along.”

  “Were they the feathered things again?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Listen though. It doesn’t sound like them.”

  Todd raises his hand. “I guess I’ve got an idea,” he says. “If we could make it up to one of those windows we could climb out and down the outside.”

  “And get around these things, I like it,” Joe congratulates him.

  “I’ve got a little rope.”

  “I was wondering why you brought rope,” Candra says.

  Randall and Todd both admonish her. “Adventures always bring rope.” “You always bring rope on an adventure.”

  “Well it’s a good option to have,” Joe says. “Even if it’s worth more levels to hit these things from above where it’s safe. We’ll lose our [mercury rod]s too.”

  “That’s a good point.”

  They pause, looking down.

  “Okay, so what are we going to do for the rest of the night?” Candra asks.

  “I know. I wish we had cards,” Joe pines.

  Todd takes a step back. “We should keep cultivating,” he recommends.

  “I’m getting sick of sitting around,” Candra complains.

  “For real,” Sue Ann echoes.

  “There’s only so much I can take,” Joe agrees.

  “Are we done doing weapons drills?” Randall asks.

  “Sick of that too,” Sue Ann states.

  “I’d almost rather play tic tac toe,” Joe laughs. “What about a game of ‘never have I ever’?”

  “I’d be down for that,” Candra quickly agrees.

  Sue Ann nods eagerly. “Anything other than what we’ve been up to.”

  “I don’t know,” Todd says. “We should be doing everything we can to finish our quest.”

  “We have no idea where the crystals are, and no way of finding out,” Candra reminds him.

  “What about watching the hole?”

  “Nothing’s going to get up here,” Joe claims with surety. “Besides, we’ll all be ready to fight if it does.”

  Todd’s shoulders slump. He looks out of the corner of his eyes at Candra. “Fine.”

  Joe slaps Todd on the back. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Never have I ever made out with a punk rocker,” Joe laughs.

  Candra scowls and raises her hand. Sue Ann grins proudly as she raises hers.

  “I feel like you’re picking on me,” Candra says.

  “You’re imagining things,” Joe chuckles. “I got 4H too.”

  “A punk rocker?” Todd asks.

  Candra squirms. “There was a guy who used to hang out with us.”

  “He was cute,” Sue Ann interjects.

  “But he ended up being a total asshole,” Candra continues.

  “I guess,” Sue Ann says. “My turn. Never have I ever peed in the shower.”

  Candra and Joe raise their hands.

  “Like, ever?” Todd asks. Reluctantly he raises his own.

  “Gross,” Sue Ann laughs.

  “Alright, my turn,” Randall says, “never have I ever had sex in a car.”

  No one raises their hands.

  “Really?” Randall asks, shocked.

  “Nobody does that anymore,” Candra says, matter of fact.

  Joe waves a hand dismissively. “You’d think so, but no.”

  Candra claps her hands. “Never have I ever… watched an anime.”

  Randall groans.

  Todd gapes. “Not even Studio Ghibli?”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Candra gleams.

  Todd and Sue Ann raise their hands, and so does Joe.

  “My sister likes that stuff,” he says.

  “Alright,” Candra lightly punches Todd in the shoulder. “Your turn.”

  “Two seconds,” Joe interrupts, “let’s check on the monsters first.”

  The beasts are still there. The rats have started to make a resurgence after having their numbers reduced by their prior attacker. They are starting to climb on each others’ backs, and a few of them collide with the overhang of the stairwell gap.

  Joe makes a thumbs up signal. “Play on.”

  Todd sits there thinking for a long while. He hems and haws.

  “Come on.”

  “Just think of anything.”

  “Make it juicy.”

  Todd clears his throat. “Never have I ever… played lacrosse.”

  Candra groans. “That’s a lame one. Come on, do another.”

  “It counts,” Joe says.

  She raises her hand, alone. “Fine. Boring.”

  Todd cringes inside. He needs to do better.

  Joe slaps his hand on his chest and leans forward dramatically. “Never have I ever played Dungeons and Dragons.”

  Todd and Randall both raise their hands. Candra raises hers too.

  “You’ve played D&D?” Randall asks in surprise.

  “I dated a guy who played,” Candra supplies, “it was okay. I was a half-demon rogue.”

  “I mostly played when I was a kid,” Todd says, “I only recently played again last year.”

  “I play a Dragonkin paladin,” Randall boasts.

  The game had been going on for some time. Five people fumbling about: sick to their stomachs, beat up and exhausted; learning more about each other. Joe in particular leads them in the exercise. He’s affable, he works to include everyone, and he’s an exceptional judge of character. But soon enough, the fun comes to an abrupt end.

  Sue Ann sits up straight. “Wait, everyone. Hold up.”

  The others freeze.

  “Do you hear that?” Sue Ann asks.

  They do.

  The sound of skittering insect legs rises up along the walls outside. Within a minute, a wedge shaped head appears in an upper window. A long, trailing scarlet and yellow body follows after.

  Venomous centipedes have arrived, and they’ve done so in number.