My night home was not all it was cracked up to be. Instead of taking a shower, eating as much food as I could stomach and passing out harder than I’d ever done in my life, I still had work to do. As daylight faded, I worked to expand our fenced in territory while Eli and Thomas picked vegetables and tended to the garden under Sandra’s watchful eye. Raising stone walls was not difficult for me, especially at the steady pace I had picked. Elvis served as my guard, keeping his eyes peeled in case some monster decided to be opportunistic.

  I did have a bit of a hard time focusing. Paul was still unconscious and there wasn’t much more we could do for him until Eli recovered. Paul lay close to our planted sunstone at the top of our house where he and it could catch the most sunlight.

  “He’ll be all right.” Elvis assured me, leaning on his spear. “If two giants were trying to eat him and didn’t manage to chew his legs off, then we'd have done all we can for him by sticking him near that crystal.”

  Dirt flowed upwards, bringing up gravel, rock and pebbles along with it before solidifying underneath my hand bit by bit.

  “It still eats at me, the disbelief.” I confessed. “Magic being real and all. Look at this!”

  The stone flowed like a living blob bending and contorting to my will as it continued to grow into an intimidating wall complete with a beautifully smooth exterior and wicked spikes and blades at the top to deter intruders. I did not neglect the base of the wall, its foundation ran deep into the ground so a simple attempt to dig underneath would be foiled. All in all, the wall was well over twelve feet tall if you counted the part underground.

  “I mean . . . it’s cool and all, but not as cool as this!” Elvis quickly leaned his spear against the wall and struck a pose, flexing his massive biceps at the approaching sunset. “I got muscles for DAYS! I fought a GIANT! I’m almost a GIANT!”

  “You certainly are.” I agreed with a chuckle. “When you get a few more years under your belt, maybe you could convince Denise or Rochelle to be Mrs. Hercules.”

  Elvis growled back. “Hey! It’s not my fault magic de-aged me! I’m still seventeen!”

  I sat up a bit. “But aren’t they around twenty-five? Trust me man, women generally want older guys, generally. Not saying you don’t stand a chance but if you tell them you’re seventeen and your Status Screen says you’re even younger, you’ll be friend-zoned and forgotten so fast your head will spin.”

  He gave me an aggrieved look. “What do I do then? I got all this manliness, this jacked body and nobody to love?”

  “Simmer down.” I laughed. “One, you have bigger concerns than romance right now, like survival. If the giants kicking our asses weren’t enough to drive that home, then think about how we gotta build you a new home, or build a smoker, or learn how to do plumbing so we can have clean water on demand.”

  His boots dug into the ground a bit, kicking a bit of dirt onto my bare feet.

  “Why don’t you wear boots again?”

  I looked up. “Uh, I have a trait that lets me pull up mana from the ground as long as I’m in contact with it. Bare feet are better for me over time when working magic or Alchemy because I don’t have to dip into my own energy reserves.”

  He leaned over and stuck his finger in the ground. “Yeah, I don’t have that ability. It’s just dirt.”

  “It’s just dirt, to you.” I laughed. “To me, it’s my most useful power for combat. It’s just very draining to use, especially if I do something big or quick. Dirt and stone don’t like to move fast.”

  Elvis picked up a rock. “So, it works if you’re in contact with this?”

  I shook my head. “No, it has to be connected to the ground. I can’t just carry around a rock and get limitless energy.”

  “That’s dumb. Why does it work your way but not my way?”

  Shrugging, I kept walking forward at a slow pace. “Ask whatever god you believe in, man. I didn’t make the rules.”

  “Couldn’t you just hold a rock that was connected to the ground? It’s made out of earth and would be touching the ground.” Elvis gestured aimlessly at the sky. “Like a, uh, a wizard’s staff!”

  Not exactly a bad idea. We kept working and I kept bouncing ideas off the kid as the wall grew. He had some good ones that I tucked away for later for experimentation. Our conversation helped me forget the tedium of making a stone wall. Before long, the small parcels of land that used to be a suburban house and a pitiful front yard with a very small backyard joined my own property line. I added in what used to be Mike and Isabella’s house, a serious chunk of the alley behind the back line of the fence where the power lines used to be.

  “That’s enough for now. It’s getting dark.” I said, the deep shadows starting to stress me out. “Feel like something is watching me when the sun sets.”

  Elvis shivered. “And here I was feeling good about getting a little break.”

  “You boys coming in?”

  Sandra’s voice was a welcome reminder that someone was at home tending the hearth. We both hustled to the back porch and my wife greeted us with a table full of roasted potatoes, generously salted, and grilled deer-fox tenderloin steak. All of which had been sprinkled with crushed jalapenos before cooking. Thomas and Eli were setting the table and getting everything else ready while Sandra laid down another platter of meat skewers.

  “Hey! Wash up before eating!”

  Elvis and I quickly tended our stench, using tiny bits of soap and generous amounts of hot water from the big pot to do a washcloth bath. It wasn’t as good as a real shower but it was far better than nothing. Within a few minutes, we were both clean and our clothes were brought to a pristine state via my oh so convenient Alchemy. Using my power for laundry was a truly underrated application of magic but I didn’t care. Dirt, blood, filth, it all fell away with a swift application of will.

  “Dig in!” Sandra said as we sat down, loading up her own plate. Her usual joy of being the hostess forgotten in the raging hunger of not eating most of the day.

  “You can get milk from goats, right?” Thomas asked, looking up from his plate.

  My wife nodded as I said, “Duh.”

  Elvis scrunched up his face before a smile broke out. “You mean those big goats we saw!”

  “That’s right!”

  Sandra froze as Eli sat a little straighter, wonder crossing both of their faces. “Which means butter! And cheese! And cream!”

  My wife turned her suddenly intense gaze my way. “I don’t care what monsters you have to kill. We need those goats.”

  I knew better than to laugh. Sandra does NOT play when it comes to food. Or anything related to her kitchen.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Yes, dear.” I replied solemnly. “First thing in the morning, I will make a big pen for them and go get you a few goats.”

  Leaving my disbelief unspoken as I knew those over-sized milk-makin’ herbivores might have their own opinions on the matter, I helped myself to more steaks.

  “There are two shoulders from those deer-foxes I want to slow cook.” Sandra said, adding even more salt to her potatoes. “But I do not have an oven that works and I don’t have any pots big enough to hold the amount of food we eat.”

  I didn’t have to imagine the smell of slow-cooked pot roast filled to the brim with potatoes, onions, mushrooms and carrots. We had all we needed right here to get that going.

  “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll make a large cauldron and a huge roasting pan. With the amount of meat we’ll be eating, we’ll need both, probably.”

  Thomas pushed his third plate of food away. “Are we really not going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

  “Which one?” Sandra raised an eyebrow, ticking off her fingers one by one. “Dwarves? Giants? Tiny Washington monument with swirling energy? New message from dead people about the world being invaded? Some quest to provide ‘essence’, whatever the hell that is and a warning about some contamination called the ‘Abhorrent’?”

  Eli’s face wavered somewhere between excitement and dread as he spoke up. “Or Paul still being unconscious?” He looked up the hill covering my home where Paul lay on the western side facing the sunset. His shirtless, slender form was propped up against the sunstone to maximize exposure to solar rays. I was hoping a feedback loop of the sunstone plus actual sunlight would help him get back to normal. Taking comfort and practicality into consideration, I took a few minutes to shape that side of the sunstone to be smoother with two protrusions that fit under his armpits so he could stay partially upright as if he were in a lounge chair.

  “I’m not leaving him outside all night.” I mumbled through a too big mouthful of food.

  “Of course not!” Another plate of meat and potatoes floated up and over to me. My wife slowed down her own gorging to wash down her food with water. “But I do think we need to talk about this.”

  “This what? Exactly?” I asked. “I’m not trying to be obtuse but you did mention a lot of elephants. The one I’m concerned about is the Abhorrent. What are they? Why did the Obelisk thing call them out? What does that have to do with ‘essence’ and new users?”

  Elvis pushed away his plate, finally full after eating four large portions. “We did take out a giant.”

  “As a team.” Sandra clarified. “And we needed help from the dwarves.”

  “Very true.” I agreed. “We’re going to have to meet up with them tomorrow to see what they’re doing and what their plans are.”

  “It’s a good thing the University of Mary Washington had their early graduation this year. It usually happens at the end of the month.”

  I looked at my wife. “Yeah, hadn’t thought about that in all the craziness. Weren’t they doing some big remodeling project or new construction?”

  She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yes. That plus the academic calendar realignment. They wanted to start earlier and end earlier for some reason.”

  Elvis and Eli looked at each other. “You mean we could’ve had thousands of college students walking around with powers around here if magic had come a bit sooner?”

  I shook my head in disbelief as my wife nodded. That’s one of those things that could’ve gone either way.

  “And that means the dwarves shouldn’t have to worry about tons and tons of college students living above them. They can dig and tunnel beneath the college to their heart’s content.”

  “God! We are too easily distracted!” Sandra exclaimed. Flickers of blue energy arced around her before disappearing. Untouched silverware vibrated until I put my hand on top of hers. “The Abhorrent! The War! Obelisk and Magic!

  “We are, and I wish we knew babe.”

  Eli watched us talk with wide eyes before nudging Thomas who had completely tuned out the conversation at this point to focus completely on his meal. His heavy-lidded eyes were closing on their own.

  “Huh! What?!” My brother woke up a bit. “Abhorrent . . . bad! Probably, right? Sorry, I’m gassed out bro.”

  Eli elbowed him again, this time a bit harder. “That’s enough out of you. Can’t have you undoing all my healing.” He stood up a bit straighter. “We need to bring Paul in and then we all need to get in bed.”

  Trying not to raise an eyebrow at the unusual showing of backbone, I kept my smirk to myself.

  “Yesss, doctah’.” I mocked. “Whatevah’ you says’ doctah.”

  Eli shot me a worried look before I smiled.

  “No, no. You’re right.” I said, this time without the put-on accent. “It’s late, the sun's going down. Sleep will do us good.”

  Sandra’s telekinesis made the cleanup super fast. Within five minutes, the rays of the sunset turned into a darkness that had no business being that black. Elvis carried Paul into the house and I harvested twelve small marbles of sunstone from the main crystal and made sure that each person had two personal light sources. Eli used his toolbox to give us each a little shot of healing magic to us in tip-top shape before he settled in for the night.

  I, however, couldn’t resist the siren call of Alchemy.

  “You should be in bed.”

  Sandra’s firm tone and disapproving frown an unknown amount of time later let me know that I had gotten way too sucked into what I was doing. Not the first time this has happened. Her fists were on her hips as she let out a deep breath.

  I let out a huge yawn before realizing what happened. My only chance of survival was distraction.

  Quickly, I leaned over and held my sunstone up over to the side.

  “Look babe! A cauldron!”

  Blue energy picked me up as if I were a baby, gently carrying me away from my ritual circle in the basement.

  “And a roasting pan!” My efforts were futile. “Look! Perfectly made hairbrushes and toothbrushes, enough to last us years! I even made floss! Ooooooh! And new lamps where the sunstones can socket into them for indoor light! Nooooo! I’m doing good work!”

  My arguing didn’t last long. In fact, that pillow hit harder than the giant.

  ********

  Earth - Monday - Day 9 - 16 May 2021 - Just after Midnight

  The upright sewer gates blocking off the tunnel near the railroad served a different purpose today. In decades past, the slaves used these very tunnels to escape northward in hopes of freedom and a better life. But in the darkness, here in the blackest of nights beneath the surface where even the barest light from the stars could not hope to reach, new forms of life emerged. Small concentrated piles of waste and rot mixed with chemical runoff called to the Shepherd’s essence. This pool of filth leached energies from where the Labyrinth’s tendrils reached into the spine of the Earth. From here, the contamination grew.

  Fredericksburg was not alone on this night. All across the world from the oil fields in Texas where the broken drills stood like forgotten skeletons, the lifeblood of the dirt mingled with the trash and waste of human civilization. Spurred on, invigorated by the copious amounts of disease from corpses and dead flesh strewn about, another small gap in the skein of the world opened up to let in the Abhorrent.

  Landfills and ghettos, oil spills and decrepit cemeteries, waste plants and putrid slaughterhouses. Nowhere was truly safe. From these conglomerated concentrations arose the first of many.

  Jagged claws reached out, corruption made manifest, as the small creatures pulled themselves out of the pools. Disgusting creatures that resembled small chimpanzees but with a demonic face, puffy eyeballs with no pupils, and slime covered skin began to explore.

  Small goblin-like ones with wider jaws and flat teeth instantly began to chew any vegetation in sight, converting the lush green into tiny piles of sick that they threw up after processing. Even more wandered further, sneezing long trails that hung from the branches of trees causing them to mold and rot. The slowest of them all marched on, more a stumble really, bulbous spore balls exploding at random to send infectious fungi far and wide as the wind blew. Those that doggedly ate the vegetation would return with full stomachs to the original pool of filth where they originated from to spew back into it, growing and deepening the filth pit.

  As the pit filled up to become a deeper puddle, even more things began to emerge. A skinnier, taller version of the creatures emerged, several sets of unusually long arms reaching out where its smaller compatriots only had two. Instead of claws or teeth, its appendages and mouth were equipped with needlelike tubes closer to mosquito mouths than anything else. This creature wandered listlessly until it saw a rat sprinting away down a trail, snatching it up and draining it mostly dry before filling it back up with something, sick. As the mostly dead body of the rat shivered at the invasive liquid permeating its circulatory system before aggressively attacking the nervous system, it wasn’t long before it too stood up and mutated into something darker.

  In the deep dark places of the world where man had left his worst footprint, the Abhorrent arose.