“So, is it just a matter of bringing the systems up in the right order so that they don’t cause an overload and trip the breakers?” Sam asked.

  “This one seems to be… some rooms you have to bypass broken circuits or pipes…” George said.

  “Or repair. One of my early groups had a plumber who used some piping he had found and replaced the broken pipes. Something about them using quicksnap connectors.” Voice added.

  “If that’s the case, should we start with the heaviest draw machines and work down? The surges should be more manageable if we hit the big ones when we still have most of the capacity.” Sam contributed.

  “It looks like it is normally smart managed,” Voice said. “So none of those should go on without the system asking for them. El, we got services online. Check out the power and lighting, those are supposed to be online and should be pretty stable on the draw.”

  I opened up the power cabinet and looked inside. The main breaker was set to on; there was then a series of other breakers, each labelled with an apartment number, library, lounge, and a double breaker for the store. About a third of the apartments, the library, lounge and store were all set to ‘off’.

  “Lights are all on,” Daisy called out from that panel.

  “About a third of the apartments, the ones we haven’t gotten to yet, and the communal areas are all ‘off,’” I reported. “Should I put them all ‘on’?”

  “Go for it. Go slow, though, one at a time.” I nodded at the man and then flipped the first ‘off’ breaker.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding and then flipped the next. The same, no change. So with more confidence, I flipped the third ‘off’ switch.

  Sound, I hadn’t consciously registered, suddenly disappeared with a clunk, and the room descended into darkness. A moment later, there was a clicking noise and then more subdued emergency lights came on.

  “Well…that tripped the main breaker,” George said from the main panel.

  “Start with Lights and Services.” Voice said. “El, make sure power is off, we’ll bring that back up carefully. Make a note of which apartment triggered it, I’m guessing one of the ones we haven’t cleared yet?”

  “Yeah, it was 16.”

  Once the lights came back on, I flicked all of the ones which had been ‘on’, back ‘on’, and then skipped over 16 before having no issues on the other apartments.

  “The store breakers are tripping as soon as I let go,” I said. “Not taking anything else out with them though…”

  “Ok, let’s finish clearing the floor before we try and put these on again?” Sam asked.

  “Leave water and heating?” I asked.

  “I just found an error report coming from the central pump room. We’ll need to investigate that if we want to clear this building…” Voice said from the computer.

  “That is why some groups are leaving it to those who are into these things. It’s going to have us traipsing all over the place. Rewards make it worthwhile… but still…”

  “You want to smash?” Sam asked.

  “I want to smash,” the big dude responded with a nod.

  “Is the central pump room in the basement?” I asked.

  “Usually,” Voice acknowledged.

  I got to Fireball a swarm of insects in the next apartment, which was both fun and took me over the kill requirement for that spell’s quest. “Going to try a different spell on the next swarm, might not be as effective…” I acknowledged.

  The door we came across was marked with the numbers 1 and 6.

  “Apartment 16,” Voice declared. “I’m thinking, rats chewed through a power cable and it’s shorting on something metal.”

  “Metal-eating swarm,” George suggested. “What? It wouldn’t be the first time…”

  “Alien energy-sucking plants,” Daisy said.

  “Illegal weed farm,” Sam said with a grin.

  “Oooh, I was thinking, illegal crypto farm.” I grinned. “So… Who lives in a place like this?” I asked in a nasally voice.

  Voice gave the door a good push. It was the first door we had come across which had been locked. So he gave it a Spartan kick.

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  “No, dude, like this.” George turned and did a mule kick closer to the jamb. There was a loud crack as the door splintered around the lock and swung open.

  The first thing to hit me was the humidity, quickly followed by the pungent smell of plant growth. Whoever had owned this apartment for whatever reason hadn’t taken all their things with them when they evacuated. I’m guessing there had been no place for their plants, so they rigged something to water them. It was like a small forest, plants were covering every surface, their roots spread out and their leaves all aimed at the windows. The ground had a gritty feel, like it was becoming dirt.

  “Well…not an illegal weed farm… but that is the closest…” Voice said as we looked around the chamber.

  “Oooh, they sealed the vents, this whole apartment is like a terrarium!” Daisy enthusiastically exclaimed as we explored the room.

  “Found what was tripping the system,” Sam called. “So many grow lights, being ran off daisy-chained power strips…”

  “Jeez, it’s a miracle this place didn’t burn down,” George said.

  “Look, timer switches in the plug sockets. I’m guessing they rigged this to trigger after they had left, and the first time it did, it just tripped the apartment's breaker.”

  “And me holding it closed when I flipped it meant the breaker higher up the tree tripped…” I acknowledged.

  “Ohh! Score!” Sam declared as he took a bite out of a ripe tomato. “Juicy and sweet! These will make a great ragu… I’m thinking pizza tomorrow!” He started picking the ripe ones from the vine he’d found in the kitchen.

  “Junk food and I don’t have to worry about my figure! Count me in!” Daisy said.

  I switched to my Storm staff as I stepped into the next apartment. We’d heard the chittering of another swarm when Voice opened the door. The range of Ball lightning was considerably shorter than Fireball, but it also lasted longer. I had been considering how I was going to do this for a while.

  I was going to be relying a lot on the creature's habit of swarming towards me, put the spell between us and hope they flew straight into its range.

  I stepped around the corner, aimed my staff, and fired. There was the telltale sound of the thrumph as it expanded out into a ball of blue, sparkly death. It felt like ages since I’d last used this spell in a fight. I prepared myself to use another spell when something unexpected happened…

  The swarm… swarmed my spell…

  The rapid bzzt-bzzt sped up as the little arcs of lightning leapt from giant mosquito to giant mosquito, the entire swarm charging straight into the cackling sphere. Like flies attracted to a zapper. I sensed Voice and George stood behind me, watching over my shoulders as the creatures literally dived to their deaths.

  “Well…” Voice said dryly. “You don’t see that every day…”

  “Totally…” a gobsmacked George agreed.

  “I think I prefer this over Fireball,” Daisy said from behind the others. “Puts all the bodies in one place.”

  “Yeah, it looks like the wings are surviving as well…might be something harvestable.”

  “There’s no big boom though…” I grumped.

  We finished our circle of the building and followed the corridor through the middle of the building to the communal area. The middle of the building was seemingly split into four quarters. The first held ‘The Lounge’. It was a large communal sitting area that had what looked like a bar, with a coffee service on one side. A variety of different sitting options were dotted around the place, from large couches to picnic benches, to tables and chairs which could sit anything from two to twelve people.

  “This would make a nice coffee shop, if it wasn’t for that Gelatinous Cube…” Daisy quipped, indicating over to where there were several chairs and a table, which were lifted off the ground, and now, I was looking for it, I could see the slight distortion around the near-invisible blob of deadly jelly.

  “That does explain why this place is spotless…” Sam quipped.

  “GC Cleaning, for when you absolutely need all organic life stripped from an area,” Voice joked.

  “Susceptible to Ice?” I asked.

  Daisy shot an at it. There was a ripple as the cube became less transparent. Sam followed it with a . Another ripple in the visible area of the cube, but it didn’t seem to be any more effective. George muttered for a few seconds and then loosed a at the thing. This had the largest impact upon the creature; its whole body seemed to shake from it.

  “Lightning it is.” Voice declared.

  “Apologies, George. I should have asked if you had any spells. You know, just as you finish casting it, the spell has a mental shape made up of all the parts you did to cast it? If you build that in your head, you can skip a lot of the finger wiggling and word muttering…” I equipped the storm staff and sent a straight into the middle of the cube.

  The cube seemed to resist the orb when it tried to expand up to its full size. My spell didn’t take kindly to that interference and the energy started sparking out of it at a rapid pace. It lit the whole thing up, giving the cube an electric blue glow. Arcs of lightning flickered randomly out from the core of the orb out to the edges of the cube, looking a lot like some kind of cube-shaped plasma globe, lightning crawling all over its faces. The whole thing started to shudder and shake.

  A second came from George’s outstretched hand and collided with the cube. “Sweet!” he declared. “That makes a lot of sense when you think about it…” He fired off another one, just because he could. The others joined in with their ranged spells.

  “Might be worth trying to learn Spark…” Voice said as we sat on some of the couches around a coffee table to recover our mana. We were drinking water from the new coffee cups we had acquired from the remains of the cube. A bunch of keys sat in the middle of the table, which was the only other loot we found.

  “Yeah…” I agreed. “Ok…so you want to start with your hands like this…”

  “I didn’t mean right now…” Voice tried to backtrack.

  “Got something better to do?” I countered.

  “No…” he sighed and sat up to copy my hand position.

  We cheered when the three of them managed to cast the spell at the same time.

  “I could try and explain Ice Bolt?” Daisy suggested. “Not sure it will be as clear as Aenara, but I could try.”

  “Please,” I said, sitting up enthusiastically. New spell goodness coming up. George looked enthused, having watched me teach the others the spell he already knew. Sam and Voice both had the look of people who wanted a mental break, but knew that paying attention was in their interests.

  “Ok, so this is the starting hand position…”