Sequel to Nerf Them! — Book 2 of The Compendium Saga begins here.

  Billy smiled at Discovery, who was staring at them with her mouth agape. She was the same strikingly beautiful woman whose enormous image they had seen projected over Babylon while she delivered her message.

  Up close, Billy noted that she was likely no taller than five feet. Dark circles marked her eyes, suggesting she was sleep-deprived, and she bore the expression of someone who had just received terrible news.

  “Let’s cheer her up,” Billy thought, smiling.

  “First of all, thank you for everything you have done for us, Discovery,” Billy began, glaring at Jenna, who was mumbling something about how she had turned their lives upside down, in an attempt to silence her.

  “We know you probably got into trouble with the Coven for helping us. We’re here to support you. Whatever they did, you can count on us.” Billy finished with a hopeful smile.

  Discovery stared at him for a moment, her face expressionless. Billy briefly wondered if she truly understood what he was saying. Then she reacted.

  “**********!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Billy didn’t understand a word, but based on her tone and body language, it definitely didn’t sound like “thank you very much, you are very kind.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Bob replied mildly, always the gentleman. “Ouch!” Discovery had thrown a mug at him, hitting him on the head. She kept hurling objects, shouting first in her own language and then in heavily accented English to make sure not a single insult failed to land.

  “You defilers of virgin camels, you disgusting lickers of the mud-stained footprints of evildoers in the night!” she launched into a whole tirade.

  “Please, Discovery, if we have done something wrong… ouch! I am sure we can… ouch!” Bob, a firm believer in the power of dialogue, kept getting hit with all the dishware thrown by Discovery with unerring aim provided by her Omega stats.

  Jenna, who was less trusting of human nature, and Billy, a survivor, not a victim, had already turned a table on its side and huddled behind it for cover.

  “This isn’t how I envisioned this meeting would go,” Jenna said glumly.

  They had to make room for Bob, who had given up in his attempt to calm Discovery and was just now trying to survive the endless barrage of thrown objects.

  ”Degenerate descendants of the union of a one-eyed donkey and a demon kicked from the abyss for being too dumb,” she said, switching to her native language now and then to curse more fluently and with greater elegance.

  “Did you get it out of your system? Can we talk now?” said Bob, carefully peeking over the table.

  “Ouch!”

  “She needs more time,” he said after retaking cover at Billy and Jenna’s side.

  Billy heard Jenna’s sudden intake of breath and turned to see what had caused her reaction. To their left was a shelf filled with familiar books from top to bottom. They were identical in size and appearance to the ones that had been destroyed during Whisper's assault. Only one book and half of another had survived that night, and those had proved to be invaluable.

  Discovery paused in her tirade as she gazed at the shelf Jenna had found, her eyes filled with sadness. With a flick of her fingers, something resembling a poker card materialized in her hand. The card flashed red once, and the entire shelf dissolved into dust.

  “Discovery, what have we...?” Billy began, but she silenced him with a glare.

  “Do. Not. Say. One. More. Word.” She glared at him. Then she summoned another card and vanished in mid-air.

  “That went well,” said Jenna.

  “The big question is, what do we do now?” Bob asked after they had cleaned up the mess Discovery had left behind and had taken their seats at the table. “We have absolutely no idea. I hoped she could point us in the right direction.”

  “Should we even be here? She doesn't seem to want our help,” Jenna added.

  “Come on, Jenna, you know there’s more to this than meets the eye,” Billy replied. “And if we decide to turn back to Babylon, what are we going to tell them? They’re probably enjoying the last of the coffee and sharing their war stories.”

  “They gave us a hero's farewell after we defeated one tribulation and one army. Do you really want to be the one who returns just minutes after we left and explain to them that we had to turn back because a mad lady threw coffee mugs at us? That’s not going to earn us a new Coda in the Chant.”

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  “You are right,” Jenna said. “Let’s stay here and try to help. For the children.”

  With Discovery out of the way, they could explore the house at their leisure. It turned out to be a spacious duplex situated atop an impossibly tall skyscraper that loomed over an incredibly vast city. Bob and Billy searched for anything helpful inside Discovery's home while Jenna meditated, using Expansion to get a sense of the area's layout.

  Joanna's blood link had weakened since they no longer shared the same reality, but even so, Billy could still sense Jenna's spirit merging with the building, then with the city, and finally with the entire world.

  He focused on his own tasks. Discovery’s home was simple—a scholar’s place.

  The furniture clashed wildly and looked as if it had been placed at random.

  There was an assortment of exotic canned foods with labels in an unknown language, along with a magical skillet, which Discovery likely used to prepare them. She appeared to have little time for anything outside of her duties, with feeding herself a distant second priority.

  "You should take a look at this, Billy," Bob said. One of the drawers in a cupboard was crammed full of notes in various colors and sizes. Most of the notes featured the likeness of a portly, bearded man, likely the ruler of this place.

  They’d been stuffed inside like worthless scraps. It was clear that Discovery placed no value on material wealth; she either had plenty of funds or an easy way to acquire them.

  “Well, at least we’ll have some funds when we go exploring,” said Bob.

  “Should we use this money, Bob?” Billy asked. “It’s not ours after all. Isn’t that stealing?”

  “Well, we can either focus our efforts on getting jobs or on saving this world. I vote for the second option,” Bob said emphatically.

  “Besides, I’m fining that nice lady 100 dollars, or its equivalent, for every time she hit me on the head with her projectiles. That comes to around 1200 dollars, so I think we’ll be covered.”

  Jenna chose that moment to emerge from her trance. “This world is nothing like what we expected. There are approximately one billion inhabitants, all of whom are human. They reside in seven massive cities situated around the globe. The city we are in has 120 million residents, about fifteen cities the size of New York.”

  “So, no one lives outside these cities?” Bob asked. Jenna nodded in agreement.

  “That’s the exact opposite of how things are supposed to work,” Bob explained. “Dungeons were created to punish humans living in large communities. Smaller communities are safer because they produce less Essence. We saw what happened in Chicago. Are there no dungeons in these cities?”

  “There are sixty-three of them, all at the seventh rank,” Jenna replied. “The cities are built around them.”

  “That is incredible!” Bob exclaimed. “We must take a closer look at this city.”

  “Slow down there, Captain Impulsive,” Jenna cautioned. “We don’t know the local language, and the sun is setting. Let’s try some of Discovery’s strange canned food, get some sleep, and think about how to approach this tomorrow morning.”

  “I agree with Jenna on this one,” Billy said.

  They opened a few cans and used the skillet to cook the contents. The third can contained a mollusc-like creature that escaped, squealing in terror as it dashed around the flat. The other cans held exotic but edible food. After a quick lunch, Bob and Billy went to bed, planning for the next day.

  Jenna decided to stay a little longer to get a better feel of the city. The upper floor had a small terrace that offered a great view of the entire cityscape. She let her gaze linger over the scene before her.

  The sky shimmered with unusual constellations, and three moons of varying sizes and hues hung above them, showering the city with a rain of alien colors. The buildings displayed a mix of science-fantasy elements, combining medieval architecture with modern conveniences.

  There were no cars; instead, moving walkways, some elevated above ground level, facilitated most transportation.

  The buildings were incredibly tall, many reaching the skyscraper range, with some towering so high that their tallest floors were nearly impossible to see. They didn’t resemble modern skyscrapers at all—more like century-old buildings impossibly stretched toward the sky.

  Belona did not have a very active nightlife. Only a few citizens crossed the streets now and then. They appeared human but wore a mismatched assortment of clashing colors that would have made them stand out even during a carnival in New Orleans.

  Discovery had been dressed similarly during their brief interaction.

  The quiet streets allowed Jenna to notice a particular feature: a few blocks away, there was a short, squat building with a gigantic figure of a man floating above it.

  He was the portly, bearded figure that appeared on the notes she had found in Discovery's drawer. The projection was animated and seemed to be giving a speech.

  To her surprise, Jenna realized that when she looked at the projection, she could clearly hear what it was saying. This must be the equivalent of mass media in this world.

  The projection used the same language that Discovery had used when swearing at them. Hopefully, the content would be different. She dumped all her freebie points into Mind and Linguistic and picked up the local language in fifteen minutes.

  The man’s speech was intended to calm the population.

  “I can confirm that the rumors about dungeons malfunctioning or being taken down are clearly exaggerated. This is just a temporary crisis, and we hope to have everything resolved by the end of the week...”

  And on and on it went—a prerecorded message on a loop that perhaps emphasized too much that everything was going well.

  Billy had been right; there was trouble brewing. Jenna felt ashamed for even considering leaving Belona without investigating further.

  The most surprising thing about the man speaking in the sky was that he identified himself as Discovery, the Omega of Decks.

  Jenna knew that this was not the case. Discovery was pulling a Wizard of Oz; she had set up a straw man to act on her behalf while she dealt with other matters. This meant Discovery had to maintain contact with him to feed him instructions; he was the key to finding Discovery again.

  As she prepared for bed, she took a second look at the city and noticed things she had previously missed.

  Some walkways were out of order, and many buildings showed cracks and neglect. The speaker's image occasionally glitched.

  These were clear signs that stagnation was beginning to creep in. Belona, once a great city, was on a path toward decadence.

  Jenna was reminded of the time the steel mill in Brotonville closed. The train station soon followed, and the whole town eventually fell apart. Only the arrival of Immortal Games had saved Brotonville from extinction.

  Crisis had come to Belona at the worst possible time. She went back to bed with Billy, her mind already mapping possible routes to tackle the problem.