“I was supposed to pay, Luke,” Vanessa said with a laugh. “I wanted to treat you because you saved us from a mana core explosion.”

  Luke shrugged. “With my new job, I would feel bad if I let you pay. Paramedics don’t get paid enough in this country.”

  “When you are right, you are right,” Vanessa said and patted his shoulder. “I’m just happy you have a job at all. When I heard you got fired from your repair job, I was sure it was my fault.” She put a hand to her chest.

  Luke wrenched his eyes back up to her face. “It wasn’t your fault at all. I got fired a few days before that. That day was my first day on the new job on Kalibutan. Only good things came from the day I helped you out.”

  She smiled back up at him. He led her to a table on the patio while they waited for their food to be ready. They were at the Stuft Burger Bar, one of her favorite places.

  “What’s it like?” Vanessa asked.

  “What’s what like?”

  “Kalibutan! You get to work on an alien planet now. What’s that like?”

  Luke smiled to let her know he was teasing. He ran his hands through his wavy hair. “It’s amazing and strange, familiar and unsettling. It’s not like the TV show.”

  “Oh I know, I don’t even watch The White Lily,” she said dismissively. The fact that she knew the show's name belied her casual dismissal.

  “Right. As far as what it’s actually like... You know the theory, where a lot of our myths and fantasy stories come from elves that visited Earth hundreds of years ago? I think it’s true. There are so many familiar things over there. But something must have gotten lost in translation. Everything’s just a bit off from what you expect. The trees try to grab birds out of the air, spirit foxes are actually mist and can be taken down by acid, and hydras don’t grow two heads when one is cut off.”

  Vanessa leaned forward. “Fascinating. That sounds like a dream. All the magic and adventure you would expect, but still full of new mysteries to explore.”

  The buzzer in his hand went off and Luke grabbed their food. Once he passed everything out, he smiled and leaned forward. “Kalibutan is pretty exciting. Right now I’m spending ten hour days carving runes, but eventually I want to build my own mech suit and explore the forests around the estate.”

  “You keep calling them mech suits, but from what you tell me, they are little more than exoskeletons. Power armor at best,” Vanessa said and dipped a french fry into her shake.

  Luke tilted his head, “I feel like my nerd cred is being called out.”

  She shook her head. “No, as far as I can tell, you have no cred at all.”

  He put a hand to his chest and said, “You wound me.”

  She shrugged. “You seem absolutely mundane to me.”

  “Only sith deal in absolutes.”

  That got a laugh out of her. They slung movie quotes at each other for the rest of the evening. He brought her home shortly before midnight. She didn’t invite him in, but she did suggest another date the next weekend.

  The next morning, Luke foolishly tried to sleep in. Once Jinx corrected his egregious error, he worked on his magic power armor designs. He hated to admit it, but Vanessa had been right. He was designing power armor for now. Maybe one day he could build something big enough to be called a mech, but his current eight foot tall plans were firmly in the power armor realm.

  The hours before it was time to leave slipped by in relaxing and planning. Every time he adjusted the size of one component, the linking runes needed to be re-designed. It was a painstaking process, but Luke wanted to get it right the first time. He needed to be complete within three working days so the system could see how awesome he was.

  Luke met up with Sandwich and his friends in the portal room and they walked through to Kalibutan together. The blond guy was as talkative as ever.

  “Yo, dude. Didja see that clip from the Bronco's game? They got some guy doing real magic shit on Earth now. Shooting lightning bolts out of his hands and everything,” Sandwich said.

  Luke was distracted briefly as the system message popped up again.

  Luke almost swore out loud. The progress bar was moving faster than he expected. Today might be the last day he had before the system gave him a class. He might have enough time to finish his suit, but definitely not enough time to add magical armaments to it like he had planned. He wouldn't even have time to learn any new runes.

  He couldn’t tell the others why he was suddenly upset so he tried to pretend he was fine. He casually said, “Somebody on Earth has lightning magic? That’s cool, I heard there were some humans that got a magic class.”

  “Nah man, not regular magic. Divine magic. Like real gods and shit. You just gotta worship the gods and they give you power. It works on Earth, even far from the portals. It’s, like, the good shit. And we got the inside track,” Sandwich said and pointed forward.

  He was pointing towards their regular meeting place, across the path from the six shrines. Sandwich walked up to one of the middle statues, a elf girl in billowy clothes, cowering in fear.

  “You want us to pray to the statues?” Bumblebee said, his voice dripping with doubt.

  Sandwich shook his head, “Not quite. You gotta sacrifice something and then it gives you power.”

  Luke couldn’t help but laugh. “So it’s pay-to-win divine power? How much does a lightning bolt cost, fifty bucks?”

  “The gods don’t take money, they take emotions,” Sandwich said as he gestured towards the icons. “That dude takes your anger and gives you fire powers, that chick takes your love and gives you healing power. This one is the best though. I did some research last night. This is Timo. She takes your fear and gives you lightning and wind powers. How awesome is that? We get to fight fearlessly and she gives us superpowers.”

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  “No shit?” Bumblebee said and walked up to peer closer at the statue.

  Sandwich nodded and said, “No shit. Watch, I’m gonna do it right now.”

  He knelt down in front of the elf statue and started praying in elvish. He stumbled on some of the words but eventually got out a prayer about giving up all his fears.

  As soon as he finished, Sandwich glowed with a yellow light. The light was then sucked up into the stone statue, slowly as if the light was a liquid. His blond hair lost some of its luster and Sandwich slumped down.

  Bumblebee hurried over and put his hand on his shoulder. “You ok, dude?”

  Sandwich shook his head to clear his thoughts and said, “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine. It’s just a lot.”

  “Well, did it work?” Rooster said from the back of their group.

  Sandwich stood up slowly and smiled. “Hell yeah it did. I ain’t scared of nothin now.”

  Bumblebee wiggled his fingers. “Can you do the lightning now?”

  “No, I gotta be more devout to get powers. Like a few months of sacrifices or something. Online they said you only get the powers when you pray and the goddess agrees that you need them.”

  Rooster scratched his short black hair. “Kinda seems like a ripoff. They get your sacrifice, but only have to give you powers when they feel like it?”

  Sandwich shook his head, “Nah, man. I got what I wanted. I’m fearless!” He threw up his hands and danced around a little. “And when I need some lightning power later, I’m sure the goddess will help out. She wants to keep her future prophet happy.”

  “Future prophet? You prayed for the first time in your life and you are already a prophet?” Rooster said.

  “You bet your ass.” Sandwich leaned forward. “Do you want to be scared?... Hell no you don’t. It’s our job to attack deadly monsters. Just give the lady your fears.”

  Rooster looked doubtful, but Bumblebee and Cuddles followed Sandwich’s example. It was kind of funny seeing two big guys kneeling and praying in front of a statue of a scared elf. The same yellow light seeped out of them and was absorbed into the statue. They stood up, a little unsteady, but soon had huge smiles on their faces.

  Bumblebee clapped his hand onto Rooster’s shoulder and said, “Come on man, join our cult. It’s awesome. The only thing you have to lose is fear itself.”

  Rooster shook his head, “Nah, I’m attached to my fear. It’s useful sometimes. Maybe if you lot are fine after a few weeks, I’ll join you.”

  Luke refused as well. He had heard the gods of Kalibutan were real, but he had no desire to worship them. Particularly since the fear sacrifice seemed to make people a bit weaker.

  Besides, he still expected to impress the system and earn a fantastic class. He would rather have power that used mana, not yellow light. He had a sneaking suspicion it was soul power or something insidious like that.

  Shortly after they finished praying, a human woman in a pilot’s uniform walked up. She was short and stocky and had a scowl on her face.

  “Who’s the new guy?” she said as she got close.

  Sandwich looked up and said, “Degenerate! Good to see you. Give me a hug.” She jerked back before he could get close. He continued, “This is Skywalker. He’s our mechanic. He’s the reason we have working suits. We get to see your smiling face and kill monsters with a full squad. Isn’t that great?”

  Degenerate turned to Luke and gave him a respectful nod. Then she turned back to Sandwich and said, “Did you read the report from the second squad? We’re hunting Hive Wolves. You idiots are going to need all the help you can get.”

  Sandwich laughed and waved off her concern. “We’ll be fine, don’t worry about it. Hey, you should pray to the goddess Timo, she’ll fix you right up.”

  She scoffed and rebuffed his repeated attempts to get her to sacrifice her fears to the goddess. Cormac arrived then and they started jogging through the forest. Luke sped up a bit so he was jogging near Degenerate.

  “Hey, what’s up with Hive Wolves? Cormac killed them pretty easily, are they really that dangerous?” Luke asked.

  She scoffed. “Just be happy you are a wrench monkey. Hive Wolves can be bad. One or two are fine, they charge at you mindlessly. But if there are a lot of them, they form a hive. They have psychic magic that makes them smarter the more of them there are. They use tactics like flanking maneuvers, ambushes, false retreats, the works. A hive killed one of us last year, Moonshine. They separated him from the squad and tore him apart before any of us could get to him. Hive Wolves are bad business. We need to find and eliminate this hive before they grow too big.”

  Bumblebee looked back and said, “You worry too much, Degenerate. It’ll be fine. Relax. We’re gonna get 'em. If you are scared, you can hide behind me. ”

  Degenerate growled and said, “I'd say you're dumb as a rock, but at least rocks are useful. Shut up and let the grown-ups talk.”

  Everyone, including Cormac, laughed at that.

  Bumblebee stuttered out, “You’re just jealous of how awesome I am. You think making fun of me will make everyone forget how ugly you are. Here’s a hint. It doesn’t.”

  “I've had shits more attractive than you,” she quipped back.

  What followed was a protracted insult battle. Bumblebee decidedly lost.

  Sandwich patted him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, don’t worry about it man. In a battle of wits, it’s not your fault you are unarmed. Just show her up on the battlefield.”

  Bumblebee missed the insult and said, “Yeah. I’ll show her when I take out a dozen wolves on my own. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.”

  Luke held back on a laugh of his own and hurried into the runewright’s workshop. As he had hoped, all six power armor suits were operational, so he wouldn’t have to start the day with repairs.

  After Cormac handed out orders and headed out, Luke turned to Kruro and said, “You got a minute? I think my assessment period is ending today. Can you help me go over my magic armor designs? I want to make sure I don’t waste time on something that won’t work.”

  Kruro set down the spear she was working on and slithered over to the workbench at the back of the room. She leaned over as Luke spread out his designs. Some of them were printed out from CAD designs, others were scribbled rune designs with references to where they would be placed. Her forked tongue tasted the air as she looked over his designs.

  “I will help you, but understand you still owe me.” She pointed to a section of the forearm design. “This entire assembly is overloaded. You placed the mana core in the middle of the back, and to get to the upper forearms you need four ohms of power. You are pumping in ten here.”

  Luke squinted and did a little mental math. She was right. He had hoped to beef up the arm’s power for when he added the gauntlets, but until he did that it would be overpowered.

  She continued, “My analysis skill is also telling me all of your runes are inside out. I assume that means you intend on carving them on the inside of the armor instead of the outside?”

  “Exactly. They won’t have as much wear and tear this way, and if they get hit, they won’t break as easily.”

  “I won’t insult your intelligence by listing off all of the reasons we place runes on the outside. If you are going to complete your little project today you will need to slither. Stick with what you have already started. Good luck. I hope the System of the World is suitably impressed. Tomorrow you can use your new rune class to pay me back for letting you use materials without Cormac’s permission.”

  Luke nodded seriously and got to work. He decided to scrap his arm designs for now and stick with the standard version Kruro was using for the existing power armor. He gave himself a little more reach but otherwise kept it the same.

  He would be pinning his hopes on his leg designs. Hopefully the system would judge them as enough for a good class. He designed them to be simple legs most of the time, a bit more limber than Kruro’s designs. But when activated, they would extend into digitigrade legs with a smooth ankle joint.

  It was an improvement on the design of Jinx’s legs. Hopefully it would allow him to run three or four times as fast as the default mode. His cat would be so jealous.

  Luke threw himself into the work, only stopping for a brief lunch break. Kruro checked on his progress periodically, but mostly kept to her own work. She had gotten a new order of weapons from the Shrine of Might and needed to inscribe them all. The inscribing should have been done by the inner runewright, but she had foisted the work off on the outer runewright, Kruro.

  The arms were done, his helmet was simple enough that it came together in an hour, and his torso was limber and well protected. He spent the remaining four hours of the workday finishing up the legs.

  Thankfully, with a half hour left in the day, he finished his work. He borrowed a tier three mana core from Kruro and slotted it into the cage in the small of the back. The rune networks lit up one after another and then dimmed back to normal. So far, so good.

  Luke carefully climbed inside and closed the two leaves across the breastplate. This had better work. He didn’t have much time to troubleshoot. The system assessment was already at 95%.

  He took a deep breath and stood up.

  Today’s chapter title comes from The Truman Show

  Just for fun, if we get 50 followers, I publish another chapter today.