No one entered the dungeons that night, choosing instead to work on them remotely. Nate didn’t want to leave the Richlow Group people alone, and they were still also holding out a small amount of hope that Shane and the other professional hunters had somehow survived and knew to come back this way.

  It wasn’t a strong hope, but it was all they had at the moment.

  Aura was busy cultivating on top of the RV while keeping an eye out for their surroundings. Mika was spending time with her and attempting to learn how to cultivate by copying her big-sis Aura… Or at least that is what it seemed like to the others.

  Lindsay had been attempting to teach the weasel how to circulate her internal qi. Unfortunately, it was one of those things that humans and animals or beasts did differently. A proper beast like Aura was able to cultivate a method that shared characteristics of both the intelligent races and the animals. Truthfully, as a kitsune, she could have cultivated a method from only the intelligent races. However, originally, they hadn’t possessed a copy of any suitable methods and now considered it a tradition to use a method that blended the two characteristics together.

  It was extremely useful when they needed to teach a less fortunate beast, or the occasional awakened animal, how to cultivate.

  Inside the rig, Angie was looking over the members of the merchant group. They were still unconscious and were on their third healing pill by that point. Over the last several hours, all their visible wounds had finished healing. They had needed to pull the skin together on the larger wounds to prevent them from getting nasty scars, but that was it.

  They would each have scars until they could get some special alchemical concoctions to remove them.

  The scar on Jane’s cheek, in particular had originally been worse. With each healing pill, it had grown less red, and angry, as well as slightly smaller. At this point, the scar on her cheek still drew the eye, but only for a moment. It was slightly eye-catching, but not disgusting. It had faded to a slim-pink line that ran from the outside of her eye down to the corner of her chin. A curiosity, but not something that would make someone turn away from the woman in disgust.

  Nate was sitting on the broken bridge, his back against a metal pillar as he stared up at the night sky. The moon hung high in the sky overhead, lighting the entire world around him with a silvery glow. The stars looked the same despite being in an alternate universe from the one he had originally grown-up in.

  He was growing tired, and constantly yawning, but the inside of the Overlander was a tad cramped at the moment. Taking a blanket from his storage, he shut off his wrist computer and wrapped himself up. It wasn’t cold, but there was a certain amount of security involved in covering your body with something before going to sleep.

  ***

  The smell of Nate brewing up a fresh pot of Wakeup Tea which he had learned to make from his mother before they left home filled the RV.

  Nate and the others had taken turns keeping watch and working on the dungeons while keeping Aura company throughout the night. As cultivators, they all had better than normal stamina, but no one liked missing out on sleep.

  Aura had needed to scare off a few beasts during the night, her own abilities during the night had proven lacking. She had been able to hurt them with her energy skills, but little more. If more than one had appeared at a time, or if they hadn’t retreated, things would have gotten complicated.

  As it was, they had been merely tiring and stressful.

  The tea was most welcome for their group, while for the Richlow Group, all the healing their bodies had done had been even more exhausting. Without the special tea to wake them up, it was unlikely that they would even stir at all that day.

  It was tempting to let them do exactly that, except it would leave the Overlander rather cramped. More than that, they needed to get them out of their space so they could go to the dungeons later without worrying.

  There was another concern that required all of their input. What were they going to do? Neither Shane nor any of the others had shown up during the night. Whatever hope they had been holding onto that the professional hunters had survived was now gone. So that meant they needed to talk about how they were going to proceed.

  Those now murdered hunters were what had been keeping them safe. Just look at how injured the Richlow Group members had gotten dealing with a single kobold.

  The easy solution was to keep the merchant group’s trailer in his storage until they got closer to Philadelphia. Without the added weight, their two vehicles would be able to go much faster than they had been before. Speed was fine, but it still wouldn’t be enough to get them to the city safely.

  If it was that simple, then there would have been no need for them to hire guards in the first place.

  As he thought about the problem, Nate poured out mugs of tea for everyone and then opened his storage. During his little foray into the bandit camp, he hadn’t only recovered their Overlander. Nate had also taken several of the bandits’ vehicles.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Those same vehicles were what he was looking at right then. For the most part, the guards hadn’t been fighting the monsters in one-on-one fights. Instead, they had been using the massive arbalests and other weapons that were attached to their vehicles. Items that weren’t on the Overlander but were on the bandit vehicles.

  If they could pull back the strings on the arbalests, or activate whatever item charged them, then they could make use of the weapons.

  Stepping outside, he pulled one of them out and began inspecting the vehicle. This particular model was an extended four-door truck with a pass-through in the middle of the backseat to the truck bed. It had two -what he judged to be medium-sized- arbalests on rails. One was on the roof of the cab, while the second was on a raised section of tailgate.

  The mounted weapons both had units that could be pushed against their back ends and used to charge them. Each unit had thick cables running from it that then connected it to the engine of the truck. It was just a guess, but he assumed that the charging units would only work when the truck was running.

  All of that was nice, it was even good, there was only one problem, well two depending. He hadn’t grabbed the keys, and they didn’t have any bolts.

  Nate threw open the driver’s door, hoping they were as careless as him and found that they were, but for a different reason. The truck didn’t use keys any longer. It had been retrofitted to have a push button start and stop. Something that was probably handy to have in a bandit camp.

  There was also a half-full box of seven bolts in the backseat. It was something, not a lot, but something.

  A moment later, four more trucks popped into existence. Each one was a different make and model, but set up in a similar way. More importantly, two of them had been loaded down with bolts.

  As long as both groups drove one vehicle each and maintained a decent speed… it might be possible.

  The trip wouldn’t be comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but it would give them a chance.

  By the time he had transferred the bolts over to the two trucks he had decided they were going to use, and stored the other two trucks, the Richlow Group was awake.

  The scent of the tea he had brewed sometime before clung to the air inside the Overlander. The aroma was helping to wipe away any weariness that might have tried to sneak back in. The tea by itself was normally enough as it was far more effective than caffeine could ever hope to be, all without the jitters and racing pulse. In this case, the merchant group needed all the help they could get.

  Their wounds had mostly healed and somewhat faded, but the battered signs of their ordeal were too numerous to vanish after a single night. Each of them sat huddled together around the small table, their faces pale and withdrawn.

  Jane would take a sip of her tea and then unconsciously feel at the newly formed scar that ran down her cheek.

  “What happened?” One of the quieter members asked, their voice raspy and weak. “How are we all so much better this morning?” She finished with a giant yawn. “And why am I so tired and hungry?”

  “How much do you remember?” Angie asked, watching them with an expression of sympathy. "You were attacked by some sort of monster," She explained patiently. "Kobolds, I think, is what you mentioned they were called."

  Over the next few minutes, the details of the attack unfolded slowly, each piece adding to their grim picture. The small horde of kobolds had been relentless in their chase of the group, constantly attacking them.

  Lester shuddered, his eyes wide with terror as he recounted how they had struggled to fight back against an enemy they could barely injure. The kobolds' scales had deflected their weapons time and again.

  "We thought we were dead," He whispered, his voice trembling. "There weren’t many of them, only four or five, but it took so much work to simply scratch them."

  Nate listened intently, his heart heavy with the weight of their misfortune. He understood the fear that gnawed at them — the helplessness of facing something monstrous and unknown. This world was full of dangers, and sometimes, no matter how prepared you were, luck wasn't on your side.

  The silence stretched for a moment, broken only by the gentle clink of mugs being set down or picked up.

  “We need to talk about what happens next,” Nate finally said, his voice firm despite the turmoil swirling inside him. “Shane… we don’t know if he or the other hunters made it. We can’t rely on anyone else for protection.”

  Angie nodded grimly, her face set in a determined line. "Right. We've got to figure out how to get to Philadelphia. And fast."

  Jane sighed; her shoulders slumped with defeat. "Easy for you to say," She muttered. “We’re not exactly wounded any more thanks to you, but we are exhausted. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open right now. Even this tea is only helping so much.” She yawned. “And now we have to get there without protection?” She shook her head, clearly on the verge of just giving up.

  Nate felt himself bristling at how defeated the woman sounded. He opened the door of the RV and pointed to the two bandit trucks outside. They were right, their situation was precarious at best.

  "Actually," Nate began, his voice rising due to the plan he had come up with earlier. "I think I have an idea." He gestured outside. “Take a look.”

  “Where did you get these?” Lester asked, his eyes widening as he took in the sight.

  Nate grinned. "Let's just say I picked them up at the same time I retrieved the Overlander. There wasn’t a lot of time to look around, but the bandits were nice enough to leave them out in the open.” He shrugged and pointed to the closest of the trucks, its tailgate lowered, revealing a crate filled with bolts. “I figured why not take what was being offered? We can use these with the arbalests and defend ourselves. Plus, we’ll be able to go a lot faster if I keep your trailer, rig, and our RV in storage during the day.”

  The plan was simple. They would utilize the bandit vehicles' firepower and superior speed to protect themselves from any further attacks while they made a run for Philadelphia.

  It was a risky proposition, but Nate knew it was their best shot at survival.

  “But… we’ve never used arbalests before,” Lester protested. “Don’t we need some kind of training? I know they look like crossbows, but it can’t be that simple.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Angie interrupted, her voice sharp with urgency. “We'll figure it out as we go. It’s better than sitting ducks in the Overlander or your even larger semi-and trailer.”

  The Overlander was a great vehicle, and it had some decent power. However, it was also heavy and took a while to gather speed.

  Looking at the determination etched on their faces, Nate knew they were all willing to do whatever it took to make it to Philadelphia.

  He nodded, a glimmer of hope flickering in his eyes. "Alright, let's get moving. We need to put some distance between ourselves and those kobolds."

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