As usual, Lindsay was driving the truck, Mika in her lap, practicing what she had learned the night before. Angie was acting as navigator from the back seat, while Nate was working on the community for the slime dungeon. Aura was inside a dungeon full of gargoyles collecting rainbow cores.

  He reinforced the circular wall that surrounded the dungeon and community. At the moment, it was the same size as the one he had created around the original community, which seemed to be the standard size. The dungeon was in the middle and then the wall extended out roughly one hundred and fifty feet all around it.

  Working on anything that required delicate finger movements while inside a truck that was constantly jerking about was a near-impossible activity.

  Lindsay was driving along the cracked road at the reckless speed of nearly fifty miles an hour. It was far faster than they had been going before and every bump, jostle, and sudden twist of the steering wheel was jarring.

  That morning, they had been looking at another two to three days of travel before arriving in Philadelphia. If Lindsay and the Richlow Group’s driver could maintain this speed for another few hours, they would get there that day. Of course, that was assuming the trucks didn’t shake themselves to pieces first.

  The cracks were so numerous on the highway in sections that they resembled washboards. Even with the large tires and decent travel the suspension provided, it was a bumpy ride.

  However, the upside to traveling that fast was that most monsters couldn’t keep up with them.

  Nate and Angie had been forced to fire the arbalests twice each in the last hour. Meanwhile, behind them, Lester and another member had needed to fire theirs three times.

  In other words, speed was good, but it still wasn’t the ultimate answer, not on such a thin road surrounded by trees. There were too many areas where things could hop out unexpectedly either ahead of them or right next to them. Both of which had happened multiple times already.

  The truck lurched to the side as Lindsay steered around the ancient remains of a tree stump that had partially made its way onto the highway. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as she scanned the area for any possible signs of an ambush. The memory of the bandits was too fresh in all of the minds for the caution to not be warranted.

  The arbalest mounted to the rail on the roof creaked and thumped ominously with every bump, slowly driving them insane.

  Nate had finally finished creating the wall and adding the decorative slimes and kitsune to it. There was no actual reason to include the kitsune images on these walls, as that had been something specific to the first dungeon. However, he was thinking that he would include them on all of the future communities. The kitsune would become their unofficial symbol.

  He glanced over at Lindsay; her grip was tight as she wrestled the truck around another particularly nasty patch of cracked asphalt. She was completely focused, a stark contrast to the weary slump of the Richlow Group members in the truck behind them.

  “How are you doing?” He asked, closing the screens.

  Lindsay didn’t take her eyes off the road. “Peachy,” She grunted. “Just trying to avoid turning this thing into a pile of scrap metal. These roads… they’re barely intact in places. All the tree roots have done a better job of destroying the asphalt than the weather did in Colorado.”

  The introduction of qi into the world had encouraged all the plants of the world to grow. Many had mutated in different ways, while others, such as trees, had simply experienced explosive growth and become stronger. Trees that had originally been a hundred feet tall were now two-hundred and fifty feet in height, with a density that rivaled weak steel.

  Such explosive growth would, of course, result in roots that would grow as well.

  “I’m not surprised,” Angie chimed in from the back, her voice laced with a weary amusement. She was meticulously studying a map of the highway, occasionally marking points where they might expect to be attacked. It would have been easy if they were dealing with people, but monsters were far less predictable. “Though I am somewhat surprised we haven’t blown a tire yet.”

  Nate sighed, rubbing his temples. “At least we’re making good time. I don’t care if both these trucks fall apart once we get to Philadelphia. I just want to be done with this part of the trip. While we’re there, though, I think we need to make some modifications to the Overlander. I don’t want to dismiss how useful Shane, and the others were, but the arbalests and speed seem to be more useful in our case. If we can mount a few of the arbalests on the roof of the Overlander and just keep our speed up, we will probably be fine.”

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  The group fell silent as they approached a bend in the road. Lindsay slowed the truck slightly, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the dense tree line for any signs of movement. Nate felt his muscles tensing, and he prepared to scramble out through the pass-through hole and to the annoying weapon clanking about on the roof.

  It was becoming a habit now. The constant alertness, the unspoken tension that hung in the air. Every moment felt like they were on the precipice of another attack.

  "I'm thinking the arbalests will need some kind of stabilization system," Angie noted, breaking the silence as they rounded the bend without incident. "The way they're mounted now, they're just bolted onto the rails. If we could reduce their vibration and the noise they make, I’m sure it would reduce the wear and tear on them."

  Nate nodded, his mind already racing with ideas. "Hmm, maybe some kind of hinged system, with a magnet, for when they’re not in use?” He suggested. Throwing out an idea that would lessen the noise during travel. “Maybe the mechanic or welder in Philadelphia who ends up doing the work on the RV will have an idea of what to do.”

  A sudden crackle from the small handheld radio each of the trucks had been carrying interrupted Lindsay before she could do more than open her mouth. It was Lester, from the truck behind them.

  "Hey, uh, Lindsay, can you speed up, please? We've got something coming up on our tail, fast. It looks like a... Some kind of large lizard thing? It's fast, though. Really fast."

  Nate exchanged a look with Angie before grabbing the radio. "How close is it?"

  "Maybe a hundred yards back? But it's gaining on us."

  Angie craned her neck to look at the speedometer. “How fast is that lizard going? We’re doing forty at the moment.”

  Going faster for short bursts wouldn’t be an issue, but the condition of the road was particularly bad at the moment, and they wouldn’t be able to maintain that speed for long.

  "Can you get a shot off?" Nate asked Lester, twisting around to see if he could catch a glimpse of the beast trailing them.

  "We're trying, but this road is so bumpy none of our shots are getting close, and we don’t want to waste the bolts."

  Lindsay pressed harder on the accelerator, the powerful engine leaping at the opportunity to show its worth. "Tell them to hold on. I'm going to try to put some distance between us."

  The truck lurched forward, the sudden acceleration throwing them all back in their seats. Nate grabbed onto the back of her seat to steady himself, watching over her shoulder as the speedometer climbed past fifty-five miles per hour.

  Behind them, a brief gap opened up with the other truck, only for it to vanish as they quickly matched their speed.

  “I can see it,” Angie announced suddenly. “Huh, it really is just a big lizard. It looks like a giant gecko or something. I don’t know, I’m not a lizard person,” She finished in a mutter.

  In the back of the second truck, one of the merchants was holding the mounted arbalest steady, attempting to take careful aim. A hundred yards was within range of the weapon, though the bolt would have undoubtedly slowed by the time it reached the target. Aiming and hitting it at that distance would be rather difficult as well.

  These were medium-weight arbalests that had been equipped on the trucks. They were powerful, but the bolts they fired were far larger and heavier compared to a normal crossbow bolt.

  "Whatever it is, it looks like it’s beginning to fall back," Nate said, his voice tight. “I guess forty-ish miles an hour was that thing's top speed.”

  Lindsay hit the brakes for a moment and then spun the steering wheel, sending the truck into a sixty-mile-an-hour drift around a large pothole filled with water. They could hear her muttering to herself about how this would have been more fun in a modified car instead of a truck.

  Nate looked at Angie in surprise and leaned over the pass-through to whisper to her. “Did you know that she had gotten this into driving? I mean, I knew she found different ways to occupy her time while we were on the wall back then, but I hadn’t realized she had become – like this.”

  Angie shook her head. “I hadn’t realized she had become quite this intense about it. She has hinted a couple of times that she really enjoyed it, but despite what you think, we do have other hobbies outside each other.”

  Lindsay spat out one of her fake curses as she struggled to maintain control. "If I go any faster, we're going to crash! I need to slow down."

  "Just keep it steady," Nate urged, his eyes fixed on the road behind them.

  The lizard was farther back now, its form more indistinct. It was indeed some kind of lizard, but he was even less familiar with them than Angie. Its body was low to the ground, sleek and muscular, with a long whip-like tail that lashed behind it as it ran. Its scales gleamed with an iridescent quality, flashing with shades of blue and green in the sunlight.

  Nate continued to watch as the lizard slowly fell farther and farther back.

  He turned back to Lindsay. "Can you at least maintain this speed?"

  She nodded, her knuckles slowly regaining their color as her hands loosened on the steering wheel. "I believe so. The trucks aren’t going to be happy, and the suspension will be absolutely ruined afterward from all the tree roots and neglect, but I should be able to manage it."

  As if to emphasize her point, the truck hit another series of bumps, the entire vehicle shuddering. Nate heard another metallic groan from above as the arbalest shifted on its mount.

  Lindsay's eyes darted to the rearview mirror, then back to the road. "It looks like we’re almost in the clear. Can one of you use the radio so we know when we’re in the clear?"

  Angie picked up the handheld radio and called back to the truck behind them. “How’s it looking? Is it close to giving up?”

  “It’s… hard to… say,” Lester’s stuttering voice came back. “But… the… truck… sounds… like… it’s going to… shake… apart.”

  Nate rolled his eyes. “Wimp. Tell him to hold on for a little longer. We just need to outpace the lizard, thing.”

  Angie grinned evilly and repeated his words to them, verbatim. Ending the message with a soft laugh.

  “Tell Nate we get the lead vehicle next time.” Lester joked shakily. “I’ve never seen a lizard run that fast before. I’m just glad it wasn’t a- No, never mind, I don’t want to tempt the heavens like that.”

  “Only a little longer,” Angie told them, eyeing the map as she spoke. “We’re making good time toward Philadelphia, so the roads should start getting better soon. Either way, we should be there by tonight.”

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