Once they settled down, they explained the situation to Baara. About how they had encountered Hou Zheng, and witnessed the creation of a new rift and consequently a new dungeon.

  “That is concerning.” Baara made a note of something, then rang a bell. The door opened, and one of the younger kids from Gilroy ran in. One of the much younger kids. Josh wasn't sure she was even eight years old.

  “What's up, boss?” she asked. She looked at Josh and the others, then bobbed something that she might have thought was a bow.

  “Find Anna—no, find one of the older runners. Someone who can safely go out into the Jungle. Tell them to find Anna, tell her that I need a full list of every dungeon that she can get me.” She handed the girl the piece of paper. “Then give that to the headmaster at the school. She won't like it.”

  The girl bobbed her not-bow again, then ran out the door without another word.

  “Sorry about that,” Baara said quietly. Josh noticed that she was much more confident with the messenger. Was it because she was talking to someone younger, or a subordinate? “This is a bit time-sensitive.”

  Josh nodded. “You're worried the orc is going to do something crazy, like empty a dungeon of monsters and throw them at us?”

  Baara looked down at the table, steeled herself, and then looked up again. “I... I don't think that's it. Most of our reports say that the monsters are pretty weak. The highest rift anyone has seen was level 40, and Anna already closed it. Whatever is happening here, I don't think it's about the monsters.”

  Josh sighed. “You're going to agree with Big D, aren't you.”

  Darius glared at him. “Stop calling me that.”

  They spent an hour or so going over all their ideas and theories with Baara. They didn't really come up with anything new. Yes, Hou Zheng was clearly doing something with the dungeons, but they still had no idea what. And they didn't know what they were supposed to do in response.

  Their current plan was just to continue closing down dungeons, which rubbed Josh the wrong way. It was too obvious; Hou Zheng had to have accounted for it, one way or another. But what else were they supposed to do? They couldn't just not close the dungeons, not with their enemy apparently constantly opening new rifts. If those rifts got swallowed up by existing dungeons—which everyone agreed they were pretty sure was how it worked—then soon the dungeons would be too powerful for anyone to deal with. They might not be a problem immediately, but at the end of the year, when the dungeons weakened and all the monsters poured out, they would be in real trouble.

  The only productive thing they did at the meeting, Josh felt, was when Baara theorized that Hou Zheng was rolling the dice on dungeons. He wanted one with specific properties, and was making as many as possible until he found one. In that case, their best option was to just close them down so fast that he couldn't use it for whatever he was planning.

  Josh agreed, but it still felt too simple. Like they had found an excuse to continue doing exactly what they were already doing. It wasn't as though they could go any faster. With their best Alchemist out for at least a while, it might be best if they slowed down.

  Eventually, they decided that they had squeezed all the blood out of this stone. They rose to leave.

  “Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?” Baara asked.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “You need something else?” Josh was perfectly willing to help with whatever she needed. As far as he was concerned, Baara was basically already the mayor of San Juan Bautista. He just needed to finish transferring over citystone permissions for her.

  But she shook her head. “Just curious.”

  He grinned. “I think we're gonna have a look at that project Abraham was working on.” He waved as they left. “Cheers!”

  Once the door was closed behind them, Mary jerked her thumb behind her down the hallway. “Actually, I'm going to see a crazy lady about a bunch of monsters. Don't think I can help much with your thing. See you later!”

  Josh let out a breath. “Well, as long as she and Anna don't kill each other, I'm not going to take issue with it.” He looked at Darius and Ruth. “You two still coming?”

  Ruth rested her hammer on her shoulder and grinned. “You think I would miss this?”

  Darius actually managed a small smile. “I'm certainly not giving up the opportunity to work on this project.”

  The garage was just across the street from the mayor's office, not that far from the school. The town had already had a few cars and trucks, though Josh wasn't sure precisely why. His guess was that the old mayor had been a rich tosser spending too much money on himself. He had already absconded with every vehicle that had been stored in the garage, even though they were supposed to belong to the town.

  Idly, Josh wished he had enough spare time to send someone to look for that guy. Not an assassin, just someone to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't do anything crazy. Such as, for example, sending assassins after Josh. There had been a couple more in the last few days, and Josh had been forced to kill them. That hadn't done his image any favors.

  People noticed them, even on their short walk across the street. Some smiled, some just gave them polite nods. A few scowled, which unfortunately Josh had to admit was still fair. At least people had stopped throwing things at him at the town hall meetings.

  The garage was big enough to hold half a dozen normal trucks, though not the big eighteen-wheeler that was rusting on the south side of the pit. It was a new building, not something refurbished from the Old World. Josh had no idea what had possessed someone to make such a big building for the vehicles that almost no one used.

  Right now, they had dragged in every car that looked even slightly repairable, including the two they had found down in the pit. Even with help and his Repair spell, fixing these cars should take months, at least. It was Terah, one of the big delvers who Josh had hardly spoken to, who found the shortcut.

  They could put any spell that someone had into the citystone. It was a simple system. However, everyone was used to just ignoring it, because citystones didn't get those slots until the Improved-tier, and until now all citystones except one were still at the Basic-tier.

  Terah pointed out that they could just put the Repair spell on the citystone, and use its much larger mana pool to instantly repair the vehicles.

  It worked, though it wasn't quite that simple. The repairs needed extra materials for everything but the easiest repairs, and the citystone didn't have unlimited mana. Josh's eyes boggled at the mana cost, and he refused to do it more than twice, on the cheapest cars to fix. Then he switched the citystone back to the wall blueprint so that he wouldn't be tempted.

  Having two cars back to pristine condition was quite a lot all on its own, though. They were a bit too sporty for the Jungle, since they didn't have any roads out here. That was fine too. Josh and Abraham rebuilt them entirely, putting them into a single massive chassis. The end result was a big truck with a metal frame that already looked like it had survived a war. They gave it wheels big enough to crush small trees, and Josh learned more about rubber vulcanization than he ever expected when getting the tires ready.

  Turned out that San Juan Bautista had a whole grove of rubber trees, and it was one of their primary exports. Josh hadn't known that. He hoped Baara did. Who was he kidding, she probably already knew the growth cycles of the trees and the monsterization rate.

  That was what they had done already. Josh almost thought of it as a proof-of-concept. The monster truck would serve the town well, even after they were gone. Someone could use it to push through the Jungle itself, especially with the blades they had added. Now that he was sure that he could help put together an engine and a drive shaft, he had convinced Abraham to start on their next project.

  They entered the garage to find a number of frames and chassis laid out on the floor. Josh and Abraham had gone out and collected most of the cars that looked intact. Most of the actual parts were basically trash unless Josh cast Repair hundreds of times, but that was fine. Mostly.