A Survivor's Guide to Planetary Apotheosis [Postapocalyptic Survival, LitRPG, and Dungeon]

Defeat was finalized by the mile distant sight of the Eximius Queen smashing the star shaped fortress on the Missouri side of the river. Huge sweepings of black steel legs carved the stone like it was warm clay. Whoever had made the call to abandon the forward position had shown prescience, they'd have been destroyed had they tried to hold the walls. All that labor for nothing.

"Well, not for nothing. We learned some things. Not much of it good, but we did learn." Alexander concluded, bitterly.

For one, the Rasatalan creature had hundreds of the little Realm shards on her, its, whatever, body, waiting to be primed with enough of Gaia's Dragon pulse to quicken into dungeons from that dimension, or parallel world, or planet, or wherever the hell the dungeons connected to. For another, she wasn't invulnerable, just damned near it. Captain Siddiqua had taken an eye off the monster, that wasn't nothing. The attacks of the Otherkin had left pocks and scars across the shiny black carapace, but nothing to indicate the monster was greatly troubled by them. The last thing they'd learned was that the Eximius Queen could, without much effort, lay waste to a ten-acre area with lightning and showed no real sign that the monster didn't have more where that came from. Hideous power.

If only Alexander had had just a little more strength to his core, he could have tried to disrupt the spell, before it killed Mason and his team. A big loss, one mithril and ten platinum veterans of the Peacekeepers. Included in that bunch had also been the passionate young man who'd sparred with Grace that one day; Luigi Zavala had gone with his Captain to the Otherside.

Other casualties rang up in the dozens, but only a handful of fatalities, those from the Adventurer teams that had covered the retreat when the Para-Broodlings had come from the sky on their silk gliders. A damned neat trick, Alexander was bound to admit. One that wouldn't work again, either, at least not in the same way.

How do you stop a building sized lightning calling spider? Alexander pondered, his fingers playing over his helmet resting on the battlement. A real pickle.

"Gotta go for its core. Don't fight it straight up. When you're up against a giant, you need a sling, not a sword." Alexander muttered to himself from his place on the eastern wall of the crossing fortress.

The plan had been to, if needed, because Eximius scaled walls without a whole lot of trouble, to fight a retreat back across the bridge, using it as a choke point, funneling the creatures into a kill box with Adventurers and mages on the wall to rain down fire. But that was before the scale of the problem made itself known.

"Quit brooding Alexander, it's not good for you." Came the feminine whisper at his ear, far softer than its usual usage.

Grace Miller was muted this evening. She'd lost a dear friend in Captain Mason, a brother in arms, a brother in general. Pain must have brought out the nurturing instincts. Alexander responded to emotional pain with violence, if at all possible. Plotting on how he was going to squeeze the life out of that sonofabitching monster was his purpose for the foreseeable. But there was wisdom in taking a few breaths, finding your center when you'd been kicked in the gut, before you retaliated.

"Yeah, okay. Thanks." Alexander offered, and rose from his perch, finally breaking off his examination of every movement of the massive dungeon spawn that might reveal a flaw, a weakness to exploit.

It had been three hours since the abandonment of the forward base and Grace had watched the Outsider stare with a silent fury that, if looks could commit heinous murder, would have in spades for most of that time. She ached inside for Mason Donaldson. Most of the Peacekeepers would mourn that loss greatly, the Ifrit had been a darling of the officer corps, a man of the noncoms, spending most of his off-duty time with the trainees or in the sparring rings. To lose him that way, was heart wrenching. If she was hurt though, Siddiqua was shattered. They'd been more than close those two. The Marid woman had had to be packed off the field by Marvin, or she'd have killed herself attacking the tier five alone, by all accounts.

"Think we can kill it?" Grace asked, figuring if anyone had any ideas in that direction it was the eerily lethal envoy from Falcon's Rest.

"Ayuh. Probably have to punch through its armor, somehow, and put a fuckoff huge bomb inside. Detonate the core and it doesn't matter how powerful its body is." Alexander revealed his only viable strategy so far.

Grace ushered the both of them down the spiraling stairs of a tower that led up to the covered walk ways atop the rampart. In terms of numbers, even the abandonment of the Missouri side of the fortress hadn't been a disaster. Between the successful withdrawal into a pincer and the Otherkin ambush, hundreds more Eximius had died today, including a hundred Puppeteers. That was probably about the last of those in the entire region. From seven hundred monsters down to just over a couple hundred.

The kicker was the Queen. Alexander Gerifalte would have to do something about that thing. He was the only one who could reliably penetrate its defenses. If he ripped away the Soak of the monster the others would have a window to damage it. But how to get close enough? He couldn't fight his way through a couple of dozen Infiltrators and Slayers and have enough left in him to do anything substantial. An Unweaver's Rain would probably put a hurting on the monster, but he didn't think he could count on that to dig deep enough to damage the creature's core, even if he got close enough to try with that much mana remaining to him.

"Alexander, you're still brooding. Drink this, and knock it off." Grace chastised gently, handing him a stone tankard filled from the ale barrel nearby. Most of the soldiers who could were getting plastered. Bon fires lit to hail the honored dead had sprung up.

"Okay, yeah, thanks. To Mason." He lifted the mug, waited for hers to rise high above.

"To Captain Mason Donaldson, may his song be sung in the halls of the Peacekeepers always." She toasted, and they both emptied the contents of their respective vessels, hers much larger than his, of course.

Bitter. Just like his feelings right now. But fresh, and citrusy, a vital drink. Alexander liked to hope there was a lot of life left in him yet. There were good times ahead, he just had to weather this storm, and to keep as many of these people around him alive as possible while he did. They were under his wings, in a way, these Peacekeepers, and the Adventurers who'd answered the call to serve. Alexander owed them all what protection he could offer, just like he always felt towards decent people who were also incredibly precious for the future of humanity. It was the sort of thing that had compelled him to expend every bit of material wealth he'd accrued from working for the Guilds to take sixty talented malcontents with him to found Falcon's Rest, back in the day.

Not so very long ago, he'd come to New Chicago an Outsider, in all the meanings of the word. Despite some rough patches at the beginning, he'd been accepted into the brotherhood of the Windy City. He'd fought for its people. Bled for them. Hurt when they died. Now, he was one of them, for a while. Until the time came to return to his home. The creature across the river was what stood between him and that event.

Food tasted like ash, but he ate anyway, unable to resist the impelling needs of the tier strain chewing on him. The only way to make it through was to wash it down with booze.

"Tonight, I'm gonna get skrunk as a dunk," Alexander informed the grieving Oread already well on her way to blasted, who raised a fresh quart of beer in reply.

"Then I'm going to smash your tits, properly, like you deserve," he continued, and she called, "Hear hear!" in approval.

"Then, while the hangover has me feeling mean spirited, and the fuck stank has me good and riled up, I'm going to figure out how to murder that sonofabitch over there." Alexander concluded, and he realized he might already be extremely inebriated.

Marvin Pruitt, who'd just walked into the firelight of the small bonfire lit in this little corner of the fortress, a place once called Chester Illinois that was now just half of Fort Fifty-One Crossing, paused upon hearing this declaration.

"Smash my tits, you bet your sweet ass! We'll kill that bitch-ass spider dead!" Grace hollered into the night, joined by several nearby groups who raised similar cheers.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not needed here." The older man mumbled, knowing where his calm wisdom and a firm shoulder would do some aching soul good, and where other means of coping had already been adopted.

He retreated into the night, and sought out other fires, other men and women, having put Siddiqua to bed a quarter hour earlier. Most wouldn't remember much of the night, but they would remember a soothing voice and a few tales of the departed that made the losses easier to bear, and that was enough to make it worthwhile.

Booze addled brains slowly accepted their punishment as he awoke. He lay half buried beneath Grace, face smooshed to a breast as she clutched him to her for a body pillow at some point in the night. They were covered by a tarp sized blanket from the giantess' kit, but that was the only shelter for their nudity. He twitched aside the wool blanket, to spy the detritus of a regimental heller, dim for most eyes but his in the pre-dawn. Only a few glowing coals remained of the fire they'd used for warmth, the only sour of that other than their own bodies. A long night, by the hum of his body, and smells under the blanket that covered him. A night that was missing several bits, but he could string enough of them together to get the gist. In other times it would have been a damned good night. Under the circumstances, it had been more therapeutic than anything. A dark nipple pressed against his cheek and a skull stuffed with drums made him philosophical this morning: context was everything.

Carefully, slowly, he escaped from the Oread's clutches and dressed. Birdcalls made him confident no dungeon spawn had attempted to cross the river. Maybe they were licking their wounds too, he wondered.

From the kit they'd grabbed he retrieved a coffee pot, and from the river fresh water. A few minutes of working with coals and shaving some of the firewood gathered during last night's "I'm alive!" party, or Mason and company's wake, depending on how you came at it, and he got a fire crackling. It was a cozy morning, low sixties, just about hitting his sweet spot. He didn't want to be this far south come summer, the heat was miserable, or so he'd heard. Dry heat, humid heat, they could have it, he liked to stay cool. A man could work himself warm, nothing to be done about stewing in your own juices under the mid-day sun.

A fine wire mesh for a coffee filter, with coarsely ground beans, and he soon had a cup of coffee, which he poured back through the grounds, to recollect, navy style, and poured off into a pot for staying warm by the fire. It was something his mother had liked to do, coffee strong enough to kick as it went down to join breakfast. Slight hiccup in the mechanics reminded him of the eternal oven he had to fuel. This being the supply side of the fortification, there was, blessedly plenty of provision. Sourdough toast, fried egg on top, and bacon were the order of the day. He cooked for two. Behind him rustled his meat mattress, the stirring of Grace coming back to life, rolling around in her blanket in refusal a vain struggle to find sleep again. He was able to find a smile when she groaned, then abruptly lifted an octave, whined at the headache of overindulgence.

His head killed too. But that's the price you pay. Two skillets on coals to heat. Other folk were starting to come awake, the early risers. A few had been awake hours, somebody had already organized shifts along the wall, and he was glad again that he was terrible at command duty, because it spared him feeling the need to try to do it poorly. Toast toasted on a butter film, with. Hot bacon grease added its note to the river air, the earthy tones of the fort's packed clay floor, offset by the strong odor of coffee waiting for its chance to caffein poison some innocent. Sizzles as he worked the frying bacon around a little spreading the melted fat to crack a half dozen eggs for sunny side up treatment, as the good gods intended. These he deposited on top of the thick toast slices. The bacon needed a bit more time to achieve optimal crunchy bits to go with the chewiness he loved.

Grace bundled up in her blanket for a robe, trundled over, ignoring the clay that got stamped into the wool in her eagerness to join him by the fire's warmth. Frying bacon was the oldest Jotun call on Gaia, everybody knew it.

Deep sniffs, to appreciate the gallery of smells, she smiled at him, face almost hidden by wildly unkempt blond hair that reached down to her seated thighs.

"That smells incredible. If there isn't enough for two, I'll wait for you finish and eat you to have both. ABC breakfast is good enough, this morning." Grace informed him, feeling that warning owed her bedmate.

"Such is why, in the interest of self-preservation, there is enough for two." Alexander acknowledged, already well acquainted with the risks of boffing giants.

She took a break from hawking over the breakfast skillets to examine the half fort around her, taking in the sentries, "Hmm…wonder who posted guard. Probably Siddiqua, if she slept much, it'd be a miracle."

Alexander nodded his agreement at that, but offered, "Marvin stayed with her awhile, keeping her company. I think he'd got her dosed with something to put her to sleep, and tucked her in. Saw the old snake roaming the fires, looking for folk to help out. He's a good man, is Marvin Pruitt. When he's not playing cards."

A smile hidden behind wool noted, "Told you.", before she reached for a coffee cup.

Half way to her mouth with the steaming mug, she glared, icey blue gems digging at him, "Did you pour this through a couple of times? Because I really hate when you do that." She asked.

"That coffee is a worthy enemy, and you'll thank me for it when it starts kicking that hangover's ass for you." Alexander rejoined, scooping toast and bacon onto plates, "Now here, pile on, we've got a busy day today."

Grace alternately suffered through his coffee and inhaled his cooking, while he gloried in both. Marvin Pruitt found them just mopping up the baked clay plates with the last of their toast.

"Up already? Good, good." The black man called, looking fresh, looking resplendent.

He was dressed, armored, and helmeted; uniform laundered, cloak cleaned, the Winterwind Magus looked ready for business.

"Whole camps' in shit condition, but we needed to take a breath." Captain Pruitt observed, "Tough day yesterday. Got our asses bailed out by Elves, of all folk, and the rest of the Otherkin put a hurting on the tinier dungeon spawn."

No denying that. A few more seconds and the Rasatala Eximius Queen would have roasted every single officer, and their attending squads, Alexander included, from the field in all likelihood, before stomping down on the rest while they crossed in their boats.

"How we going to kill it, Marv?" Graced asked, hangover ebbing, slightly, coming to business herself, "Mason hit it with his best shot and it walked right on through. Siddiqua's steam didn't bother it at all, except she tagged it in the eyeball, good for her, and nothing the Otherkin did seemed to do more than irritate its complexion."

The older man looked across the river, at the black hulking form huddled by the water, unmoving since it had played out its rage shredding their fortress on that side.

"That's a tough one, I'm going to grant you." He admitted, "But we've got options. Mainly this kid you keep riding goofy. I'm thinking if he's able to put that black raining thing he's got on her we can pound her with artillery or concentrations of Arcana. Maybe try to do it in waves, you know? Wear away at those legs, cripple it."

Alexander offered his doubts on that plan, since he'd been mulling it over since yesterday evening, "I'd have to get close. Past the Slayers and Infiltrators guarding it. And, I would have to, somehow, not get microwaved by that lightning cannon it used. Look at what it did to the ridge, Marvin, it's a terror. Also, I don't have any better ideas, yours was the best one I came up with too."

Normally, his experiences would have offered some sort of insight, some parallel situation from which lessons learned could be applied. But he'd never seen something so enormous that it could take everything he could throw at it, and roll through it. Worse, he'd never seen the kind of raw destruction its Arcana created. Not dragon fire, not a mage class, not even the one and done artillery types, and they could conjure some scary stuff, if not in rapid succession. That spider had cut loose every twenty or so seconds for at least two minutes, and it only stopped because it ran out of things to shoot at. Insanity.

Marvin scrubbed a hand through his beard fiddling with the chin strap for a second, then, in a display of rare aggravation, unbuckled it and doffed the helmet to hang from his belt. Then he marched over to an empty revelry circle, pulled up a stool that had been knocked over, and carried it back to plant himself before their breakfast fire.

"Okay, yeah. Suicide mission." Marvin summarized, downcast, "We try to avoid those around here."

Grace spoke up from her blanket shrouded seat, head and shoulders above her comrades, "What about Two Sabers? She went off to where the bitch came from, you think she could do something with it?"

Marvin shrugged, "Maybe? Probably. But She headed out as soon as she cleared those suckers from the outer Chicago area, that was weeks ago. Even if she's on her way at best speed, Sam isn't a speedy type. Henry and Yu, and Ghost? Sure, they could push it, be here in a week or two, tops. But they don't have any more firepower than we do. And they won't leave Captain Two Sabers, anyway. Birds are in the air to get word to her but that's a few days out, best case scenario."

Another pondering set to Grace's face, "Think we can get the Otherkin to take another turn at the plate, with us swinging too, this time?"

Marvin smiled, sardonic, and said "Sure, if you can find them. They skedaddled into the holes they crawled out of and we aren't going to cross the river trying to find them. And the Elves? Who the hell knows, man? I'd rather try to chase Alexander through the bush."

Yeah, he nodded, fiddling with his knife hilt, he had a feeling the Otherkin had sort of done their part, had honored the call to arms obligation in their own way and were watching out for their own now. They'd damned certain picked their moment. But he didn't think a second time was in the offing.

"I wouldn't count on the Otherkin. Not like they were exactly welcomed with open arms by New Chicago, and they lost kin in that scrap. They paid their blood debt, that's about all we can ask of them." Alexander proposed.

The other two Humans faces said they agreed with the assertion. Getting the refugees from the far realms integrated into Human societies, or creating a hybrid society, even more remote an outcome, was still a long, long way off. Their offering of help in policing the city, in hunting for spiders was a good start. Yesterday would peg them for some serious concessions from the Humans on the other side of the New Chicago wall, like being welcomed inside said wall, amongst other things the city leadership could do to make these strange peoples' lives easier.

"Alright, so that kind of brings us back to square one." Marvin Pruitt observed.

"Square one fucking blows." Grace Miller added immediately.

"Can I get an 'Amen' brothers?" Alexander asked.

"Amen." They chorused together.

The huddle fell silent after that, each lost to their own thoughts. A nagging as the senior most Gerifalte looked at his disappointingly spent quiver.

"I gotta get back across the river." He told his companions, who wore distinctly disapproving expressions.

"Alright, why?" Marvin inquired, knowing there was a reason but not sold it would be one he agreed with.

Alexander pointed at the quiver holding his depleted ammunition.

"Gotta recover my arrowheads. The red fletches are Ultimet tipped, it's the only way I can reliably get a bolt through the armor, Soak, and the physical resistance of those things. Most of them are lying around Lithium valley, but I know where I saw them land, so I can grab them quick-quick and fuck off before the critters know I'm around." He explained.

He didn't mention that they held the last of his reserves of Mind Flayer Tears in the arrowhead's steel cores, which wicked along the miniscule grooves of the Ultimet spear tips to envenomate them. Mandrake root didn't fall from the sky and it was a hazardous task to get more. The root's owners could kill almost instantly with their brain scrambling shriek.

"Christ." Commented Marvin, but he didn't see any good alternatives and he knew a great deal of the Ranger's power came from being able to unload on things from afar.

"Okay, permission granted, but you go, grab the arrowheads, and dip, no gallivanting." Captain Pruitt instructed, unnecessarily, but he was overcorrecting for Mason's loss a little.

Better safe than sorry.

"Yessah, no gallivanting, no tomfoolery, absolutely no skylarking of any kind, and, furthermore, I shall not under any circumstance, engage in monkeyshines." Alexander drawled, gently poking fun at the older man's back seat rangering and older fashioned lingo.

"Get out of my face Ranger, git, and don't come back until you're useful again. But if I have to bail you out, Grace is going to sit on you until I say otherwise." Marvin scolded gently, knowing he was hovering.

"I'll do it too. Just to listen to you squeal." Grace chirped over her cup, bleary eyed but recovering by the power of coffee that could kick start a nuclear reactor.

Alexander snapped a salute, no mocking now, and armored up, his cloak going over the muddy armor, which was about to take a bath. A longship would draw attention, he was going to swim the mile long stretch using a piece of deadwood as a buoy and visual cover. To do it, he'd have to take a hike first. The big river had a deceptively powerful current, he could end up miles downstream of where he went in. Being a mostly shallow river, it was also dangerous. Topology of the banks, hidden objects submerged, made for undertows and eddies, they could drag a man in and drown him in a hurry. And the river was peaking high, filled with rains and snowmelt.

Normals would be hard pressed to make the swim. Alexander figured he'd be across and on his way in about five minutes.

Grace had a look in her eye, but she didn't make a move to volunteer herself, which was good. He was confident in all these warriors in a fight. In sneaking, not so much, they made a hell of a lot of noise, the lot of them. Apparently, the sneaky ones were off with their Guild Master, acting as her scouts. A search and destroy operation, that. Hopefully that meant nothing behind what was stacked against the river, no jokers in the deck they'd been given to play. If the scary lady was able to harm the Queen that put a clock on the monster, a hammer and anvil. Assuming the monster was as smart as its hunters, it knew that and had plans of its own to cross the river that didn't involve using ape made technology.

"Later friends. Be back before noon. If I'm not…wait a little longer." He cracked.

Riverside terrain lightened with sunrise as he ran upriver, paralleling the full banks of the Mississippi on an old road that bordered the low ridge on the opposite side of the river. His maps said there was a bend in the river where a tributary, the name slipped his mind at the moment, Kisk-something, and that was where he'd cross. The river would slow at the bend a little and he could approach from the north, using the wooded hills to cover his movements.

Nothing interrupted the peace of the run, birdsong in full, the native wildlife ignorant of the horror crouched a few miles south. Ignorant, or, more likely, just indifferent. Gaia would spin regardless of her children. It was up to them to make sure they continued to watch the old girl go.

He found his tributary, signs labeled it Kaskaskia, a rare failure of his memory, one he would blame on the hangover instead of taking responsibility for not paying attention to maps when you reviewed them in a few hurried seconds. It wasn't hard to locate deadwood, a dead willow drowned during some escape by the serenely rushing waters from their banks. He hacked off a limb, about his own size, weighed a couple of hundred pounds, and he labored under it down the unsteady footing to the riverbank. Without ceremony he dumped the log into the water and waded in, grabbing hold of his float and kicking to launch himself on his swim.

Slow was relative. With its waters as high as they would be for a few months, he was carried easily around the bend and down toward the scuttled crossing. In a way, Alexander was comforted by this, he was only thirty miles away from the Lich ruled necropolis of St. Louis in its Tech'duinn corrupted zone. Rumor had the Lich as tier four, but it hadn't tried to expand, hadn't so much as sniffed outside its self-imposed boundaries. Undead operated on their own timescales, it could be five thousand years before the Reaper or Reaper adjacent monster that dwelled there thought to do its unfortunate, limited by needing to breathe neighbors the favor of shuffling off their mortal coils. Or so that had been the motivation of the one that had tried to kill Alexander one time. Problems for Future Alexander.

Steadily kicking, glad he had the flotation of the log to counter his light armor, weapons, and field kit, the young man made the opposite shoreline without incident. A few pulls on his legs suggested he'd come across undertows, a log held vertical as the waters around it milled revealed the presence of a whirlpool to avoid, but nothing major to impede his transit.

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

Alexander dragged his log out from the water to use for the return trip. He chewed a lip looking downstream, calculating if he'd come within lightning shot of the Eximius Queen in the doing. Too close, he judged, and sighed at the waste of effort to drag out his log. No shot he'd haul the thing up river, just a total waste of precious calories.

Away from the exposed banks he ran, toward the welcome cover of the forest. This stretch of land was flat and completely open, not even scrub to hide him from observation. Broken Silhouette and Stalk he held in active use the entire way, not risking incidental contact with some Infiltrator sneaking around, or Para-spiders gazing from on high, as he'd seen earlier. The Queen was wising up, using her minions more effectively in the face of being educated on human tactics for fighting.

"Bitch has to go." Alexander channeled his inner Brig, who he was confident would find a sister in arms in Grace Miller.

Granny was the tough one. Annita was a jealous Goddess, and fickle. Who truly knew the mind of a witch? Especially one that handed you a blood seeking murder lily and the only specific warning "Just don't bleed on it." for its terrible powers.

Briefly, Alexander considered trying to put the four bulbs he's wound up with in a sling shot primed by Eximius blood and flinging them at the Queen. It was crazy, but it might work. Only he was pretty certain the tier five had some kind of nullifying ability, to judge by the mana that sheened green when it cleared away acid and lightning bolts from its body during the Elves' ambush. If that was like Alexander's Entropic magic though, it wouldn't stop the biological function of the death flower from doing its work, rooting spreading, and inevitably dying in an acid bath fueled by its victim's innards. He had a feeling there was still a scale problem. A single Slayer? Sure. But it might take fifty of the hazardous bulbs to do lethal damage and Annita had been very adamant on using these willy nilly. Utter last resort, she'd said.

Concentrating on scanning his surroundings, he put that aside. Alexander was in the Green, lapses in attention, or judgment, got a man killed.

Whether thanks to his skills in navigating familiar hills, forests roamed for two weeks, or the depletion of the monster ranks during yesterday's battle, or simple luck, the retrieval of his arrowheads was an anticlimax. Nothing happened, nothing from the bush, no monster hiding under a corpse to try to eat him. The Eximius weren't cannibals, he learned, to judge by all the corpses that lay where they'd fallen. Picking up his precious Ultimet fabrications, he also collected several trophies, though he spent no great time doing this. Only what was handy, only what did not significantly delay his mission's completion. He had a river to swim. There was also another matter that needed some investigation: how by all the gods above, below, and in between had the Spider Queen, all conference center of it, managed to get so close without being discovered?

Ask a silly question, Alexander mused, half an hour later, behind a curve in the hills, a small holler hidden, as he stood over a cavernous hole in Gaia's substrate. They'd done it the same way the Gnomes and Dwarves had, underground. The Eximius Hive Queen, contrary to her black widow appearance, was a burrowing spider? It only took him five minutes of investigation into the tunnel that yawned into the subterranean distance to extrapolate that it had made a damned near straight line from west to east. A slight shift in trajectory three miles out from its entrance denoted a bearing toward the fort holding the human resistance.

Alexander dusted himself off after returning from the impromptu spelunking, he was nearly dry from his river crossing. To judge from the depth of the tunnel, the Queen would be unlikely to try this to burrow under the Mississippi, not unless it could go way, way deeper. A failed attempt and the monster would solve the human's problems for them in dramatic fashion.

One stop did demand some detour. A matter of honor, of respect. There, on the site of Mason's fall, he did stab weapons of the fallen men and women into the soil, a monument, and their cores he took with utmost reverence, to be placed in honor with those of the other men and women who fell, those whose crystal hearts could be saved for remembrance. It was a newish tradition, but one that was near universal amongst the settlements.

With that task complete, Alexander escaped the battlefield, returned the way he'd come. Where the fort had stood on that side of the river, there was only the much-reduced horde of Rasatala dungeon spawn and their hell-mother.

Across the river, pulling harder on him for his extra burdens, he kicked, another piece of lumber to hang onto, and the sun was barely approaching midmorning, not later than tenth bell by his judgment when he returned to the star shaped fortress.

On the field outside he found, to his amaze, the miraculous sight of Getsome in full regalia, and Impervious next to them, as uplifting a thing as had befallen his eyes in the months since he'd left his dear home in February. His pace quickened unconsciously. Nearby, another dozen or so support classes, including a short, tanned, black hair in a complex updo pinned in place by needles and bearing a wicked kukri made of the same stuff as Alexander's Talon, on account of he'd made it for her was a Vietnamese Dryad dressed in her ratty appearing robes and pants whose attached vines, twigs, and ornamental flora made her seem to vanish and reappear with shifts in the wind, while her beautiful face stared golden eyed, unreadable, across at the fortress.

Granny!

Great helmet held in her gauntleted hands, spun copper braid flicking in the same breeze as made the Verdant Witch so difficult to see, a towering Oread in half plate stood proud, smiling a dazzling smile. Brig!

He was sprinting now, flying toward the women who'd caught him. Running around in circles without care, as they are wont to do, Durian Gerifalte chased whatever dreams children his age saw, running for the joy of it.

The Peacekeeper officers in their armor and red cloaks, with another score to each side were doing attendance on the foreign Adventurers, looking every bit the professional army that they were.

Alexander Gerifalte ran all out, heedless of the exertion of the last few hours, hangover forgotten.

He skidded across loose clay that didn't want to resist a hundred eighty pounds of human moving at turnpike velocity, leaving paired tracks thirty yards long behind as he braked to come to a stop between the somewhat tense meeting of monster slayers.

Three pairs of eyes found him and Granny, hands on her flaring hips shouted, "Alexander Gerifalte, you get your scrawny feathered ass over here and explain why it's another tall one!"

"Meep!" He answered.

Reasoned arguments regarding population distributions of tier threes and insufficient sample sizes held no truck with Annita Nguyen, and she gave clipped instructions to be seated, and silent, which he acceded to rather than get her even more riled up. This also gave Durian the chance to scramble over and on his long-lost Papa, so Alexander basked in the treasured gift of playing with his toddler while the women figured things out. They'd let him know the score when they were done.

Ben's sardonic call, the subdued humor of the super soldier much missed, of "I knew he'd get himself in real trouble one of these days." Was welcome, despite the older man poking fun at his situation.

Mark Ross, in his splendid centurion armor, strode forward to offer a hand, met by Captain Marvin Pruitt, who was slightly amazed that their temporary resident killing machine was seated and making goofy babbling sounds at the dark-haired boy that mauled him and who replied in the same nonsense vernacular. You think you know a guy, he mused.

Strong grips were traded between the leaders of their respective parties and they took one another's measures, the short, solid Anchor tank from Falcon's Rest and the middling height cryomancer from New Chicago.

Mark, long used to the ways of his adopted settlement's patron, and unofficial mascot, asked, "Well met, we're Getsome and Impervious, here to lend a hand to the situation. Thanks for taking care of our guy. He been giving you Flatlanders any trouble?"

Marvin, cool, collected, returned, "Welcome to Fort Fifty-One Crossing, we're the Peacekeepers of New Chicago and the greater Midwest, glad to have you. Nah, but I think he's trying to make off with my protégé. Can't give her up, she's my ticket to turn in my boots."

Grace Miller scoffed from the side, "You'll retire when I grow wings. Besides, I have better things to do than babysit the hatchlings."

"Like horning in on my action?" Brigitte O'Connor asked, without any particular heat.

"Nope! Adults at the table." Siddiqua interrupted abruptly, raising a hand, she was too raw to tolerate the jousting that was brewing, "Grace, you go clean up your mess. Me and Captain Pruitt will handle the official business."

Captain Miller grimaced at that dismissal, but the challenging green-eyed stare of the ever so slightly taller woman holding a massive cavalry lance couldn't be ignored. Goddamn, what a piece, Grace had to grudgingly admit. The little one was cute, but she was pretty certain that the shape of the towering figure hidden in heavy armor was nitroglycerin. Damn it.

Mark tilted his chin at his offtank and attacker party mate, "Go on Brig, me and Ben and Melinda will fill you in. Try not to get Shiv involved, huh?"

The copper braid flipped and she rolled her green eyes at the Anchor who stood at her mid rib, making an after you gesture at her rival, while taking no pains to hide that she was eyeing the Captain up for a fit as fine as a tailor's.

"Fine. Let's get this over with. I'm assuming you're the Brig I've heard about?" Grace began and the two strode off to the side, under watchful gaze of who had to be Annita, 'Granny', who stood guard on her husband and spared frequent searching glances to locate their offspring. It was just as well; Mason's death had her feeling kind of raw. A fight might be what the doctor ordered.

A fearless smile, "I'm the Brig. C'mon short-stuff, let's let the old people talk about their grandkids or whatever the fuck they do. We gots stuff to hash out."

That reckless disregard for propriety instantly told Grace what she needed to know about how the Outsider and the opposition had linked up, they were both cut from the same cloth. And short-stuff? When the other was, maybe, half an inch, tops, taller?

"Yeah, yeah, whatever Lurch. Marvin, yell if you need anything that needs killed, I gotta deal with this!" She called, summoning her Woman-fu to hold against the two tyrants.

From her place at the side of her companions in Getsome, Dame Sanchez observed with remote disdain, "It is typical of the peasantry to air their laundry in sight of all. Shameless commoners."

She turned her attention on the Peacekeeper officers to add, "This is what happens when you permit the high bred to dally with disreputables."

Siddiqua frowned, not knowing how she was supposed to handle that, and chose to ignore it. She couldn't tell if it was an insult directed to her comrade or toward the annoying creature she'd latched onto.

"Anyway. We're glad to have any help we can get, but if you'll follow me, Captain Pruitt and I will show you the scale of the problem. If you like, tea and lunch can be prepared while we do so, I'm sure it's been a long journey for you all." Captain Mirzaei managed, holding to duty to carry her forward.

Marvin Pruitt, wasn't sure how this new wrinkle was going to pan out, but he had a good feeling. The dozen Adventurers were all mithrils, by their envoy's claims, and each carried themselves with total confidence, reminiscent of when Ranger Alexander had first stood before the Peacekeeper brass. Yesterday might have gone different if they'd had most of the twenty red cloaks on hand.

"Your guy just got back from a quick scout across the river this morning." Captain Pruitt said, all genial professionalism, "Soon as he gets turned loose, we'll see what he found. Until then, make yourselves comfortable. We'll get you up to speed from the last month. We fought yesterday, largest scale battle up to this point, and we pounded them. Right up until the source of the problem arrived. It's tier five. It's big. And it's mean. We lost good people yesterday, so we're a little raw."

With that the two Parties from Falcon's Rest were welcomed into the fortress, where they discovered what their wayward friend had gotten himself into.

Alexander watched his friends depart to learn what threat to humanity had been worth calling them all this long way across a continent, leaving their home absent a dozen of its greatest warriors.

Durian, trotting off with a handful of the feathers along the back of his neck, was making whooshing sounds while flapping his arms, pretending to fly. He could talk, some, but mostly yelled or babbled, too hurried to bother with words. Gone near enough the whole spring, that wild running and airplaning was a sight Alexander burned into his memory. But his indulgence in the moment was brief. His attention was summoned.

"Well, are you proud of yourself?" Annita asked, staring down at him with the false anger she sometimes used to try to leverage him one way or another, and that he sometimes caved to because it was better than fighting over something he was going to end up doing anyway.

"He's a wonderful boy, and he got a lot bigger since February." Alexander answered, intentionally misreading the direction of that attempt.

She'd have to work harder than that if she wanted to corral him. If he let her think it was too easy, she'd start to suspect him.

Hopeful, he asked, "Does he big boy poop yet, or can I still help him potty?"

Maternal instinct warred with fake irritation, softening the corners of her almond shaped eyes.

"He still wants someone to watch sometimes, or to help him up. But he wants to do it himself, and he doesn't let you wipe anymore." She answered, dashing some of his hopes.

That spider was going to pay for this, he resolved.

It took a moment for Granny to find the thread of her protest, watching the young boy flap his father's feathers around, giggling. He'd looked very much forward to seeing his "Papa 'Zander" again.

"Is it serious?" the Dryad asked.

Alexander considered events of the last few weeks.

"Mmm, yeah, probably. I would die for her or kill others in her name." Alexander answered, offering his stance on the Goddesses of his life, staring after the approaching giants.

Granny snorted, expecting that reply.

"She came after you pretty hard, didn't she? I was right, wasn't I?" asked the wise old witch woman who was only two years older than he, plainly smug about it, but hiding her emotions to fuck with the new girl.

"I still don't know how you figure stuff like this out, especially when you weren't even here. I thought it was just a little crush, a little being hard up." Alexander commented, noting the two approaching women weren't on the verge of hostilities, by their postures.

Grace was alert, a bit on guard, and Brig was entirely relaxed. Brig could be relaxed while spearing monsters though, that wasn't necessarily a tell.

"Because you're a doofus, Alexander, that's why, and I have dark powers. You read bodies, but I read hearts. It was easy. Warrior boy meets lonely warrior girl, you do your oblivious hunter killer thing, she gets all hot under the collar while you dance out of her reach for a while, swinging that banging ass around the whole time, then you had to go and do your hero shit with the Elixir, we don't have any more of those yet, by the way. What did you expect?" Granny softly ranted

"Also, did you really have to knife a guy to let her know you were interested? Flowers works too." The little Dryad asked, skeptical.

Alexander looked up and met her golden stare.

"Nuh-uh, wasn't like that at all." He protested, not willing to indulge her previous bit of fantasy even a little, because that was asking for it.

Annita Nguyen was a closet romantic and such tales appealed greatly to her, which is why she had Georgia Stephens' complete collection of titillating erotica on her book shelf. Alexander had long suspected his wife was feeding the woman tales from their bedroom but he didn't read Georgia's work so he couldn't be certain, and he wasn't actually so keen on knowing for certain.

"Like I said, that guy was going to end up a serial killer or something. He was just starting, figuring out how much he could hurt people, what felt the best, getting a taste for it, kind of thing. His almost painfully trusting teammates couldn't figure out why they couldn't hang onto party members, they thought it was the downsides to their Morrigan's time powers. Granny, who the fuck would turn down a group that could make you immortal three times, just because the caster has to sit still, if not because they got major psycho vibes from one of them?" Alexander asked, flabbergasted.

She smirked at him then, a break in the false severity, "Okay yeah, just checking. I agree, by the way, but I wanted to hear it from your mouth. From what you said, this Christoph was going to end up with your talons in his neck sooner or later. Better sooner, before he got people killed. I'm gonna piss off your homewrecker girlfriend and see how she takes it, just so you know. Can't have some soft ass Hoosier in the clan."

He nodded. For the former, not the latter. He or someone like him, probably one of the red cloaks if it went far enough. Just as well that it hadn't, you didn't always have to wait until after awful things happened to stop them, in his opinion, not if you were certain enough to bet your life on it. As far as the logistics of Grace and his family unit he didn't know, he was playing that by ear. He'd been given rules to follow, and he followed them. Management of the household was mostly Granny's wheelhouse, even Brig deferred to their tiny Dryad overlord. He reckoned he had about thirty percent share of the Board, tops, even if he was presumptive "head of the house". As for pissing people off, Granny could use her tongue as a metal rasp if she wanted to. Speaking of his first wife's gifts…

"By the way, that Witch kiss? What is wrong with you Annita Nguyen? Those things are evil. I'm almost too scared to use them. I wanted to make a bunch to drop on the Eximius Queen, but I'm afraid I'll make something worse if I do." Alexander accused the advanced horticulture classed woman.

Brig and Grace had arrived for this last part, stopping to stand a few feet away, an awkward tension in the air.

Hands on hips again, scowling, Granny countered, "You ran up to me, minutes away from leaving, asking for, and I quote, 'something awful, just in case it all goes tits up and I need something to die' and I gave you what I had. You didn't hang around for the warning labels, don't blame me for giving you what you wanted."

He had asked for that, hadn't he?

"I'm sorry, you're right. Forgive me." Alexander conceded immediately, realizing the error of his ways.

"Better, Alexander. Now let us see about this enormous tart you've deceived with your wiles." Granny said, loud enough for all the adults present to hear.

Just a moment before, Grace Miller was admiring the power of Woman-fu displayed to cow the tricksome Outsider so effortlessly. But. Grace's sapphire blue eyes narrowed at "enormous", and leaned forward, one finger digging downward toward the ground.

"I'll plant you like a fucking radish, lady, you smart off like that again. I don't care who you are." Grace Miller warned the Dryad, completely serious.

Only friends got to say things like that. And they weren't. Yet.

Grace knew a lot of things about herself. She could dance the feet off any three other people. She was beautiful. She was hell on wheels in a fight. She was very uncertain about her place with a someone who had become very important very fast, which made her uncomfortable. She was an underdog compared to the woman who had said important someone seated and awaiting her midget command, seemingly without effort. She wasn't giving up. And she wasn't taking anyone's shit today if she didn't want to.

Brig immediately grinned, "Oooh, this one's got spirit, I'm looking forward to this."

Annita Nguyen stared up at the armored woman who'd had to bend way, way down to threaten her, and her stare said she was not impressed.

"What makes you think you're worth giving up a second with my Alexander? There's been others that wanted to join our house, and they didn't measure up. What makes you any different?" She countered.

"You tell me, lady!" Grace scoffed, "You're the one that gave this scary weirdo permission to, fucking, I don't know have a casual affair or something!"

Feathered head shook and Alexander felt like he needed to be clear on this, for everyone's sake, "Not casual, never that. Deep, very deep."

"That's what she said." Brig chortled, being juvenile because she needed to give these two ladies a little space, before something everyone regretted happened.

Alexander smiled at the coppery Amazaon's intentional ribald thickness, but he addressed the other woman to confirm his position on things, to remove any doubt, "And not an affair, we're legit. Monogamy is for puritans, and they're all dead. I'm Clan Gerifalte's Patriarch, not, fucking, Mr. Beaver or whatever."

Granny, apparently the only one who took anything seriously, scolded, "Quiet you two! you're both suckers for legs, I've got a household to keep in order."

It meant a great deal to the Peacekeeper Oread, the definitive look he'd given her, meeting her eyes as he had, and the definitive declaration, but she was still pushing back against the tiny golden eyed force of domestic oppression over there, "Well. Okay. But, about that! I didn't say anything about joining anybody's house, or clan, I've got a tri state area to keep tabs on. If you two hick princesses think I'm packing my bags to move to bumfuck Maine, you're nuttier than he is." Grace retorted.

"So he isn't important enough to be with? My Alexander? Just use him and throw him aside?!" Granny growled, actually angry, if that was the case, not worried about the hick comment, because Falcon's Rest was the Rome of the entire northeast, and she was damned proud of it.

Grace found herself on the back foot at that riposte, it wasn't like that, she had a whole goddamned city depending on her, thousands of people needed her to be who she was, she wouldn't throw them away, and she wouldn't throw the seated man away either.

"I'm a big girl, I have a job and everything." The Peacekeeper said primly, "I can do that job and have a life outside it, but not from a thousand miles away. And don't you put words in my mouth, if I wanted to throw that weird fucker away, I'd have already told you and Red Sonya over to take him and screw."

"Why do you keep saying he's weird?" Demanded Annita Nguyen, gauging the character of the newcomer.

Grace looked like someone goosed her, looking around incredulously, "Because he is!" She blurted, unable to fathom the lie otherwise.

"He is." Brig agreed.

"I am." Alexander confirmed.

"Okay, so he is." Granny conceded, "Which is why we have to take care of him. Otherwise, he'll fly off and turn feral, we're what keeps him attached to humanity, and if you aren't up to that job, then you shouldn't play around."

Alexander would have argued with that perspective, once, but a few years of reflection on what had happened to him after just over eight months in isolation after the Pulse, the way he was getting sharper in the few short month's pursuit of the Infiltrator, and he didn't have any illusions. Alexander was a predator, just one that had been trained to favor certain prey, instead of his fellow man. If not for his parents, if not for the attachments formed with Getsome and the folk of Falcon's Rest, he wouldn't be something anyone wanted to stray across in the wild. Like he was now, with family, with a son to keep him grounded, he was safe. Mostly. Unless you were a Gary Lee Harvard, or a Christoph.

It was important to be honest about these sorts of things.

"Why are you breaking my balls?" Grace snarled, "We killed some monsters together. A lot of them, as a matter of fact. We kept each other alive in some of the hairiest stuff I've ever seen. We got together, traded some fluids, helped each other forget some of the goddamned awful stuff that happens in this world, and, god-for-fucking-bid, enjoyed each other when we don't enjoy most people. How's that any different than what you two are doing?"

Exasperation. She'd never had to be territorial, most people got out of her way, or she ran over them for not figuring out they should have. Now that she thought of it, she'd never had any good reason to want to hold on to something, which said a lot for how unexpected and valuable these past few weeks had been. This inquisition over what she wanted, who she wanted, was starting to piss her off. And with that godawful monster sitting across the river, she had serious shit to handle, but here she was arguing with a doll faced midget and her buxom amazon pal over some dweeb that got her soft in the head. It was enough.

The edges of her class's wrath trying to take hold, Grace turned to the widely smiling Brig and cried, "And why the fuck is she looking at me like I'm something to EAT?!

Brigitte O'Connor laughed, and said, "I like her. Let's keep her." Simple in her motives.

Brig found her joy in killing feral creatures and making her lovers forget how to walk and she was without shame about it. Worrying about what people who didn't lift spear at your side, or who you didn't want warming your thighs thought about it was for weaklings. Brig wasn't weak. Neither were her mates.

Annita scowled, in vain, toward her partner, "You would."

"Don't be shitty dragon-lady, you said you had a good feeling about this one the whole way here. You're just salty she turned out to be a hot, leggy blond instead of a hunchback with a sense of humor. I could tell as soon as I saw how she looked at our guy how this was going to go. You keep pushing, you'll really have to fight her and that's gonna be rough, sister." Brig declared, ending the game.

Grace's simmering wrath fizzled and she stood confused at the sudden cessation of hostilities. What the hell?

"What, so, it's fine? Just like that?" Muttered the somewhat lost red cloaked woman, wondering if her power level had risen in these last few days without her realizing it.

"Alright! Alright! We'll let Alexander keep her. You needed somebody to roughhouse with anyway, I can't scratch the itch another combat class can. She's still not allowed in the house until she's housebroken." Conceded Granny, at last.

She sighed, resigned, letting go the channeled hostility while she tested the resolve of the rare person her Precious also found Precious, "Fine, Granny has to be surrounded by people the size of trees. Granny is the one who's always hunting up her footstool. But I've done my part, you two get to flip a coin for who gets to make with the baby this time. And it's too damned long for him to keep walking back and forth, you're going to learn to fly if we're going to make this work."

Alexander froze, turning to his mate, "Learn to what?"

He was happy things were settled, happy his clan was reaching a stability, but some things he couldn't forget, a time before the Pulse, when he'd soared.

Granny smiled and formed a V with her fingers, "How do you think we got here so fast my Alexander? Brig can launch us up real high with that freak antigravity thing she does, and we made gliders. We can make, I don't know, probably fifty miles per go at eighty miles per hour. We figured it out in April, just in time for your letters to start coming in."

Gliders. Of course! Gliders would let them fly over the Queen. Gliders to catch the monster by surprise.

Alexander could fly?

Grace, shocked into speech, asked, "Why's he crying?!"

The other two put hands on his shoulders and pulled the third down into a group hug.

"We'll tell you later, in bed." Brig commanded, hauling the golden-haired woman with gravity enhanced strength, irresistible.

"BED?!" Grace squawked.

A boychild tottered over and wove himself into the bundle of warmth, as he always did, unaware of why his favorite people were huddling together, but happy join them.

It took a minute to get over the shock, but Alexander got his act together and threatened, on pain of withheld reverse nookie, Brig to take him up in a glider, before anything else. A semi crisis between the mates who had settled things between themselves, as they must, was small potatoes, this was flying, his first love. The gliders themselves, they were simple v-wing affairs that broke down and reassembled, using aluminum struts. He immediately committed shop time out to do better, using the spider silk that the Para-broodlings had so conveniently strewn around outside Lithium, and some lighter alloys using titanium or magnesium. For now though these gliders were the most beautiful things on Gaia, as was the woman who could allow them to be used effectively anywhere.

Brig, her class called Gravity Spire, was an earth manipulator, initially, with a proclivity for launching herself into the air to harpoon monsters from above. She'd broken her legs on multiple occasions doing this, but persevered. After one of those leaping airborne assaults helped slay a dragon dungeon guardian her class had evolved, one better suited to freeing her from Gaia's grip, and for empowering her downward dives. It had never occurred to him that she could launch herself up to gliding altitude, or that her strength could let her lift passengers up to that height as well.

So, clipped together by a harness, they held onto single hang glider and Alexander got to feel the sensation of utter weightlessness, just before a class infused jump soared him a thousand feet into the air like a catapult, shouting incoherent joy as he did.

Brig unclipped herself, leaving him to pilot the hang glider, to bob and weave on the winds above the Mississippi river valley. A few minutes to feel how to maneuver, training in the cockpit of a plane years left behind as a fantasy never again to be reality, and he soared. It was sublime. Next, up came Granny, with Durian strapped securely to her back. At tier two, the almost three year old was tougher than Normals, and loved the skies as much as his father. Down Brig went, catching herself with her levitation before she hit, and she engaged in a short wrestling match before getting Grace strapped in tandem, and up they went to join the circling pair, all five now racing above the ground.

Alexander was in paradise. Flying! Wind in his hair, feathers, whatever! Seeing the horizon miles, and miles away with eagle's eyes. It was everything he remembered it being.

Slowly, because they were drifting on the winds, after all they descended. Alexander was pretty certain he could read the heat shimmers off the ground to squeeze an extra ten minutes by riding thermals, but he didn't want to leave his mates behind, this was a joy to be shared. Landing was smooth, a ride into the wide flat floodplain with a running stop and a few clips to unhook from the glider's frame.

Alexander Gerifalte was slightly light headed from laughing for fifteen minutes straight. When everyone had landed, when the gliders were stashed, he hugged the members of his family, telling them all he loved them, and dashed back to the fort to tell Ben the incredible news. The Adamantine Knight would enjoy the joke, it was an old one between them.

Grace Miller, Oread, mithril ranked warrior, leader of men, stood watching the madly careening Outsider, who was shouting "Ben! I'm a full bird! I made it!" outside the fortress walls while waiting to be let in. A man who had just professed love for her, and which made her pale complexion redden as she blushed to her scalp. Which was nonsense, they'd done things. She turned to the other two, addressing her peers, if that's what they were, and asked, "Is this how he got you? This Darth Rain-man act he's got going on?"

"Ayuh." The two chorused, that odd far north dialect of affirmation.