Harsh, urgent knocking fell on my front door, rousing me from dreams of red and blue spartans battling across a gigantic ring in space. The last thing I saw was my poor controller, still encrusted with the greasy, colorful dust of cheesy puffs. Then my eyes opened and I was back in reality. I sat up suddenly, brushing back my hair as the knocking came again.

“Boss, emergency call!” Pokle yelled through my door.

“On m’way,” I tried to shout, not quite hitting the volume I wanted.

I threw on some underwear and hobbled over to the door, peeking through the cracks. It was her, judging by the bright yellow braids. I undid the lock, then the deadbolt, the chain, the anti-undead warding ribbons, and the spell-blocker. I yanked on the door, but it didn’t budge. With a sigh, I pulled out the wedge jammed under the door and then opened it.

It was early in the AM, judging by the lack of light and activity. Pokle held calling stones as she looked me up and down before cringing. “Oh, sorry to wake you, but a friend of yours is on the horn. He’s really shaken up.”

I quickly accepted the stones and gave her a dismissing nod. She skipped back off to the office. I pressed them to my ear as I bumped the door shut with my hip. “Hello? Dennis speaking.”

“DENNIS IT’S ME GEORGE!” crackled the stones which I involuntarily extended away from my ear.

“Jesus, calm down, George. What’s the fuck’s going on that you need to call me at this hour?”

“I NEED YOUR HELP, THERE’S TOO MANY OF THE FUCKS! I’M BARRICADED IN BUT THEY MIGHT FIND ME SOON!”

I shook my head. “AND THEY’LL ONLY FIND YOU FASTER IF YOU KEEP SHOUTING! Now, give me the rundown. Start from the beginning,” I ordered as I started to dress.

“OKAY, OKAY, okay… Iwaslikeummm,” he started to slur out. “Welltherewasthisguy andhetoldmeto, uhh… talktoajeweldealerand–”

“Not that far back, dingus!” I barked. “Start where the problem got bad!”

George paused for a long time. “Uhh, Iwazinthisdungeonand… therewasthismagic… circleontheground.”

“And you fucking stepped in it?” I asked as I tied the string on my long underpants one-handed.

He paused again. “Yeah… it looked like one of those XP circles okay? It wasn’t! It brought something I feared to life and I– G– FFF–” he stuttered.

“Spit it out! What awful thing crawled out of there?”

For another ten seconds, he was completely silent. Then, almost at a whisper, he uttered the name that made my heart skip a beat.

“Cazadores.”

I stood tall and took a deep breath. “Sit tight, I’ll be there immediately.”

Despite only being dressed in silken long johns, I threw my boots on and ran out the door… right after locking it behind me. I sprinted down the empty streets as I started to talk George through a critical step in my plan for him to not die.

“Alright, George, please tell me you still have that piece of magic chalk I gave you.”

“Uh, uh, uh,” he spluttered as I heard shuffling of disorganized bags. “YES, yes, I got it. What do I do with it?”

I dipped into an alleyway shortcut. “You need to draw a pentagram about four feet around. Use a stick and string for a compass, like in art class.”

Some punk-ass motherfucker lunged out of the shadows knife-in-hand and demanded my money. Instead, I punched him in the face with a fist that also contained a half-pound rock. Ouch. The guy stumbled and dropped his knife, so I snatched it and embedded it in a nearby rooftop with a flick of my wrist. Without a moment more to lose, I kept running.

“Okay, I have a pentagram, what next?”

“I want you to put two numbers inside the circle between each arm of the star, and then two more in the center of the star. That should make a dozen total, and it needs to be these specific ones. Ready?”

“R-ready.”

“In the middle, put forty-one. Then, around the edge is twenty-five, eleven, si– ACK,” I got out as my foot caught on something and I pivoted right into the dirty street. I slid a few feet flat on my face, dazed.

“What’s a siack?”

I scrambled up and put the stones back to my head. “Nothing! Sixty-two, eighty-one, thirty-three,” I continued as I completed the final stretch.

The moment I stepped onto my business’ doormat, its enchantment cleansed the coating of dirt I had earned moments ago. Due to the 24/7 operations, the door was unlocked. Pokle was the only one in at the time; she appeared tired, but vaguely interested in whatever was going on. I entered my office and pulled on the bookshelf, which swung open to reveal none other than the Ratpole™.

I jumped on and hugged it, sliding down into the Ratcave™ where I stored all my rainy day equipment. Unfortunately, I hadn’t figured out how to change costumes on the way down. George signaled that he had finished writing the numbers, so I told him to strike the center of the pentagram with the chalk, then sit tight. I set the stones down and looked around.

Three different armor sets, each for certain situations. I yanked the instaplate helm off its stand, then grabbed the gauntlets of fire resistance +712.

“Hey, boss, you got a sec?” asked Pokle as she slid down the Ratpole™.

I looked up from grabbing stoneskin and toxin resistance potions. “Uh, sure, but just a sec.”

She marched up to me and cupped her hand over my ear to whisper. With the message delivered, I blushed and nodded. “Oh, uh, thanks. I should fix that.” I paused awkwardly. “I’ll be back in a few hours, hold down the fort.”

She gave that snappy, facetious two-fingered salute that I used to do a little too often, then, she grabbed the rope and ascended back up from whence she came. The moment she left, I dropped my pants and adjusted my underwear. I had put them on wrong, and, without her warning, surely would have gotten a pinch mid-mission. And I probably flashed her on accident, not that she brought it up. I should give her another raise sometime soon.

With my undergarments reset and my boots kicked off, I strapped on the gauntlets. Their linings were peeling, but I couldn’t replace them without losing enchantment power. I think they were asbestos as well, but healing magic will have to do. If you or a loved one– my brain started the moment I thought about it. Once the gloves were on, I donned the helmet. A full set of fitted plate armor appeared on me.

I flexed my joints, making sure it all appeared around my body and not, say, inside my flesh. Lacking any bits of metal sticking in me, I jogged over to the conspicuous black void across the room. A total absence of existence about six feet long and five inches in diameter rested on a special stand. It was a time-stopped staff known as Sunblazer; my ultimate go-somewhere-and-fuck-shit-up stick. Charged in the fires of the world’s sun, then teleported back and frozen in time.

Holding one hand under it, I tapped the void with the resonance crystal I’d stored beside it. The timestop popped like a bubble and the implement of destruction fell into my grasp. It was a white-hot rod of metal about 5 feet long and a slight bit wider than an inch. It tapered at the tip, indicating where the danger was dispensed from. And its clock was ticking. The cooler it got, the closer I came to having a problem.

Armed and armored, I finalized my preparations by removing the lock from a hand crank on the wall. The chandelier of my Ratcave™ descended to the ground and stopped with a clang. It was the exact numbered pentagram that I made George draw (but made of metal and much nicer).

I picked up the calling stones in one hand and held them up to my helmet. “Alright, George. I’m kitted out. Back away from the sigil and hope you drew it right. I’m hanging up now.”

“Faster! I can hear them chewing on the door timbers!” he cried in fear.

I clacked the stones together, ending the call. Finally, I yoinked a warp potion and shoved it into the shoulder bag I had also grabbed, then snatched another and stood in the chandelier/warp sigil. I dropped the bottle and it shattered, spewing the exceptionally expensive contents all over the floor and my feet. And glass shards that I’d need to sweep up.

Stoically, I uttered the only words needed to complete the spell. “Forty-one.”

In an instant, the floor under me opened up and I fell through it. Six psychedelic seconds later, I popped out of the sigil in the dark corner of the dungeon where George had himself squirreled away. I looked around the room, seeing stone floors, walls, ceilings, very little light, and all but a few pieces of furniture stacked against the door. And behind an overturned table cowered a dumbass.

“Sup, dude,” I greeted, flicking up my visor.

George stood up while shakily clutching his axe, holding his other hand up to block the bright glow of Sunblazer. “T– t– there’s at least a dozen, but more were appearing when I left.”

“Fucking. Great. Drink up, you’re gonna help deal with this mess.” I tossed him a stoneskin and toxin resistance potion, the others immediately went into my system.

In that moment of joint chugging, I did indeed hear something big gnawing on the door. I paused briefly to consider my plan of action. “Hey, George, is this place underground?” He nodded. “And do you still know Smokebreath?”

His eyes widened, seeing my devious plan for what it was. “Totally!” His face lit up more. “You’re right! Secretly broken!” With a flick of the hand and a few magic words, he and I cast the spell.

With our buffs applied, I pointed the blindingly bright staff at the barricade and squeezed. A stream of energy burst forth and combusted the entire barricade to ash in seconds. Then the door too was reduced to cinders as smoke filled the room utterly and completely. A doberman-sized wasp with iridescent blue/black carapace and striking orange wings lunged through the opening, only to be blasted into dust.

I waved my hand in an order to charge and bellowed “Come with me if you want to live!” in my vaguely Arnold voice… which was utterly butchered by the metal dome piece around my head.

George stuck behind me as I entered the hall and saw two more Cazadores coming at me. I blasted them both with ease, thanks to Sunblazer’s built-in aimbot. We proceeded forward, myself permanently banning any wasp or piece of wooden furniture from this plane of existence, and George watching my flanks.

With each passing room and hallway, more beasties and furnishings were reduced to floor-sweepings. The bodies of minions and monsters were frequent sights, dead by George’s hand or at the tip of a stinger, it mattered not. By the thirtieth Cazador, I was getting worried. While most of the oxygen was gone from the areas behind us, Sunblazer only had so much in it. The glow had already reduced slightly.

“Where’s the spawner?” I asked as a Cazador jumped me from a ledge above, only to get melted in half with a whack of Sunblazer and then chopped in the face by George.

“That way!” he yelled whilst pointing down a turn in the hall.

The moment we rounded that corner, another half dozen of the bastards came at us. The first five were turned to dust… but the last one exploded. And that meant my heat ray of doom was ticking down toward zero.

We powered forward, fighting with increasing care. My armor was earning dents and punctures as I more conservatively smited and ignited. Then we passed through a conspicuously large doorway that led to a huge, dark room. In the center of the room’s floor was a big glowy sigil, and there were Cazadores crawling out of it. I started blasting the sigil without a second thought.

It was good timing, really. There were two dozen all around the room, most of which I had not seen. But then, as I hit the sigil, the spell it contained broke. Every brick on which the glowing light was drawn exploded and stone shrapnel flew everywhere. The Cazadores spawning from the sigil were instant paste, and most of the others were dead or dying from the shrapnel.

George fell to the floor, clutching his shins and rolling in pain. He was fortunate enough to have been standing behind me, but his legs weren’t so lucky. I could feel stinging all across my body where bits had punched through while failing to seriously harm me. Thanks, stoneskin.

I looked around and shot anything that was still moving (minus George of course). Then I shot the big wooden doors to make more fire to eat more oxygen. I fished two healing potions from my shoulder bag, tossing one to George, and drinking the other. We both took a deep breath of carbon dioxide, which hit like a fresh summer breeze thanks to Smokebreath. With any luck, the breathable air would soon completely deplete across the entire basement and any stragglers would die. But, of course, we have no luck.

“SO, YOU HAVE SURVIVED MY FINEST SPELL!” shouted some pompous-ass wizard from across the room. He was raising his voice to hide the fact that he was scared shitless to the point of trembling.

I sighed and turned around. He was short, mustachioed, wearing black robes and carrying a metal staff. And… he was monologuing. At least he’d lowered his voice.

“Your greatest fear made manifest, and you have conquered it! That must mean you are worthy foes ind– AHH, AHH, AHH!” he screamed as he dropped his red-hot staff, a well-placed shot in my opinion.

I ran over before George could get up and held Sunblazer to his head. He was healing his burnt hands and looked upset. “Man, fuck you! You killed my moment! I rehearsed that so many times in the mirror,” he whined defeatedly. “What the hell even were those? The things were worse than any monster I’ve ever heard of, pound for pound…”

“You don’t even wana know. Now…” I dropped Sunblazer on the floor and grabbed him by the collar, delivering a swift backhand across his stupid face. “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING MAKING A SIGIL THAT CREATES WHAT SOMEONE FEARS MOST?”

He shied away from my shouting. “I– I thought it was gonna be a demon or something! Maybe some crushing childhood memory! Not these wasps of doom!”

“WELL IT COULD’VE BEEN WORSE, DUMBASS! WHAT IF IT WAS GODZILLA? SOMETHING FROM EVANGELION? APOLLYON-CLASS S.C.P.? ANY OF THOSE AND WE’D ALL BE FUCKED! WHERE IS YOUR POWER ARMOR?” I added, slapping him across the face twice more.

He fell to the ground, clutching a bleeding lip. I raised my visor to look him in the eye. “Now, I want you to repeat after me.” Fearfully, he nodded. “I don’t want to make fear-realizing sigils.”

“I don’t want to make fear-realizing sigils,” he repeated.

“I want to go home and rethink my life.”

He hesitated, a bead of sweat dripping down his brow. “I… want to go home and rethink my life.”

I crossed my arms. “Good. Do you have the CYA spell set?” He nodded nervously again. “Grrreaat,” I said in an unsettling tone that definitely wouldn't be used to sell cereal.

I grabbed him by the wrists and stood him up while turning him away from me. Then I presented him to George who was just making it over. “Getcha ecks-pee right here!” I shouted in my carnival worker’s voice.

Without hesitation, George took his axe and cleaved right into the wizard’s skull. The man vanished, leaving George slightly disappointed. “Aww, man. All the evil wizards zip away like that. I need to figure out a counter someday.”

I pulled the extradimensional sack from my shoulder bag and threw it to George. “That’s gotta be the treasury he popped out of, judging by the hidden door. Before we go clear the rest of this place, go get me four thou to cover costs and I’ll call the rest a favor.”

George caught the sack. “Alright, sounds fair.”

As he walked off toward the treasury, a thought occurred to me. “Hey, George, how far underground are we?”

“Uhh, not far. This is only sublevel two of some refurbished ruins, why?”

“And how well-sealed is the exit?” I asked.

George had a look of dread come over him. “Not… too… well…”

“Forget the gold and grab some enchanted weapons from the treasury, anything that doesn’t look too cursed. We still have a problem.”

……

Thank god for Sausage. No, not the food; that’s earned its own 13-hour sermon to sing its praises. No, this is a peculiar little spell I learned a while back. To any unintelligent, animalistic creature, it makes whoever you cast it upon appear as a giant, tasty sausage made from a favorite food. Originally, it was intended to make beastmasters suffer a painful death at the jaws of their collection of monsters. It didn’t work very well.

I don’t use it like that. No, I tweaked it… with a little help. (I paid for it to be professionally altered, okay?) My version really cranks up the smell, drawing hungry monsters for nearly a mile. And… you can only cast it on yourself. With all the smoke and fire, I could only imagine what sort of barbeque dog I smelled like. At least I knew what I wanted for breakfast.

And as it turns out, George was dead fucking wrong. At least a dozen pssshhhh there were at least a hundred. And Sunblazer was running on fumes by about eighty. There was no point in saving it for later; it would cool off regardless. Near-vaporization had turned to explosive combustion, which then diminished to dramatic immolation, before finally turning to crappy flamethrower. I held a new mace in my off-hand for the moment it stopped working entirely.

We encountered Cazadores of increasing sluggishness the further on we went. When we got to the next floor, there were another forty dead from asphyxiation. I did not like how the numbers added up as time went on. And then we made it to the surface.

I kicked open the steel door, (which barely budged and I kinda hurt my foot). My worst fears were confirmed as two more came at us, completely unaffected by the burnout underground. I torched one, but the other knocked Sunblazer out of my hand as it lunged at me. George gave it a good chop for me and I thanked him with a quick hand gesture.

It was a beautiful forest scene, with low, moss-caked stone ruins that only stood as tall as ten feet or so, the rest being lost to the flows of time. There were no rooms above ground, only a lot of waist-high props that really brought back memories of Gears of War. The early-morning rays shone through the leaves, casting warm light across the forest floor. And reminding me that I had been up until morning.

Our reprieve was all of ten seconds as we heard wings coming toward us. Sausage was working quite well, but that wasn’t really a good thing. They just kept trickling in. When the dozenth straggler appeared, I leveled Sunblazer at it, squeezed, and hoped for the best.

It farted.

One long, awkward squeal rang out as the last of the heat and power trickled free, leaving me nothing but a pointy metal rod about as hot as a stovetop. I dropped it and swung the mace, connecting, but not felling the beast. It bit my arm and tried to sting my leg, both hits damaging the armor but not breaking skin.

I was hoping that George would help me, but he sounded preoccupied. I exchanged the mace to my free hand and used the spike in the hilt to start perforating the thing’s skull (or, carapace, in hindsight). It went limp and I turned to help George, but he’d already dispatched his opponent. We shared a look and it fell quiet. After a moment of peace, I dared to cast a simple yet expensive spell. With focus and a brief incantation, I was delivered an exact count of nearby foes.

One.

As if on cue, a terrible buzzing entered our ears. We both pursed our lips as we knew what time it was. The buzzing grew louder and a Cazador the size of a truck emerged from the underbrush.

“Ohhh queenie,” I muttered. “I hope this mace you picked up is a good one, George.”

George sounded more tired of the shit than anything else as he responded. “No clue, but fingers crossed. Ready up!” he exclaimed, holding his axe up to me.

I clanged the mace against it and we charged.

……

It wasn’t going well. The bite and sting were enough to break through stoneskin; we had learned that lesson a half-dozen times each. George had lopped off one leg out of six, and I had landed a bash to the eye, partially blinding it. The Cazador queen, however, had savaged both of us several times. Thanks to the angle, I had a sting on the sole of both feet, which was really fucking annoying to walk on.

As I landed my third good hit, I figured out the enchantment. Cracks shot across the queen’s carapace far further than could be justified. An armor-buster! I thought. Apparently, the queen agreed with me as she buffeted us both back with wind from her wings, then started to fly away.

“Shit!” I shouted as I sat up. “Shoot her, George! My ranged is out of charges!”

“Uh, uh,” he spluttered as he dug through his kit again.

He produced a wand and flicked it at the escaping queen. It shot shimmering beams that exploded in the air, but with no semblance of accuracy. Beam after beam sailed through the air… and missed. He made quite a spectacle of it as he practically painted a circle around the queen, who was creeping further and further away from us. I slowly facepalmed in a way that would make even Captain Picard blush.

“Good god, George, you gonna hit her or what?”

He growled in frustration. “I’m trying! It’s a Rod of Random Renunciation of Rigidity!”

I let my head fall back in frustration. “UGHH, I can't believe people still use those beyond ten yards.” I sighed, looking up to the heavens. “Wait a minute. I have an idea.”

Removing the helmet made all my armor vanish (padding included), save for the gauntlets. I sat there in my long johns. For the first time in a long while, I entered a mindset of prayer. I held my hands together and thought in a way that the gods—with far too much time on their hands—would hear.

“Grunnus, listen here. You still owe me for the church jobs. Zap that bug into dust and I’ll consider us even.”

George quirked an eyebrow at my odd prayer, and rightly so as nothing happened. I sagged and looked quite disappointed as I started to plan the next few weeks of hunting down and systematically eliminating any nest before the queen could proliferate.

“Welp, Dennis, we tried. We’ll have to get that one another–”

BOOM went the lightning as a bolt struck the queen and its burning fragments tumbled into the trees. The sun disappeared as it started to rain all of a sudden. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

I looked George in the eye, shaking my head. “Only thing you can rely on with the gods is they hate owing anyone anything. Speaking of favors, you owe me one. Go get me that four thou so I can fuck off back to bed.”

……

“Here you go, about four thousand in gold and assorted gems,” George announced as he passed me the extradimensional bag.

I accepted after I finished yawning. “Thanks. And don’t come back to pay off that favor anytime soon. I still blame your stupid ass for walking into that sigil.” I put the helmet down to stuff the sack in my shoulder bag.

He clammed up and fidgeted. “Alright, you got me. That was stupid as hell. But you really saved my ass, and I think we may have just put my kill-death ratio against Cazadores into the positive! Thank you, man.”

I nodded wistfully, unable to be overly angry at him. "Well I hate them too, so, you know. Welcome."

George was quiet as a question surfaced on his face, "Hey, do you really think the sigil could have made those things you said? I figure it would take too much energy or some shit."

"Ehh... too much shit that really should work doesn't. I'm not about to sit on my hands and trust it the other way around."

"Yeah, I've seen enough of the dysfunction. It probably would fuck up catastrophically sooner or later... kinda odd that it hasn't already, maybe the gods are pulling overtime. I dunno. Thanks for your help, go get some sleep." He waved his hand dismissively.

I put a hand on his shoulder, relaying a quote I was (not) legally obligated to deliver. “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter.”

There was a long pause until we both snickered and I walked off. I left the mace in his hands; it was nice, but I had my loadouts built and didn’t really need to hoard magic items anymore. Instead, my treasure was by the door: A Cazador head, four wings, a leg, and three stingers. All wrapped in a cloth we’d scrounged up. I was going to mount that shit on my wall. Or, some of it, at least.

……

I used my own stick of magic chalk to add an ‘F’ to the sigil George had drawn, denoting ‘Final use’. With a helmet and a bunch of giant bug bits under my arms, and thoroughly-spent relic in hand, I departed. The teleportation spell shut the door behind me and I slung through a knockoff of that one psychedelic tunnel sequence that traumatized so many kids in the Chocolate Factory movie.

In a dramatic flash, I appeared in my Ratcave™ and immediately slumped my shoulders. The adrenaline had worn off and I was a ticking sleep bomb. I dropped Sunblazer into its mount, vowing to eventually think about getting around to recharging it. Then I put the shoulder bag, helm, and bug bits where they went. As I took a quill to scrawl the spent potions onto my shopping list, Pokle came back down the pole.

“Hey, I heard you zap back in. Did it go alright?” she asked.

I kept writing as I responded. “More or less. Consider it a disaster narrowly avoided, and chalk another one up to deus ex machina.” I thumped my fist as I realized that I had absentmindedly written what I said, rather than the potion names. “Shouldn’t you be off by now?”

“Well, yes, but I took the spare key to your house and got a change of clothes for you. It’s morning out now, and I imagine walking home in your undies again would be a bad way to end your fun.” She casually shrugged as she placed a folded outfit on the table by the Ratpole™.

I stopped to look over my shoulder. “Oh, wow, that’s great!” I paused for a moment of thought. “Sometime later this week I want to talk about bumping up your pay again, alright?”

She veiled her excitement expertly but I still heard hints of it. “Okay, but I’m still not surrendering my jelly roll recipe!”

“Aww, it’ll have to be a small raise then.”

We both chuckled as she exited to deal with her own life. I finished banging out some chicken scratch on my shopping list and set the quill down. Then I cranked the chandelier/warp sigil back up to the ceiling and locked it in place. I sighed, popped my back, and took a confident stride… right onto a broken shard of glass… barefoot… and—evidently—stoneskin had worn off.

“AAAAAAAA–”

……

I limped through my front door, still slightly red in the face from pain. The damn cut on my foot was contaminated with an unfit-for-consumption potion, and that meant only one thing: Healing magic did piss all to fix it. I shut the door behind me and nearly collapsed, but I mustered the energy to throw the Cazador leg in the icebox and wandered over to my bed.

I laid down and Varia—my pet magma ferret and part-time foot warmer—hopped right up to me, curling up in my lap.

“Aww, I missed you too,” I said as I scratched her chin.

A minute later, I reached over to my nightstand and got a small handbook, along with my calling stones. I flipped through to page 35 and made the relevant gestures to initiate the call.

“... Hello?... Yes, hi. Right, my member number is 521893632034. … Yes, tertiary/honorary. Can you transfer me to Issues and Complaints? Thank you.”

I calmly listened to the soothing orchestral piece as the League of Conspicuous Evil call lady transferred me to the relevant department. Every time they put me on hold was a new composition, and always in impeccable quality. Unfortunately, the music ended and I had to resume human interaction.

“Hello, yes, Dennis T Lawson speaking. I want to register a formal complaint against another member. … Yes, thank you. … I didn’t catch his name, but he was a dark wizard about five feet four inches tall, goatee, will likely have just used L.C.E. medical services for burns on his hands, and has activated an emergency recall teleport in the last hour. Do you need any more details to find our man? … Wonderful, onto the complaint. Do you have your pen?

“Earlier today, he successfully utilized a spell that searched the mind of another person—who was not selected deliberately—and manifested his greatest fear. The resulting monster was powerful individually and in great number. This is a flagrant violation of subsection 11, paragraph 2 of the League of Conspicuous Evil accords on the creation of new monsters, as they were not planned for ahead of time, nor registered for publication in the monster manuals, or even controllable in any way.”

There was a long pause as the lady on the other end wrote that down.

“Good, good. … Oh, right, I have to give my opinion on that… Umm, I definitely recommend moderate to severe disciplinary action, but I would especially focus on the confiscation of all notes and materials on the spell, and restricting his access to relevant components used in it. … Thanks. One more thing. I want to place a general mark for extinction on this monster species that was created. … No, I don’t think any survived, but it’s best to be sure. … I can’t do that over the stones? … Aww, bloody policy changes. Alright, what’s the new way? … Okay, I can do that. I’ll get a sketch done and zipped in later today. … Thanks for your help. Have a bloody-good day.”

I shut the call and rolled over, taking care not to fling or squish Varia. After all that, I think I earned a good long nap.

……

“Hey, Dennis! What’ll you have today?” bellowed Chef Ucho from his kitchen window.

I waltzed over, hiding my limp. “Heyyy, I’ll have a hot dog with Beola cheese, catsup, and lots of mustard. For the side, fry this up, please.”

I handed him the Cazador leg and he looked at it funny. “I don’t know what this is. Are you sure it’s okay to eat?”

“Mostly. I’d still give it its own pan and wash what you prep it with. But I want to eat it.”

He did that particular ‘it’s on you, not me’ tilt of the head. “Your call, your toilet!”