34. Eaten

The Miners couldn’t reach me through the power of the water, so I stretched my hand above the surface to collect them. I swiftly absorbed everyone but the lead Miner, who I invited back to my Throne Room.

‘What do you think?’ I asked him as I gestured towards the new template.

He walked around it before replying and got real up close and personal. While he was doing that, I kept part of my attention on the magic conversion and pushed all the new power towards Red and Penny.

‘It”s better, but it needs more force runes,’ he finally said. ‘Also, I need more speed.’ He tapped the wings on the rocket. ‘Take these off. I don’t need them, and they are slowing me down.’

‘Really?’ I asked, surprised. ‘I thought the wings looked cool.’

‘They turn the rocket into more of a plane,’ he explained, ‘and mentally, that is slowing us down. Rockets normally have smaller fins, but we can just direct where we are going on our own.’

‘Okay,’ I replied and removed the wings. Once again, I was amazed at how much initiative my soul creations took when they had the chance.

‘Make it slimmer and slightly longer,’ the lead Miner continued. ‘We’re going for speed rather than lifting power.’

I made the requested changes. Then the Miner started in on the force runes. He had me put them everywhere. The morphing weapon now had dozens. His clothes had dozens more. Basically, any part of him that moved had the force rune.

I quickly checked with the rest of my projects. Red was up to around five thousand hexagons. That was three thousand more than usual, but still five thousand less than I wanted. I was determined that the next time I got hit by a magical treasure the outcome was going to be very different.

My personal magic matrix was fully topped up, but Penny was only half full. My attention was split in multiple directions, and it felt like I was thinking at super-speed like my Crystal.

I was feeling hopeful about my progress until Annabeth messaged me.

‘I have to get out of here.’ She sounded urgent. ‘The water wasn’t too bad at first, but now it’s burning. My magic matrix is full, but it keeps trying to give me more. If I don’t get out of this pond, I’m going to explode!’

She sent what she was feeling with her words, and that let me know just how imperative it was. To her, it felt like the water was boiling hot and her skin was about to fall off. I didn’t know how she’d held on for so long, but we had to move—now!

I only had a second, but I came up with a quick plan. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it was something. I sent a few images to Annabeth, and we put it into action.

I turned to the side, and Annabeth clamped onto my back in the usual backpack position. We didn’t bother with the rope for now, as I wasn’t sure it could even operate in such a magically saturated environment and I didn’t want to take the time to find out.

I let my Crystal return my super suit to its normal underwater configuration as I rolled onto my hands and knees. Red shifted to include Annabeth in his protection, and I wrapped her in my aura as well.

Then we surged out of the water, and Annabeth let loose with an ear-splitting sonic blast. It was a sonic boom to end all sonic booms, and it literally lifted the dome of beetles a few inches off the ground.

I didn’t know it was going to be that loud, so I hadn’t protected myself and I paid the price. I felt my eardrums pop, and blood started pouring out of my ears. In addition, my skull partially resonated with her frequency, and the world shifted.

I wanted to scream, throw up, and fall over all at the same time.

If it was bad for me, I knew it had to be even worse for the beetles. That’s who Annabeth was targeting, and they felt the brunt of her desperation and anger.

The first two interlocking layers of the dome closest to us exploded, and guts and chitin flew everywhere. I think the next couple layers beyond that also died, but the beetles had piled on so much that the dome over the pond stayed together.

‘Initiating sonic protection,’ my Crystal said. My super suit grew thick and puffy around my ears and the main part of my skull. I felt like I was wearing a styrofoam helmet, but at least it muted Annabeth’s powers a bit.

‘Stop!’ I messaged her. ‘Save your magic for another round. I need to be able to move to get us out of here.’

‘Sorry,’ she replied and cut the sound. I got the impression she’d put everything she had into the blast and it was going to take her a moment to recover anyways. It was going to take me a moment to recover too as I almost fell back into the water.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ I messaged as encouragingly as possible. ‘You saved us from getting swarmed, and I’ll need you to do that again as soon as I get us out of here.’

I gritted my teeth and forced the world to settle down as I concentrated on the nearest wall of the dome. I couldn’t hear, and I think my natural eyes were bleeding, but my magic sight still worked just fine.

I took a shaky step forward and called out to Spike.

‘Get the cutting crew ready! You’re up!’

I Saber-Sawed a horizontal slash at head height, then dug blades from both my hands into the beetles and sawed down to the ground. Basically, I was cutting out a doorway.

I kicked the doorway, but it just knocked off the dead bugs. The beetles were so thick I had to cut out the door frame again. This time my blades punched through to the outside.

‘Get ready,’ I messaged Annabeth as I kicked the door off and ran through.

The beetles on the outside of the dome hadn’t been affected to a severe degree, so they immediately started to swarm us.

‘Now!’ I sent, and Annabeth cut loose again.

Even with my new protection, her sonic blast took me to my knees. My bones shook, and I felt like throwing up again. I think she must have changed her frequency this time because it felt like my teeth were being probed by a drill.

My natural sight was shot as I cried bloody tears, but fortunately, I still had my magic sight to fall back on. First, I checked out the stream we’d arrived in. If we could get out of the room and go upriver for a while, then maybe I’d have a peaceful moment to finish putting together my new Miner. If his new circular saw was successful, then I could send a team ahead to clear out the room.

Unfortunately, that exit was blocked by a thick plug of interlocking beetles, with lots more arriving all the time. I could have probably cut through the plug, but then I’d have been fighting the enemy underwater. That sounded even worse than my current situation.

I only had a split second to make a decision, so I decided to give it a pass. For better or worse, we were fighting in the cavern.

‘No other obvious large exits,’ my Crystal reported. ‘However there is a somewhat clear spot on the far side.’

It highlighted the area on my HUD, as well as the best path to reach it. At that moment, I saw a couple beetles land on Annabeth and then slide off.

What the hell?

The damn beetles were now coming out of cracks in the ceiling!

Holy crap! It was raining red-eyes!

It was almost too much to process as I staggered to my feet and stumbled towards the far side of the cavern. I think Annabeth screamed a few times—regular screams, not sonic ones—as falling beetles tried to land in her hair.

Fortunately, Red was up to the task, and the red-eyes slid off our shield like it was coated in Crisco. Giving Red the force rune way back at the Gathering was looking like a stroke of genius.

My Crystal had laid out the easiest path for me to navigate, and all I had to do was follow the green arrows. I was extremely glad it was so simple, as Annabeth’s sonic attack had scrambled my brain. It wasn’t until I was almost halfway there that my thoughts cleared up enough for me to begin reading the room.

Annabeth’s blast hadn’t only messed me up—it had messed up every beetle in the cave. It had blown up the beetles nearest us, but most importantly, it had stunned all the others. A few legs were waving in the air, and here and there a few beetles were actually on their feet, but it was a far cry from the overwhelming swarm we’d been dealing with.

Of course, at some point, all these red-eyes would get their shells together and come after us again. I could only hope it was after I’d made a bunch of Miners to take them out.

Originally, I hadn’t planned on Annabeth’s blast being so successful. My plan had been to run to another part of the cave and work on my soul creation while the horde of slow beetles lumbered after us. Annabeth would defend as best as she could, and once the beetles became too much for her to handle, we’d run around the edge of the cavern and make for the pond again. We’d stay there until the water became too much for Annabeth, and then we’d sprint towards the far side of the cavern again. Rinse and repeat.

It wasn’t a great plan, and there was a high possibility of us getting trapped and overwhelmed, but it would hopefully give me enough time to create my own army of Miners to take them out. That was the only real survival option that seemed possible.

With the overwhelming success of Annabeth’s sonic blast, though, our survival chances had certainly gone up. I wasn’t sure how much magic it had cost her, but if she could trigger it over and over, we’d take out a lot of the red-eyed buggers.

Of course, I might not survive that myself. Two blasts had already left me badly shaken. A third blast might knock me out.

I had a mental image of me laying on the ground, blood everywhere, with ruptured eyeballs and shattered teeth.

Ugh.

No thank you.

I’d take that over being eaten alive, though.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

‘Suggested location is in the anomaly zone,’ my Crystal warned. I didn’t care as I got myself together and picked up the pace. The massive flood of fresh red-eyes had subsided, but new ones were still arriving all the time. They were crawling over their stunned comrades and making their way slowly towards us.

Regardless of what this anomaly was, it was still the clearest spot in the room. If something happened, we’d find a way to deal with it.

As I followed the path that my Crystal had laid out, it seemed like a lot of beetles were trying to land on us, like way more than should be possible by dropping from cracks in the ceiling. My thoughts were still fuzzy, but I paid more attention to the falling beetles and discovered something interesting—the damn things could glide!

They couldn’t go far. It was more like a controlled fall than actual flight, but they could flatten their shells and spread them out. They were light, and their aerial surface was wide enough for them to glide several feet.

I couldn’t help but admire just how resourceful these bugs were. I hated the fact they wanted to eat me, and I wanted to destroy every single one of them. But I could still admire them.

‘Let me try a low-grade blast,’ Annabeth messaged. ‘Maybe I can slow the beetles down a bit without bothering you so much.’

‘That would be wonderful,’ I replied. ‘Your full power is a bit too much for me to handle.’

Then I had an idea.

‘Also try projecting the sound in one direction, like Black Canary,’ I messaged, referencing a superhero from the DC comics. ‘You don’t need to scream like she does. Maybe you can blast it out of your hands, like some sort of force ray.’

I sent images showing how cool that would be, but Annabeth didn’t seem that enthused.

‘I’ll try,’ she replied. ‘I’m just not that good at pushing magic out of my skin the way you are. I like the idea of sound bolts, but it seems weird to be making sounds out of my hands. I had enough problems creating a sonic blast out of my shillelagh.’

‘Okay,’ I messaged. ‘We’re here, so try the low level all-around blast first. Maybe that will be enough.’

I stepped into the middle of the ‘safe’ space and immediately dove into my Throne Room. Annabeth was our only defender, and she was just going to have to figure it out.

Annabeth started her sonic blast, and it was certainly different. It was a lot softer than before, and it seemed like she was projecting it away from me. I still felt vibrations, but they weren’t painful, and they shouldn’t stop me from doing what I needed to do.

I was getting ready to start on the Miner’s template again when the anomaly vanished and a huge circular tube of meaty flesh slammed down from the ceiling. It was as wide as a living room, and I barely had time to realize we were trapped before I realized something else.

The tube had teeth.

Now the anomaly was gone, I could see part of what we were dealing with.

It was a worm.

A massive worm.

And despite the fact that I couldn”t see any eyes, the red glow of its aura gave it away. This creature was not my friend.

The walls of flesh contracted, dragging powerful, molar-like teeth along the ground. It picked up moss, rocks, and beetles unlucky enough to be close to us.

‘It”s going to eat us!’ Annabeth screamed in a message as I came to the same conclusion.

We had only seconds to decide what to do, so I focused everything on my magic sight, looking for a way out. The walls of its mouth were thick and tough, like elephant skin. I could possibly cut my way through, but it would take a while. Certainly longer than we had.

I thought about grounding us in the earth, but there were sharper teeth on the inside. The worm had a tremendous amount of mass and muscle. If we resisted, it would literally tear us apart.

So then we wouldn”t resist. The mouth closed in around us, adding a twisting motion like a washing machine. But that didn”t matter as I crouched down, then leaped up for all I was worth.

Before Annabeth had shown me what was possible in Otugh”s warehouse, I”d have only expected to rise a few feet. Now, even with Annabeth on my back, I soared past all the teeth and deep into the throat of the monster. At the apex of my jump, the throat was narrow enough for me to brace my feet on one side and my hands on the other to keep from falling back down.

I paused for a moment while I tried to figure out what to do next. We had avoided being chewed up, but we were still being eaten.

‘This is going to be some ride,’ Annabeth messaged tensely. The magic rope uncurled from her waist and quickly tied us together.

‘Entering acid environment,’ my Crystal stated. ‘Assuming full body coverage. Assuming frog mode for breathable air.’

Below me the worm mouth scraped up everything it had encompassed from the floor below and spiraled shut. Then the worm retracted back into the ceiling, and my whole orientation shifted. The throat was now horizontal. Instead of the mouth being below me, it was behind me, and I was almost standing upright.

I saw the mouth start to spiral again, the teeth on the sides of its tubular walls shredding moss, flowers, beetles, and anything else it had collected. I was very glad we had skipped that part of our intestinal adventure.

I couldn”t stay where I was, though, as the throat muscles contracted around me. I realized it was swallowing, so I dropped flat and launched us deeper inside the red-eye.

This monster was massive, and the pressure it brought to bear was way more than I could resist. Since I wasn”t going anywhere near its teeth and I couldn”t stay where I was, my only remaining option was to go down deeper into the belly of the beast.

Fortunately, it”s throat was coated with a layer of mucus, so I slid along like I was on a backyard Slip N Slide. Other than being incredibly disgusting, the brief ride was kind of fun. It was certainly better than the ending, when we dropped into its stomach. That was really gross and not fun at all.

It felt like we were enacting the trash compactor scene from Star Wars as we slipped out of the throat and dunked completely under the surface of its stomach contents. I felt chunky things bump me as I screamed and surged to my feet.

Yuck!

Yuck, yuck, yuck!

This was beyond disgusting, and I couldn”t help but shiver with the heebie-jeebies. I quickly splashed to the side and tried to get out of the muck as much as possible.

The stomach was about the size of a three-car garage, so I was partially successful. There wasn’t any sort of safe spot, but at least Red and the Hex Network were making it work. Red forced the stomach acid away from me and off of my suit. I couldn’t afford to get a hole in the suit, as it held my air supply.

‘How are you holding up?’ I asked Red anxiously.

‘We’re great!’ Red replied with his usual enthusiasm. ‘Don’t worry about us. We have the Force!’

‘That’s wonderful,’ I replied. ‘Let me know if the stomach acid starts getting to you.’

‘Right now, it ain’t bad,’ he said. ‘This stuff is more like dishwashing liquid as opposed to battery acid. We got this.’

The stomach shuddered as fresh chunks from its latest bite squeezed out of its throat and plopped into the gastric fluids.

I shivered and just about lost it again.

‘Just think of it like you”re in a car wash!’ Red continued. ‘That’s right. You’re in the car wash, gurl!’ All the Hexes started singing the old Car Wash song from the 1970’s.

I knew he was trying to cheer me up, but this situation was everything I hated. I hated rotten magic or stomach acid or anything that tried to melt my skin off. I hated dark, enclosed spaces. I hated giant enemies I couldn’t punch through, and I hated being in an environment that limited my air.

Basically, I hated everything about this, and I had to take a few deep breaths to calm down.

‘You have about three minutes of air left,’ my Crystal spoke up. I think it was trying to be helpful, but it just added to the intensity of the moment. ‘Would you like the suit to try and extract oxygen from the air around you?’

‘Sure. Give it a shot,’ I replied shortly.

‘I think we’re in some sort of worm,’ Annabeth messaged. Obviously she had come to the same realization I had.

‘It’s massive and extremely long,’ she continued, including images of what she could sense with her magic sight and echolocation. Her range was much larger than mine, and I finally got a feeling for just how big this thing was. It was at least the length of three football fields, maybe more.

‘I don’t know this for sure, but based on what it has in its stomachs, I think this worm normally eats rocks. Actually, I think it, or something like it, might be responsible for many of the tunnels we’ve been traveling through.’

‘That’s nice,’ I replied. ‘And I like its smooth tunnels. But we aren’t rocks!’

I sounded bitchy and scared, but I couldn’t help it. I hated this.

‘I’m pretty sure it”s a red-eye,’ Annabeth said, ignoring my mood, ‘Right before it came out of the ceiling I think I felt something, like someone was watching us and it expected the worm to strike.’

‘I didn’t feel that, but I felt something watching us earlier,’ I messaged back. ‘I think there is still another red-eye, or enemy mage, back in the cavern.’

‘Me too,’ Annabeth agreed. ‘So, how do you want to handle this worm? My suit is telling me I have about five minutes of air.’

Annabeth was smart. She knew the best way to help me keep it together was to get me into problem-solving mode. I couldn’t afford to break down right now, so I welcomed the challenge.

‘You now have five minutes of air available,’ my Crystal spoke up. ‘You are close to the mouth, so there is a tiny amount of regular air for the suit to work with.’

I thanked my Crystal and updated Annabeth. I also sent images of what I’d been working on with the new Miner.

‘How many stomachs do you think there are?’ I asked her.

‘From what I can see, there are four.’ She sent images to go along with her answer. ‘I don’t know much about rock worms, but I was able to locate something that must be its heart. It resides between stomachs three and four.’

‘Do you see a brain?’ I asked, scanning what I could see of the worm with my own magic sight.

‘No,’ she replied after a few moments. ‘It seems like this whole thing is mainly fat, muscle, and stomachs.’

‘That’s what I’m seeing too,’ I agreed. ‘There has to be some sort of brain somewhere, but it isn’t at the front.’ I sent my own images back.

I took a brief moment to gather my thoughts.

‘I think we have two possible courses of action,’ I messaged. ‘The first is to cut through this stomach, the muscles, the skin, and the rocky exterior. We’d need to do that all around the entire worm and basically cut its head off. Or, we work our way deeper into the worm, through its stomachs, and take out its heart.’

‘If we can cut our way to the outside, wouldn’t that be good enough?’ Annabeth asked. ‘Cutting its entire head off will take a lot of time and effort. I’m not sure I have enough air for that.’

‘I considered that, but it won’t work,’ I messaged back. ‘The worm has a huge amount of mass, and if it shifted, it would squish us like bugs against the tunnel walls. I also considered trying to get out the same way we came in, through its mouth. But it has a lot of teeth and again, a lot of mass. We could do some damage, I’m sure, but not enough to get out safely.’

‘I’m not thrilled with going through more stomachs,’ Annabeth said. ‘From what I remember from school long ago, the first stomach is usually for softening food and giving creatures that have been swallowed whole a place to die. The second stomach is where the harsh acid really starts, as it is now trying to break down whatever the worm digested. The next section is usually where it absorbs all the nutrients, and I have no idea how dangerous that stomach would be.’

She paused thoughtfully.

‘Actually, I have no idea what the fourth stomach would do. Maybe start turning whatever is left over into dung? Regardless, that doesn’t sound much safer.’

‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘Plus, my suit is letting me know it can convert some of the air here into something we can use. If we go deeper, we are going to be on a timer. We’d need to get through those stomachs as fast as possible.’

I took another deep breath to steady myself.

‘I guess let’s see how hard it is to cut our way through to the outside first. Hopefully, it won’t be too difficult.’

Annabeth sent back a quick message of agreement and summoned her short sword. Even on my back, she could still give a good swing. She hit the stomach wall and easily parted the softer, moist tissue. Once she got beyond that, though, her blade stopped. She hacked at it some more, but the stomach wall was strong. I guess that made sense, as this worm was used to eating rocks. It couldn’t have a delicate lining if it chewed through a ton of stone.

While she was doing that, I shifted my stance slightly and put Spike and the Knuckle Crew to work. Unfortunately, they didn’t fare much better. Spike penetrated deeper than her short sword, but I still couldn’t get through the stomach lining. I tried Spiking, then switching to the Saber-Saw, but that didn’t work much better.

‘Damn,’ Annabeth said, frustrated. ‘Looks like we can’t get out this way. Can you humor me and see if we can cut through its throat? I know you don’t think we can get out that way, but I’d like to at least try.’

‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘If we have enough air. How are you doing?’

‘I’m topped back up again,’ she replied. ‘I have a full five minutes.’

I trudged the short distance to the entrance, and we tried cutting our way out. Once again, we could cut it to a degree, but we couldn’t get through.

All the stuff the monster had picked up with its last bite had finished getting chewed and swallowed. The throat was now a small tunnel about a foot around. There was no way I could carry Annabeth and fit through. Annabeth might be able to squeeze through on her own, but then she wouldn’t have Red’s protection and she’d be at the mercy of acid and teeth.

‘There’s no way out the front or the side,’ I said, ‘which only leaves taking out the heart.’

‘Or working our way through the entire worm,’ Annabeth noted.

‘True,’ I agreed. ‘But that is a shitty option.’

Then I got a big grin as I thought of a really good pun.

‘Of course, with magic, anus-thing is possible!’

‘That’s terrible,’ Annabeth groaned. ‘But at least you’re getting your sense of humor back. You seemed pretty tense there for a moment.’

‘I know. And I’m sorry about that,’ I sighed. ‘I’m sure this is feeling pretty horrible for you too.’

‘It was initially,’ Annabeth agreed. ‘But now I’m just happy we aren’t fighting beetles. They were very overwhelming, and I was feeling like I was going to be eaten one tiny bit at a time. This stomach isn’t an ideal place, but at least nobody is attacking us and it’s quiet.’

I was surprised by her answer, but she was right. If I let go of my fear of acid and enclosed spaces, this first stomach wasn’t that bad.

‘I really don’t want to trudge through the other stomachs,’ Annabeth messaged. ‘And I’m not just saying that because it would be nasty. I’m saying that because I think it’s a bad idea.

‘I know Red was making light of how bad this stomach acid is, but when we move into the other stomachs, I think it will be much worse. I think their function will be to actually break down the rocks this worm eats, which means their stomach acid is going to be really strong.

‘In addition, the deeper we go, the less access we will have to breathable air. I know we have to use our super suits right now, but at least we can refresh our air supply. This first stomach is shifting a bit. It isn’t much, but it is enough to pull in some air from the outside.’

She paused, and I gave her leg a squeeze to let her know I was listening. Well, I wasn’t listening with my ears. They were still blown out. But I was listening to her message and the thoughts behind it.

‘My final point is that we can’t cut through the worm here. So what happens when we swim through corrosive acid to get close to the heart, but the lining of the stomach is still too tough to cut through?’

‘You make some good points,’ I messaged back. ‘So do you have a solution?’

‘I don’t know if I have the perfect idea to get out of here,’ Annabeth admitted, ‘but I do think we are in the right place to pause and get your new Miner together. It should be able to navigate the stomachs much easier than we could. Once it gets close to the heart, it could phase through the worm itself and snip any arteries or blood vessels attached to it. It might take a few minutes, but once it is dead, we Stamp it and the worm disappears. Voila! We’re free!’

‘Just like that!’ I snapped my fingers in the air like I was doing a magic trick—or Thanos wiping out half of civilization.

‘Just like that!’ Annabeth agreed, laughing.

‘I like the idea,’ I messaged. ‘The only problem is phasing through a living creature is a lot harder than phasing through rock. This red-eye isn”t a mage, but it is still alive and it still has an aura. But we won”t know if this will work until we try. And it would be awesome if it worked!’

Annabeth gave me a full-body backpack hug. She really didn”t want to play Jonah and traipse through the belly of a beast. For that matter, I didn”t want to either.

‘Okay then, we have a plan. You use your echolocation on this rock monster and gather as much information about the heart area as you can. Also, see if you can find its brain. Meanwhile, I”ll work on finishing up the new Miner. Sound good?’

Annabeth agreed, and we both got to work.

She put her hand on the worm”s throat and began sending out pulses of sound. Meanwhile, I dove back into my Throne Room. I was ready to start working on the template for the Miner again when I noticed Bermuda in the cat bed. He was all curled up, paws tucked under and eyes closed in contentment.

‘Hey!’ I called. ‘What are you doing?’

He ignored me, so I ran over and flopped down beside him.

‘You’re going to sleep through all this?’ I inquired, running my fingers through his fur. He stretched, gave a big yawn, then curled up again.

‘You got a lazy butt.’ I gave his booty a firm pat. ‘Lazy butt. Lazy butt. Lazy, lazy butt.’ I tapped out a rhythm on his cute behind.

He cracked one eye open and gave me a sleepy look.

‘You could help us, you know,’ I scolded him.

He opened his other eye and gave me a disgusted look, like “I don’t do gross.”

‘Yeah, well some of us have to,’ I grumbled. ‘We’re fighting for our lives, after all. It would be nice if you helped.’

He sent an image of a kitten on a fluffy rug chasing a bug. Somehow it conveyed the idea that “a kitten’s gotta play in order to learn.”

‘Hey!’ I poked his belly. ‘I’m not a kitten. And these are real monsters. I’m in the belly of a giant beast!’

Bermuda yawned and sent an image of a kitten playing with bubbles.

‘We’ve been eaten!’ I protested. ”Annabeth’s shield charm doesn’t work with these beetles, and she almost melted in magic water!’

He sent an image of a kitten eating a blade of grass.

‘You’re a little stinker,’ I informed him. Then I kissed his head. He was so damn cute.

It felt so nice to spend a brief moment with my furry baby, so I kissed and loved on him some more. Even in the middle of this horrible situation, Bermuda made me feel better.

I didn’t want to, but I got to my feet and went back to the template. Behind me, Bermuda gave a small sigh, put a paw over his eyes, and went back to sleep. The life of a house cat is a wonderful thing.

I took a moment to look over the template and load all the changes we’d made back into my brain again. At two hundred and thirty thousand triangles, it almost looked better than real life.

‘Do you have any other suggestions?’ I asked my lead Miner.

He scratched his head.

‘I could use a pint while I think about it,’ he suggested with a twinkle in his eye.

I’d given the Miners beer before, and that had ended up in a rock throwing contest with the Grannies and the Tangle. So my first instinct was a hard ‘No.’

But I was going to be asking him to do a nasty job, so I changed my mind. I summoned a massive tankard of dark ale and handed it to him.

‘See if that helps your creative process,’ I said as he took a massive sip.

‘It certainly can’t hurt,’ he said with a big grin. Together we circled the template, looking for changes to make it better.

‘I appreciate that you wanted to keep with a traditional miner’s outfit, but how about modifying it so I have a bit of armor?’ he said finally. ‘It seems like our purpose has changed, and now we’re helping you in battle as well. A bit of armor would certainly be appropriate for those situations.’

‘I agree,’ I replied, thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you could be a steampunk miner? You already have goggles and a morphing weapon.’

My lead Miner nodded enthusiastically.

‘I think that’s a great idea. The gears would add extra detail and serve as protection. Just make sure it isn’t too heavy. I still have to fly, after all.’

‘Oh, I have ideas for that.’ I had a quick happy dance. Everything was coming together!

‘Did you know that if you compress wood, it becomes stronger than steel? It is also considerably lighter.’

The lead Miner shook his head.

‘Best of all, it is a living substance, which means I can add the healing rune to it as well. And do you know what that means?’

The lead Miner shook his head again, but he looked excited.

‘Self-repairing armor!’

Now he did a happy dance too. I refilled his tankard and summoned one for myself.

‘I’m going to call it…’ I paused dramatically. ‘Druidium!’

I said it with a grand flourish and almost spilled my beer. It was worth it, though. I thought the name was perfect. It sounded natural, earthy, and yet metallic all at the same time.

Now we had our new concept and new material, we got to work. I kept the basic concept of overalls and miner”s hat, but layered everything and turned it into armor. Work gloves still looked like gloves, but now they were gauntlets. The same idea with his boots.

Once I got the function down, I started working with color. Wood comes in all hues— white, red, brown, and black. There are even versions of silver and shades of yellow that look like gold. When I was done, the Miner was covered in living wood, and yet it looked like custom metallic armor. Finally, I added in gears and pistons to give it that steampunk look.

I also extended the concept of druidium to his weapon. Now, it wouldn”t just morph. It would actually grow into new shapes, and repair and self-sharpening was built into it.

Without all the extra triangles, making this level of detail would have been impossible. With his old outfit, that many triangles seemed wasted. With his new steampunk druidium, it seemed just right.

”Stand beside the template, and let”s have a look,” I told the lead Miner.

He was still in cloth overalls at about fourteen thousand triangles, so it was a revelation seeing both of them together. He was from my third template, and the design was actually really good. It was just that version four was so much more.

”Keep template three,” I told Penny. ”And save this version as four. I”d like to come back later and make it look even better. For now, though, it”s plenty good enough.”

Penny nodded, and I turned back to my lead Miner. ”Are you ready to receive your upgrade?”

”I”m itching to try out my new tool,” he said eagerly. ”Let”s do this.”

That sounded kind of dirty, but I refused to get distracted. Instead, I upgraded his shell and started filling him with my magic.

I filled him with the amount of power I usually gave my Miners, but it was nowhere near enough. He had already been filled with the usual amount of power before I started, so he was now twice the normal amount. That”s when I got the clue that this new template was going to hold a lot more magic than I expected.

I added more magic.

Then even more.

Then still more.

Goodness gracious! What had I created?

The Surfer Dudes had the most capacity of all my soul creations. I’d made them using a different process—cubes instead of triangles. They had over 386,000 cubes, so it made sense that they could handle so much magic.

In fact, they held so much power I couldn’t just make them and dismiss them on an as-needed basis. Instead, I kept a fixed number of them—ten—and it had taken me weeks of gathering magic to get them up to full capacity.

With the latest update, my Miner was starting to feel the same way. I’d thought that I’d have a whole army of powerful Miners cutting my chitin enemies apart. Now, it looked like I’d be lucky to have one.

This wasn’t a bad thing, though. The Miner was going to have to be exceptionally powerful and hold together very well in order to combat the worm’s formidable aura. It was much better to have one really good soul creation that could stay together rather than a bunch of soul creations that were going to fall apart.

I poured about half of my own capacity into the lead Miner, but that still wasn’t enough. He wanted more. The Miner might have been able to get the job done with what he had, but this worm was no joke. I’d rather he have more magic than he needed than not enough.

Penny jumped in to help and soon finished the job. She had more capacity than I did, so it didn’t drain her too badly.

I did notice that her magic color saturation wasn’t great. My emerald green and sapphire blue magic didn’t have its usual jewel tone luster. That was probably because I’d been absorbing the earth magic from the pond and converting it to my colors as fast as possible. It took time and attention to truly convert magic, and I’d had neither.

I had the time now, though, so I gathered Penny in my arms and gave her a big, warm hug. I let my soul flow through her stored power, restoring its vibrant hues. When I was done, she practically sparkled.

‘Thank you, my Source,’ she said in a much more serious voice than normal. Then she laughed and gave a happy twirl. ‘This is so much better!’

‘Any time,’ I replied with a smile. I loved seeing her happy.

I then did the same thing for the Miner. After all, it made little sense to give him that much of my power and not make sure it was the very best. To my surprise, my gruff working Miner hugged me back. He rested his bearded chin on my shoulder and affectionately leaned into me. I had to admit, it was nice.

When I was done, he gave me a nice kiss on the cheek. His whiskers tickled, and I couldn’t help but laugh. For some reason, it felt like he was from a big Italian family that was always showing their affection for each other.

‘Are you ready?’ I asked him.

‘Let me finish my beer,’ he replied and started chugging it down. That seemed like a good idea, so I chugged mine down too. We finished with a satisfied ‘Ahhhh.’ I unsummoned the tankards, and we were ready to go.

‘My attention will be with you every step of the way,’ I told him. ‘The goal is to cut through the arteries and veins attached to the worm’s heart. If it doesn’t have any blood, then it should die, and we can get out of here.’

‘Understood,’ my lead Miner replied seriously. He was all business now the job was about to begin. ‘Let”s do this.’

I nodded, and together we left the Throne Room.