4. Road Trip

I had really strange dreams that night. It started out with me trying to roll a giant crystal egg up a mountain, only to have a giant buzzard land on me and peck out all the chocolate kisses I had inside. I’d lose control of the egg, and we”d roll down the mountain together. Annabeth was at the bottom, and she’d give me encouragement, fill me back up with chocolate kisses, and send me up the mountain again.

The weird thing was I realized this was like a couple of Greek myths while I was still in the dream. I couldn’t change it, though, and I just kept trying over and over to get to the top of the mountain.

I had another dream where I was on stage trying to do a concert, but my clothes kept falling off. Underneath, my skin was the colors of my magic, but it didn’t matter. I was still naked. The audience laughed, and it wasn’t the nice kind of laughter. They pointed at me and booed and threw beer bottles at the stage. The crazy thing was I wasn’t sure if they were booing because I had no clothes or because I was green and blue.

It wasn’t a restful night, so I was very happy when the knocking woke me up. I dragged myself out of bed and was already on my feet before the events of last night hit me.

What time was it? Had I overslept?

The knocking started again, and this time, I realized it didn’t sound familiar. Annabeth knocked with a happy tapping sound. Sandy’s knock sounded polite, but commanding. John sounded like boulders hitting my door. This was none of those.

It did sound insistent, though.

My clothes were rumpled and I probably looked a mess, but I didn’t care. Whoever this was would just have to deal with it. Bermuda came with me, but didn’t seem concerned. That reassured me that I probably wasn’t in any danger.

“Balaji!” I exclaimed happily when I opened the door. “It is so good to see you! How on Earth did you get here?”

He came inside, and I gave him a big hug.

Balaji was my good friend and bad-ass mage from the Gathering. He was from House Hyderabad, and I’d always thought he was the bodyguard for Aamya, their Head of Household. What was he doing so far from home? Was everything okay?

My face must have shown my concern, because he just chuckled and waved like nothing was wrong.

“Don’t worry. Everything is fine. I’m just here to wake you up and get you ready for your trip today.”

“That’s awesome!” I replied. “But how are you here?”

“Your House has a transfer room now,” he explained. “Since you’ve defeated the rotten mages, your House has lifted all restrictions, so it was easy for me to pop over when we got the message from Sandy.”

Wow. My morning was moving way too fast. I felt like I’d missed part of the story.

“Don’t transfers cost a lot of magic?” I asked.

“Not for me,” he shrugged, unconcerned. “I generate a lot more magic than just one transfer’s worth. Don’t worry about the cost. House Hyderabad took care of the whole team.”

“You brought a whole team?” I asked again. I was really starting to feel like that one kid in class who is always confused and never knows what’s going on.

“Yes,” he replied. “We will be guarding the House for you while you all are gone. You’ll need your pit crew at the tournament. You and Annabeth need to focus on winning, which means you’ll need Sandy, John, and Tyler to take care of both of you. It takes more organization and support than you’d think to put this together at the last minute.”

He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Plus, Sandy said there wasn’t any way in the world she was getting left behind. She’s a lot like Aamya in that she’s a force of nature. What she wants, she gets.”

“So where is the rest of your team?” I asked.

“They are getting settled into the other apartments,” he replied. “I think everyone is trying to get into John’s place so they can have access to his ale.”

He laughed, and then hit me with a questioning look.

“I was hoping I could stay here?”

“Of course!” I replied happily. “Mi casa, tu casa. Let me show you around.”

Balaji loved the theater, of course, as well as all the western style food in the kitchen. I didn’t think he ate a lot of cereal, and he was looking forward to sampling my massive selection. He also loved wine, so he was very happy to see I was well stocked. I told him to just take what he wanted, as everything replaced itself automatically.

He seemed to like the game area more than the theater, and I had the impression his whole team might end up spending their time at my place instead of John’s. Surprisingly, though, the place he was most excited about was the bathroom.

“Don’t you have your own bathroom?” I asked, puzzled.

“Not like this,” he replied. “Everyone uses freshness charms, so having a place like this just to shower in feels so decadent.”

“I need to get ready anyway,” I said, “so do you want to shower together?”

I gave him a playful look.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “That would be wonderful, and you could show me how everything works.”

He shucked out of his clothes almost as fast as Tyler could, and I was right behind him.

I wouldn’t do this with just anyone, but Balaji had already seen me naked and cleaned me up more than once. He’d taken care of me at the Gathering when I’d gotten poisoned and had fought the cobalt slug. I’d been projectile vomiting like I was trying out for the lead in The Exorcist. I’d ruined my clothes as well as his, but he’d still stayed with me all night to make sure I was going to be okay. In my view, if a friend stays with you while you’re blowing chunks, then they are a true friend indeed.

Balaji was fascinated by my walk-through shower, and I showed him how to set the temperature and turn on the different heads and types of spray. Afterwards, we hit the wall of dryers and got a nice blow.

My shower with Balaji was very PG compared to how it would have been with Tyler, and that made me miss my boyfriend even more. Hopefully, he would be back soon.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s about noon,” he replied. “We need to hurry. I’m supposed to have you packed and downstairs in about fifteen minutes. They let you sleep in, as they wanted to give you as much recovery time as possible, and Sandy said you did better when you were forced to pack quickly.”

“What?!?” I squawked, and kicked it into high gear.

My walk-in closet was huge, but I really didn’t have that many clothes. The House provided me with several shorts and shirts in various colors, so at least I had regular clothes to pack. I hadn’t been clothes shopping in forever, and my various adventures with the House had managed to destroy most of my previous ones. That made packing easy, though, as I dumped all the House clothes into my suitcase and added a few jeans, extra shoes, socks, and underwear. A quick trip through the bathroom gathered the essential toiletries, including a phone charger, and I was ready to go.

Bermuda wandered in to supervise, and suddenly, I realized I needed to do something with my cat. I picked him up, gave him a kiss, and we had a little chat.

“Bermuda, I’m headed out on a trip for a while. You probably won’t be allowed in the tournament, so you can stay here, or you can come with me. What would you like to do?”

He licked my nose like, “I love you daddy.”

“I love you too, Mu Mu, but love isn’t going to help us right now. I’m going to a place that isn’t part of the House. You won’t be able to just come and go whenever you want. You’ll have to stay in our room and behave.”

He glanced up at the ceiling like, “Has that always been there? Did you just get it painted?”

“Don’t change the subject,” I said sternly. “Are you coming or not?”

I got a feeling like, “Duh! Do bears shit in the woods?”

I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that exactly, but the idea was similar.

“Okay, then. I’ll need to get with Sandy and see if she has a cat carrier,” I said thoughtfully.

Bermuda tapped my face with his paw like, “It’s a good thing you’re pretty.” Then he jumped into my Throne Room.

Oh.

I hadn’t thought of that. That was an excellent solution.

My Throne Room was a mystical space, the seat of my power, and now it would function perfectly as a cat carrier. Bermuda had stayed there with me the entire time I’d been buried in stone, so it still had his giant cat bed and all his toys.

He wasn’t going to stay there for the entire tournament, though, so I packed a spare litter box, fresh litter, and cat food. I almost missed the cat treats, but remembered them at the last minute. I’m sure from Bermuda’s perspective I could forget everything else, but the treats were essential!

Balaji helped me carry my items down to the main lobby, and apparently, our transportation was already there. Everyone else was loaded, and I was the last one to arrive. The driver took my stuff, and now I was feeling nervous.

Where the heck was Tyler?

Balaji had brought nine people with him, which should be plenty for defending the House, but it made for crowded and chaotic goodbyes. I got lots of hugs and even some kisses.

Actually, I got a lot of kisses. I guess they’d heard the stories about the llama kisses, and I assume they thought that was how I liked it. So I got sweet kisses on each cheek and lots of friendly lip-on-lip action. One of the women told me I was cute, and I got way more than one hug and llama kiss from her. She smelled nice, so I didn’t mind.

I was starting to get really worried, but then Tyler showed up with a big smile and a small overnight bag. He could transform clothes instantly, so it was easy for him to travel light.

Tyler saw what was going on and took that as a light-hearted challenge. He said he was going to show them how it was really done as he took my head in his hands, looked deep into my eyes, and then kissed me with a passion that set me on fire.

I wrapped my arms around my man and held on for dear life as he made lip love of the luscious kind right there in front of everyone. I couldn’t help it—I moaned like the heroine of a trashy romance novel, and my love muscle tried to rip its way out of my shorts and say hello to its favorite incubus.

By the time Tyler finished, I was beet red and everyone was applauding his master class performance. John reached for Sandy with a look in his eyes that said he was sure they could do better, but she just laughed and danced out of his reach.

“Okay, everyone!” she called. “It”s time to go. Let’s get on the bus!”

Bus?

We had a bus?

I held Tyler’s hand and headed outside. I was desperately trying to focus on the upcoming trip, rather than my urgent need to have Tyler make passionate love to me right now on the floor. I took deep breaths as Tyler smirked.

We did indeed have a bus, which included a supernatural driver. He knew where we were headed, and it sounded like he did trips like this all the time. That was a good thing, as I didn’t trust any of our crew to handle anything this big.

The vehicle itself wasn’t one of those huge tour buses—it was only about half that size, but it was way fancier than a school bus. The seats were well padded, and there was plenty of room to stretch out. We had a big TV screen to watch movies on, and it even had a small refrigerator. Sandy had already loaded it up with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks, so we were set for the hours ahead.

We waved goodbye to everyone as we took off, and it felt both exciting and weird. Exciting because it really felt like we were heading out on another adventure. Weird because there were these people who were almost strangers standing in our front yard waving goodbye. It sort of felt like we’d sold the House and now we were leaving for good.

That wasn’t a pleasant feeling, so I shook it off and joined in the general chatter and excitement of our road trip. I thought we’d sing songs, play road games, and talk about the tournament, but we’d only just left Louisville and started heading north through Indiana when Annabeth fell asleep.

I was just thinking that I couldn’t believe she’d do that, when I realized I was about to fall asleep too. I was snuggled up with Tyler, and the gentle hum of the road was knocking me out. I fought it for a few miles, then I figured I’d just go with it. Tyler’s warm body made a wonderful pillow, and I was still feeling sore from last night.

‘Tea,’ I called, ‘how is my recovery doing? The tournament starts tomorrow, so I need to be at full capacity by then.’

‘You’re doing great!’ Tea replied, sounding extra happy. ‘The seizures last night strained your muscles even more than you know. The good news is that both of your Marks are continuing to assist with your healing in a big way.’

‘Tell me about that,’ I said, sleepily. I’d recently recovered from being burned with acidic magic, and when I looked, I could see that I had lava orange and forest green magic all through my new tissue. I hadn’t wanted to think too deeply about how much I’d been hurt, though, so I’d just accepted it and made a mental note to look into it later. We had at least a twelve-hour drive ahead of us, so now was a great time to have a chat with Tea and see what was going on.

‘The Mark of the Deep Earth and the Mark of the Lagerel were helping even before you found your Spark of Creation,’ Tea said. ‘But after you introduced them to your Spark and they fully integrated into your Throne Room, they started helping you on a whole new level. Especially since you integrated the healing rune into your Throne Room too.

‘I don’t know exactly what they are doing, but the Deep Earth is boosting all the metal in your body. You have at least ten times more metal than you used to have. For a normal human, I’m sure this would be deadly, but for you it’s just making you better.’

‘I know humans have iron in their blood for transferring oxygen,’ I said, ‘but that’s really all I know about that. What else is the Deep Earth doing for me?’

‘It’s boosting your endurance for sure,’ Tea agreed. ‘You’re getting a lot more energy into your cells, and you’re whisking away cell waste a lot quicker. Calcium is making your bones thicker and stronger, but the Lagerel is working on them too. I think the biggest change is going to be to your nervous system.’

‘So what exactly is it doing?’ I asked.

‘It’s making you faster,’ Tea replied excitedly. ‘It’s enhancing all the nerves in your body so you’ll be able to get input faster and then react quicker. It’s even changing the neurons in your brain so you’re processing quicker. I know you haven’t noticed any changes, as they have been gradual and you haven’t really been training hard, but you should be able to fight at a higher level. You should be able to see your enemy’s punch, dodge or block it, and hit back even faster than before.’

‘So I’m developing a version of super speed?’ I asked. This was so exciting! Was I turning into a superhero?

‘I think so,’ Tea replied. He was like Red in that he loved a good upgrade. Tea, though, was upgrading me. Which was awesome, as I’d take all the upgrades I could get!

‘Of course, you’re not going to turn into Superman,’ he noted. ‘It’s not like you’re going to be dodging bullets or anything like that. Instead, you’re just going to be a bit faster than a normal human for a while, and once it’s done, you might be a lot faster. Think more Spider-Man and less Flash.’

‘I’ll take Spider-Man,’ I replied happily. ‘Spider-Man is awesome. Now, what is the Lagerel doing for me?’

‘From what I can tell, it’s giving you more resilience,’ Tea replied. ‘Take your bones, for example. It’s modified them so they aren’t as brittle. Regular bones can naturally flex a bit, but your bones can bend a lot more and still spring back to their original shape. That means your core framework can handle a lot more stress.

‘So if a stone golem punched you today, the bones in your face might bend rather than break. It would still hurt a lot and you’d have a very bad day, but you’d recover a whole lot faster.’

Omg! That was amazing news. When Isobel’s golem had punched me in the face, it had rocked my world. My face had caved in, my jaw had shattered, and I’d lost most of my teeth. Recovery had been horrible, and it still haunted my dreams. I’d trained hard to make sure something like that never happened again, and now it seemed like the Lagerel was adding a whole new level of protection.

‘It’s enhancing more than your bones,’ Tea continued. ‘It’s also making your ligaments and your muscles stronger. After all, bones are nice, but they don’t do you any good if they aren’t connected and moving. Again, this isn’t super strength. It just means you’re going to be stronger than you look.’

‘I’ll take whatever advantages I can get,’ I replied happily. ‘So, back to my original question. Will I be ready to compete in time?’

‘Go ahead and take a nap,’ Tea said kindly as I snuggled even more with Tyler. ‘When you wake up again, we’ll be finished and you’ll be as good as new. Actually, you’ll be better than that.’

‘Thank you, Tea,’ I said sleepily. ‘You’re the best.’

I wanted to say more, but the song of the road finally overwhelmed me and I fell asleep.

I had a wonderful nap where I dreamed of butterflies. I was riding one with big yellow wings, and we fluttered from flower to flower on a lovely summer day. I ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and together we sang show tunes. The butterfly had a lovely tenor voice, and we harmonized well on songs like “For Forever” from Dear Evan Hansen and “I Love You Like a Table” from Waitress.

The warm sunshine was interrupted by a sudden summer shower, and as we sheltered under a leaf, I realized I had to pee. It wasn’t urgent yet, but it was getting there. I couldn’t very well pee on my butterfly, so I started looking for a way to get down. I was afraid I’d slip getting off and fall all the way to the ground, which was so far below us it was just a blur.

“Why don’t you pee on the bus?” the butterfly suggested.

“I was just going to pee off the side of the leaf,” I replied, confused. “How would peeing on a bus help? Besides, I don’t see a bus below us.”

“He means you”re on the bus right now,” said a crystal dragonfly who happened to be flying by. “Since it has a refrigerator, maybe it has a restroom too.”

I realized I was dreaming, and I woke up just enough to scan the bus with my magic sight. No restrooms. This also wasn’t a normal mundane bus. It wasn’t running on a regular gas engine, and the driver wasn’t steering with his hands.

That was all fascinating, but I still needed to pee. I wondered how long it was until the next exit.

“If only you had a freshness charm,” the yellow butterfly lamented. “Then we could stay here and play all day. I’d like that a lot. Of course, even if you did have a charm, you still couldn’t use it.”

Its antenna drooped, and it looked as sad as a butterfly could. It was nice that it felt bad for me, but I was still the one with the problem. Being a god sucked sometimes.

“There is another way,” the crystal dragonfly said mysteriously. “Follow me!” he yelled and flew off. I hopped back on my yellow butterfly and flew after him.

We flew over a field and through the tall grass until we arrived at a giant tree. The crystal dragonfly didn’t stop, and instead, flew through a knothole in the trunk. I didn’t hesitate and flew in after him.

We arrived in a giant space filled with books, staircases, and all manner of places to relax and play. The mystery and magic of the space called to me, and I didn’t need to see the tall crystal egg in the middle of the hall to know where I was.

This was my Bank Stamp’s mansion.

The yellow butterfly landed in front of the Bank Crystal, and I dismounted. It started singing “Defying Gravity” from Wicked as it flew away, so I knew it was going to be alright.

I was going to say “Hi,” and do all the normal pleasantries, but the Bank Crystal got right to the point.

‘I must admit I’m so excited to be of service,’ it said. ‘After talking to your charms and Marks and realizing how versatile your magic is, I started to wonder if I’d be able to help you at all.’

‘That’s great,’ I replied. ‘But I’m a bit confused. How can you help me again?’

‘Having a Bank Stamp allows access to basic amenities that all humans should have at a minimum. Things like food, water, and shelter. This was extremely important hundreds of years ago, but it’s still important even today. You might be surprised how many supernaturals are homeless or hungry.

‘At the lowest levels, the amenities aren’t much. The water is warm but drinkable, and the food comes in the form of a tasteless energy bar. It will keep you alive and in good health, but that’s all.

‘You, however, are at the highest level of Bank access,’ it said proudly, ‘which means I can treat you as if you are one of our executive associates. You now have access to much more than room temperature water. You, my young mage, can conjure up the finest tea, coffee, hot chocolate, milk, soda, mochas, cappuccinos, or just about anything your heart desires. For food, you are well beyond tasteless energy bars. Now you have access to the full selection of Tillman and Tiddles magic meals.’

‘That sounds awesome!’ I exclaimed. I’d had Tillman and Tiddles bars before. They were out-of-this-world amazing. All the beverage selections sounded nice too. That wasn’t what I needed right now, though. I needed liquid out, not liquid in.

‘There are other perks, of course,’ the Bank Crystal continued, ‘and we can get into all that later. For now, what you need to know is I can install a freshness module for you. And not just any freshness module—no! It is the finest freshness module with every luxury known to our most discerning clients. It goes well beyond the basics of number one and number two. Indeed, it maintains every part of your physical presentation and pampers you like the finest of spas.’

It paused to build suspense, and I leaned forward in anticipation. This sounded amazing!

‘All I need is your permission to install it into this space, and we can begin’ the Bank Crystal said grandly.

‘You have it!’ I replied happily. ‘Install away!’

The Bank Crystal sparkled with light, which gradually grew brighter and brighter until the glow shot down onto the floor and raced across the room. It arrived at an empty space on the floor where it expanded to a circle about ten feet across and started spinning.

A low retaining wall formed first, about knee high. Then a wide column of marble stone rose from the center. It grew until it was about ten feet tall and then stopped. The area inside the retaining wall filled up with water as parts of the marble column flaked off and faded in the air. I wasn’t sure where we were going with all this, but as a human shape started forming, I realized this was turning into a statue.

Maybe this was going to be a fountain? I’d seen pictures of the classic statues like the lady with a jug of water. The water flowed out of the jug in an endless stream into a pool or basin, and the whole thing looked elegant and timeless. The trickling sound of the water created a nice ambiance, and if it was flowing into a pond, it helped to aerate the water and keep it fresh.

As the pieces flaked away, I realized it wasn’t going to be a woman. It was going to be a naked man. Actually, it was going to be me!

Sort of.

It was me about ten years from now. I was filled out with more muscles, and I looked older and somehow wiser. The statue didn’t show any of my playful side. Instead, I looked classically serious, like I’d been the one posing for Michelangelo”s David.

I would have thought this was high art, except the fountain part was the statue peeing into the basin. That’s right—I was a beautiful David, taking a leak. Maybe it had captured my playful side after all.

‘So—how do I use this thing?’ I asked. I was about to start doing the pee-pee dance. All these water sounds were lovely, but they were really making me want to go!

‘Just touch it,’ the Bank Crystal instructed. ‘Once you use it the first time, you’ll always have access to all it can do. You won’t have to specifically come back here again.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied, and touched the fountain wall.

I felt a gentle pressure as the freshness module initialized for the first time. Then a 3D menu popped up with a ton of choices.

I was good to go.

Pun intended.

I quickly selected the option for number one, whereupon it wanted to go into a full setup with lots of options. Screw that. I needed to go now!

I told it to just go with the defaults, and I’d revisit it all later. For now, it just needed to do its job!

I selected the option for number one again, and suddenly, I was pee free.

I took a moment to just relax and enjoy the relief. I’d have thought it wouldn’t have happened so fast—that it would be more like taking a whiz. I didn’t mind, though. Instant relief was a good thing.

While I was there, I took care of number two as well, then browsed through the menu to see what else was available.

Ohhhh. I had a mani-pedi option. Nice! And just like that, my nails were perfect. I also selected the manscaping option—Tyler would enjoy that later—as well as a little eyebrow taming and hair trimming.

Next, I went through all the shower options and selected the quick refresh. After picking a scent—mountain berries—I felt a brief refreshing mist, and then it was gone. I’d showered earlier and I’d only been napping, but now I felt much cleaner.

I felt a gentle pull on my magic, but it wasn’t bad. I loved all the options, but they still took my power to work.

I instantly brushed my teeth, including a full floss and mouthwash, before having a shave. The Bank Crystal was right—there were a LOT of options and I could have spent all day enjoying my spa time. I’d selected the quick options, but I could have had a two-hour full body massage, seaweed wrap, hot stones laid on my chakras, and lots of mud stuff. There was even a spiritual harmonizing-balance routine performed with the sound of bells and tinkling crystals.

That sounded a little too dramatic, even for me.

Beyond that, there was a whole section dedicated to self-love. It covered everything from the Quickie to the Slap and Tickle. Or I could go all out with a One-Hour Orgasm. If I didn’t already have my own incubus, I’d have been tempted to try it out. As it was, Tyler almost gave me more love than I could handle.

Almost.

This freshness module was a lot of fun, but I was excited because it was filling a weakness I was afraid I’d be bringing into the tournament. All the other contestants would have freshness charms, and I wasn’t sure how long these quests lasted for. It would suck if I had to pause a quest just to find a bathroom.

Now all the essentials were taken care of, I opened my eyes and gave Tyler a loving look.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

I nodded and stretched.

Wait a minute—I really was feeling better. Like a lot better. I wasn’t sore at all.

I told him about my new freshness abilities and showed him my perfect nails.

“I also have minty fresh breath,” I told him coyly. “Want to check it out?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed and came in with a long kiss. Then he smacked his lips thoughtfully.

“I think there’s a bit of spearmint in there too,” he declared. “I’m not sure, though. Perhaps we should kiss again.”

“I think we should,” I laughed.

And so we did.

My man was so fine. Sleeping on him had been warm and wonderful. You’d have thought all those muscles would have made him uncomfortable, but instead, he was the perfect pillow.

Our kiss started heating up, and I became acutely aware of another love muscle that wanted attention. I reluctantly pulled back, as this wasn’t the time nor place to let it all hang out. The minibus had plenty of room for our trip, but it didn’t have that much room.

“Later,” I whispered to Tyler.

“Later,” he agreed. His dark chocolate eyes promised to take me to the heights of ecstasy, over and over again—leaving my love muscle completely spent and begging for a long nap.

I got up to get a sandwich and a soda and discovered that Annabeth had just woken up too. I thought about installing the beverage module, but why spend magic when Sandy had provided cold soda for free?

“How are you feeling?” I asked Annabeth.

“I feel good,” she replied with a smile. “I feel rested and ready to go! I’ve found out that I need down time just as much as I need training. So it’s nice to have a quiet moment before the tournament.”

“Speaking of the tournament,” John interjected, “I’ve been watching views of the quests from previous years. Sandy was doing all the organizing, so I thought I’d get a head start on formulating a strategy for us to work with.”

“That is an excellent idea!” Annabeth enthused while stuffing her face with a sandwich. She must have been hungry, as she was eating faster than I was. “So what did you find out?”

“A lot,” he replied, “but I have less of a strategy than I’d hoped. These quests are all over the place. Some of them are quick, lasting only an hour, while others last a couple days. Some of them have intricate puzzle-type solutions, and some are all about endurance. Some of them you can buy advantages that really help, and some of them encourage you to spend your pearls, but don’t provide much of a boost at all.

“It seems like the only broad strategy that works with this tournament is to create as balanced a team as possible. Teams need at least one person who’s good with puzzles for sure. They also need a brute with a lot of strength and a ninja type with good balance and speed. Everyone needs to have lots of endurance, both magically and physically. And the team needs a wide range of skills on the magical side as well. Of course, for us, we don’t have the option of picking our team, so this isn’t a strategy we can use.”

“Well, Jason will be our puzzle solver, of course,” Annabeth said. “I’ve got good balance and speed. Neither one of us are big, but I can go all Arnold if I need to.” She flexed her short arms and put on her best studly bodybuilder look.

We all laughed, and I flexed with her. Together, the skinny gay guy and the cheerful grandmother, we probably only equalled Arnold’s left leg. Oh well. We’d figure it out.

Despite being a grandmother, Annabeth was really coming into her own. When I first saw her, she was a round little thing and looked to be late fifties. Now, she looked trim and fit. Her arms had muscles, and her core was well defined and solid. She looked like a yoga instructor in her mid-thirties. She was small but mighty, and I could do a lot worse than having her as my teammate.

“Seriously, though,” Annabeth got back to business, “we do have some advantages over the other teams. The biggest one, I think, is our healing abilities. I can’t believe how much better my new healing charms are. I used to be sore all the time from training on the beach. Now I fire up my personalized healing runes, and I’m good in a few hours.”

“That will certainly be key,” John agreed. “It seems like the first quest is easy and fun. It’s designed to give all the contestants an adventure they can talk about and get them excited for the next time the tournament comes around. After that, they get more difficult. Individually, the quests are tough, but when you put them all together, they are designed to wear you down. There were lots of teams I saw who wanted to keep going, but they were too exhausted physically or magically to continue.”

“Having enough magical capacity is something I’m concerned about,” Annabeth said. “I’ve gotten a lot better physically, but magically, I still absorb magic at almost the same rate as when I started. Getting a matrix helped a lot, as it’s increased my capacity and I’m not leaking magic like before. But once I spend my power, it feels like it just trickles back in.”

“That will certainly be a disadvantage,” John agreed. “You’re only two people, but the challenges will be set up for the capacity of five. You simply won’t have the same magical stamina, physical power, or versatility as five well-trained people. Fortunately, there are often multiple ways of winning the quests. I’ve bookmarked a few of the views I saw so we can discuss.”

He projected a view in the air, and we all crowded around to watch.

“In this first one, the teams are tasked with keeping a large boulder off the ground as long as possible. Their score was based on the order they finished. So if they could keep their boulder aloft even a second longer than their opponents, they got a better score. As you can see, most teams relied on their physical or magical abilities to make this happen. And most teams didn’t have any problems for the first few minutes.”

The boulder wasn’t that big, but it certainly looked heavy—at least five hundred pounds or so. It was awkward to hold, though, and that seemed to cause the most problems for the teams going the physical route. It was difficult for multiple people to hold it up, so the bulk of the work fell to one person. When they slipped, it was all over. Once the boulder got some momentum, the other team members couldn’t recover.

The magical teams fared a lot better in the beginning. All five team members could help hold it up, and that looked like the smart solution as one physical team after the other went out. In the end, though, that was a lot of weight to keep aloft, and the magical users started running out of juice. Many of them held on until they passed out, but it still didn’t get them the top spot.

“Is it just me, or do some of the stones look smaller?” Annabeth asked.

“I thought the same thing,” John replied. “It turns out that there was a pay option. I don’t know how much it was, but the teams could spend pearls to start out with a slightly lighter load. In the end, that made the difference for the winning team.”

We watched as the field narrowed down to five teams. And then two. Both teams had one really strong member who looked like a powerlifter. The event went sixteen hours in total, but in the end, there was a winner.

“What’s interesting to note is neither of the top two players continued in the tournament,” John said. “This event knocked out both of the big guys and most of the top teams. It’s hard to remember this is a marathon and not a sprint. The best players are very competitive, but in this case, winning the event meant they wouldn’t go on to win the whole thing.”

“If we run into an event like this, with this type of scoring, I’d suggest you both just hang on as best as you can until half of the teams are out. Then you can let the stone drop and walk away. In this contest, that would have been at about the hour mark. You’d both then have plenty of time to recover as the top teams battled it out.”

We talked about the scenario a bit more, but in the end, we all agreed with John. Our goal was to win a crap ton of pearls. Not get hung up on any one round.

“Let’s take a look at another event,” John continued, “and this time, it wasn’t a good idea to spend any pearls.”

He flicked his wrist and brought up another view. This event looked like the teams were underground, in some sort of cave system.

“When the teams arrived at the starting area, there was an old prospector who offered to sell them his map. From what I can see, you’ll run across characters like this in the events, and they are basically shop friends. They add some nice flavor to the quests, though, and they will be more than happy to sell you something. In this case, the map was very expensive, but the goal of the quest was to collect gold nuggets. Having a map should have saved the teams a lot of time.

“Unfortunately, the map wasn’t very detailed and just showed the main underground passages. It didn’t show anything about the monsters that were hiding or any of the smaller passages. It also assumed that everything was at the same elevation, which it wasn’t. Apparently, the main passage, which looked perfectly clear on the map, had sections where you had to climb up or down and waste a lot of time. It also didn’t show that one of the passages was completely underwater.

“Most of the teams bought the map, and then were furious at being tricked. There were no refunds, though, as the tournament master said they had provided plenty of clues that the old prospector couldn’t be trusted. It was up to the teams to figure out what was going on, and most of them were in too much of a hurry to notice anything.”

John showed the prospector scene, and now that we knew what we were looking for, it was easy to spot. The prospector had on a big gold watch and looked way too clean to be someone who worked in the dirt. He was also found by several half-buried skeletons that looked to be human. That seemed more “pirate” than “prospector” to me. A few of the teams really questioned him about what they were getting, and the prospector quickly got defensive and his story fell apart.

This led to a broader discussion about when to spend pearls in these events and how much to spend. We were here to make money, after all. I didn’t mind spending a few pearls to get a better score, but I didn’t want to waste any either.

While we were on the subject of pearls, I got with Sandy and she transferred the pearls she’d been holding for me over to my account. That made my Bank Crystal very happy, as I now had funds to work with.

John brought up several more scenarios, and we evaluated them all. It really was just a judgment call at the moment. We were looking back on these events, so we already knew the answer of how it would turn out, but Annabeth seemed to have a good feel for when spending pearls made sense and when it didn’t. I decided that when it came to in-quest spending, I would let her make the final call.

Analyzing all the quests started getting me in the mood for the tournament. This whole thing was really a giant puzzle, and I liked puzzles. We just needed to figure out the best way to apply our resources to navigate the whole thing. Focusing on the bigger picture is what it came down to. We needed to win on points, however they were distributed, and not get caught up in a macho game of beating another team.

Bermuda woke up and decided to come out and play for a while. He crawled under the seats, climbed up on the refrigerator, and amused our driver. For the first time, I really paid attention to the fact that our driver wasn’t actually steering the bus. Instead, he was playing on his phone and watching videos while the bus routed itself. I was slightly alarmed, but then I figured it didn’t really matter what was happening as long as we stayed on the road and headed in the right direction.

Bermuda was ready to play, and he wanted me to make him a Feather Dot. I told him “no” several times, as a small bus is not the place for a wild cat. As usual, he didn’t take “no” for an answer. I finally warned everyone and made a Dot for him with the stipulation that it had to stay on the floor in the back half of the bus.

For a while, the bus was filled with the sounds of furious scrambling, and I thought for sure Bermuda would catch him quickly. Instead, Feather Dot used the legs of the seats to his advantage and managed to stay one step ahead of the claws. It helped a lot that his new design allowed him to accelerate sideways just as fast as driving forward.

Bermuda finally caught his prey, of course, but it wore him out. His young energy satisfied, he curled up on my lap and allowed me to love on him as he supervised our discussion.

I was eating another sandwich and watching a view with the rest of the Housemates, when I felt a headbutt on my arm. Bermuda was in my lap, so I looked over, confused.

It was Mr. Tubbles, looking adorable as always. He let me know, with his one good eye, that he was ready to play too. I made him a Bedazzle Dot and turned him loose in the back of the bus. Mr. Tubbles was way past his kitten years, but he loved a good chase, and soon the bus was filled with the sounds of the hunt once again. Although this time it sounded much gentler.

“Where did he come from?” I asked Tyler.

He just shrugged.

“He comes and goes as he pleases. I can feel him tug on my magic, but I have plenty and I don’t mind.”

“Does he take naps in your Throne Room like Bermuda does?” I asked.

“I’ve heard you talk about that,” Tyler said, “but I don’t have a Throne Room. Or if I do, I don’t know how to get there.”

He seemed unconcerned with how Mr. Tubbles had gotten here, or finding the seat of his power, so I just dropped it. I was certainly glad to have another Companion along on our adventure.

I thought our trip would feel long and exhausting, but instead, the time flew by. We made great time, as we never stopped. I got tired of soda and ended up getting the beverage module from my Bank Stamp. Apparently, it generated the liquid, but not the container, so I ended up having hot chocolate in a soda can. It required more magic than I thought it might, so this wasn’t something I’d be doing all the time.

I asked the Bank Stamp where the liquid was coming from. It said it pulled moisture from all around me, and what it couldn’t find, it just generated from magic. I figured if I was near a stream, this was a good way of having clean water to drink. But outside of that, it was probably better if I went to Starbucks.

Of course, the others were curious how I’d gotten a hot chocolate. I told them the beverage options they had with the Bank Stamp and everyone seemed shocked. They had no clue they could do that. We had the time and it seemed fun, so everyone ended up making drinks with their Bank Stamps.

We quickly found out I had a lot more options than everyone else. John and Tyler rarely used their Stamps, so they just had water. Annabeth also had water, but she sang to her Stamp and it quickly upgraded. Sandy was a bit more in touch with her Stamp and could make a basic Lipton tea.

They were all disappointed, until my Bank Crystal said it could turn on more options for everyone. I tapped wrists with my Housemates, and after that, we were good to go. It felt weird but neat, being the most advanced Housemate at something.

I’d been focused on the cafe options, but Annabeth and Sandy found the wines, and John and Tyler found the beer. Annabeth, like me, found the magic cost to be too high, but the rest of them poured whatever they wanted into their soda cans and we had a party.

We had a lovely sunset in Iowa, and it was completely dark by the time we got to Nebraska. It was after 2 AM when the driver notified us we were almost there. I looked out the windows, but couldn’t see much. It just looked like we were on a country road. Finally, we turned off the main road and went through a huge iron gate. There was a sign about JD’s Ranch, but it passed too quickly for me to see more than that. We went down the side road for about five miles, and then turned off again. This time the road wasn’t marked at all, although it seemed wide and well kept.

We passed other buses headed back out again, so we weren’t the only ones going to this place. The moon was about half full, so there was some light to see by, but not a lot. What I could see were fields of what looked like wheat. It seemed to go on forever, and it rippled like the sea in the wind.

As we drove, I felt a touch of something. It was a feeling of hot summer days and cold winter nights repeating over and over again. I felt growth and death and growth again. I felt people and birds and animals depending on me. Most of all, I felt an overwhelming loneliness mixed with hopelessness. Nobody came any more.

As fast as they showed up, the feelings were gone. I quickly looked around, but nobody else seemed to have noticed anything. Maybe the moonlight and all this open country was playing tricks on me.

I couldn’t see anything like a convention center, until we passed through another open gate. Then I felt the light touch of a shield, and suddenly, the whole complex sprang into view.

It was breathtaking, like the Bellagio from Las Vegas had just dropped out of the sky in front of us. I haven’t been to the Bellagio—I’ve only seen pictures—but this place looked even bigger.

It had the classic curved shape and towered above us. The entire front looked like it was made from gold-tinted glass, and it was crowned with lights like diamonds. There was a massive fountain area in front, and the road went right through the middle of them. It was lit up like a fantasy water garden, and my jaw dropped as we drove through the wonderful display.

Once we were through the fountains, the road curved and we entered a dome on the side of the hotel. It was obviously an unloading and reception area, although a very fancy one. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, statues, flowers, and even a red carpet to welcome us into the complex. There was a line on the ground showing where the bus should stop, and the whole thing was wide enough for about five vehicles to park and unload at once. Even as late as it was, there were two other buses parked behind the line, and a bellhop was wheeling in the luggage. Our driver picked an open spot, slowly pulled in, and stopped.

We had arrived.