Lair by Carl Stubblefield (recommended reading TXT) 📕

those creatures he had already killed was Methiochos, and he just didn’t know? His stomach settled as he realized that he knew the levels of all those killed mobs. A high-level super would be more than tenth level, and all the mobs were lower than that.

“Any ideas on the best way to find him? Is there any way to scan for him?”

“Again, no. You will need to explore the island to find him. Methiochos’ profile did not show that he had any flight powers, so he must have arrived on the island in some form of transportation, be it ship or flying transport. That means exploring the coastline and surveying any areas where there is a suitable clearing that something at least the size of a large transport could land will be a priority.”

Gus felt discouraged with another obstacle in his path, but having at least a starting point softened the edges a bit. He was able to use a distance function of the island scanner and was discouraged to find that the island was larger than he expected. The coastline was two-hundred-twenty-seven miles! He would have to level up his Dash and Flying skills, and sacrifice some training time.

“That would be recommended, as you only have two days to reach level ten, so maximizing activities to level is paramount—”

“No-no-no, Nick,” Gus stammered, “that timer clearly says I have eight days and twenty-two hours’ time to level my Nth!”

“Two weeks is the absolute end date, but by that time you will be prone and unable to move. You, in actuality, need to plan on finishing closer to one week after you arrived at the island to retain all your faculties,” Nick said.

“Wait, what?! That would’ve been nice to know, NICK!” Gus groused, upset that he had only two days left until his Nth started shutting down. Then he wondered how much time he had to deal with the volcano. Gus felt the stress tighten his throat. There were so many things he had to juggle.

“I apologize, but you were not in the healthiest of mental states at the time, if you recall. It was a high-stress situation, and you have not had to push yourself like that before. I told you what you needed to hear and nothing more. You have made remarkable progress though, and I have every confidence that you will reach level ten before you notice any untoward effects.”

He almost wished he was back in his old life, without all the things that were stressing him out constantly. Well, that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t go back to being good old henchman Gus, even if he had a chance to do it. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself of the exhilaration of flying, the power he felt fighting and winning against those Mantids, and the rush of experimenting with new skills almost every day. Nick was right, too. Gus knew he had a bad tendency of shutting down and tuning out when things got too overwhelming. Nick had known him better than he knew himself, at least in that instance.

Gus checked the time; it was early afternoon. Gus didn’t want a repeat of that hot mess when he had fought the Mantids near dusk. The darkness obviously didn’t hinder them in the slightest. If time weren’t a factor, he would have decided to start out on his expedition tomorrow. Checking his abilities, the cooldown on Wreck-ord showed he could set out on his coastline trip around 7 PM. He was going to have to do this tonight, and rely on his visual filters when things got dark. Hopefully he could make some decent distance before he had to call it a night.

He checked the monitors for any activity and saw no changes. What would he do if the zombies came when he was exploring the coastline? He determined he would leave some more weapons outside in different areas he could access if needed. The plan would be to make it around the island in a day, assisted with Dash. Hopefully he could level to seven, maybe eight, from estimated XP gained from raising skills. After that, he would have to engage as many Dark Nth as possible to hit level ten. It would be close, but Gus saw no other real choice. Maybe he would get lucky and find Methiochos’ crash site soon and fight mobs at that location. He wouldn’t know until he tried.

Heading to the dispensary, Gus found a suitable utility backpack. It had tons of pouches and zippers, which he loved. He perused the accessories, recalling the things he surmised he would probably need from his time in Scouts. He found some rope, a couple waterproof tarps, a space blanket, some flashlights, and some other small supplies he thought might come in useful. He took it all to his suite and began to pack. In went his trusty foam putty mattress roll, the rope and other items in the little pouches. Gus felt like a superhero with a utility backpack instead of a utility belt. Inside one of the pouches went as many energy bars as he could cram inside. Getting two vacuum-walled thermoses, he put them in the pouches on the sides, and pulled the drawstring tight, securing them.

After arranging his playlist, Gus was ready to set out. Advising Nick to wake him fifteen minutes before his Wreck-ord timer recharged, he decided to try to get a little power-nap in before his dashing all-nighter. He went to bed and managed to fall asleep in no time.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Runaround

Day 6 7:12 PM

8:17:24 remaining

Methiochos evaluated himself. He had grown to almost twice his previous size since metabolizing the energy from the magma pool. How long had he been hibernating? Estimating his current size, he was now only four to five feet tall. The condensing effect and essentially feeding off himself for decades of stasis could have totally destroyed him.

Were it not for the sharp severing of one of his remote tendrils, he might never