Chương 43: Powder Keg

The view from the scene stayed still and dark for the rest of the day. Commentators found endless opportunities for supplementary content, however, so the stream itself wasn't all that quiet. The only interesting development was a rapid temperature change. Despite being a relatively warm fall day, the town of Livengood dipped into negatives, which prompted two hours of analysis on frostbite, its consequences, and how likely crawlers or the crew running the cameras were to suffer permanent injuries or die.

The consensus was that the crawlers had constitution scores high enough that frostbite was a non-issue. Several of the crew were high-level, but there were a few assistants in the mix who were probably just screwed. Nathan and I fell asleep in the living room with the stream on. By the time I woke up for work Monday morning, the frost giants and their pet frost salamanders had passed by The Wilds: Alaska cast and crew, leaving a frozen hellscape in their wake.

Every structure, tree, and pebble were encased in ice, six inches thick on any surface facing the path of the frost giants, like a wake behind a boat. The monsters were on their way south, and three governments scrambled their best crawlers to respond. Yes, three. A Japanese meteorologist ran a simulation of what a sudden sub-zero winter in North America would do to the polar jet stream, the Pacific Ocean, and, consequently, the country of Japan.

That convinced the Japanese government that these frost giants were an existential threat to their way of life, so they joined the U. S. and Canada in responding to the threat. The frost giants traveled an average of fifty miles per day. At that pace, they would reach the town of Brackendale, the nearest bastion of human civilization, in eleven more days. Then Vancouver was a short jaunt away. News stations tracked their progress twenty-four hours a day.

Even children's shows had a lower-thirds miniature map of the frost giants and their current locations. This intensity kicked off sometime during my few hours of sleep, and it continued into the CDM offices. Several small television monitors appeared throughout the office, all tuned to the nonstop coverage of the frost giants. When I logged in, I saw that my report on the werewolf gate murders had been updated, which meant someone else in the CDM added material.

These notifications were standard and designed to keep all involved parties up-to-date on any developments. An autopsy had concluded twenty minutes ago. The crasher who fled the scene was found dead, like Grensmith predicted. More interestingly, though, he was identified as a member of a church community. It wasn't the same community Chapman investigated, lending credence to the growing assumption that many, if not all, church communities were involved in gate crashing. This particular crasher was a pastor.

That was bad. If the coroner had just pushed this to the system, the churches in the area weren't likely to know that a crawler killed a man of God. Not yet, anyway. Grensmith wasn't in his office. McDouglas wasn't either. Same for Meyers. Bracing myself, I knocked on Enforcer Chapman's door.

"I'm busy," she gruffed.

"I just got an update notification about one of my reports-""Make an appointment, Intern Enforcer Gray."

"Ma'am," I protested.

"A crasher was killed yesterday by a party from the Iron Crawlers. He was a pastor." Her head jerked up.

"How long ago was this?"

"The autopsy notes went in twenty minutes ago."

"Level of violence?"

"He was missing an arm and bled to death on the side of the road," I answered. Chapman rubbed her eyes with both hands.

"Good god. The doomers are going to go nuts." Then, as if remembering where she was, she said, "Thank you. You're dismissed." Truth be told, I was hoping for a more definitive "atta boy" response from her, but maybe this catch was a small step toward recovering her respect. I had also hoped she would pull me into her response to that news, but that wasn't to be. Chapman wanted me out of the way so she could get ahead of the outcry that would inevitably ensue.

As soon as the churches got wind of this, they were going to be pissed. The Iron Crawlers, at a minimum, would get protested and vandalized. Terrorism among the churches was rare but not out of the question, so maybe they send Molotovs through the windows instead of bricks. The crawlers would respond, of course, further escalating the conflict. That was only the first identified victim, I realized. Soon, the public would learn who the other crashers were.

None of them were children, but at least two–or what was left of them–looked to be Beth's age when I bagged them up. Once those faces appeared on news broadcasts, anger could do nothing but grow. Chapman wasn't looping in her least favorite intern with updates, however, so I doubted I would hear anything new any time soon. Work that day was an afterthought for most everyone in the office. Like me, they couldn't help but let their attention drift to the nearest television screen.

Whichever commentator was up for the hour didn't have anything new to share, but it kept you in rapt attention. The idea that something new could come to light at any moment made it impossible to look away. The only real updates we received were that high-level crawlers were amassing in an undisclosed location, preparing to fight the three frost giants and their two frost salamanders. Supposedly, they wanted fifty crawlers in total to be present for the battle. None of them were likely to be under level 25.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! In a dungeon, parties of eight were the typical minimum for S-ranked boss battles, but ten was more the norm. Thirty to thirty-five crawlers would be sufficient if the encounter math was straightforward, but there was unanimous agreement that three frost giants coordinating with each other and their pets made the danger greater than the sum of its parts, so to speak.

The few dungeon frost giants that had been recorded were solo bosses. No one really knew what frost giants working together would look like, but it was sure to be awful. When I finally got out of work, Beth sent me a message to say she wouldn't be home for dinner, and she attached an image of her in a woodshop. There were bowframes in the background, it looked like.

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Jonathan bought me a bowyer lesson! He saw how much I liked it and surprised me."

"You're making a bow?"

"That's what bowyers do. I thought you would know that."

"Very funny." As far as the kind of guy Beth could have dated, Jonathan was pretty alright. Beth did seem interested in the process when we were in the craft hall, but she must have been more intrigued than I knew. And he supported that with a lesson. That quick. Yeah, I could handle a guy like that dating my sister. That night, I watched the livestream with Nathan and Megan. Like it was during the day, nothing of importance happened, but we didn't want to risk missing something.

"They would attack the frost giants in daylight, right?" Megan asked.

"I'd think so," I replied. Nathan glanced up briefly before looking back at his phone.

"Can human fire mages overpower that many frost monsters? That feels like an arm wrestling match rather than a strategy."

"The fire versus ice thing is played out," I agreed.

"They could get the numbers, but trying to out-elemental a frost giant does seem like a tough way to go." Megan abruptly reached for the remote and switched streams.

"-are calling these incidents hate crimes 'supported by government-sponsored disrespect of the constitutional right to have freedom of religion.' Multiple denominations have come together to file a lawsuit against the Center for Dungeon Management. Church leaders argue that their religion requires they run gates, making the government's control over dungeon access anti-religion and unconstitutional."

Megan said, "The headlines I was reading about this say things like 'Christianity sues the Center for Dungeon Management.' As in the whole religion." A photo of a pastor appeared on the screen. The next photo was of his one-armed body covered in blood and mud. The caption beneath it read, "Crawlers targeting Christians?" Called it. I knew those dead crashers would spark a response, but admittedly, I didn't expect it to end up in a courtroom.

"Must feel like it's following you," Nathan mused.

"That must suck."

"What's following Dorion?" Megan asked.

"The church," I answered.

"I escaped to the CDM, and now they're coming after that."

"Does it really feel that way?" I shrugged.

"Maybe not literally. It does find ways to reinsert itself into my life again and again. I want to opt out for good, but the universe won't let me."

"Sorry, Dor."

"Don't worry about it." Late that night, Beth proudly stood in the middle of the living room and presented a raw bow frame to Nathan and me. She smelled like sawdust.

"Apparently 'board bows' are where most beginners start," she explained.

"This is just a piece of lumber. Better bows are more complicated to make and use better quality staves, but learning to read the grain is a key skill for a bowyer. If you can't do that, then your bows will always be inconsistent." She practically bounced around the room with excitement.

"For a board bow, it's more about removing material than adding bend. Tillering–that's the name for shaping wood–is a balance between bending and compression. A bow needs the right balance, or it will break." I ran my fingers along the frame. It was surprisingly refined for a first project. I passed it to Nathan.

"I don't know shit about bows," he said, "but this is pretty cool, Beth." Her smile got even bigger.

"Dad never let me use his tools. I would have complained about it more if I knew it was this fun."

"What made you decide to try it?" Nathan asked.

"Jonathan bought me a lesson," she answered.

"I don't think I would have thought to do that for myself." Nathan nodded approvingly.

"That's a pretty solid boyfriend move." Beth bounced around the room.

"I thought so too." She paused suddenly. I leaned forward.

"Beth?"

"Dor, listen… I really liked this. Every step of it. I liked looking at all the wood and choosing a piece. I liked all the tools, and I liked how careful the process was. I even liked sweeping up the shavings and sawdust. They reminded me of all the effort I just put in."

"Why are you saying that like it's bad news?"

"Because what if this is what I want to do?" she answered.

"Like for work?" She nodded.

"Why would that be bad?" Her head dropped.

"I don't know if there's money in it, and I know that's important to you."

"Are you saying there's not money in it?"

"I'm saying I don't know." Trying to suppress a laugh, I said, "Well, I don't fucking know either. I do know I can't afford any of the bows on the market now, though. Someone is making money."

"So you wouldn't be mad if I chased this?"

"Of course not. See if you like it and figure out what that career path looks like. Then go from there."

"Woodworkers can do pretty alright," Nathan added.

"I've done some side jobs where the client spent big bucks on custom trim and bookshelves. That's not exactly making bows, but it's craftsmanship. Kinda the same neighborhood." Beth listened intently.

"Something like the carpenters' union?"

"They do mostly structural work from what I've seen, like framing and such, but I don't really know what exactly that world is like. Could introduce you to someone probably."

"You would do that?"

"Sure, dude," Nathan chuckled.

"It's not a big deal. Just say the word." She crossed the room and hugged Nathan. Then she crossed the room to hug me.

"You guys are the best."

"For me, it's selfish," I said.

"Maybe I could afford a decent bow if I had a family discount."

"Who says I'm giving you a discount?"