Chương 104: 101: Serendipity

Fortunately, Bear was not stupid. She might not like snakes, but she knew they weren't food. To the Bear brain, snakes needed to be driven away with extreme prejudice, much frenzied barking, and that dancing charge a dog does when they're not exactly attacking, just letting their enemy know they could attack and it would be devastating. She charged into the middle of the road to tell the snake how much it ought to just Go The Hell Away. Of course, we followed suit.

Riley's deep woof was a reproof, but Bear replied, Snake! Snake! Snake! and kept dancing. Can I kill it? Can I kill it? Zelda's tail was wagging, but she didn't leap on the snake the way she'd happily leapt on the rats. When we saw a snake in the yard, which happened once or twice a year, we retreated inside. And most of those snakes were just black snakes, harmless to everything except small rodents and smaller reptiles.

"No," I said firmly.

"It's got magic venom. You stay away from it." Her ears drooped, but she obeyed. Keeping my eyes on the snake, I shouted over my shoulder to Cody, "Grab one of those golf clubs if you can't find anything better." The dogs and I spread out around the snake, Bear taking front and center, but Zelda and I moving to one side and Riley moving to the other.

For a second, I thought about how weird life had gotten: a week ago, I would have been snapping leashes on dogs faster than you could blink, wrestling Bear into the house if I had to. Now I trusted that they'd make the right choices. Or rather, that Riley and Zelda would, and Bear might. I guess that wasn't so different after all.

"You gotta be kidding me, lady. You want me to hit that thing with a golf club? It's the biggest snake I've ever seen," Cody called back to me.

"Grab a driver. Forget the golf part, just think of it as a club. Time-honored weapon, even the cavemen used them." The snake was honestly terrifying. I'd seen black snakes bigger around than a garden hose, including one that was probably eight feet long, but this thing was in a whole different league. It was as thick around as a propane tank, the kind you trade in at the gas station. Before I could work my blood pressure up too much, I tapped [Analyze]. [Mana-crazed Western Diamondback: Level 6].

My shoulders dropped. Yeah, it was a monster of a snake, but we could take it. And then it struck at Bear, moving so fast it was a blur, and reaching so much farther than I'd imagined it could. Bear was half the street's width away, a distance that looked safe enough. But the snake only missed her because Riley hurled himself at it in the same moment, moving even faster than the snake did. He hit it, knocking its strike a fraction of a foot away from Bear, and then tumbled over it, head over heels.

"Back, back," I yelled at the dogs, tapping [Mana Absorption] and beginning to draw the mana from the snake. It was coiling up again while also making darting stabs toward both dogs, hissing like a tea kettle ignored for too long. Riley gave a short, sharp bark. Listen! It was directed to Bear. Back! She didn't exactly look guilty, but her shoulders hunched a bit as she danced a retreat from the snake, never taking her eyes off it. Riley followed, circling behind her and taking up a position at her side.

He barked again, this time at the snake, the sound deeper, coming from low in his chest. The snake stilled for a moment, stopping and pulling away. Then it began lifting its head and body, stretching up and up and up." Fuck…" I breathed out, pulling on its mana faster and faster, feeling it flood into me. That thing wasn't tougher than us, but damn, it was big. Let's go, let's go, Zelda yipped at my feet, crouching, ready to make her attack.

"Shit, lady, I don't..." Cody jogged up next to me, driver in hand. It was modern, fancy, with a skinny black handle and a fat black head, and Cody was carrying it as if it weighed nothing. Like it was a cheerleader's baton. If David had been carrying it, I would have assumed it was his Strength at work. But Cody was a normal human being. I'd only ever swung a mini-golf putter, but modern golf clubs might be less useful as weapons than I thought.

"What do you want me to do?" He swallowed hard.

"Hit it? That ain't no golf ball."

"Circle behind it," I said.

"We've totally got this. If nothing else, I've got a really great shovel and I know I can take it out, no problem." The mana was starting to fizz in my veins, while the snake finally began to shrink. Even as its girth condensed, though, it drew itself up, stretching from four feet high to five and then six.

"But I want to see if we can get you your level while we've got the chance."

"If it bites me—""I'll throw a healing potion down your throat so fast you won't even see it coming," I interrupted him. Healing potions worked on poison, didn't they?

"Lemme see the potion first," Cody replied. His breath was coming in short, deep gasps, as if he'd had to run a mile to reach us. Or, more likely, as if a panic attack was imminent. If I hadn't recognized the symptoms, I might have told him to fuck off. As it was, I pulled a potion out of my pouch and held it up. My mana sight gave it a nice blue glow, but even ordinary sight ought to recognize it as magic. He glanced at it and gave one more shuddering breath. I held it out to him.

"Here. Stick it in your pocket and you can decide if you're hurt so bad you need to use it." He shook his head.

"Nah. We're cool." Ignoring what I'd said about circling behind it, as well as all logic—I mean, I was no tactician, but come on! —he lifted the golf club and ran straight at the snake.

"Behind it!" I screamed.

"Use its blind spot!" This idiot was going to get himself killed right in front of my eyes. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I can't explain why I did what I did next. It just felt right. Maybe it was that Serendipity stat hard at work? But for whatever reason, I tapped [Mana Conduit] and poured the mana I'd been absorbing into the golf club Cody was just starting to smash into the snake. It exploded. Not the golf club, the snake.

It was as if Cody was suddenly wielding a sledgehammer made of dynamite. I was quite glad that Zelda and I had kept our distance because snake guts expanded in a ten-foot radius around the falling body of the snake. They rained down on Cody like, you know, rain. He dropped the golf club and stood motionless, staring at his hands. Wow. So, okay, that was interesting. What the hell had [Mana Conduit] done? I wasn't fizzing anymore, so it had definitely used the mana, but how? Had it made the golf club heavier?

Was it like the snake had gotten hit by a semi? How had Cody finished the swing? I needed to run some more experiments with this ability. First things first, though: I called the dogs to me and checked them over. Bear got a look that said, "Bad choices," as succinctly as I could manage, but no scolding. I gave Riley a thorough rubdown, making sure the impacts from hitting the snake and the ground hadn't left bruises.

Zelda, sulking a bit because she hadn't gotten to have any fun, got an ear rub and praise for being a good girl and a good listener. Zelda, of course, was gore-free, but Riley and Bear both had snake innards on their fur, so I pulled out my All-Clean Cleansing Spray and gave each of them a couple of squirts. I looked over at Cody. He was still standing next to the snake's remains, staring into space. I'd been using the cleansing spray casually, but I still had about two-thirds of the bottle left.

Was it priceless loot that I'd never see again or everyday System magic? I used [Analyze] to remind myself of the details: Uncommon. So I'd probably find it again someday. It might even be available at the System store. I crossed the street to Cody and said, "Hey, want me to clean you up?" He looked at me blankly, ignoring my question.

"I got this achievement. And two levels. I can choose a class. But this achievement—" His eyes unfocused in the way of someone staring at their interface.

"It says—""I know, I know." I put a hand up to silence him.

"You know? But it says—" His voice changed as he began reading aloud.

"You have received significant guidance—tactical, emotional, and—""Yes," I interrupted him again.

"I've heard it before. No need to share, right? Right. Let me clean you up." I sprayed him with the All-Clean, as much to shut him up as to clean him up. He fell silent, but he kept staring into space, his lips moving as if he were mouthing the words.

"There, much better," I said briskly.

"Do you want to show me the way to the resort? Or you can just point in the right direction, I'm sure we can find it."

"Oh, it's—" He started to gesture and then seemed to come back to himself.

"No, I'll show you the way. Of course I'll show you the way. It's my pleasure. My honor. A privilege." He stumbled over his words, his face flushing red, before he finished with, "Um, it's this way." He indicated the golf course and began walking in that direction. My sigh wasn't loud enough for him to hear. But ugh. Surely someday soon someone would surpass me. A military guy or a security pro or maybe a hardcore gamer. Maybe an athlete. Maybe even a Murder Hobo, if Earth got really unlucky. Except how?

Without easy access to multiple rifts, without my XP bonuses, without a pack to help them fight—my thoughts were starting to spiral, so I took the question, stuck it into a mental box, and buried it. Maybe I'd spend my next sleepless night trying to figure out how someone could take over the achievement, but it wasn't worth thinking about now. I rounded up the dogs with a gesture and hurried after Cody, crossing my fingers that Jules and Toby would be at the resort.

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the front door of the hotel. Our walk was neither our initial perp-walk-with-prisoner stroll nor our relaxed walking lecture, but more like the awed celebrity worship of a tour guide escorting a superstar. Cody was ahead of us, but kept turning around to check that we were still behind him. Each time, he'd open then close his mouth, as if every idea that came to him for conversation felt too stupid to be shared. I sympathized, but not enough to make polite small talk.

I had too much to think about. We'd just hit the abandoned valet parking area when I realized I did have one question for him, though.

"Hey, which stat did you get?" I asked the next time he looked over his shoulder. At his confused expression, I added, "From the achievement. It usually gives +3 to a stat." He grinned, his smile suddenly looking like his son's.

"Serendipity. Feels right, don't it? System had to tell me what it meant, but I am feeling pretty lucky today." I laughed.

"I mean, I'm bummed about my gun," he went on.

"Cost me $600, that thing, and bullets are—but yeah. I'm glad it didn't explode." He bobbed his head and finished, "And real glad I didn't hurt you or the dog. Thank you for—" I waved off his thanks before he could finish.

"You should still get yourself a weapon—not one that's going to explode, maybe a baseball bat—and go exploring inside a rift. With some other people. Try to get a team together." I touched my companion pouch and thought, two healing potions, and they popped into my hand.

"Here," I said, passing them over to him.

"For emergencies. But leveling up heals people, too." This time he took the potions. He held them tight and nodded at me.

"I will do that. All of that." His words were more earnest than I would have expected. Awkward. I had no idea what else to say, but he took the dilemma out of my hands by grabbing the door and pulling it open for me.

"After you." He waved me in. I made it four steps in, maybe five, before the woman standing behind the reception desk lost her polite smile and said in a voice pitched way too high, "I'm sorry, no dogs allowed. No animals!" Oh, right. I looked down at the pack, who had followed me in automatically, and said, "Sorry, loves, you'll have to wait outside." Cody had already started walking toward a crowded lounge off to the right, but he stopped and turned back.

"Ya' want me to watch 'em?" I waved him away.

"Nah, this should just take a minute or two." The dogs and I went back outside, and I got them settled at the valet station.

"No exploring," I said, pointing at Bear. And then I added to all three of them, "Be good and I'll be right back." I thought for half a second about responsible dog ownership versus letting unleashed dogs hang out alone in the entryway of a hotel, and then I shrugged the thought away and headed inside. Cody had disappeared into the crowded lounge, but I crossed to the woman at the reception desk. She looked tired, as if she'd had one too many long days in a row.

"Welcome to Cypress Crown. Do you have a reservation?" she asked with a tense smile, opening up a paper notebook on the desk.

"No, I'm just looking for a friend."

"Thank God," she said with an honest sigh, flipping the notebook closed.

"We've got no clean linens, no one from Housekeeping has shown up, and I don't know what we're gonna be feeding people in a few more days. The government says hotels should shut down, which is all well and good, but we can't close because where would all those folks go?" She gestured toward the lobby. And then a puzzled look crossed her face.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I'm doing telling you that. How unprofessional of me." She put her hand to her throat as if she could censor her own words. Huh. Was it my Presence stat at work? Charming the clerk into telling me more than she otherwise would have? I let it go, saying easily, "Juliet Beaumont and her son, Toby. They might have been here with Derek Holt." She looked down at the notebook, but didn't open it.

"They were guests here, yes. They checked out several days ago." She did not meet my eyes as she said the words.

"And came back last night?" I asked, trying to guess what she wasn't telling me.

"No." She pressed her lips together, then shook her head.

"No, I didn't see any of them last night. Or this morning." She looked toward the lounge, and it was as if the tired lines around her eyes and mouth suddenly grew deeper.

"But you might want to go and…" She sighed and then gave almost brisk instructions.

"Go out the front, turn to the right, follow the signs to the Cedar Hollow course. When you reach it, take the path to the left and go past the 9 th hole. Once you're off the course, there's a field, and…" The briskness died.

"There might be some people who can help you down there." Her eyes flickered up, then down again. Staring at her notebook, she added in a soft voice, "I'm sorry." She might have been saying, "I'm sorry I can't help you." I didn't need [Uncanny Insight] to tell me she wasn't.