Now I wasn’t sure what to do or say. I’d left Albert Holmes a while ago and sold off a few things I’d collected from farming spawns. With what I already had, that put nearly 20 Silver Moons in my inventory.

  The soul of a dungeon was what had me worried. There weren’t any dungeons, yet. I expected them to show up, but no one knew when or where. Just that someday, they would exist.

  My hunch was the first ones would be easier, then harder ones would follow. Or maybe the easy ones would level up until they weren’t so easy anymore. Become much harder. Maybe someday they’d even grow into something so big and complicated we’d call them raids.

  That didn’t solve the problem in front of me. Or rather, in the bag behind me. How the hell did these things, not made by the Game, become magical and so powerful? It wasn’t like my Enchanting, where I could put a boost on my sword. No…these items themselves were magical. They felt different, like something I’d used IMBUE MAGIC on, like a MANA BATTERY.

  IMBUE MAGIC might play a part, but these abilities weren’t anything I saw in the Game Rules or the store. Thinking it through, I could see how a book could be made magical, then used to cast a spell. The Enchanting Skill seemed to say that was possible. If you could do it with a book, why not also a dagger?

  I wasn’t sure how high level you’d need to be to grant someone experience levels. I hadn’t seen that anywhere. TRANSFER MANA was a spell I’d leaned on plenty. I could probably put that into a dagger myself as a type of battery. It would take more levels of Enchanting.

  As I drove back out to the commune, all I could do was chew on the problem. How was this possible? And how was I supposed to pay Albert Holmes what he wanted?

  “I’m pretty sure by Dungeon Soul, he means what the books call a Dungeon Core,” I muttered. “The physical form of the entity that creates and controls the dungeon. There was a whole sub-genre of GameLit from the dungeon’s point of view.”

  Letting the thoughts go, I figured maybe the answer would hit me later if I stopped gnawing on it.

  By the time I rolled into the commune, nothing had come to me. Sheriff Harper and several deputies were still there. A State Patrol car sat on the gravel drive, its hood reflecting the afternoon sun. Two ambulances were parked nearby, their doors standing open. The air carried the faint smell of burned wood and blood, both sharp under the warm May sky.

  Sheriff Harper came over as I climbed out of my van. To play it safe, before leaving the STORE’s parking lot, I’d stashed the bag with the book and dagger in the small compartment over the van’s back left wheel, the one that held the tire iron and jack. Most people never noticed it.

  “Sheriff Harper,” I asked. “How many people died, and what else have you found?”

  He blinked, surprised I’d spoken first, like I’d cut off whatever he was about to say.

  “Far as we can tell, about two-thirds died. Or they were sacrificed. That’s assuming the skeletons were commune members. Nearly sixty people were living here when this happened.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that. I wish we’d known sooner. It looks like this went on for days,” I told him.

  “The survivors said he was normal until a few days after this started. Then he went crazy when he got his game powers.” He stopped and looked at me hard. “Will. Where’s the evidence you took? It’s part of this crime scene. You shouldn’t have taken it.”

  “Sheriff, I’m sorry. I only wanted to protect everyone. I was afraid, and I still am, that anyone who touches them will end up like he did. Consider them contagious.”

  “Contagious with what? I haven’t heard of diseases from game items.”

  “Neither have I. That’s the problem. These aren’t game items. I took them to the STORE, and they said they weren’t theirs. They didn’t want them. I think he had them before this whole thing started. They aren’t part of the Game, but they have game powers…and they radiate evil. With a capital E.”

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  “That’s what Hancock said about the symbols on the floor. Ingrid too. I guess evil, with a capital E, as you put it, exists.” He pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes like they hurt from seeing too much. Then he slid them back on.

  “That means they have to be kept out of people’s hands. Kept safe. But they’re still evidence, Will. That’s our job.”

  “How safe can you keep them? How many people can access your evidence room?”

  “We’ve got a safe inside it. They can go there. I promise I won’t take them out of the bags you put them in.”

  “Sheriff, I could feel the pull of them just being near them. It isn’t much, but I was close to them for just over an hour. I hid them where no one else can reach them. If I can find something like a HOLY SHIELD, maybe that’d work. The SYSTEM BANK can hold plenty of items. If this works like in video games, only I can access my bank. They’d be safer there than anywhere else.”

  I didn’t want to lie to him, which is why I didn’t exactly lie. Hopefully he’d assume that’s where I’d stored them. Better he think that, than know the truth. I wanted to get moving, so I walked toward Ingrid. Harper followed, keeping the conversation alive.

  “That might be better than the evidence room,” he admitted. “You’re right, too many people can get in there. Can you destroy them?”

  “I don’t know. Didn’t try. In some games, destroying powerful items makes them explode. The stronger they are, the bigger the blast. I don’t think anyone’s tested that yet. Not that I’ve heard, anyway. We can ask the guys at the convention center.”

  “I’ll do that. See if anyone else has run across things like this,” he said.

  “I’ll ask too. Got a few other things I want to bring up with them. Let me know if you need those items for a court case. I’ll give my statement when you’ve got someone ready to take it down. You can have the short version now while we catch up with the others. I want to know what Ingrid and Shadow found.”

  Harper nodded as we headed toward the main building. “Thanks, Will. I know you’ll follow through. It’s just…Hitchcock’s been bugging me since he found out you took them. Said he was the only one who could examine them safely.”

  “Because he’s a Holy Paladin?”

  “Yeah. That’s what he claims.”

  “Father Stoddard might be better,” I said. “He’s a Holy Priest. I don’t know what an exorcism would do, but he’s been a priest for decades. I’ll bet he knows how to do them.”

  “EXORCISM is a spell Holy Priests can take, even if they’re also Healers,” I added after quickly checking the rules. “And Stoddard has the whole Catholic Church behind him. Hitchcock isn’t a priest. You hinted he’s some kind of federal law enforcement.”

  “He is. Sorry I can’t say more. Maybe soon. With the way this game thing is tearing everything up, maybe it won’t matter anymore why he’s here.”

  “I hope it won’t,” I said as we reached Ingrid, who was helping survivors. Harper caught the hint and moved on to talk with others.

  [William of Brinsford:] [Ingrid] [I need to talk to you and Bhaarrt. Privately. It’s about the things Iago had.]

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [We can invite you back into the Party.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Ingrid] [I’d rather do it the old-fashioned way. We can talk on the way home, whenever you’re ready to leave.]

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [I’ll tell Bhaarrt. He’s helping patch things up.]

  [William of Brinsford:] [Ingrid] [OK. If there’s something you want me to do, tell me and I’ll help.]

  She smiled at that.

  [Ingrid:] [William of Brinsford] [I know. Go look at the pentagram in the main building. We think it was draining MANA from those people and sending it somewhere. Probably Iago.]

  “OK. I’ll do that now. Thanks, Ingrid.”

  She smiled again and went back to work.

  I told Sheriff Harper what Ingrid wanted me to do. He nodded his OK, so I went in. He followed behind me.

  Yellow tape crossed the inner doorways. The people were gone, but the pentagram and encircling symbols remained. The air felt heavy, It still felt evil, but the oppressive weight of before had lessened.

  You can call me something of a medievalist, but I’m also a geek. I pulled out my phone. Geek habits die hard. I took wide shots and close-ups of the markings. Image searches gave me fragments…similarities but no exact matches. A few were close enough to raise my hackles.

  I dug into my memory. A book I’d edited twenty some years ago on western ritual and cabalistic magic. It wasn’t enough. My gut said this was a MANA transfer ritual, but it could also be summoning and binding.

  “People still used symbols like these to trap something inside a circle and bind it. At least, that’s what the searches claimed,” I told the Sherrif. “I hope the professor who wrote that book is still at the university.”

  “I’ll check when I get home and verify his name.” I even dropped a reminder into my phone calendar so I wouldn’t forget.

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