The worst place to be when a fight breaks out is obvious. I know it. You know it. It's stuck up on a cow's back. Cows are slow, fat and highly visible. They are made to attract enemy fire. Consequently, Bob was doing his best to hobble along on his lonesome. It was tiring and painful business.

  The ragtag group would stop every twenty meters or so to let Bob rescan the ground around them. But he never found anything. There were no any hidden traps or lurking monsters. Nothing like that, when they walked into the clearing of down-trodden grass and blood spatters, all they found were corpses.

  There were two bodies. Bob could see just what had happened. There was a teenager out in front, maybe sixteen. He'd rushed forward to protect his companion. He'd rushed forward and been cut down. It was gruesome. He was lying beside his chopped-off hand. A few paces back was a middle-aged woman. His mother maybe? She was in a strange pose. Her arms reaching behind herself. It was almost like she'd been shielding someone. She had a nasty knife wound in her side and another in her thigh. That was when Bob saw it.

  She had been shielding someone. Her daughter. There weren't two bodies, there were three. A little, ten year old girl had been cowering behind her mother's back. It hadn't worked. Something dark and magical had got her in the side of the head. It had eaten through the skin, turning her features black and rotten. And yet, somehow, the other side of her face was completely unblemished. Pure, innocent, childish, her eyes still open. She'd seen it all happen.

  It was a hard sight. Easiest just to shrug and walk away. But Bob got close. He made himself look. Because that there is the face of our world. The innocent die helplessly and the strong walk past. He knelt down and closed her eyes. He was trying to think of something to say. What do you say to the nameless dead? And what did it matter? She couldn't hear him. A sharp intake of breath just behind him. Bob pulsed out his mud sense, enemies, enemies, they'd come back. There was... nothing.

  "Jesus, Sophie, don't go scaring a poor man like that."

  "Robert."

  Bob turned around. Sophie was pointing at something on the ground. Some new horror.

  "What is it Sophie?"

  Bob limped closer. Someone had carved a mark into the dirt. Two crossing Ps with a jagged line over them. A crest?

  "The bandit king," Sophie trembled, "the men who attacked us. They, they were wearing that symbol."

  That was bad news. Bad news on top of bad news on top of bad news. They were already in Bob territory here. It was only a five minutes trot to Bob's front door. Hell the bandits might even be waiting for him on the doorstep. Bob hadn't been worried about the bandit king before. He was the Mud Magician, the World Avatar, Slimesbane. Or he had been. Back when he was at his full strength and had had Harry Mud for backup. The bandit king sure as hell worried him now.

  See, raw mud manipulation was no substitute for Harry Mud. There were so many stupid requirements and limitations. He needed natural mud. He had to make contact with the mud. He couldn't readjust or update attacks. He couldn't harden the mud. He couldn't hold weapons. Not to mention how vulnerable he was. Bob had lost count of how many times Harry had protected him from danger. Dart, slime, tentacle, chips, the list went on... Harry was his sword and spear, his helmet and armor. Without him... Well, Bob didn't like his chances.

  And the clock was ticking. George was level 10 (Sophie had confirmed it). The dog had to begin the evolution process within the next hour or risk getting knocked back down to level 9. None of them wanted to challenge another zone boss any time soon. And once George triggered the evolution process, he'd be useless until the process completed, vulnerable even. What if they had fight the bandit king without George? What if they had to fight the bandit king while protecting George? Let's just say, Bob didn't like his chances.

  But none of that mattered right now. First he had to do something for this family. They didn't deserve to become monster fodder. Whatever their lives might have been, death had redeemed all sins. He buried them in the mud. Side-by-side. Together forever. Sophie scoffed and muttered something about bags of flesh. But Bob was doing this for himself. Because this was how he wanted the world to be. And if even he couldn't live up to it, then how could he expect anyone else to?

  He shaped a rough tombstone. Nothing fancy, just a slab of mud with an arched head. He wanted to write something. But he didn't know what to say. He didn't know their names or their history and he was no a poet. He didn't have the gift. In the end, he settled on the words: "fallen in defense of those they loved." You can't say more than that.

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  George fired the slab and together they set up the tombstone over the fallen. Sophie came begrudgingly over and dabbed down a few drops of perfume.

  "What will that do?"

  "Nothing. It will just smell nice for a couple hours."

  "That's nice Sophie. Thank you."

  Funeral over, they took off towards Earth Settlement 1, Bob obsessively scanning the ground around them. Bob was starting to notice his evolution. His wounds were healing faster than they had any right. And his mana felt changed. It was richer and smoother. It seemed to last longer and flow more easily.

  He'd noticed it in his control over Harry during the fight, but he now could see that the change was more fundamental and wide reaching. Something was qualitatively different between his mana before and after evolution. He pulsed his mana forward through his feet and it sped into the distance.

  "Crap. There are people in my city. A lot of people. At least ten."

  "Are they bandits?"

  "Can you tell a bandit by the shape of his foot?"

  "What are we going to do Robert?"

  "Don't worry. There's a reason why I built a secret base and not a country manor house."

  "Did you ever consider building a country manor house?"

  "No, yes, stop distracting me. A secret base. A base so secret that even you with your cheat, identify power couldn't discover it. We'll just sneak inside and they'll be none the wiser."

  "Yes, but Robert, there is a tiny problem with your grand plan"

  "Oh. Do enlighten me."

  "How are we going to get inside, when a small army is camping on your doorstep?"

  "Sophie," Bob tutted at her and waggled his finger. "Give a man some credit. Is it really a secret base if it only has one entrance way?"

  "You didn't?"

  "I sure did. There are at least six different entrances. Admittedly most of them require you to mud-bend. Good thing you have me with you then isn't it. This way folks." He stopped and eyed Sophie. "And we are tying up Betsy somewhere and leaving her. Because I'm not having evil cow-monsters in my house."

  Home sweet home. Xenophon didn't even come out to greet them. The Kriotere had locked himself up in the guest bedroom and was "researching." He did, however, baa a long apology at them through the doorway. Its sincerity only partially undermined by the self-interrupting shouts of "discovery, discovery" that the Kriotere seemed utterly unable to repress.

  George settled himself on the rug, while Bob led Sophie to his "secret laboratory." A trick book in the bedroom bookshelf revealed a spiral staircase (some architectures are truly timeless). At the bottom of the staircase was Bob's defense bunker. Naturally he had several monitors beaming live footage of the hilltop.

  The bastards were building a tower. And bang in the middle of his city. Ok maybe a tower was exaggerating. The bastards were building a hill fort. It was still very much a work-in-progress affair, but they'd made astonishing progress in the short time Bob had been away. They'd dug a massive trench around the hill. Someone must have a digging power, because ten men with spades could never have achieved as much. And then they'd repurposed the cleared earth to begin constructing a ring wall.

  "Sophie are these the people who attacked you? They don't look like bandits to me. There's a little boy with them. And that's an old woman. You weren't beat up by an old woman were you? Don't tell me that's the legendary bandit king?"

  Sophie glared at the monitors. "I don't recognize them. But Robert, they've invaded our home. We must drive them off somehow. No mercy."

  "Ah crap." Bob had located the troop's resident digger. She was a teenage girl who looked oddly familiar. Had she been on tv? He couldn't place her. He was horrible with faces. One of those reality shows maybe. It wasn't important. What was important was that the construction crew had run out of material. To get more, they'd set their digger tunneling into the hillside itself.

  "Robert, won't that lead her directly to us."

  "Yes, Sophie, that will lead them directly to us."

  "Robert, we must strike first. They do not know we are here. We can ambush them."

  "Honestly, what are the chances? What brings them all to this here hilltop anyway? And how many people have fricking digging powers? I spent so long designing this place and the first group of people who stop by are going to stumble onto it. Un-fucking-believable."

  "Robert. Action! We need action."

  "Sophie, there's a little boy with them. Are you telling me to kill a little boy?"

  "You killed those three man attacking me."

  "Yeah, but those men were... Sophie, I don't want to kill people for no reason."

  "For no reason? Robert, they are coming for us. You think they won't kill us?"

  "Let me think about it. We still have time. This place is pretty deep. It'll take her ten minutes, fifteen. And why would she dig so deep in a single spot? They probably won't find us at all."

  "Robert, you are the most unlucky person I know."

  Why did everything keep getting in the way? Bob had more important things to do. Harry was waiting. In Bob's mind, everything would be alright if only he could somehow save the cloak. With Harry by his side, Bob could singlehandedly defeat the group outside. Well maybe. Probably. They didn't look that tough. Old women and little boys. Where was that damn dog when you needed him?

  Bob had climbed back up into the living room, but George wasn't lying on the rug. Most odd. Bob knocked on Xenophon's door. Xenophon didn't know. Bob searched the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, every room in the whole house. The dog had vanished.

  There was only one conclusion. George had started the evolution process. Stupid dog. George was probably sitting or more likely sleeping in the system's white room right now. How long until George came back? Who knows. Minutes, hours, half a day? Bob collapsed onto the couch.

  "I am the most unlucky person alive."

  Things were great. Wonderful. Lovely. A company of angry, hill-fort-building sentients was knocking on the gates. Sophie was practically a non-combatant. Bob could splash mud around with his mind. And their fire-breathing ace, George Brown, was out of play. They were all doomed.