“Um, I don't think there's any correlation,” I said slowly. She raised her eyebrow. “You sure?” she said. “Maybe,” I said.  

Before she could force my secrets out of me a siren rang out. The siren was for the meeting that happened every year after flood week. “It hasn't happened yet?” I asked a little confused. Usually, the siren happened the day after the flood. “No, they postponed it due to the number of creatures' bodies that needed to be cleaned up”.

“Well, let's go see how the other cities faired”. The meeting was meant to tell the public how the other cities had done and which ones had fallen. This year I had a bad feeling. Due to the size and even a true echo showing up I doubted most of the cities survived. “Damn,” I thought. A city may be missed entirely missed if there lucky but the flood usually combed the landscape well enough to find any city.

We made our way to the city square, which lay in the middle of the city. Showing up we looked to the middle where a stand had been set up for the mayor to speak. Our government still talked to all cities informing them of the state of the world that was how our mayor knew how everything had faired this year.

The mayor was a middle-aged man with a bit of chub and a little double chin. But he wasn't overly fat like some of the merchants. He walked on the stage and began to speak. “Citizens, I have unfortunate news. Almost all the cities that didn't have a proper wall have fallen” a small gasp rose from the crowd. Cities without proper walls were most of them. We had just lost most of this side of the world's population.

“It gets worse, those that have fallen have failed to eliminate their part of the flood. As such they will seek out other cities. All our neighbors have unfortunately fallen and we are the last standing” this time borderline panic was ensuing. “Settle down, settle down. If we can survive a month, we will be getting support from the military” A month, we would normally be lucky to survive the week. Normally. This was not a normal situation. 

I would have to fend off the waves of enemies as they came, but hopefully with my new arm and a deep dive into the book I could hold them off. The mayor concluded his speech. And everything was back to business as usual. That did not mean that I didn't see people looking fearful of the days ahead.

Beth and I began to walk back to her shop. I knew as soon as we got there we would resume our previous discussion. I needed to decide if I was going to tell her the truth. I wanted to but because of my magic and the recent events, it might be better to distance myself untell the remaining monsters were dealt with.

Having made up my mind. We continued towards her shop. I was going to show her that it was me that had killed the monsters. But I didn't have time to answer all her questions. I needed to get back to the base and start designing a way to defend the city. “Maybe lead them to my base instead?” I thought.

Once we were back in the shop, she looked over at me. “Spill it.” I looked her in the eyes and could tell that I would need to tell her the truth. I sighed a little, “Ok, yes I'm the mysterious figure alright.” she looked at me with a little smirk. “Called it,” she said. “So are you like a superhero do have powers or what.” I didn't have time to be telling her all the things I had discovered. “Look I would love to tell you, but I need to start preparing in case any more true echoes show up.”

She pouted a little but eventually nodded her head. “Ok, I got to go” As soon as I said that I activated my cloak and disappeared out the door. Before flying back to the base.

(Beth)

“I didn't know he could do that,” I thought. The revelation that Alex could be the figure had been a little shocking but I had gotten over it pretty fast. After all, I still needed to ask him. But the hours of looking for him turned to days and then a whole week had passed. I had become accustomed to thinking that Alex might be the cloaked figure.

Then he just showed up out of nowhere and started making jokes. It was then that I had gotten a better look at the strange symbols on the cloak. They hadn't been there when I sold the cloak to him but they were now. The symbols matched what I remembered seeing on the figures. It was only a matter of asking him. And seeing his hesitation that confirmed it.

Once we were back from the unfortunate news that the mayor had told us. I immediately wanted to know-how. But I understood that Alex was now somewhat of a “hero” now and he needed to prepare for the monsters. His going invisible was a shocker though. I hadn't seen him do that and wanted, even more, to know how he had gotten these abilities. “Where is he going?” I muttered.

(Alex)

As I flew over the gate and into the forest, I thought about what I would need in order to fight the monsters coming our way. I had barely survived the giant by itself, let alone more than one grouping up. I needed better defenses and better attack spells. I entered the barrier around the base before walking inside my garage. 

I sat on my couch and pulled out the book. I opened it up and flipped to a chapter that I had yet to read but couldn't wait to start. The chapter was called “Constructs and clockwork” It came after the golem chapter. I suspected that it would dive into creating contraptions like cars and armor. Maybe even some prosthetics I could use.

Opening the first page of the chapter I began to read. It was interesting how these people or whatever had written this, described their inventions. They used gears, springs, pulleys, and buckets to work all kinds of magic machinery. The book went into great detail about custom runes specifically designed to accomplish tasks inside these devices.

For example, there was a rune formation that allowed for automatic stability in things like automatons and carriages with legs. One even gave a HUD type view which showed you the damage to the vehicle. My mind went over this new information. Looking at scrap “You wouldn't happen to know how to build a better mana generator now that we have a shop would you?”.