Author's Note: Merry Christmas - Have a bonus chapter!

They had 37 acorns left and little else in the way of other food when the snows finally melted. All of them were looking lean and more than a little primitive after such a long winter. Benjamin had done his best to keep everyone’s clothes patched, and Emma’s knives proved sharp enough for a little shaving when the guys’ beards got especially bad, but somehow, he never fully trusted her with a knife to his throat. 

In any normal winter, in any normal place, the snows would have melted as gradually as the season came to an end. Here, though, one day, around noon, winter stopped almost as quickly as it started, and everything started to melt at once. For someone used to actual seasons, it was surreal, but that didn’t stop it from happening. Within a few hours, half of all the snow that had been gathering for months was melting, and the river was raging in its banks as it started to bring all the water out to the sea. 

Benjamin wondered what the ecological implications were for such strange seasons, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. It was just a passing thought, and there were other more important matters to attend to. Well, at least there would be once they all got used to the feeling of the sun on their skin and the sound of bird song. The ice on the pond didn’t melt completely on the first day, and the berry bushes had only begun to blossom, but Raja was able to catch a brace of rabbits that had proven to be early risers. They made a wonderful feast, and truthfully, it was the first time in weeks that they’d eaten well. 

“So, when are we leaving this shithole,” Emma asked out of nowhere when Nicole was explaining to everyone which songs were being sung by which birds.  

For a second, he thought the two girls were about to fight, and he almost said, ‘Now, now girls, you’re both pretty,’ until he realized that might well get him stabbed. 

“Soon,” Matt said finally, breaking the tension or at least redirecting it to himself. “There are things to prepare, and we should wait for the weather to improve, but I agree with you, Emma. I have no wish to stay here any longer than we have to.”

After that, they debated how long was soon enough, but it was a conversation that made no one entirely happy. Emma wanted to go now, Nicole and Raja wanted to hunt for as much food as they could before they got on the trail after hearing how rough Matt and Benjamin had lived on their way here, and Benjamin just wanted enough time to finish solving all the various computational dilemmas he was stuck with. 

The conversation dissolved into an argument, but he ignored it. It was almost not cold outside anymore, and he was happy to stay lost in his own little world of the codex interface. So, as the group dissolved to do whatever it was they thought was most important, he simply moved a little further into the sunbeam he was on the edge of and got to work. Cold didn’t bother him too much when he was in the zone, anyway. It was one of the ways he’d managed to make it through the winter with his sanity mostly intact.

Benjamin lay there, appreciating the fresh air more than words could really say as he tried to decide what it was he felt like he should work on next. In the last few weeks, he’d mostly worked on the dispersion mechanism for data leak and tried to optimize his friends’ skills now that he’d finally figured out what the limits of malleability were on those. 

In the former case, he’d made headway by stealing the repetition sequence from a chain lightning spell he’d found; it was pricey, though. Ideally, he could cast it on someone, and that person’s system would be forced to attempt to recast it on everyone in range. In a perfect world, this process would continue indefinitely, but using it in the recursive way he intended made it doubly expensive, bringing the total for the spell up to seven mana. That would make it his most expensive spell if he finalized it in this configuration, but he had yet to pull that trigger. 

He hadn’t yet found any way to cut corners there, which was why he’d spent the last couple of weeks learning to cut corners better by working out the limits to spell alternation and, eventually, using his friends’ skills as practice. The fact that so many spells were so poorly built was more evidence to Benjamin that the systems they were all shackled to might not be optimized the way that he would expect for something that was so important. 

But then again, he recalled that Earth pretty much ran on Windows, and there was no end to the problems with that piece of junk, so maybe he was overthinking it. Regardless, the mana cost seemed to dictate the size and power level of the code that could be contained within it, and the system didn’t seem to mind if he tweaked it as long as he stayed in that box. 

At first, Benjamin thought that meant he had discovered a cheat code that would grant him infinite spells, but the system would reject the change if he changed too much of the spell. While he could probably do another registry edit type fix, like he’d done with Matt, and try to manually change these things out, Benjamin still wasn’t convinced that something like that wasn’t just asking for trouble, and at this point, he wasn’t desperate enough to find out. 

So he’d spent a little time determining how big the boxes were and working with his friends to fit every last erg of power into them. He’d tweaked arcane shot, reducing the power by 8% to increase the range by 25%, and reduced fusillade’s range by a third to give Raja 50% more projectiles based on his friend’s input of how he actually used the spells. He’d done similar things to Nicole’s takedown and Emma’s bladestorm.

Individually, each upgrade was minor, but even more than eking out every last erg of power from the mana being spent was the way he was working to tailor each power to its user. That counted for a lot as far as he was concerned.

The biggest change, though, was what he’d done to lesser heal. The spell actually had a range, but Matt had never actually used it. In fact, looking at the log files, 92% of all the healing he’d done was on himself. So, it was the easiest decision in the world to take the range down to touch and boost the power by 30%. 

So now all of them had a great understanding of their own powers, and though he still hadn’t gotten Emma and Matt to work together as a team, Raja, Nicole, and himself were getting pretty good and not getting in each other’s way, and they’d continued to spar during the dullest parts of the winter when they’d all been bored out of their minds. 

Benjamin had even managed to create a sort of a soundboard for Raja. It was limited to text at the point, sadly, but it had a few commands he could select and broadcast to the group. So, any time they had the party interface on, he could send messages to everyone like, ‘Watch out!’ or ‘I’ve got it!’ There were only a handful of choices right now, and he wished he had some memes to upload for the poor guy, but he’d still been thrilled to have some outlet beyond his rapidly dwindling supply of paper. 

At this point, over a hundred billion combinations into trying and failing to unlock his voice, conversations had largely become a series of exaggerated expressions interlaced with the occasionally rude gesture. Benjamin wondered if his friend would have been forbidden from speaking sign language if he’d known it, but since no one did it was a moot point. 

Right on cue, Benjamin heard something a little louder, a little higher pitch, and distinctly feminine disturb the bird song and echo distantly through the trees. Right on schedule, he said to himself as he laid there. Not everything needed talking, after all. Honestly, given how often Raja and Nicole had found an excuse to wander off together around the same time these days, Benjamin wasn’t at all surprised that they were taking advantage of the nicer weather. 

What he was surprised by was the laughter that sprang up behind him immediately after that. He turned just in time to see Nicole and Raja walking back toward the camp from the other direction, laughing to each other. For a moment, Benjamin was deeply confused. If they were here, then how could they have… The answer was that they couldn’t have been responsible for it, of course, and that fact was underlined by another cry from somewhere in the forest that obviously wasn’t nearly far enough away. 

“I mean, I’d tell them to get a room, but we only have the one, so…” Benjamin said, trying not to blush. Everyone laughed at that, and then Nicole changed the topic to one of preparation as they all struggled to ignore what had obviously been a long-awaited reunion by everyone. 

Benjamin hoped that would bring some peace to their camp, finally, but he was disappointed. The three of them had figured out that the SUV could probably get them about halfway back before they ran out of gas, but just about the time they were trying to figure out how they would carry enough supplies for five for another week or two, and how they were going to be able to blend in with the locals, Matt and Emma returned to camp. 

Matt seemed happier than he’d been in a long time. However, as soon as Raja gave Emma a knowing look, she raged and stormed off again, which made everyone laugh, even Matt.  

Once that little bit of drama was finally done, They all got to work on the plan. 5 people needed something like 14,000 calories per day, which was at least 20 pounds of meat. Since they couldn’t guarantee what the hunting and fishing conditions would be like along the way, they would need to preserve and carry at least a couple hundred pounds, plus their standard gear, but fortunately, they were all stronger than they were before they’d gotten here, so with any luck, they could get that together within the next couple weeks, and then the rest of the plan would take care of itself. 

After all, they didn’t want the Throne to get antsy and decide they’d reneged on their agreement. They all remembered the monster she’d unleashed on them last time, as well as the fact that it was only a lesser elemental. Benjamin certainly had no desire to find out what a major one looked like, but he wasn’t exactly eager to find out what the summoners would have as an alternative. He remembered just how nasty his first real spell, swarm of devils, was, and he was sure they had things far worse than that if Miku-chan could be believed.  

Second Author's Note: I have other news too, actually. I have signed a couple of books with a publisher, and the first book they want to publish is Broken System. Soooo... It's going to be stubbed through book 1 (Chapter 43) at the end of the month. Yes, I know that's awful, but I will mark the title and the blub to let people know that, so they can stay ahead of the cliff. I'm not trying to push anyone to have to pay for my books if they don't want to, but I do want to get them out to a wider audience. So, if you have friends that might like the story, they still have a month to get caught up. 

I know you're probably asking yourself, "if this is Winchester's most recent book... why is it the first one to be stubbed? Why not start with one of the older titles." The answer to that is pretty simple. It's the one they wanted.

Of everything I've written so far, it has the widest appeal. As much as I may like dark themes in my stories, that's not the case for everyone. So... Tenebroum and Death After Death will wait a while longer. 

I know this won't be the most popular announcement on this site, but I'm committed to keeping my readers informed. There will still be two more chapters later this week, and honestly, given the pace I've been rocking on writing lately, I might switch this book up to 3 chapters a week next month. We will see.