Book One - Chapter Nine: Brewmageddon

Peña flanked us, gravity fields snapping around his hands, finger guns cocked and ready. We sprinted up the spiraling stone path, chasing a battered observation platform that dangled over the abyss. Below us, a squad of Earth soldiers screamed as they were thrown off the narrow walkway, their bodies disappearing into the endless darkness.

“Talk to me,” Riley snapped as we ran, her voice tight with controlled panic. “The Core—what the hell happened when you arrived? Thought I spotted something back there.”

The entire cavern shuddered. Explosions were getting closer they mined toward us. A massive stalactite crashed down, impaling three soldiers thirty feet to our left. Their blood splattered across the stone in a fine crimson mist.

“It felt like it knew me,” I said, keeping pace without looking at her. “Like it was... calling me.”

My chest burned with each word, not from exertion but from something deeper—a pull, a yearning connection that had been growing stronger since we'd entered the cavern. It felt like homesickness for a place I'd never been.

“Fascinating,” she muttered. “We got info from a captured Xarnathi. It’s technically called a System Core before it grows. Every planet's got one. Grows slow, like a seed. Thousand years. But this one sprouted up the same day as the Wisconsin disaster. No one knows how or why.”

“Yeah, about that.” I dodged a fallen slab, breath coming faster. “I've seen something similar before. There was actually this soap—”

“Soap?” she barked.

“Yeah. Riley. There's something I should—”

She sliced the air with her hand, cutting me off. “Later, Barista. Trolls first. Backstory after, if we survive.” Her eyes locked on mine, fear and determination battling for dominance. “I think we've had enough exposition for one day. It's time to fuck some baddies up.”

We jumped a gap between floating stones and hit the platform hard enough to make it shudder. A soldier behind us missed the jump, his scream fading as he plummeted into the dark.

The Core hung below, monstrous and alive.

From this height, I could see it wasn't random chaos—it was designed. Intricate patterns. Writing in a strange and mesmerizing language that seemed to shift and pulse with each passing second. I couldn't read it, but somehow I understood it—promises of power, warnings of responsibility, whispers of destiny. Real hero shit.

As I stared, the Core pulsed—once, twice—and I swear to god it winked at me.

My HUD snapped awake:

[CORE SYNCHRONIZATION AVAILABLE]

[ESTABLISH CONNECTION?]

[YES | NO]

[WARNING: EXTREME RISK. SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE NONEXISTENCE, REALITY FRACTURES, PERSISTENT DREAD, AND THE UNSETTLING SENSATION OF BEING DRUNK — NOT THE FUN KIND, MORE LIKE BEING PHYSICALLY IMBIBED BY SOMETHING MUCH, MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU.]

[BUT HEY, NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING. TOTALLY YOUR CALL, CHAMP.]

“Uh, Riley?” I called over the rising tremors. “The Core just offered to eat me. Politely.”

She froze midstep, her face draining of color. “Nobody links to the Core. We tried. They died. Horribly.” She grabbed my shoulder, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “Like, inside-out-and-screaming horribly.”

“Yeah, well,” I muttered, blinking at the notification. “Wasn’t exactly planning to swipe right on it.”

My finger twitched near the Accept button but I yanked back like it was a live wire.

The Core could wait. Right after ‘Why is the sky Pepto-pink?’ and ‘Why does the System hate pants? Specifically, me wearing them.’

“Where are we even going?” I asked, keeping pace easily, jogging backward while they pushed forward at full speed.

“Open ground,” Riley said. “You pull a lot of aggro, Coffee Boy. I get you into position, and when they come running to rip you apart, our guys light 'em up.”

The cavern shuddered underfoot, coughing dust and ceiling chunks around us. Somewhere below, a squad screamed—raw, panicked, cut short.

Across the platform ahead, the rock split with a wet, tearing sound—a brutal breach, earth clawed open from the other side.

From the ragged wound, the first Gravethrall heaved itself through. He was a walking nightmare of cracked stone and rusted chains, fists like wrecking balls. The troll let out a low, pleased growl. It wore a torn leather vest stretched over its jagged frame, a battered cigar clamped between teeth.

Its face looked like a caveman tried sculpting a human head from wet cement… with a hammer.

More followed. Five. Ten. Fifteen. Each uglier, meaner, somehow hungrier than the last.

And then came the Cerulians—floating in like bad dreams, blue robes whispering through the charged air.

They didn’t walk. They glided, slow and deliberate, their movements too smooth, too together, like marionettes jerked along invisible wires.

Light slithered around them in soft coils of neon.

I tried counting—twenty, thirty—then a dozen more. And still more poured through.

“No time like the present,” I muttered, dry as ash, the knot in my gut pulling tighter.

Below, the firefight had already started.

Gunfire snapped and roared, but it sounded small, pitiful, against the cavern’s vastness.

A soldier pinwheeled past our platform, armor torn to ribbons, body limp as a dropped marionette.

He didn’t scream.

Dead men don’t.

I yanked open my apron's infinite pocket, scrolling frantic through a mental inventory that flashed across my HUD. The options blurred past—half of them grayed out, untested.

[BATTLE BREW: READY]

[+300% SPEED | +400% STRENGTH | -100% WISDOM]

[DURATION: 10 MINUTES]

[WARNING: MAY CAUSE REGRETTABLE ONE-LINERS AND TEMPORARY MEGALOMANIA. LET THE SYSTEM INSIDE YOU.]

The Gravethrall howled, club smashing against the stone. The platform cracked beneath the impact, a spiderweb of fractures racing toward us. Riley stumbled, catching herself at the edge. Half our squad wasn't so lucky—they slid screaming into the chasm as the section they stood on gave way.

I met Riley's eyes. For all her training, all her experience, I saw naked fear there. This wasn't a battle. This was a slaughter.

I ripped the thermos free, sloshing with liquid power. Twisted the cap.

The scent hit me—pure rage and raw coffee, like someone had brewed death metal straight into a cup. It burned my nostrils and made my eyes water.

I drank.

For one heartbeat, nothing happened.

A freight train of raw power hit my spine, ripping through muscle, nerve, thought. My vision exploded into hyper-clarity, colors so vivid they felt like physical objects. The Core pulsed in perfect sync with my heartbeat, each throb sending a fresh wave of fire through my veins.

[BATTLE BREW × CORE AMPLIFICATION]

[EFFECTS DOUBLED]

[WARNING: OBJECTS MAY APPEAR WEAKER THAN THEY ARE]

[CATCHPHRASE PROTOCOL: ENGAGED]

[PROBABILITY OF EMBARRASSING YOURSELF: 100%]

Golden light erupted from my skin, my apron, my goddamn hair. The platform beneath my feet cracked under the sudden energy discharge. Riley stumbled back, shielding her eyes.

Every fiber of my body thrummed with potential barely shy of annihilation. I could feel my cells vibrating, threatening to tear themselves apart from the sheer volume of power they suddenly contained.

I heard Peña whisper, almost reverent. “Oh shit.”

The Gravethralls charged, their stone feet pounding a death march across the platform.

My mouth opened without my permission: “Fresh pot's ready,” I growled, my voice resonating with inhuman harmonics.

And then I moved.

Not ran.

Moved.

From stillness to chaos in a blink, I slammed into the lead Gravethrall—and the battle for Earth's Core exploded into full, glorious hell.

Physics had opinions about how fast humans should move.

Right now, I was telling physics to go fuck itself.

I hit the first Gravethrall like a caffeine-fueled meteor, my fist connecting with its stone chest at speeds that would have shattered every bone in my arm if not for the Battle Brew.

The impact sent out a shockwave that cracked the platform beneath us. The troll didn't just stumble–it exploded, chunks of animated stone blasting outward like shrapnel from a cosmic hand grenade. Three nearby Cerulians were shredded by the stone fragments, their robes turning from blue to purple as their alien blood soaked through.

“GROUND AND POUND!” I screamed, unable to stop the catchphrase protocol. “THE SPECIAL TODAY IS PAIN AU CHOCOLAT, EMPHASIS ON THE PAIN!”

I didn't choose to say these things. But the System has a sense of humor that would make a dad joke enthusiast cringe. And right now, pumped full of Battle Brew and Core energy, I couldn't stop it if I tried.

Two more Gravethralls lumbered toward me, swinging massive clubs studded with metal spikes. I dodged the first swing—not by inches, but by yards, launching myself fifteen feet into the air with a single push of my legs.

From above, I could see the battlefield unfolding across the cavern, and my heart sank despite the chemical courage coursing through me.

It was a massacre.

The observation platform had become a war zone—Earth soldiers falling like dominoes, their weapons barely slowing the tide of monsters pouring through a dozen portals. For every troll they took down, three more stomped forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Their low levels helped, sure—but this wasn’t the goblin starter pack anymore. These guys showed up ready to wreck lives.

Below, near the Core itself, a squad of Earth's finest was being overwhelmed. Their officer screamed into his radio for backup that wouldn't come, his voice cracking with desperation seconds before a Gravethrall's club pulverized his skull in a spray of red mist.

I hurled coffee pods like grenades, each one detonating with a sharp crack and a puff of steam.

Espresso shots blasted from my hands like bullets, punching through skulls and dropping bodies before they hit the ground.

If we lost here, Earth was done.

Was this really humanity’s best shot?

Where were the reinforcements? The other countries? Anyone? Someone else had to have figured out how to Awaken more people… but then again, they could only manage it here because of my blood.

A sharp, ugly thought wormed its way in:

We should’ve given more people my blood.

More people. More time. More levels.

This isn't enough.

Man, I’m a walking fucking moral contradiction.

The battlefield exploded into pure chaos—powered blasts flying every direction, bodies and debris everywhere.

And not all the abilities made sense.

I swear I saw a guy throwing flaming pizza slices like ninja stars.

Another stretched ten feet tall and started stomping Gravethralls like cockroaches.

One bare-chested lunatic was just screaming at the enemy—and somehow making their heads pop like water balloons.

And that’s when it hit me:

They had my blood.

Whatever weird-ass power they had buried deep?

Yeah. It wasn’t buried anymore.

Fantastic.

Riley stood at the edge of the command platform, her twin blades drawn and humming with blue energy. She moved like a dancer with anger issues, each slice of her weapons leaving glowing trails in the air. A Cerulian floated toward her, hands weaving a spell, but she was already moving—ducking under the blast of blue energy and coming up inside the monk's guard.

“You blue bastards took my entire platoon in Denver,” she snarled, her face spattered with alien blood. Her blades flashed once, twice, and the Cerulian fell in three separate pieces, its robe fluttering like a deflating balloon. “That's one down, about a thousand to go!”

She spun, catching another Cerulian mid-spell, her blade severing its hands before it could complete the casting. It howled—a sound like glass breaking underwater—and she silenced it with a thrust through where a heart would be on a human.

“RILEY, DOWN!” Peña's voice cracked through the air.

She dropped flat without hesitation as a blast of energy sizzled through the space where her head had been.

Peña hovered nearby—literally hovered, riding his own gravity manipulation like a cosmic surfboard. He fired blasts from his fingertips, each shot curving around obstacles to find its target with impossible precision.

“Die motherfuckers!” he shouted, banking hard around a stone column. Three Cerulians tracked him, their spells following his movements but always a fraction too slow.

He hit a wall, kicked off it, and flipped upside down, both hands forming finger guns. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” He literally shouted.

Each “shot” bent gravity into a deadly lance that punched through Cerulian robes like they were tissue paper. The monks dropped, their hoods finally falling back to reveal faces of smooth blue porcelain, eyes wide with shock.

A Gravethrall tried to climb the wall to reach him, but Peña just grinned, formed finger guns with both hands, and created a gravity well so intense it crushed the troll into pebbles. “Suck on THAT gravity, pendejo!”

“Jerry, lookout!” Peña shouted.

I twisted mid-air just as a blue bolt of energy sizzled past my ear. The Cerulians had targeted me, their robed forms floating above the battlefield like vengeful ghosts. Their hands moved in complex patterns, weaving spells from glowing mana threads.

Gravity suddenly quadrupled. I plummeted toward the platform, the Cerulian's spell trying to flatten me into pancake. The stone cracked under the impact of my landing, a crater forming around my feet.

Pain lanced through my legs, temporarily overwhelming even the Battle Brew's numbing effects. I gritted my teeth against a scream.

[DAMAGE DETECTED]

[LEGS: STRESS FRACTURES (MULTIPLE)]

[RECOMMENDATION: DON'T DO THAT AGAIN, GENIUS]

[BATTLE BREW COMPENSATING...]

The pain vanished as quickly as it had come, replaced by a warm numbness that crawled up from my toes. I knew I'd pay for it later, but right now, I had monks to murder.

I sprinted toward the spell-caster, each step leaving smoking footprints and small craters in the stone. The Cerulian's eyes widened beneath its hood, glowing with ethereal light. It tried to float backward, hands already weaving another spell.

Too slow.

I leapt, grabbed its ankle, and whipped it around like a blue nunchuck before slamming it into an approaching Gravethrall. Both went down in a tangle of stone limbs and azure robes. I didn't wait to see if they'd get up—I landed on them with both feet, the impact turning stone and alien flesh into a paste that splattered across twenty feet of platform.

“ORDER UP!” I shouted. “ONE BLUE PLATE SPECIAL, HOLD THE MERCY!”

God, I hate myself sometimes.

A squad of Earth soldiers rushed past me, weapons blazing, their armor enhanced with glowing blue lines of System integration. Level 5s, maybe 6s at most. Brave, but outmatched. One of them fired a plasma rifle at an approaching troll, but the shot barely cracked its stone hide.

The troll roared and swung its club in a wide arc. Three soldiers went flying, their bodies bouncing off the cavern wall with sickening thuds. The fourth ducked, but the backswing caught him in the ribs, the sound of breaking bones audible even over the chaos of battle.

I was moving before I even realized it, cutting between two more trolls and grabbing the fallen soldier before a stone foot could crush his skull. His eyes went wide as I scooped him up—a kid, barely twenty, blood trickling from his mouth.

“Thanks, man,” he gasped, eyes unfocused. “Thought I was—”

“Stay with me, soldier,” I said, sprinting toward the triage station our medics had set up behind a barricade. “What's your name?”

“Billy,” he wheezed, each breath a wet rattle in his chest.

“Well, Billy, I expect you to live through this so I can collect on the tip you're gonna owe me.” I deposited him with the medics, who immediately went to work on his crushed ribs. “You hear me? Big fat tip. Five star review. That's an order.”

I clapped his shoulder gently and turned back to the battle, knowing in my gut this was a promise neither of us might be able to keep.

A Gravethrall twice the size of the others stepped through a newly opened portal. A chieftain, based on the elaborate stone carvings covering its body. It roared, and the sound was physical–a concussive blast that sent three more soldiers flying like dolls tossed by an angry child.

“Pull back!” Riley commanded over the comms. “Defensive formation Beta!”

The soldiers retreated in practiced coordination, laying down cover fire. The chieftain ignored the bullets pinging off its stone hide and lifted a massive hammer that pulsed with sickly green energy. With each pulse, I felt the Core below us shudder, as if in pain.

Whatever that hammer was, it wasn't just a weapon—it was a threat to the Core itself.

I sprinted toward it, the world around me moving in slow-motion thanks to my enhanced speed. The Gravethrall swung its hammer down in a devastating arc, aiming for a cluster of soldiers who hadn't retreated fast enough–

–only to freeze mid-swing, the weapon suspended in the air as if time itself had stopped.

Peña stood twenty feet away, both hands extended, his face contorted with effort. Blood trickled from his nose, staining his teeth as he snarled with concentration. He'd created a powerful gravity well around the hammer, trapping it in place.

“Can't... hold it... long...” he grunted, sweat beading on his forehead. A vein bulged in his temple, throbbing dangerously. “Do something!”

I didn't waste the opportunity. I sprinted up the Gravethrall's arm like it was a runway, my apron fluttering behind me like a superhero cape.

[STRENGTH BOOST: PEAKING]

[REMEMBER: AIM FOR THE JOINTS]

[TRY NOT TO DIE. PAPERWORK IS A NIGHTMARE.]

[PROBABILITY OF SURVIVAL: DECLINING RAPIDLY]

[LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT MODE ENGAGED]

“Oh, ye of little faith,” I muttered to the System.

I planted my feet on the Gravethrall’s shoulder as its crude stone face twisted—maybe in surprise, maybe in confusion.

Didn’t matter.

“STEEP IN THESE BEANS!” I roared, launching upward.

My fist cocked back and slammed straight into the seam where stone met stone at the creature’s thick neck.

The moment my fist connected, so did the hammer—a compact car’s worth of hurt slamming straight into my chest.

Pain exploded through me. Blood sprayed from my mouth midair.

My arm went numb from knuckles to shoulder, but I didn’t fall.

For a beat, nothing moved.

Then—

With a sound like a quarry collapsing, cracks spiderwebbed across the Gravethrall’s neck.

Its head listed sideways, then tore free and smashed into the platform hard enough to send a shockwave rippling through the battlefield.

The body swayed, hammer still caught mid-swing in Peña’s gravity well, before it gave up and crashed down in a heap of broken stone.

I pushed off, launched myself backward, boots skidding across the blood-slick platform—still breathing.

Barely.

But breathing.

I watched as an impossible flood of trolls and monks poured into the cavern, a living tide of stone and robes that just kept coming.

Fuck.

I landed beside Riley just as she carved a Cerulian clean in half, her blades sliding through its midsection like it was made of warm blue butter.

”Show-off,” she muttered, but there was a flicker of a smile before her face hardened again.

”We're still outnumbered ten to one,” she said. “And bad news—southern perimeter’s gone dark. They’re coming in from behind.”

A shadow fell over us.

Four Gravethralls barreled in—bigger than the grunts, smaller than the chieftain, but just as eager to break something.

Their stone clubs swung down in brutal arcs.

I spun—fast but still too slow. The first club smashed into my shoulder, a wet, sick crack bursting through my body. Bone, stone, something important—couldn't tell.

Pain detonated down my arm.

A second club whistled past my head, so close I felt the wind claw at my hair.

Riley sliced through one of their legs, kneeling it. I managed to kick another, throwing it back.

A third club caught me dead-center in the chest.

The world inverted.

I flew backward, slammed through a stone pillar, and skid across the platform like a skipped rock.

My HUD flared angry red:

[DAMAGE CRITICAL]

[RIBS: FRACTURED (6)]

[INTERNAL BLEEDING: MODERATE]

[BATTLE BREW: ATTEMPTING COMPENSATION, FAILED]

[STATUS: BAD DAY OFFICIALLY UPGRADED TO “FUBAR”]

[PROBABILITY OF BUYING THE FARM: 78.2%]

[LAST WORDS? NO? COOL.]

I coughed blood and grinned through the sharp, metallic bite of it.

Tried to stand.

My body voted no. Overwhelming majority. I tried to activate my Final Blend but I couldn't move my arms.

Out of the corner of my eye, two Gravethralls blindsided Riley, slamming into her from the flank. She went down hard, swallowed up by a stampede of stone feet.

Three more Gravethralls peeled off and lumbered toward me, stone faces blank but somehow oozing smug satisfaction—like they already knew how this ended.

“Todd,” I rasped into my earpiece, blood bubbling between my lips. “Little help here?”

Nothing.

No crackle, no snarky comeback.

Where the hell was he?

The monstrous Gravethrall loomed over me, club raised for the killing blow.

I closed my eyes, breath slowing.

So this was it.

Not even a week out of my coma, and already about to punch my ticket.

Sorry, Earth. I tried.

The world should’ve gone black.

Instead, the world exploded in a roar so raw and violent it ripped across the cavern, stunning the battle into a frozen, breathless pause.

My eyes snapped open just in time to see a blur of green muscle and spikes plow into the Gravethralls.

The collision shredded them, stone chips raining down like confetti.

A howl ripped through the dust, gravel and rage ground into something almost like words—raw, enraged, and unmistakably female.

Goblin female.

Giant, pissed-off, female goblin.

Big Green!

“No!!!” she screamed.

Nineteen feet of furious, quill-armored goblin rage—built like a tank that had grown up napping in barbed wire.

One Gravethrall swung a club at her. Nothing.

He swung again.

She caught it one-handed, ripped it free, and smashed the troll’s skull into powder.

She made quick work of the remaining trolls around us. Then she stomped forward and stopped, looming over me, breathing hard, eyes wild.

I honestly wasn’t sure if she was about to help me up... or stomp me into paste.

Or maybe something worse.

Much, much worse.