The Wastelander

by Tipsy Wanderer

  “I’ve got good news, everyone.” The fat man’s voice boomed out, his face ruddy with excitement. “The big guy just sent us a new mission and the rewards will be enough to keep us fed for three years. Make your preparations, because we’re headin’ out immediately.”

  The “big guy”? Was this the figure Cloudhawk saw last time, the black-clothed man who wore that strange breathing mask?

  Cloudhawk had a very uncomfortable feeling about this mission. That fellow had offered a bountiful reward for the stone Cloudhawk found. Was it possible he knew some its secrets? If he discovered that Cloudhawk was the one in possession of the stone, Cloudhawk would probably end up dead.

  Slyfox began issuing orders to the various mercenaries. Mantis and two of the mercs would stay behind to stand guard over their home while the rest would all take part in this mission… including their newest rookie, Cloudhawk. In other words, a total of twenty-seven figures would mobilize for this assignment. It was essentially all the power they had to spare.

  Slyfox was both a cautious yet cunning fellow. For him to go out on such a limb and devote so many resources to this mission was most likely due to the fact that the offer really was too good to refuse… but that also meant that the danger they would face was similarly enormous.

  The mercenaries quickly began making their preparations. As for Slyfox, he beamed merrily as he walked straight towards Cloudhawk. “You are pretty lucky, kid; your first mission will be an incredibly profitable one. I’ll tell you straight up – once we finish this mission, we’ll have all the wine and meat we want to eat, and all the big-breasted, big-butted women we want to enjoy. You’ll be thanking me for days on end!”

  Like hell. Cloudhawk had learned from his previous mistakes; he’d rather be locked up with a starving wolf for 48 hours than to believe a word this fat man said. Hell, he’d rather believe the wolf wouldn’t eat him! The more the fatty swore he was telling the truth, the more nervous Cloudhawk felt.

  “…Can I stay back here with Mantis and guard our home instead?”

  “No way!” Slyfox knew exactly what Cloudhawk was worried about and an extremely unhappy look appeared on his chubby face. “Kid, this ain’t gonna be like last time, alright? Ask anyone. I never fuck over my own people. You don’t got shit to worry about, unnerstand? Fuckin’ hell, yer young and useless. Listen up – you don’t have any say in the matter. You are going!”

  Slyfox forced a ragged cloth into Cloudhawk’s hands. “Read this intelligence report carefully and stop wasting time. Forty minutes from now, we’re heading out. If anyone wastes so much as a single minute, I’m breakin’ his fuckin’ legs!”

  Cloudhawk stared at the tattered piece of cloth in his hands, reading the contents within twice.

  Mission: Hunt down and kill a mutated rat king.

  Mission description: The employer has located a lair of mutated rats located not too far from the western side of Blackflag Outpost. These mutated dire rats are roughly the size of wolf-dogs but are incredibly fast and possess powerful offensive attacks. We conservatively estimate that the entire lair has between one to two hundred rats, but our estimates may be off.

  These particular dire rats have undergone all sorts of strange mutations, and possess certain powers other dire rats do not have. The dire rat king in particular is an extremely valuable and unique specimen. Your mission is to find the dire rat king. Conditions permitting, capture it alive – your payment shall be increased by an additional 50% if you can do so. If you cannot capture it alive, do your best to preserve the body as much as possible and keep it undamaged.

  Rats were always tenacious creatures; no matter what types of natural disasters occurred, they would still be able to quickly adapt, survive, and flourish. As a result, there were now many different types of rats in the world. However, based on the mutated rats Cloudhawk had seen in the past, they weren’t exactly very powerful.

  As for the mission report, it similarly didn’t seem to suggest that this task would be particularly difficult. And yet, Cloudhawk knew that there was no way things could be as simple as they appeared. Their employer hadn’t described the various abilities these mutated rats possessed, but the promised rewards testified as to how deadly this mission would be. And in truth, Cloudhawk was completely stunned by the value of this contract.

  Hard currency was rarely used in the wastelands, with barter in gunpowder, firearms, weapons, medicine, and food being the most common forms of trade. Aside from these common items, there was something else that was quite expensive and coveted by many. Certain special materials could be extracted from mutated animals and plants and mixed together according to an extremely complicated alchemical formula to form a type of medicine known as an “enhancement mutagen”.

  Enhancement mutagens had an extremely simple effect – they stimulated the body and facilitated the development of new metapowers or strengthening of existing ones, allowing the user to become even more powerful… and that was exactly what would be awarded to them if they completed this mission. Enhancement mutagens, as well as many other valuable items.

  This reward was a staggeringly valuable fortune! Missions like this were truly rare. Not only would it bring them enormous wealth, it could also allow the company as a whole to grow much stronger. Cloudhawk was a newbie; if he didn’t take part in this mission, he wouldn’t be given any part of the spoils or receive any of the rewards. Maybe Slyfox told the truth for once. Maybe he really is doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

  There would be a certain degree of danger, of course. The wastelands were forsaken by the gods, and so manna would never descend from the heavens. The organization which issued this mission was one of the major powers of the wastelands, and every single mission they issued had most certainly been researched carefully before the relevant rewards were assigned. The promised payout really was directly correlated to the danger of the mission.

  Cloudhawk’s dream was to leave the wastelands, but actually delving through the wastes was no easy feat! More than anything else, he needed to grow more powerful and acquire more armor and armaments. How could he possibly ignore such a tempting, lucrative opportunity? Cloudhawk immediately felt much more relaxed about this mission.

  Mad Dog began issuing equipment to the rest of the Tartarus mercenaries. Nothing in the wastelands was ever handed out for free; if you wanted equipment, you had to pay a fee for it. The equipment pool for the mercenary company was considered shared property so each person had to earn “credit” in order to take equipment out of the pool. Credit was earned in a very simple way; you donated equipment or items you didn’t need to the pool and you would earn credit for it. You would also earn credit for going out on missions alongside the rest of the company.

  Cloudhawk had two guns but no bullets. Three points of credit were needed for a single shotgun shell, while just one point of credit was needed for an ordinary 9 mm bullet. Generally speaking, a single strip of rat jerky also cost a single point of credit. Cloudhawk was brand new in Tartarus and hadn’t been out on any missions the past month; how could he possibly afford any of this expensive equipment?

  Mad Dog waved his hand impatiently. “Fuck it, I’ll give it to you on loan. You can pay me back after this mission is done. I’ll just charge you a tiny bit of interest, just 50%!”

  50% was “just a tiny bit” of interest?! “You are a freaking robber!”

  “The fuck you talking about, kid?” Mad Dog cursed loudly, “I don’t even know if you’ll survive this mission. This isn’t robbery. This is a high-risk loan, got it? I’m taking on the risk of getting nothing back at all. If you don’t want to take my offer, you can go fuck yourself.”

  There was nothing he could do. Cloudhawk had to just hold his nose and accept the offer. A short while later, ten pistol bullets and four shotgun shells fell into his pouch.

  Blackflag Outpost’s gunpowder was all hand-crafted and as a result, the quality wasn’t all that high, with the quantity being fairly low as well. Stil
l, at least it was safe to use… usually.

  “Right. Your leather armor is already finished.” Mad Dog tossed a suit of wolf-skin leather armor to Cloudhawk. This suit of armor had been crafted from the alpha rotwolf Cloudhawk slew and was fairly sturdy and had good defensive properties. “The cost of producing this armor was around twenty points of credit. Need any close combat weapons?”

  “I already have what I need.”

  A poor broke bastard like Cloudhawk would avoid using firearms whenever possible; as a result, cold weapons would always be what he primarily relied on. The mercenaries held quite a few cold weapons in their armory, including sabers, sword, hammers, and axes. Cloudhawk already had his exorcist rod so he needed no other types of equipment.

  “Where the hell did you even find that thing, kid?” Mad Dog glanced sideways at the staff on Cloudhawk’s back. His experienced eye appraised this tri-edged screw-bladed staff as an extremely sharp weapon that could be used to stab or to slash. If it pierced an opponent’s body, even if the opponent didn’t die right away, he would still find it difficult to stem the blood loss from such a jagged wound. It truly was a fine close combat weapon.

  “Here’s a skinning knife. Take it.” Mad Dog tossed Cloudhawk a short dagger then instructed, “We’re about to head out. You’ll be responsible for keeping Woola on his leash. For this mission, you are in charge of Woola.”

  The Tartarus Company had always used Woola as their guard dog, but this mission was rather special: given how alert Woola’s nose was, his tracking abilities would most likely come in handy. Thus, they brought him along as well.

  The reason they assigned a rookie like Cloudhawk responsibility for Woola was partially because the two of them had become fairly close over the past month. It was also because they knew that Cloudhawk had very little actual combat experience and was fairly weak. Woola was a bloodthirsty savage, but at least he was also a powerful combatant. Assigning Woola to Cloudhawk was a way for them to help the newbie out.

  Woola let out a few barking growls as he ran over on all six legs. He seemed to be quite displeased by the fact that he would be under Cloudhawk’s control. Woola’s strength was simply incredible; even though Cloudhawk was now much stronger than when he had first arrived, he was still essentially being pulled forward by Woola rather than vice versa.

  “Car’s here!”

  “Prepare to head out!”

  The mercenaries were all fully outfitted with armor, masks, cloaks, and other strange weapons and types of equipment. This squad truly did represent the uniqueness and character of the wastelands.

  39 Heading Out

  The wastelands were vast without end. It was nearly impossible to travel through them on foot, making reliable forms of transportation incredibly important. The quality of the transportation network in the wastelands was uniformly poor. Although large excavator outposts often had tamed beasts that could be used for transport or shoddily-assembled vehicles, there was a limit to how many vehicles or beasts they could acquire. In the end, only a tiny fraction of people ever had a chance to use them.

  Given how innately ferocious most mutabeasts were, there were very few that could be tamed and trained to serve as mounts. It also took an extremely long period of time to find and capture young beasts, and raise them into full adulthood. This entire process was very expensive and had a high chance of failure, making every single mutabeast mount an incredibly valuable possession.

  As for the wastelander vehicles, they were assembled from a wide variety of random parts, most of which had been dug up from the ground. Other parts were taken from captured vehicles won in field battles. Some of the crudest parts required could even be self-manufactured! In general, it was quite a feat to be able to get these things to even move. However, you could forget about producing a vehicle that could truly conquer the rugged terrain and inhospitable environs of the wastelands.

  Mutabeast mounts needed food and water, while wastelander vehicles needed gasoline.

  Due to these various constraints, most wastelanders were confined to a very small area around the outposts. Only blood-drinking madmen like the mercenaries of the Tartarus Company would dare venture farther afield into more dangerous areas. The Tartarus mercenaries were amongst the oldest organizations of Blackflag Outpost and had built up a collection of transports over the years.

  This time, Slyfox mobilized five wastelands vehicles. Four were off-road vehicles while the fifth was a freight truck. It had been quite some time since Blackflag Outpost had seen a caravan like this set out!

  The bumpers on the Tartarus vehicles had all been torn off and replaced with sharp spikes, while the car doors, roofs, and tires were all studded with spikes as well. These four ridiculously barbaric-looking vehicles resembled enormous steel hedgehogs as their gear-like tires tore through the ground, which was why the mercenaries often referred to them as their “iron hedgehogs”.

  As for their freight trucks, they were enormous in size. Each freight truck had eight tires and had two enormous slabs of steel fastened to the front of the car, with each slab of steel angled at 30 degrees. Behind the truck was an ugly cage-like carriage. On the whole, it looked like some sort of skeletal creepy-crawly creature. And so, the Tartarus mercenaries had given it a friendly nickname – the “iron lizard”.

  The Tartarus mercenaries often used these vehicles. In order to avoid mishaps and vehicular damage, they spent quite some time adjusting them and reinforcing them as necessary. Although the vehicles remained exceptionally ugly and had no aesthetic appeal at all, from a functional standpoint, they were more or less decently equipped to deal with the harshness of the wastelands.

  In addition to the vehicles, there were eight bigfoot birds that let out strange cries as eight fully equipped mercenaries rode atop them.

  Cooke was going to be the leader for the mounted mercenaries on this mission. Cooke was fairly strong even amongst the mercenaries and was more than qualified to be the captain of the mounted division. His weapon of choice was a long billhook that was seven feet long! This weapon had the best attributes of both scythes and spears. It could be used in a mounted charge and also be used to slash and hack. It was the perfect weapon for a cavalryman.

  They had a main force, auxiliary forces, scouts, rearguards, training, and tactics. This mercenary company would be considered an elite outfit anywhere in the entire wastelands… and every single member of the company was exceptionally talented and very experienced. They were extremely powerful in combat and more than capable of dealing with the vast majority of dangers.

  However… what was the most dangerous thing in the wastelands?

  The schemes of other men!

  Terrifying natural disasters, brutal beast waves… in the end, nothing held a candle when compared to the dark hearts of other men. Humans are by nature communal animals that needed to live amongst others of their race, and so it was necessary to always be wary of the danger posed by other people. Countless real life examples proved that sometimes, humans could be even more savage than any beast and even more dreadful than any natural disaster.

  This was an era of chaos. It was almost impossible to find a group of brothers and friends you could truly rely on.

  The mercenaries might be crude, rough, lawless, and brutal, but at least they were very unified and loyal to each other. This loyalty was something Cloudhawk had slowly come to recognize during the month he’d been with them. The reason the Tartarus mercenaries had been able to survive for so long was most likely due to their unity, something incredibly rare in a place like the wastelands.

  “Come back soon!” The other warriors of the outpost all waved farewell to the mercenaries. Even Grizzly and the members of the elite squad were there to send them off. Every so often, their gazes would flicker as they glanced at Cloudhawk, strange looks in their eyes.

  The gates to the outpost swung open. The mercenaries were officially heading out!

  Cloudhawk, Woola, and the eight bigfoot bird riders were a
ll assigned seats aboard the iron lizard. Bigfoot birds were excellent mounts, but the mercenaries only had so many of them. If they were forced to run a hundred kilometers alongside the vehicles, they’d probably be exhausted by the time they were actually needed in battle.

  The five vehicles rumbled out in a straight line. Two iron hedgehogs led the way while two brought up the rear, with the iron lizard in the very middle as this squad of elite mercenaries drove deeper into the rolling yellow sands of the desert wastelands.

  The wastelands were so vast as to engender despair in those who tried to traverse it, and countless ruins and skeletons were hidden beneath its sands. It had been roughly a month and a half since the last time Cloudhawk traversed these sands, but this time, his emotions were completely different.

  The Tartarus mercenaries looked like a long, sinuous yellow dragon that slowly wound its way out of Blackflag Outpost’s territory and made its way deeper into the seared desert wastelands.

  None of them noticed that as they moved, a group of men outfitted in strange equipment were furtively positioned nearby the outpost. It seemed like they were keeping a close watch on what was happening inside the outpost.

  The leader of this group was a muscular man who seemed to brim with strength and vitality. His skin was raven-black and gleamed with a slick oil that made him look almost metallic. He was completely bald, but two crude-looking bull horns could be seen atop his head. As for his weapon, it was an enormous great sword that was the height of a normal human being.

  This weapon had to weigh at least a hundred pounds. Only a man of enormous strength would be capable of wielding such a thing… and clearly, this man was one. Just as clearly, he was a mutant. But despite his crude appearance and brutal demeanor, he had a pair of cold, viper-like eyes that were filled with deathly calm as he stared unblinkingly at that settlement in the sands - Blackflag Outpost.