Elusive Prey

by Cheek, Jason

  “Well, yeah,” Jodi admitted, feeling somewhat defensive. “It seemed straight forward enough with all the videos, so I didn’t think I needed to look into the issue any further than that.”

  The collective sigh around the table from her audience got Jodi’s back up somewhat. Even more irritating were the knowing mutters as if they knew something she didn’t. While a part of her knew she shouldn’t be getting annoyed so easily, how they were carrying on made her feel like she’d missed something big. She was going to say as much when Sunny cut her off.

  “Well that makes a lot more sense. You see, the Chaos Storm Alliance has been making up a bunch of fake videos that shows Star and our friends doing a bunch of shady shit and the community has been eating it up like candy. Star uploads the complete videos of what really happens, but the Chaos Storm players and their friends have been hammering their own narrative so much that few people have actually watched them.”

  “Look,” Jodi said, somewhat annoyed, “I hear what you’re saying, but the videos looked pretty clean to me.” Seeing the old woman opening her mouth to argue, she held up her hand. “I’m not saying that the videos weren’t edited somewhat. Who seriously wants to watch the whole unedited version, right? Even so, they looked pretty straight forward to me.”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “The videos are hugely spliced together.”

  “You bought all of that?”

  “Shush boys,” Sunny said, raising her voice for the first time to her friends, before turning back to Jodi. “Honey, everything you’ve said that Star’s done is completely backwards.”

  “The video shows Startum attacking Telrain clear as day,” Jodi argued.

  “Only after he evacuated the townsfolk first,” Sunny shot back.

  “Yeah, to enslave them,” Jodi exclaimed.

  “No, he broke them out of the Chaos Storm Alliance’s slave camps,” Sunny growled in frustration.

  “Don’t you guys know anything?” Jodi asked in frustration.

  “Yeah, we watched the entire video and not some spliced together lie crafted to fit the Chaos Storm Alliance’s personal narrative,” Zeppy snapped angrily.

  “It was on the Podcast Guy’s podcast,” Jodi said in exasperation. “He does all the highlights of the action going on from people’s Twitch streams in The World and condenses the action to the highlights.”

  “Exactly, you allowed someone else to tell you what the truth was instead of researching it for yourself,” Tumms said, as if that explained everything. “If you want to know what really went down, look up Startum Ironwolf’s thread on the forums or just watch the actual unedited version from the man’s Twitch Channel for yourself.”

  “I already saw what happened,” Jodi argued, “there’s no need to look at any other videos.”

  “So what,” Tumms pointedly asked, “you don’t trust the word of your brother?”

  “Gah,” Jodi wordlessly screamed in frustration at their badgering. Tumms’ last comment had really struck a nerve with her.

  “Everyone calm down, we’re all friends here,” Sunny said, standing up to settle everyone down. Meeting Jodi’s eyes, she continued calmly. “Jodi, you asked us what was up and we answered you. That’s it in a nutshell. We don’t need to discuss the issue further beyond that. Everyone’s welcome to their opinion as long as we can play nicely together.”

  “It’s a wrong opinion, sparky” Zeppy muttered under his breath, as Sunny shushed him.

  “So how about we square up with the waitress and get on our way?” Sunny asked, as she lifted a questioning eyebrow to Elandorr.

  “It’s probably for the best,” Elandorr stiffly agreed, as he got up to pay the bill.

  With the conversation basically over, everyone got moving in no time. Unfortunately, Jodi felt a little left out as the rest of the group kept their distance from her. Well, everyone but Tumms. Although she didn’t know him well, she knew that he was friends with her brother and obviously wanted to make her feel welcomed. Sadly, that just made her feel even more awkward.

  In no time, they were heading back towards the city gates. Jodi tried to excuse herself from the rest of the group to pick up her bounties for The Syndicate players she’d killed, but to her chagrin, it was on the way. Her interaction with the Delonshire Guards didn’t end up being any better. While the sergeant in charge readily gave her the bounty for the outlaws that she’d taken down, they didn’t joke around with her like they did with the rest of the members in the group.

  Slowly though, the rest of the players started joking with one another and talking about their adventures as they made their way to the gate. Slowly the unease that Jodi felt began to fade away as she was asked questions about her Blink Lynx and how she’d managed to get a combat pet. Before she knew it, Jodi was going into the mini-boss adventure and how she’d rescued the cub as everyone intently listened to her story. By the time she’d gotten to the end of her spiel, Jodi was feeling much better and had settled down about the altercation she’d had with the group earlier.

  While Zeppy’s Heroes had over the top personalities, they were a pretty fun group and the stories they had were off the wall. Jodi also found out that Grody was indeed a guy. The story he had about how he’d come up with this avatar, in another game, to make his young son laugh was somewhat understandable. Now that his son was a grown man, there really wasn’t any reason to keep on playing such a horrendous looking avatar.

  Privately, Jodi thought his avowed preference was somewhat suspect, but whatever, it’s not like it mattered to her one way or another. Not that she said that directly to him. But, it was a point she’d argue over a beer if it were ever brought up. Honestly, he really seemed to enjoy the leather strap harness he was wearing over his female character’s saggy dugs. Not to mention, the warts, greasy hair, and large paunch were over the top of any normal common decency standards in an MMO.

  In all honesty, being ugly in a game world where everyone was beautiful made him stand out even more. He was like a walking train wreck. People stared at him wherever he went. Probably wishing they could unsee the horror before their eyes at the same time being unable to look away. It made the visual of the mustache ride he’d done on the poor PKer even more horrific.

  To her surprise, the Kayden Troopers’ encampment was already broken down with the main group formed up and ready to go. Basically the group consisted of twenty-one troopers with a hundred and twenty-seven zombies as guards. Though Elandorr didn’t seem to want to talk to her, Bialaer was friendly enough to explain that the other forty Rogues and Rangers were back in Stealth and keeping a watch out for anyone trying to cause problems. With a polite bow, he excused himself to head to the front of the column as the rest of them fell in behind.

  There was a crowd of players that watched them leave the area. Most were completely green with envy at their procession, which Jodi admitted did look cool as hell. Still, she didn’t understand why they had to be escorted in the first place. Leaning close to Tumms, she asked in a low voice.

  “So, do we need to be escorted to BrokenFang Hold because of all of the players trying to kill us or because it’s hidden?” Jodi asked, as they began making their way into the forest.

  “It’s neither,” Tumms said with a laugh. “From what I understand, it’s basically because the monsters between Delonshire and Fang Pass are such a high-level now. You need a forty player raid just to make it through the forest to the base of the mountain. Then you have to make it up the slope without being taken out by any randomly spawning, high-level mini-bosses.” Seeing the shocked look on her face, Tumms waved her concern away. “Come on now, this should be fun!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  (Northeastern Plains of Atoll: The Devil Dogs scouting the Hobgoblin Force)

  “Move it, Forrest,” Connor Mac called out. “Go … go … go!”

  Running on the balls of his feet, Connor pushed up the ridge as fast as his legs would carry him, while doing his best to bal
ance the heavy load on his back against the tripod and bundle of spears in his arms. By now, the hoarse sounds of their heavy breathing and the crunch of frozen snow beneath their boots were all that they could hear as they raced for the top. The two of them had been going balls to the wall like this for the last five minutes trying to catch up to the Hobgoblin group of Worg Riders that had been sent out to forage for food.

  By now, he and Forrest were familiar with the Hobgoblin’s methods for sending out foraging teams. There were literally hundreds of groups being sent out throughout the day. They’d find a group of monsters and either ride them down or chase them back to their den killing them all. Collecting up the bodies, they’d loop back to the main horde to drop off the meat and turn around to do it all over again, until they stopped to make camp for the night.

  “I … fucking … hate … you,” Forrest Gimp gasped out behind Conner, as he struggled to keep up.

  “For a 331 you sure as hell bitch a lot,” Connor called back, grinning like a fool at his battle buddies words. “Pherala humped all of that gear without a complaint and she’s a woman.”

  “She’s no woman!” Forrest said in outrage. “Pherala’s a Centauride that’s strong enough to carry all of our gear and still out run us!”

  “Oh, I’m sure Pherala will love to hear that you don’t think she’s a female-” Connor’s spiel was quickly interrupted by his friend.

  “I said she was no woman,” Forrest explained, as Connor choked back a laugh. “She’s more of a female than either you or I could ever handle.”

  “Amen to that, brother,” Conner agreed.

  While neither of them were into Centaurs, after traveling with her for the last week and a half, they’d both agreed that she was an impressive female specimen that was a pleasure to look at. Connor’s wife, who followed his personal Twitch Stream ribbed him non-stop for their interaction with the decidedly feminine Centauride. Used to the extremely masculine Centaur males of her tribe, Pherala had no problem handling the jokes from two over the hill Marines. She could take one of the Marine cadences and switch it up in a heartbeat with impressive ease.

  Currently, Pherala was greatly missed by both men. At the time, sending Pherala off for help had seemed like the best course of action. Unfortunately, none of them had taken into consideration the obvious problem with the plan, which was they were going to be forced to hump all of the shit that they’d brought with them by themselves. Mainly that being the extra-large Double Barrel Ma Deuce and its equipment that Forrest had custom built before they’d left to scout.

  Okay, so maybe calling the massive double-barrel crossbow an M2 BMG was an exaggeration, Conner thought, mentally shaking his head at his own words. While there was nothing like an M2 Browning Machine Gun in The World, this massive iron contraption had to be a close second. The design was based off of the Double-Barrel Chu-Ko-Nu that Star had introduced to his people, before he’d left to help his friend on the other side of the map.

  Forrest was all excited about getting to name the weapon once he’d finished crafting it inside the game. From what he read in the in-game Wiki, people who crafted an item for the first time in The World were given the honor of naming the weapon. The look on Forrest’s face when he’d finished crafting the massive double-barrel crossbow only to have it automatically name itself to a Double-Barrel Hollysharp Special was priceless to say the least. The only thing that he was allowed to specify was the version type, which he’d promptly named BAMF. That was short for Big-Ass Mother Fucker. It even showed up in parenthesis when you ran an Identify on the weapon.

  Unfortunately, while the weapon was impressive with its fifty iron bolt cartridge, the main body, tripod, and four full cartridges were heavy as all fucking get-out. That hadn’t been a major concern at the time since they had Pherala the Centauride’s help to lug everything when they’d left BrokenFang Hold, but now with her gone, they were stuck with the job. Luckily, being retired Marines, the one thing they were both masters of were humping gear. Staggering to a stop at the top of the ridge, Conner threw the bundle of spears further out and got to work on setting up the tripod on the far side of the ridge by hammering the stakes into the ground for each leg.

  Around a hundred yards down the slope, the foraging team was already busy slaughtering a pack of Wild Hounds. The Worg Riders brazenly rode into the pack’s den and began slaughtering the sixty or so members without any concern. Even though they were no match for the Hobgoblins and their mounts, the Wild Hounds didn’t give up their lives without a fight. Though the long-furred creatures weren’t much larger than a terrestrial dog on Earth, they viciously fought tooth and claw as they were slowly hacked to death or ripped apart.

  For Conner, the fight going on below bothered him on a whole another level. Being Irish, Wolf Hounds had a special place in Celtic culture and in his heart especially. Connor in Gaelic was Concobar and meant hound lover. To say he loved Wolf Hounds would’ve been an understatement, especially when he’d been forced to give up the pack he’d had due to being recalled for active duty to serve in Afghanistan.

  While he was now married with a son, he’d not been able to get his beloved Wolf Hounds back after the war ended and it still haunted him until this day. The monsters below were too close to their namesake for the hopeless fight not to pull at Connor’s heart. Silently swearing he’d save some of these beautiful beasts, he finished hammering the last spike into the ground just as his buddy climbed up onto the ridge behind him with his White Plains Wolf, Bishop, at this side.

  “Dude, what the hell has gotten into you,” Forrest gasped, as Connor physically dragged him over to the tripod. “You know as well as I do that those Hobgoblins aren’t going anywhere with the range this baby has.”

  “We’ve got to try to save some of these Wolf Hounds,” Conner half-pleaded/half-demanded, as he yanked Forrest over to the tripod and began pulling the massive crossbow off his back.

  “What the fuck, dude,” Forrest grumbled, not understanding what had gotten Connor so wound up. “They’re just a bunch of Wild Dogs. If you want a cool pet, I’ll help you find a Plains Wolf like Bishop.” Seeing the angry look that flashed across his buddy’s face, Forrest held his hands up to hold back the coming explosion.

  “Okay … okay, we’ll try to save these guys and see if we can get you a combat pet or something.” With that said, Forrest began working with Conner to get the body of the BAMF Double-Barrel Hollysharp Special onto the top of the tripod. Once they lined up the groove, it dropped into place easily enough and could easily be swiveled to cover a range of three-hundred and sixty degrees.

  “This is going to especially suck now that they’ve doubled the size of their foraging group,” Conner snarled, as he kept one eye on the action going on below while they worked. “They’re all going to be slaughtered before we can pull aggro.”

  Forrest didn’t say that had been part of the plan from the very beginning. The only way they’d been able to be so effective in wiping out the foraging parties was because they’d been targeting them while the foragers were busy fighting the monsters they were targeting for food. Not that he dared bring that point up now. While he didn’t understand why this was so important to Conner, he knew that sometimes you had to simply help your buddy out without questioning the why. Meeting Bishop’s knowing eyes, Forrest knew there might be a way he could possibly make sure some of the pack lived. As Conner worked to get the cartridge of iron quarrels into the machine, he knelt down in front of the Plains Wolf to look into his green eyes.

  “Hey boy,” Forrest said, trying to squash the concern for what he was about to ask Bishop to do. While the Plains Wolf was his combat pet, he didn’t like sending him on missions where he could be outright slaughtered without him being able to stop it. “Do you mind helping Conner save a few of these Wolf Hounds to raise as his own?”

  Giving Forrest a bark-like howl of agreement, he put a large paw on the Light Elf’s shoulder as if to say it was alright. Ruffling the Plains Wolf�
��s fur, he leaned his forehead against Bishop’s muzzle for a brief moment. He swore, it was almost like Bishop understood what he was saying, Forrest silently thought, when he heard the snap of the quarrel cartridge sliding into place. Giving the Plains Wolf’s shoulder a final pat, he stood back up just as Connor turned around to face him.

  “Cover me the best you can,” Connor said, as he quickly gathered up the rolled up spears. “I’m heading down.”

  “We’ve got your back,” Forrest said, clapping his buddy on the shoulder, as Bishop gave a whine-like growl.

  “Thanks man,” Conner said, before turning around and racing down the hill with his load of spears as Bishop sprang after him.

  “Oorah, motherfuckers,” Forrest muttered to himself, as he took up his position behind the BAMF, then aimed the iron sights on the Wild Hounds’ last stand before their den, and opened fire. Instantly, two heavy iron quarrels an inch in diameter shot out of the crossbow as Forrest triggered his Multi-Shot ability. With a magic shimmer, those two massive bolts turned into six as they punched through the level 45, Elite Hobgoblin Worg Rider and knocked him from his saddle.

  Though they didn’t kill the fuckers outright, the Hobgoblin knew that it had been hit. As the Wild Hounds jumped on the downed demi-human doing their best to tear him apart, Forrest yanked back on the heavy charging bar. Even with his high Advanced Stat for Strength, it took his whole body to pull the lever back. Locking the heavy iron wire back into place also loaded two bolts into the grooves from the gravity-driven cartridge. Two seconds later, Forrest was releasing another six quarrels into the mass of Hobgoblins below.

  Like all of their prior attacks up until this point, the Hobgoblins didn’t realize they were under attack until nearly twenty seconds later. By then, Forrest had unseated ten Worg Riders and Conner had nearly covered half the distance between them. Once again, the Hobgoblins’ response was predictable as half of the group whirled around to attack the new intruders while the remainder continued slaughtering the Wild Hounds. Redirecting his ranged assault to the new threat, Forrest began targeting the charging Worg Riders as Conner prepared his ace in the hole.