by Arthur Stone
* * *
There indeed was a road beyond the forest. That eased Cheater’s mind. The distances seemed right, too, based on his memory of what had happened.
But something was rotten in Denmark. Two miles down the road, Cheater stopped and hung his head.
“Something’s wrong. I couldn’t have gone this far. My lungs were full of blood. I was choking and coughing. I died from my injuries, you see. Either this is the wrong road, or we missed my car.”
“How could we miss the car?”
“It was off the road a ways. I think I turned this way, pushing into the bushes. That’s all I remember as far as landmarks go. Bushes. It might have been the other direction. I’m not sure now. But the bushes look undisturbed.”
“You should have said this earlier, not wandered around for an hour. Come on, let’s go back and try to find these bushes of yours.”
Titty Tat resolutely entered the woods and walked straight through the tall grass. About half way back to the main road, she stopped and pointed to the left.
“There’s a car over there.”
Idiot, Cheater said as he followed her indication. All of the signs were here. Tracks in the grass, broken branches, and fresh damage to the trunk of a tree. Peering into the thicket revealed red sparkles from the taillight covers illuminated by the sun.
“How did I miss all of this?”
“It’s not so visible from the road.”
Cheater dived into the undergrowth and walked around the car. He didn’t remember exactly where he had buried the cache. The details were drowned out by the blood and agony of the experience. But the sizable hole in the earth was visible from afar, through the shrapnel-shredded bushes around.
He moved towards the place.
“Here’s where I hid them.”
“Got it.” Titty Tat pushed past Cheater and walked in one direction, then in the other. She picked up a strange-looking gun with an exorbitantly fat barrel and whistled.
“I’ve only ever once held one like this. A rare item. It’ll fetch a good price. But the ammo is expensive, and hard to find. This can shoot without a sound.”
“I noticed.”
“Was this your gun?”
“No. It belonged to the man who killed me.”
“His clothes are over there. Where are yours?”
“No clothes from me.”
“Why?”
“I was driving naked.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I really was.”
“You a nudist?”
“No.”
“Exhibitionist, then. Do you usually ride naked?”
“No. The circumstances forced my hand.”
“They must have been interesting circumstances indeed.”
Titty Tat rummaged through the pile of camouflage rags and ammo of assorted types before announcing, the pleasure clear in her voice, that the man had also carried a decent pistol, some ammo, a grenade, and assorted personal items. Plus nineteen spores and a yellow pea, which really had her excited.
“Can you see the other spores?”
“The ones the explosion blew all over?”
“Yeah.”
“The place is full of them. We’re walking on them right now. Should we start collecting them?”
“That’s what we’re here for. But we’ll handle the spores last.”
“I don’t get it. What else is there to do first?”
“Pearls, amber, stars, and peas. Once we can’t find any more of those, we’ll go for the spores. Show me where there are concentrations of them, I guess, and I’ll help pick them up as best I can.”
Titty Tat looked one way, then the other. Nothing about her eyes changed, but Cheater knew she was somehow changing her internal scanner’s mode. Attuning it to different kinds of things.
When her eyes settled into a daze, though, he noticed.
“So many. All kinds of things, all over the place. Where did they all come from? It’s more than I could ever imagine.”
“Let’s get collecting. We have to make quick work of it,” Cheater replied. Dodging the question again.
* * *
A couple of hours later, Cheater was nearly cursing the tunnel fight which had earned him this treasure. Trying to find tiny trophies scattered over an acre of land was not nearly as exciting. He had to keep a close eye on Titty Tat, too. The girl knew how valuable the items she was collecting were. Perhaps she would be tempted to take him out. He had known from the beginning that this would be a concern, of course, and had no desire to die in this place a second time, from a bullet to the back of the head. His companion didn’t seem cruel or greedy, but human history rested on the bones of those with a naive trust in women. Just ask Sisera or Samson.
Naturally, naive trust in men was just as dangerous. Just less common.
And so Cheater was on the alert. At one point, though, Tat stopped searching and sat near him on a fallen tree.
“Quit staring at my ass.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t. Look, I know you’re not taking in my smoking good looks. You’re scared of taking a bullet in the back. All well and good. Most people here would kill you for this loot. But I’m not most people. We have an agreement. You pay me a thousand spores, and I help you out. You don’t betray me, and I keep faith with you.”
“I won’t betray you. Are we agreed, then? If we’re going to be chatty, this’ll take us three days.”
“Being chatty is the only choice, I’m afraid. I need a break.”
“A break?”
“Cheater, you must have some kind of ability. So you understand.”
“What?”
“The Spirit of STYX meter. ‘Mana,’ as they call it. When I use my scanning ability, it drains. Now it’s almost all out, so I have to wait for it to recharge.”
“Is there any way to speed up the cooldown?”
“There are elixirs for that, but I’ve never even seen one. They’re just too expensive.”
“I’ve never even heard of them.”
“They’re made from some kind of herb, I think. A species that only grows in gray clusters. And everything from the gray clusters is more precious than goldspec.”
“First time I’m hearing about gray cluster loot, too.”
“You can accelerate your cooldown a bit if you keep your Pleasure meter high. One unit per hour is the standard rate. If you pump Ward of STYX, your cooldown rate goes up nicely. One Ward level gives the meter one extra unit and a 20% boost to recovery speed. All of the bonus stats are a pain, but this one’s especially vile. It’s only boosted when you kill something with magic, and the boost is inversely proportional to your Spirit of STYX meter. So the less mana you have when you get the pump, the stronger it is. Meaning that, to really pump Ward of STYX, you need to reduce your mana and then find someone and kill him with magic, or mostly magic. And how am I supposed to kill anyone with magic when my ability is like this? Very rarely, if at all. Only when I notice a ghoul by scanning. And when that is what really helps me kill it. Once every hundred years. The System loves combat skills and ignores all the others.”
“You could use amber.”
“Sure. But threads of amber pump random bonus stats. And I’m pretty unlucky. I could use distributable points, of course, but they’re tough to earn.”
“So you’ll have to rest until evening.”
“Well, I don’t have to wait for a full meter. I don’t have much more ground to search. A little recharge will do.”
“Not much more ground? You’ve checked all around already?”
“I haven’t been able to find a single spore more than fifty paces out. The explosion didn’t throw them far. Maybe the branches and leaves helped slow everything down. If I’m wrong, this’ll take me a week, at least. The items are too small, and the strain cuts my mana down fast.”
“We don’t have a week.”
“So you’ll have to make peace with
the fact that we might miss something.”
“Got it. I’m okay with that.”
“Who’s this Kitty in our party?”
Cheater gritted his teeth. He had found it necessary to add Tat to the party. How else could he make sure she didn’t take more than her share? She could even ignore the presence of the most valuable items and come back for them later, on her own. But the party log showed the results of her scans. Logs of everything found and everything picked up. It was a good system.
Tat answered her own question.
“Ah, she’s your girlfriend. Got it. Is she always this quiet?”
“What do you care?”
“I was just thinking, you know... Bumping up Pleasure speeds up mana regeneration. Pleasure boosts everything, in fact.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“You really have no social skills, you know. You and I are here, and your girlfriend is off who knows where. She definitely won’t see us. We can boost each other’s Pleasure, for the sake of our mission here. It’s not a new idea—pretty common, actually. Consider it a business proposition. Do you really think all the people who line up at the stable brothels are perverts? Half of them are just there to pump their Pleasure meter. Sexuality is the easiest way to do that.”
“First you basically threaten to castrate me, and now you suggest we screw under a bush. I thought you were a reasonable person.”
“Reasonable people have boring lives in this world. And short ones.”
“I already have a girlfriend. You’ll have to find somebody else.”
“I’m just screwing around with you. In the non-physical sense.”
“Weird sense of humor, Tat. If I didn’t know better, it would seem you’re getting attached to me.”
“Look, I’m not trying to get in between you and your girlfriend. You think too much of yourself. Maybe there’s truth to your arrogance, though. You’re probably the first level 11 in history to get enough spores to coat an area the size of a football field. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s really cool.”
“You ever seen a football field?”
“A kid’s football field, then. Look, you’re still scared of me. Want me to give you my weapon, ease your mind?”
“I’m not scared. Just controlling the situation.”
“Still. Want it?”
“Why are you so friendly all of a sudden?”
“Just curious. In exchange, you tell me where you got all this.”
“Why do you care?”
“Maybe I can try doing the same later.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It was a unique set of consequences.”
“Which were...”
“Lots of things involved. I had the right ability and the right stats, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time, with the right stuff.”
“So what’s your ability? You know about mine already.”
“And mine is going to stay a secret.”
Titty Tat’s eyes rolled a bit to the side. She was scanning. She smiled at him and whispered, tensely, “I just took a look around. Somebody’s coming.”
Cheater grew stiff. “Where?”
“Right behind you. Fifty feet or so. A professional, for sure—they haven’t snapped a twig. Sometimes I survey the area, since looking for large objects takes virtually no mana.”
“What does he look like?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like ordinary vision. Like seeing a void that melds into the foliage. All I see is the shape of him. Tall, with broad shoulders. He’s holding something that looks like a weapon, and he’s coming this way.”
“Quickly?”
“Hell no. Very slowly. Bit by bit. But he’s definitely skilled. Not a single twig or leaf crackle to be heard.”
“Can you shoot him in the leg?”
“I can’t actually shoot while I’m in scanning mode. Or I haven’t learned to yet, anyway. And I can’t see him unless I scan.”
Cheater raised his voice.
“Give me that rifle.”
The girl pulled out the weapon the killer had left. Cheater clicked the safety off and resumed whispering.
“Where exactly is he now?”
“Behind you.”
“I know that much. Where exactly?”
“I see a dead tree with a fork towards the top of it. He’s about a yard to the left of it. Moving between the bushes, yet without even budging the branches.
Cheater whirled with lightning speed, raising the gun and pulling the trigger three times. The recoil was significant, but there was almost no sound. The mechanism feeding ammunition was louder than the actual shot. But he could hear the bullets hit.
The bushes made noise then, and something collapsed to the ground. Then, the former silence regained its throne.
Cheater silently exchanged glances with Titty Tat and crept towards the place where the man had been.
“He fell down,” the girl whispered.
Cheater nodded and pressed on. But before he took his third step, the victory message appeared.
Party victory: immune Executive destroyed. Level 29. Note: for the first time in your entire game, you have managed to take revenge on a single enemy for your death not once, but twice. You receive 5 distributable base stat progress points as a reward. +2 progress points to Agility. +4 progress points to Speed. +62 progress points to Accuracy. +3 progress points to Luck.
Cheater relaxed and lowered his rifle. He grinned at the woman.
“You’re not gonna believe this, Tat, but that’s the same guy who killed me in this very spot.”
“No fricking way! What a streak of bad luck for that guy.”
“No kidding.”
“And his death gave us both some stat points. He came back for his things and got a respawn instead.”
She broke through the thickets so fast, Cheater could hardly keep up with her.
Some observations about the unremarkable-looking dead player followed. “Ordinary clothing. He didn’t look for anything special—just used whatever he found upon respawning. No good weapons, either. Just an ax. He must have really been in a hurry. He knew how much treasure was sitting here and wanted to beat you to it. I guess he respawned far away from here, or something got in his way. And look at this,” Tat rolled up the man’s sleeve, revealing part of his lower forearm. A dark, gnarled pattern was splayed out across it in tattoo. “Hot damn,” she exclaimed.
“The heck is that?”
“He’s a Spider.”
“A Spider? Who are they?”
“They’re like a brotherhood. You know about biker gangs? Back in the real world, er, the world before the Continent. Well, the Spiders are like a Continental biker gang. They like to ride their bikes from cluster to cluster.”
“Yeah, he was on a motorcycle when I ran into him the first time. Must have hidden it somewhere nearby. But if he’s an evil biker, why is his Humanity green?”
“Green? Are you sure?”
“I didn’t get any Humanity points. What, did you?”
“No, sorry, I was being stupid. I guess he was green. But they’re not all red, you know. The Spiders have all kinds of people who do all kinds of things. Running drugs, escorting merchants, or sometimes taking suicidal missions. But they’re not moles. They have their own code, almost like a cult. Still, best not to mess with them, or they might add you to their blacklist, then you’ll have trouble with them for the rest of your lives.”
“I didn’t touch Executive. He attacked me.”
“So? They’re a gang, and they just watch out for their own. He’ll say he mixed you up with someone else the first time, and that he was coming to apologize this time, with a bouquet of flowers. But you just took him out without letting him speak. No matter what he says, though, they’ll believe one of their own sooner than a stranger.”
The skin of the corpse rapidly darkened and showed a dense network of cracks and then began to crumbl
e into streams of glittering black sand. It reminded Cheater of the substance everything was made of in black clusters.
Tat rose, her eyes riveted on the disintegrating body.
“Well, that’s that. It will take him several hours to get back here, at least. But he’ll try to come back, you’d better believe it.”
“How’s that magic scale of yours? It would be nice to finish up before nightfall. He might come better prepared this time. Or with others. Or maybe he’ll tell his friends over party chat and they’ll come running. They could be in the area, even.”
“As long as we’re not going to search beyond fifty paces out, I’ll have no trouble finishing by evening.”
“Great. I’ll go look for his motorcycle.”
“Why?”
“This guy clearly loves being quiet. The gun, the walking. Maybe his bike is as quiet as his step.”
“You want to ride the man’s motorcycle?”
“Hey, it’s better than a car, in some situations.”
“What if it’s a Spider motorcycle? If they see you riding it, you’ll end up on their blacklist for every life you have left.”
“I don’t mean we should ride it far. We’ll abandon it as soon as we’re close to the nearest stable.”
“Then there’s an obviously better choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Duh. This is a rare pickup truck, with a big machine gun. Both the truck and the gun are pretty valuable, if you don’t want to keep it for yourself.”
“It’s not my truck. I took it.”
“Did you kill the previous crew?”
“No, the ghouls killed them. I commandeered it after that.”
“That’s fine. No gang signs on it, nor any other markings. By the rules of the Continent, it’s yours.”
“This place has rules?”
“Well, you might have issues if the guys who were riding in it are dangerous types. But probably not. You’ll be able to come to terms if you encounter them. Since you didn’t violate Continental law, they don’t have any legitimate claims against you.”
“This truck makes a lot of noise.”
“Then take it slow. It’s pretty quiet at lower speeds.”
