by Jeff Sproul
“So we’re casting a net,” said Seth. “Paladin is creating a network to alert him to the Weevil’s whereabouts.”
“Precisely,” said Laura. “Paladin is messaging the individual streamers to discreetly make these offers, so that he isn’t seen on their streams. He’s doing this in the guise of not letting PKers that might be watching, know that he’s doing this. Which also prevents the Weevil from noticing.”
“Seems like a good plan,” said Red. “So now that we’re all on the same page, what now?”
“Mostly we wait,” said Laura. “The bait is already out there. The net has been cast. We and our groups, have an assortment of teleportation cubes, so that we can instantly arrive at the scene. Paladin will be the first to arrive, since he’s the one most of the cubes are aligned to. Once he’s spotted the Weevil and knows that we can fight it at the location, he’ll summon the rest of us, to ensure that it doesn’t get away.”
“Let’s just hope that the monster nearby isn’t too powerful, like a Saros,” said Seth.
“That’ll be up to Paladin to determine,” said Laura. “We’re just on standby, unless we come across the Weevil first.”
“So we really didn’t need the whole whiteboard and drawing, did we?” asked Red.
Laura looked to the board, then over to the young woman who had claimed her bed. “I...just wanted to draw out my thoughts,” she said. “Sometimes visualizing the whole picture can help the situation. Plus, I’ve never actually used the whiteboard that I’ve had in my room since forever.”
Red nodded. “Understandable. Are we...good to go?”
“Yeah, I guess that’s it,” said Laura as she looked over to Red. “You and Paladin were the two people I really needed here, since I see Seth and Riley almost every day.”
Red smiled. “That’s cool, I appreciate being kept in the loop,” she said as she hopped up off the bed. “Be sure to keep in touch. If someone ends up dying and the whole plan fails, I wanna know ahead of time. I’m doing my best to stay in-game as much as I can. Hopefully we snag this bastard in the next couple weeks. I need to get back to some of the more intensive boss-fights, which could take upwards of an hour, and there’s no reason to be going all-out on something like that, if Paladin could signal the alarm at any time.”
“Right, we’re in the same mindset,” said Laura. “We’re trying to get whatever levels and gear we can, to better close the gap between us and the Weevil, but we also need to be prepared to fight whenever possible.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Red. “I’ll be leaving then,” she said as she walked past Riley and went for the door. “Message me if you need me, otherwise I’m going to get back to the grind. Later!” she then turned the handle on the door and left the apartment room.
Riley pulled himself up from the floor. “Anything else?” he asked. “Or are we good to go as well?”
Laura shrugged. “I just wanted to feel important and have a meeting,” she said with a smirk. “I’m good to head upstairs and wait for the group. We can get some food buffs in us before we head out.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Seth. “They’re running that special food buff in the bar again!”
Riley sat at one of the tables in the corner of Bunker 7. Around him, was Seth’s group, along with Laura and Carla.
“Where the hell is he?” Carla groaned as she turned her head and looked to the digital clock above the bar, situated near several televisions depicting news segments.
“It’s not like him to be late,” said Laura.
“You think something happened to him on the way here? Like an invasion event?” asked Riley.
“We learn about that stuff pretty quick on the news,” said Seth, pointing over to the television behind the bar. “But there’s nothing about an invasion event.”
“How far away is he?” asked Todd.
“He’s in Garden Haven, just like us,” said Erica.
“Oh, really? Huh,” Todd murmured.
“I don’t think he’s ever been late,” said Laura. She turned her head and looked to the door again.
“It’s only been fifteen minutes,” said Seth. “I’m sure he just lost track of time. No biggie.”
“He sets alarms though,” said Laura.
From across the room, the large double-doors slowly inched inwards. The light from the outside ebbed in and drew Laura’s attention to it. She watched and waited for someone to come in, as the door kept creeping open bit by bit. Laura’s brow furrowed as she tried to figure out what was going on with the door. Was someone coming in? The door opened enough to see outside as it was about a foot wide, but she didn’t see anyone standing there. Then, the door closed.
It was then that she noticed something crawling along the floor. It was eight-legged and metallic, with a globe-like center, and a circular divot in the front. It looked like some kind of robot spider.
“What’s that thing?” Riley asked, having noticed where Laura was looking.
“I don’t know? It just came inside,” said Laura.
“Maybe it’s someone’s pet?” asked Brenda, who was rather relaxed and leaned-back in her seat.
The spider-bot skittered around, turning from side to side as if it was looking around. Then, it turned to their table and crawled along the floor towards them.
“It’s coming over here,” said Seth.
“It’s not an enemy, is it?” asked Todd. “Should we destroy it?”
“Maybe it’s delivering a message?” asked Erica.
The spider-bot reached their table and hopped up between Seth and Laura, landing right on the wood table. It slowly skittered in place, surveying everyone there. Then, a digital voice sounded from a tiny speaker on the top of it. “What’re you all sitting around for? Don’t we have monsters to kill?”
“Chase?” Laura and Carla spoke up at once.
“Did you buy a pet?” Riley asked. “Where are you?”
The spider turned to look at Carla and Laura, then it spun around and looked at Riley. “Um…” Chase’s digital voice droned from the spider-bot’s speaker. “You should just come outside and see.”
Carla hopped out of her seat first, and all-but ran towards the door.
“What the hell did he buy now?” Laura murmured as she stood and followed after.
“This thing is pretty cool,” said Brenda, who promptly picked the spider-bot up and hoisted it up onto her left shoulder, before grabbing her crossbow and following the rest of the group out.
Riley was at the back of their party as he peeked around Erica and over Todd. He ended up being the last one out the double doors, just behind Brenda.
Riley stepped outside into the sunlight and watched as the others were all veering off to the right, creating a loose line as they stopped and faced to the right on the street.
“What the hell!” Carla spoke up. “When did this happen?”
Riley shifted around Brenda and finally saw what everyone else was looking at.
Standing beside the outer wall of Bunker 7, was a dark-skinned man with dark gray slacks and a black blazer with a white shirt beneath. The only difference from his previous character, was that his dark hair was a little longer, but not by much. But none of this was new, since it had been almost thirty days since Chase was killed and had to remake his character.
What was new, was that one of his eyes looked metallic, with a green glow to it, along with weird green lines that ran down the side of his face, his neck, and then down to both his hands.
There were three more spider-bots skittering around by his feet. Each was about the size of a sports ball, if you included the reach of the legs.
The one on Brenda’s shoulder remained where it was.
“So, these aren’t pets you bought?” asked Laura. “Wait, is this your power? Did you get powers? When did you reach tier one?” she hurled questions at him.
“Well, you remember how I bought that metallic sphere, about the size of an eyeball?” Chase asked.
&nb
sp; “You mean the one that looks exactly like the one lodged in your eye socket right now?” asked Carla, her arms crossed against her chest.
“Ah, good, you remember!” said Chase. “Well anyway. I kept it on my night stand, back in my room in Garden Haven. I figured if I kept looking at it, I might figure out how to unlock its secrets...if it had any. Well, ta-da, it had secrets! It’s now in my skull, and I can create these spider bots now. I’m tier-one.”
“Can they do anything cool? Besides sneak into places and talk to us?” asked Brenda, as she reached up with her free hand and petted the top of the spider-bot on her shoulder.
“That’s why I ended up being so late,” said Chase. “Well, first I logged in and had to look in the mirror, because I was confused why my hands and arms had green lines. Then I saw my eye and realized the metal sphere was gone. Then I realized I could construct these little robot things. Did you all see that guy making the pylons that shot beams during the Saros fight? It works kinda like that. There’s all sorts of configurations I can give these little bots. Flamethrower, bullets, recon, healing beam, mortar. Their damage isn’t that great when they’re in this small configuration. It takes my mind and stamina stat to control larger ones that do more damage. So I guess I control them similarly to how Laura’s powers work, but these things have base stats, off of how big they are, they don’t get their stats from me. But! I did find out that they gain whatever buffs I have.” Chase looked to Riley. “So if you buff me with monster juice, all my bots get it too!”
“That’s so cool,” Riley whispered, staring at the spider-bots crawling around on the sidewalk.
“Can they take much damage?” asked Carla, as her hand slowly lifted up. She closed her left eye and aimed her palm at one of the bots on the ground.
“They’re kinda fragile!” said Chase, who quickly stepped in front of his little bot. “Don’t go blowing up my stuff!”
Carla lowered her hand with a huff. “Well, we better get going to our new hunting grounds and put your little guys to the test, huh?”
Chapter 26: Crystal Fields
“Isn’t this getting expensive?” asked Riley. “We’ve been going here almost every day for two weeks.”
Laura was crouched down on the ground, using a piece of white chalk with little blue crystals. Nearby, Seth was using the same type of chalk. The two of them were drawing an intricate pattern on the ground in the back of an alley.
Todd lifted and waved his arms as he shaped the stone around the entrance to the alleyway, to make it look like the wall on the street was filled-in. Then, Erica grew vines up the outside of the wall and overtop the ten feet gap between the two nearby buildings. If anyone had flying powers and was soaring over the city, they wouldn’t be able to spot them, if they were even looking.
The alley came to a dead-end, which made it perfect for their use.
“We’re getting plenty of use out of the chalk,” said Seth. “We actually lucked-out because Chase found several sticks of it pretty cheap over in Tall City.”
“They didn’t eve know what they were selling,” said Chase with a smirk. “I’m just a lucky guy.”
“Not anymore,” said Carla. “I miss those crit die and my super explosions.”
“My new robots can do exploding stuff,” Chase countered.
“Yeah, if I throw a lotus at them,” Carla scoffed.
“Don’t you dare,” Chase grumbled.
“We’re finding some good loot here,” said Laura. “The monsters are plentiful, even if they are out in the open.”
“Yeah, but yesterday we ended up fighting two at once,” said Brenda. “Which I loved, by the way. I would just rather spend more time shooting monsters in the face, than shooting you guys with heal bolts.”
“Tough to keep Laura’s clones alive, isn’t it?” Carla asked, looking over to Brenda. “Now you know how I feel.”
“Riley needs to step up his game, so we can focus on damage,” said Brenda.
“Right?” said Carla. “I’m in total agreement.”
Riley looked between the two women. “I’m always healing!”
The two damage-healer hybrids smirked at each other as Riley spoke up to defend himself.
Riley sighed.
“My bots can heal,” said Chase. “I’m not sure how well, but I’ll have to test that out during our first fight.”
“We’re going to have a lot going on,” said Todd as he walked back to the group. “Twenty-one Lauras, Chase and his bots. Maybe if I ever get my sigil, I can make stone golems!” he said excitedly.
Riley frowned a bit. “I really doubt you’re going to get golems, with how power-enhancement usually works,” said Riley. “Sorry to break it to you. But usually it boosts what you’re already doing. You’d probably be able to move the ground faster, or control more of it at a time.”
“Well, I guess that’s good too,” said Todd as he crossed his bulky arms against his chest.
“I’m really looking forward to hitting paragon and seeing my enhanced powers,” said Erica. “But since mine operate similarly to Todds, I’ll end up being able to control more vines at a time or something, right?” she asked, looking to Riley.
Riley shrugged. “Since your powers control vines, which are plant-matter, you may get something cool like...I dunno, being able to grow stuff out of the vines themselves. Like poisonous gas, or healing vapors or something. Your Sigil could trigger some really awesome stuff, I think.”
“What?” Todd grumbled. “She’s going to end up with cooler powers than me?”
“I’ve already got cooler powers than you, buddy,” Erica teased.
“All done!” said Laura as she stood up from her half of the chalk-based design on the ground. She then stepped back and joined the gathered party members.
“Almost done,” said Seth as he finished up the last portion of his half. He then connected it with Laura’s by drawing one last line. “There we go.” He stood up and placed the chalk in his inventory. He walked over to stand beside Laura and held his right hand out.
Laura lifted her left hand and looked at the space above their drawing.
Riley cleared his throat. “One...two...three!”
“Crystal fields!” Laura and Seth spoke at once.
With a flash of white light, a speck of blue appeared. It then expanded outwards several feet in all directions. A portal had opened up, which acted like a mirror to a whole other landscape. It was filled with blue, and a pinkish-purple sky, with a dark red moon.
“Love this place!” Brenda said, running forward and jumping into the portal first.
One by one, the rest of the group followed. Riley followed after Chase and his robots, while Todd and Erica brought up the end of the group.
Riley stepped slowly through the portal, and immediately appeared on the other side. For a brief moment, there was that strange sense of vertigo. He almost stumbled, but he closed his eyes and took several more steps, and then let out a breath as he focused and opened his eyes again. The strange sensation in his eyes and head, was gone. He was confused why no one else seemed to have an issue with going through portals like he did. He was actually thankful that portals didn’t exist in real life, else he’d probably be vomiting every time he walked through one.
“New location every time,” said Brenda from the head of the party. She was still sporting the robot on her shoulder as she looked around. They were surrounded by bluish sand. There were large patches of several-inch-high blue and pink crystals growing out of the ground, almost like grass or plants.
There were pale crystalline trees that could be seen sticking out of the ground. Sometimes they were solo, other times in small forests.
Riley looked around his surroundings, not recognizing the landscape. Of course, in the crystal fields, everything looked pretty similar. It was hard to spot anything that qualified as a landmark. While he was looking around, he happened to notice that he couldn’t see Chase’s name above his head.
“Cha
se, party up,” he said as he stepped over to him.
“Ah, right,” Chase said as he turned around and lifted his hand.
Riley took his hand and gave him a handshake.
A small window popped up in front of Riley. He tapped ‘send party invite’ and a moment later, Chase lifted his hand up and tapped a message that said ‘accept party Invite.’
The two unclasped hands and continued walking around with the group. Now when Riley looked above Chase’s head, he could see his name, and a health bar. It was really tough to heal when you couldn’t see the health of your party members.
“I’m going to keep one of my bots in proximity of the portal,” said Chase. “Just in case someone finds our portal and comes in after us.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” said Laura. “My clones would easily be spotted, but your bots are tiny.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Chase.
The group proceeded straight from the open portal. Their footsteps crunching the blue sand beneath them. They crested over a short ridge, which Brenda was the first to reach the top of. “We got a big ol giant over here,” she said.
“Shouldn’t we let my robots scout ahead?” asked Chase.
“What’s the fun in that?” Brenda asked, turning to look back to him.
“He just wants to feel more useful, now that he has powers again,” Carla spoke up.
“Well yeah, of course I do,” said Chase.
“You’ve got no sense of adventure,” said Brenda. “Waiting on your slow bots doesn’t sound very efficient to me.”
