by Mars Dorian
The soldiers ignored him as they mounted their armored bulkors and attached the additional gear and pouches.
“Here’s yours,” the stable master said. “I call her Beatina. You will soon figure out why.”
What a bulkor. Four strong reptile legs that could crush walls. The creature had light-medium armor plates with +3 stats, protecting it against long-ranged projectile weapons. That armor of course slowed down the creature—according to the profile, the beast reached a total speed of fifty-one kilometers per hour. With a little boosting from the food, I could add another ten kilometers maximum speed per hour, at least for a handful of minutes. So many possibilities. Why didn’t the Preshaar or the Blue Flame offer these armored versions?
“Mount your bulkors and fall in line,” Captain Wedge said. He commanded the biggest beast with the best stats. “We will dispatch in three minutes in front of the main gate.”
I yanked the reigns of my fowl and followed the leader. The cogwheels of the gate mechanism turned and parted the massive doors. The sunlight of the Western Crescent flushed my irises as the armored Sunbleed bulkor squad galloped out.
22
Our armored beasts blasted into the open of a flat canyon landscape. The Killa Kanyons towered in the far distance like rocky jewels. I recognized their crooked shapes and reddish tint. Even the blue sky had some of the hue, but maybe it resulted from the dust clouds. According to the map on my e-scroll, our target destination lay much closer to our current position.
Seven point six kilometers until the target zone.
I matched my bulkor’s speed to my new allies. The creature felt like a thundering tank between my legs, like I could run over ten enemies in a row without taking a single HP in damage. Another thought crept into my mind: with no chains and handcuffs, I could easily break free from the formation and make a run if it weren’t for those long-ranged riders. Four of them had advanced crossbows and would probably shoot me. And besides my skills, I couldn’t take on twelve well-equipped and armored Syndicate troopers on armored bulkors.
That would end in permadeath.
I had to play by the quest rules for now and wait for the perfect opening to plan my escape. As soon as the riders engaged in battle with the Preshaar, I could use the distraction and flee.
Yep, that sounded like a solid plan.
“Get ready, ladies,” Wedge said as he led the pack. He fired up his soldiers with an ear-shattering war cry. The boost accelerated the speed of the formation by about eight percent, including mine.
“Outpost spotted,” Cadfael said.
Quest update: Defend the Sunblood mining outpost from the Preshaar assault and wipe out all the attackers.
Conditions: Captain Wedge must survive.
Bonus: Protect all 12 soldiers for extra pay.
Crimson smoke spat into the air and mingled with the clouds. A bunker-shaped building appeared on the horizon and looked a lot like the outpost my co-players and I had attacked during our first Preshaar attack quest against the Syndicate. Speaking of the furry friends, they dominated my view right now. I counted at least twenty-five beast men as they attacked the outpost and slaughtered Syndicate workers and soldiers by stabbing and well-timed jump attacks. Poor Syndicate suckers didn’t stand a chance against the overpowered beast men.
Arrows began to rain down on their position. The heavy Defender units of the Syndicate raised their engine shields and deflected most of it, but the Preshaar blitzed around them and stabbed them from behind with their fortified blades and claws.
It was a slaughter.
Wedge barked at us. “Form fire squads with one enabler each. Protect the workers and keep these hairy freaks away from the outpost. Don’t let a single one enter the inner perimeter. Remember—the Reepo must roll.”
The riders around me fed their booster herbs to the bulkors and upped their speed and stamina. I did the opposite—I slowed down my animal and made everyone focus on the skirmish while I eyed an escape route. As soon as the Sunblood riders engaged in close quarters combat, I pulled away.
Finally.
Let the Syndicate suckers and Preshaar slaughter each other while I returned to northern part of the Western Crescent. The only challenge: I needed to stay alive long enough.
It sounded easy, but proved difficult considering the mayhem exploding around me. Preshaar with battle gear swarmed the outpost and its perimeter. They impaled light melee guards with boned lances, threw gas grenades, and ripped through armor plates with their extended claws. A single soldier stood no chance against a raging Preshaar twice his size. I tried to pull away when two beast men finished killing a Defender from behind and turned to me with their blood-soaked blades. Their yellow eyes bathed in terrifying bloodlust. My head probably looked like a giant chicken to them.
“Syndicate scum,” the female warrior said.
“I’m not a Sunbleeder—I’m a prisoner.”
Like she cared. The beast woman had only half of her HP and ignored my pleas. The analyzer told me she suffered from berserk mode which intensified her attacks.
Enemy: Preshaar Skunkwarrior
Type: Beast man mid-ranged melee
HP: 2720
Armor: Light Adaptive Multi-plating +2
Weakness: Thrusting, Piercing
Special: Bloodlust. When HP below 50%, attack rate x3 and DPS +30 while accuracy -50%. Additional close range moves.
Drops: Crescent blades, Bone spear, Stunners
She pulled out a bony spear from her quiver and threw it at me. I barely evaded the incoming throw as I steered my bulkor to the far right. “Did you listen to me? I’m on your side.”
She ignored my warnings and continued her frenzy attack. Worse, two more Preshaar targeted me with war cries that seemed to level up their attack speed. One carried a bony crossblade and the other a longbow. Even worse, they worked together. The melee attackers stormed after me while the long-ranger released her first darts. And I still refused to fight. “We’re on the same side. I’m Dash, remember me?”
They ignored my request and stormed toward my fowl.
“Do something,” a nearby Sunblood rider yelled at me while fighting his own battle against two mounted beast men.
I turned my bulkor around and tried to increase the distance between me and my furry followers. The slender Preshaar picked an ironed spear from her quiver and bolted the sucker through my air space. I could evade the first throw but got hit by a second spear.
My HP reduced to ninety-nine point five percent.
I tried to flee, but my armored and heavy bulkor couldn’t outrun the mounted beast men. And despite my many peaceful offers, the Preshaar continued to throw arrows and spears at me. I fed a stamina boost to my bulkor, turned around, targeted the nearest beast man runner, and commenced my attack. If I focused on non-lethal stun and stagger attacks, I could KO them until they stopped assaulting me. A risky idea, but worth a try.
I aimed my harpoon gun glove while zigzagging with my bulkor to avoid the incoming volleys. The harpoon connected with the bone chest plate of the slender Preshaar. She slowed down by thirty percent, which I used for well-placed slashes with my BlitzBlade. Electro-damage and stun effect inclusive. I pulled the Preshaar across the rugged ground which decreased a couple of HP per second. When her health dropped to fifty percent, I pulled in my chain and stomped the next attacker with a leg attack of my beast. Thanks to the metal armor, the brute attack caused almost twenty-four percent damage and pushed back the beast man by at least five meters. While in stagger mode, I pulled a touch-sensitive stunner from my gear pack and waited until the two Preshaar moved closer to each other. I tossed the stunner which impacted the ground in front of their clawed feet. The paralyzing smoke emanated from its holes and clouded a radius of five meters. Three Preshaar caught up in the attack and entered stunned mode.
Four Preshaar immobilized, zero casualties.
I was aiming for the next attacker when Captain Wedge and First Lieutenant Cadfael rushed towar
d me.
Were they going to fight me now?
I readied my blade and prepared for the defense. The captain aborted his route toward me and targeted the stunned Preshaar instead. Wedge’s armored bulkor increased its speed and stomped into the beast men, causing 175% of the normal damage thanks to the stun mode. I swallowed helplessly as two Preshaar died before my eyes. Wedge and Cadfael singled out the slender archer beast man that had only half of her HP. Together, the two Sunblood riders pierced her with polearm jabs and caused critical damage. Within half a minute, the two officers had killed the five Preshaar that I had weakened.
After the slaughter, Wedge galloped toward me, his armor splattered with beast man blood. He lifted his face shield and barked. “When you stun those abominations, don’t just wait there like a dust licker. Go in for the final attack.”
It made sense from his Syndicate point of view, but I had no attention of killing my former allies-in-the-making. I just wanted to prevent them from killing me.
I wanted to be left the hell alone.
Cadfael barked. “Speak when the commanding officer talks to you.”
“I was overwhelmed, sir. They were attacking from all sides.”
“No more excuses. The battle’s still on. Follow me.”
I did as he told me and galloped toward the center of the battlefield. Dozens of Sunbleeders and Preshaar corpses littered the rocky ground. Near the excavation site, where the Reepo crystals lingered, a handful of workers bled to death until armored Sunblood meds treated them. Wedge ordered a fire team to protect the wounded men. “Let’s wipe out the hairy plague.”
The fortified gates of the outpost had been closed. Three story high walls prevented anyone from entering, but the Preshaar used their enhanced mech-claws to climb up the facades. Some soldiers stood on top and fired arrows behind the shooting slits. An auto-sentry from a nearby watch tower fired darts at the Preshaar. The bolts caused little damage, but the combined suppressive fire lowered the speed of the beast men, which I could use to my advantage. I hurried toward the wall crawlers and used my harpoon gun glove to bring down the nearest Preshaar warrior. Thanks to the weight of my medium armor, I outweighed the tall but slender furry. I brought one down and made him smash on the rugged ground. I then used the stagger moment to plunge the tip of my blade into the back of the beast man. Blood spilled out and sprinkled against my armor.
Needless carnage, but I fought for my own survival now.
Two Preshaar jumped from the wall and roared after me. I fired a pellet blast from my gunblade, switched to the Blitzblade, and slashed away. The two Preshaar encircled me and one of them hissed, “I’m going to turn your ripped-out teeth into a nice necklace.”
“You can still run away, you know. No one has to die.”
Hopeless. They got high on their own blood rage and attacked. The cooldown of my chainlink skill finished. I fired the harpoon, pushed the nearest Preshaar attack toward the tip of my BlitzBlade, and impaled the weak +2 armor of the creature. I then used the fast attack speed of the mecha-claws to finish off the last HPs. From the blindspot of my right eye, the other injured Preshaar jump-attacked me with a fortified spear in its claws.
I swapped my mecha-claw for my Blitzblade and held it in deflect stance. A shot hit the creature in mid-air and hammered it against the facade of the outpost’s wall. The pellet came from captain Wedge, throning on his armored bulkor. He aimed his smoking gunblade with both of his plated arms and winked at me like a partner-in-crime. “Watch out for flying vermin.”
The shot Preshaar crawled on the ground, dropping liters of blood. He had only fifty HPs left and coughed up the crimson liquid. I wanted to look away but the beast man stared at me with endless hate.
“I’m… going to… kill you…”
Worse, he reached for a bone-shaped dagger in his bag and pointed the sharp baby at me.
“You attacked me first. I told you I was a…”
—prisoner, it’s what I wanted to say. But the captain and his men stood nearby, and I didn’t want to sound like a deserter. Two meters in front of me, the Preshaar tried to stand up on his shaky, furry legs. I took my gunblade, aimed with the thermal scope, and blew off the head with a critical hit. The body parts splashed on the ground with a soft thup. A disgusting sight. Besides, I had done everything in my power to avoid the needless blood splatter. They just wouldn’t let me go.
Quest update: You have defended the Sunblood mining outpost from the Preshaar attack.
Bonus objectives: 7 out of 12 Sunbleeders have survived the assault. You will receive a bonus of +1400 credits.
Which meant I only received little bonus experience points, but what the heck. This mission was all about avoiding permadeath. Captain Wedge steered his moaning bulkor toward me and smiled at the Preshaar corpses laying around me. Blood and dents plastered his armor but he only cared about the dead beasts on the battlefield. “Gotta say, you’re not half as useless as you look, Dash. There’s a real warrior hiding underneath that armor.”
“I just defended myself.”
“Didn’t we all?”
He returned his gunblade to his gear pack and pointed at the sea of items floating around the corpses. “Take their weapons.”
“The Preshaar’s?”
“Everyone’s. Dead men need no equipment, unless you believe in taking items into the afterlife. Then again, you don’t strike me as a religious follower.”
It was apparent the Syndicate hated the followers of the Aeonlight even more than the Preshaar.
“Not really.”
“Then go ahead and enrich yourself before your comrades plunder everything.”
The so-called ‘comrades’ were the rest of the soldiers that hawked around the burning battlefield, snapping the valuables of the dead. I collected all the weapons and premium items from both the dead Sunbleeders and beast men, including the money they had dropped. My inventory filled up like a trash dump.
5x cross blades
7x bone spears
4x hi-potions
3x decent gunblades
5x blood bows
+ 1250 credits
Useless items I would never use in battle, not even the medium gunblades. I could, however, sell them and make a 100% profit on top of my quest rewards. I hated to say this, but this quest was my most profitable one so far. I did the quick math and imagined the insane amounts of credits I was going to make. I hurried around three more bodies until I filled up my inventory. One of the nearby riders grinned at me. “Feels good to be a ‘Bleeder, right?”
I kept my mouth shut and minded my own business. Just because I collected the items didn’t mean I enjoyed questing for the Syndicate. It was simply a redemption for my imprisonment. A gesture from the game AI for the loss of L’ocean in the previous quest.
Nothing else.
Meanwhile, part-time Irish-lookalike Cadfael approached me with his blood-splattered medium armor. “Take what you need and regroup at the RV point. We wait for our backup and then head back to base.”
“Aye, sir,” the remaining soldiers said in unison.
I nodded and marveled at the goods I just had collected when the backup arrived.
23
This moment marked the first time I dreaded winning a quest. The experience points rolled in and propelled me to the next level but I hated the upgrade. This is not how I wanted to excel. It screwed up my heroic gaming narrative that I had so carefully built after my initial moral quest disasters. The Finsterland Forest and Lynchburg fails still haunted me.
“Decent job, dirt bagger,” one of the surviving Sunbleeder riders said to me in his bro-tone.
Only seven had survived the skirmish with the Preshaar attackers, which reminded me of the early field mission of the Academy. Most players had died taking back Montobay, and yet, everyone moved on. Life in the fictional continent of Fourlando continued, just like in the offline world.
Within the next minutes, the backup airship transporters arrived. Thei
r reinforced steel hulls bore the bleeding sun logo of the Syndicate. The auto paint reflected off the sun rays and glimmered in a faint silver, which looked amazing. The rear hatch of the transporters flapped open and released new groups of workers and guardsmen as well as mechanics who started repairing the outpost. They buzzed around the battlefield like drones, knowing exactly what to do. Within two more minutes, the burning outpost resembled a construction site. The Sunbleeders fortified the gates, planted new dart throwers on top of the watch towers and patrolled the area around the crystals. A group of workers pulled the corpses away like trash bags and stashed them far away to burn them to ashes. It looked like a crew taking care of the trash after a wild music festival, as if this massacre happened every day.
“Dash.”
Captain Wedge and his men mounted their bulkors and approached me. “Time to head back to the HQ. It’s reward time.”
The men raised their fists into the air and cheered.
Was that a self-conscious comment from a soldier that understood game mechanics? No, it would have broken the narrative. I mounted my injured bulkor, fed her two bundles of fyrekraut to increase the stamina, and returned to my new home. The distance updated on the map section of my e-scroll. First Lieutenant Cadfael rode parallel to me and cheered. He seemed to be the youngest one in the squad, maybe in his twenties. “You fought well for a rebel licker.”
“It’s what I do for a living.”
“We all do, actually. Unlike those savages and the religious Aeon freaks, we fight for tangible goals.”
“Money. How admirable.”
“It’s an honest goal. Lectures about the Aeons and savage rituals don’t feed stomachs. And they certainly don’t help the world advance.”
“We just slaughtered fifty Preshaar. Hardly an advancement.”
