by Jeff Sproul
A few seconds passed before Chrono's voice sounded from the cell. "Relinquisher? What the hell is going on? I've been trying to contact you for hours."
"I know, I had some delays, but I'm fine, the base is fine, it's being defended. But it needs some upgrades and further support if we can get anything there. But uh…before that happens, I'm currently here in Crimson City."
"Did you teleport?" Chrono asked.
"Yeah, but…it looks like the teleport missed its mark a bit. I'm between Vigilant and Spider Country," he said, using one of the nicknames he and the other hero players gave The Great Weavers’ territory.
"The teleport missed its mark? What sort of low-grade teleporter were you using?"
"I'll explain in a minute, just…tell me what's going on around here. Am I safe? Should I walk to the base? I'm kinda out in the open here."
"Hmm," Chrono murmured. "Hmm."
Riley waited.
And waited.
"Chrono?" he asked, as he kept glancing around.
"Yeah yeah, I got you on one of our sensors here. Looks like you're alone, except for the local wildlife," he said, referring to the hellion-styled NPCs that had replaced hero-centric civilians as 'wildlife.'
"Great, I'll just queue up the coordinates to head back. I'll be there in about fifteen to twenty."
"Uh, actually…" Chrono trailed off. "Any chance you could do me a favor?"
"Didn't I just do something huge by grabbing that base, all by myself?"
"Well, you did," said Chrono. "But, The Vigilant need your help. They're getting pushed on from two directions and I promised them we'd send what we could, but we don't have many people online right now, and the ones that are, are all in other areas."
"Why do I feel like I'm the only one doing all these random assignments?" Riley asked.
"You're always online! Everyone's busy or everyone's offline, I can't help you there. I've already diverted some of our minions over there to help them, but I can't thin out any of the other defensive lines. Actually, the minions I sent will be at your location in about thirty seconds, so feel free to take control of them directly when you see them. You're going to love them. You got the whole 'command' thing down after seizing that base, right?"
Riley rolled his eyes. "I swear, if you sent me spiders, I'm going to be really pissed. Actually, if you sent me spiders, I'm just going to walk in the nearest building and sign off."
"Relinquisher, I swear to you, I did not send you spiders to control. I'd never do that to you. Most likely. But they're not spiders, promise."
Riley shook his head and looked around. "Alright, whatever…just send me a marker on where to go."
"Sure sure, you still have my powers and Amber's, right?" Chrono asked.
"Yeah, that's my current power loadout. Why?"
"Just checking. Wanted to make sure you at least had something to use in an engagement situation before I committed to sending you there. I'll let the Vigilant commander know you're en route."
"Who’s currently commanding their forces?" Riley asked, still keeping an eye out for his own reinforcements.
"Their guild leader is offline, so it's Ice Block at the moment."
Riley's brows lifted. "Ah, well, that's not so bad. Alright, on my way. Where are those reinforcements?"
"They'll be there…in a few seconds. Call me when the battle is over. Goodbye." Chrono's communication suddenly cut out.
Riley stood there in the street, glancing around at the nearby buildings. He looked down, he looked up. Shouldn't they be in sight? He checked the sky, thinking they might be flyers.
But as he looked up, the ground burst open in front of him. Three creatures skittered out of the car-sized hole in the street. Riley swiftly stepped back. Despite the fact that he knew they were his reinforcements, their arrival wasn't any less surprising. His eyes were wide as he scanned the three hellion-type minions.
So that was why Chrono had ended the call so fast.
One of them was a sickly green, another, a dark ocean blue. The one in the middle, a metallic black.
But all of them were scorpions.
Their segmented legs tapped around quietly in a subtle clicking sound. Their large pincers, easily the size of his torso, were closed and in a guarded position. Their tails were drawn up, with a deadly-looking barb at the top.
"Still arachnids, Chrono," Riley muttered with a shake of his head. "Can you three…speak?" he asked. He knew they were just AI-controlled minions and not players, but still, would they work like the hero-centric NPCs he'd made at the base?
"Yes," came a sort of hiss from the central metallic one.
"Alright, I'm assuming control of the three of you. You'll follow my orders?"
"Yes."
"Great…um…" He couldn't help but look the three of them over with apprehension. "So you can dig and tunnel, what else do you have?"
As he waited for an answer, he pulled up his status screen to check how much of his command potential was currently being used. His eyes widened as he noticed that 155 of his 160 command points were being utilized. Five of those points were due to Trooper One back at the outpost, but the scorpions seemed to be using 50 each. Which meant that they each had to be worth about ten troopers, right?
"We are quick and lethal, but somewhat fragile. Our speed and tunneling make up for our low Toughness and health. We are able to fight at range with short jets of acid from our tails. We can stab with our tails if need be, and inject acid directly."
"That sounds really painful," said Riley. "I'm glad you weren't around when they implemented the pain patch." He shook his head, remembering how much harsher pain had been in the game before they alleviated its intensity. Now, it was unpleasant and frustrating, but not torturous.
Riley gestured with his hand to bring up the stat sheet for the metallic scorpion. He just wanted to give it a quick glance despite the questions he'd been asking.
-
Scorpion Strain 5c
Name: Scorpion
Hitpoints: 900
Energy: 1300
Command Potential: 0
Primary stats:
Power 15
(10 Base damage per claw attack. 25 base damage upon impact of acid attack. 18 damage per second while acid is applied. (Modified by Power.))
Constitution: 9
Toughness: 10
Mind: 0
Stamina: 13
Dexterity: 25
Command: 0
Secondary stats:
Stealth Rating: 0
Stealth Detection: 0
Accuracy: 72%
Skills:
Tunneling
(Allows this entity to burrow through dirt and some types of rock.)
Acid Shot
(Allows this entity to shoot a jet of acid at nearby enemies.)
Cost:
General Biomass: 170
Waste Rock: 35
Iron Ore: 12
Pugstine Ore: 10
Crithil Dust: 5
-
"Anything else I should know?" Riley asked. "Any stats I need to place, skills I need to set?"
"We are ready to go and require no further management," the metal one said, having been made the de facto leader of the three. That was generally how groups of NPCs worked. It didn't make sense to have a new one talking all the time.
"Alright then, let's go," he said as he enabled an auto-route on his cellphone. Upon doing so, he would see a small light across the ground, directing him and gradually fading in the direction he needed to go in order to reach his destination. He returned his cell to his inventory. It would chime if he needed to answer a call. But it looked like he had more work to do before he could take a breather. Hopefully the outpost would last until then. At least Chrono knew it was safe. He'd probably start working on a reinforcement and upgrade plan for it, knowing him. He was always trying to think a step ahead.
"Scorps, be on alert, escort for now," he said as he started running in the directi
on the light was going. He'd eaten another food-bar earlier to replenish his energy, even though it would've naturally replenished since he hadn't been using any abilities.
A series of hisses came from behind him after his order. He assumed 'tsss' meant 'yes, commander.'
He was already starting to miss the snarky commentary from the base's system.His arms pumped as he followed the signal lights through the monotonous streets, but then he suddenly came to a stop. "The hell am I doing?" he murmured to himself as he turned around, seeing all three scorpions right behind him.
"Metal scorpion. You're now Scorp One. Blue, you're Scorp Two. Green, you're Scorp Three."
"Tss," came their individual replies.
"Great. You love the new names. Scorp One, can you carry me on your back and move faster than I can at a run?"
"Much faster," came its reply.
"Fantastic, let's do that," he said as he headed right over. Despite how much he would've preferred that his new minions weren't scorpions, he couldn't deny how useful riding on one's back would be. Plus, that'd look pretty cool.
He climbed up onto the scorpion's back, which wasn't all that high up. It was like sitting on top of a desk, at most. He found that he was able to get a good handhold on some jagged portions of its exoskeleton. "Onward, scorpion vehicle."
Scorp One didn't waste any time in complying. It immediately started running on all its legs, flanked by the other two scorpions. Riley figured that somehow his own marker was leading them. But to test things out, he would tilt and turn himself, as if trying to direct the scorpion he was riding on. Much to his fascination, he found that the creature turned and swerved with almost effortless movements. It responded to his will, much like he was riding a motorcycle or bike.
This was actually pretty great.
Maybe he wouldn't be mad at Chrono over this.
He raced through the streets of Crimson City on scorpion back. The minion was definitely much faster than his own running speed.
Buildings rushed by as he gripped the back of the scorpion. He could see a marker in his vision for where he needed to be heading as far as the streets were concerned, but he could also see a marker for his final destination, which was rapidly getting closer.
Riley was still wearing his equipment from earlier, but he'd tapped into the base's power to recharge his Deep Charge Battery. He was pretty full on capacity, so he decided to keep his goggle's stealth-vision on.
Of course, a lot of good it did him earlier. He couldn't even see the Golem creature that had been hovering right above him. The creature must've had a powerful stealth ability, since he couldn't see it, but Gella could. And, Gella was able to see it from a distance. He wondered just how powerful Gella actually was.
But he had to return his thoughts back to the task at hand. He was nearing his destination. Hopefully he wasn't being rushed right into a warzone without knowing what he should really be doing. He didn't want to be working against The Vigilant's plan.
He came around a five-story building and saw rising columns of smoke in the distance just a couple streets over. He was more on the outskirts of the city now, which meant that the buildings weren't as tall as the ones in the center of the city, or as numerous.
He spotted a player in the distance. They had a faint pink aura around them. This meant that they were part of the alliance. If it had been someone in his own guild, the aura would've been blue. Of course, the closer he got to the person, the less intense the aura would be. It was merely a way to discern far-off players.
As he got closer, he pulled back a little on the scorpion's armor. It slowed to the speed of a walk and he hopped off and walked the rest of the way over to the figure he'd seen. His destination marker had him set to end up right beside the other player.
It took him a minute to remember who the person was. She looked like she might've been in her thirties. She had dark skin and smooth black hair that stopped at the base of her neck. She had on a pair of black pants and white shoes, with a purple V-neck T shirt. She was adorned with various bracelets and rings and a necklace. It was at that last detail that Riley remembered who she was. Aegis.
She was already looking over to Riley as he approached. As he did, another figure came out from between a couple nearby buildings. The new figure garnered the other woman's attention.
The new arrival was fair-skinned with blonde hair tied back into a bun. She had on a white T-shirt and a pair of blue denim pants. Of course, for this person, her most prominent feature was her intricate black boots, which crackled with electricity with each step she took. She was Ava.
He had met both of these players before, back when they fought in the underground cave with the blue trees and all the pods that had been harboring the city's NPCs, which were breaking them down into resource-heavy fruit.
Aegis was the first to speak. "What are you doing back here, Kicks?" she asked, looking to Ava.
"They're not moving!" Ava exclaimed, pointing in the direction she'd come from. "They're just waiting on their side, watching us. Should I be telling our troops to attack, or what? You said wait for them to attack."
The three scorpions followed behind Riley and stopped when he stopped, about eight feet away.
"That means they're waiting for us to attack, which would ensure greater losses for us, or they're waiting for something to arrive," said Aegis. It was at this point that she brought her left arm up. She tapped the band on her wrist, which brought up an immediate display of the area. It looked just like Riley's 3D rendering of the base. But this wasn't a base, it was the local area they were in. Which meant that Aegis had access to nearby scanning equipment and probably had some way of communicating with all the green dots he was seeing. But even from that distance, he saw the numerous red dots outnumbering the green.
Currently, they were on the outskirts of Crimson City. There was an open space and train tracks that separated them from the outskirts of Uber City. But it wasn't as if a single alliance controlled Uber City. They were surely just fighting one of the nearby guilds, or, maybe a couple.
"What's the plan? Chrono made it sound like you were already under attack. Where's Ice Block?" Riley asked, glancing around, having assumed Ice Block was directly in control of the forces in the area.
"Well, he was over in the other position," said Aegis, who now looked to Riley. "But he disconnected about thirty seconds ago. He and I were coordinating our troops between the two points. They're over to the left of us," she said, pointing down the street, the opposite way she'd come from.
"Disconnected?" Riley asked.
"Yeah. We were in the middle of planning out an attack when he just stopped talking. His second-in-command over there…uh…what's her name?" Aegis asked as she snapped her fingers, looking over to Ava.
"Silver…uh…" Ava said.
"That's it. Silver…something," Aegis said as she looked to Riley. "Silver is over there with Gem. Silver had to call me directly after Ice Block disconnected. She said he just dropped. Which, as I'm sure you know, is a clear sign of a disconnect. We think his power went out. It happens from time to time. He's usually gone anywhere between one and three hours. So we're operating on the assumption that he's going to be MIA for now. Silver has him being moved back to one of our outposts for safety."
"Alright, where does that leave us? You're in command then, I take it? So what's happening?" Riley asked.
Ava had stepped to the side and was slowly walking around, inspecting Riley's three scorpions. With every step, her shoes seemed to give a soft spark of energy. "These things are so damn cool," she said to herself, as her eyes flit over the scorpions.
Riley glanced over to her for a moment with a half-smile, but looked back to Aegis.
"Well," said Aegis, "Silver is more of an assassin, not so much a great skirmisher when things are really chaotic. But I think she's getting better at dealing with multiple enemies at a time. She's more of a support, like myself. Gem is more of a trap-setter. We have him working overtim
e currently."
"We also have Domi here on our side," said Ava.
"Yeah, so that makes six…er…five of us, without Ice Block. But you make six."
Riley settled his gaze on the smokestacks in the distance. "So, do you need me anywhere in particular? This position, or the other?"
Aegis shook her head. "No, we actually need you over here, I think. At least for now. So, here's the situation. There's two guilds across the tracks over there. We've been fighting with them off and on for the entire week."
"Ever since we joined you guys, actually," Ava murmured, as she circled the scorpions.
"Yeah," Aegis agreed. "But as you know, we're resource-short, since we were spending a bit fighting with you guys."
Riley was having trouble looking Aegis in the eye now. "Well, yeah…sorry. It's not like I wanted any of this to come about. I'm just dealing with the cards I'm being dealt here."
"Yeah, we know the BBs were pressured into joining. I totally don't resent you, or the others for it, Relinquisher," said Aegis. "So please don't take offense. We understand a lot better than most. And we understand a lot more now that we're part of Crimson Alliance."
"Sage sure has a way of getting what he wants, huh?" said Ava from behind Riley.
"That he does," Riley sighed.
"But, back to the topic at hand," said Aegis. "We have two guilds across the tracks. Fists of Atlas on the left, and Iron Hounds on the right. The Atlas folks make a lot of suped-up mutant hero-centric troops. They look like players, and they have a lot of power behind them. They'll throw their abilities around, but don't get spooked, they're just NPCs. Powerful ones, but NPCs nonetheless. The Iron Hounds are very mechanical oriented. They're another paragon guild as well, but they use a lot of robot NPCs. They're pretty deadly. They have all sorts of things at their disposal. They're the guild we're more worried about. The Atlas ones will probably slam head-first into Gem’s traps, and Silver will be able to overwatch and help keep them at bay with the troops we have over there. But these Iron Hounds have a lot more to mess us up with." Aegis looked over to Ava. "How's Domi doing with her traps?"
