Know Your Roll

by Matthew Siege

  Roll: 17

  Effectiveness: 85%

  as I full-autoed just shy of 300 rounds worth of amputations and body bags straight into the faces of the stampeding divisions I could see through the doorway.

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 16

  Effectiveness: 80%

  That was going to have to be enough, since every screen was purple and the Smash was pressing into the cockpit. “Bingo,” I shouted, “kill the reactor and fire it back up as fast as you can.”

  “I canna do it, cap’tin. I need more time. The shieldin’-”

  “Bingo?”

  He paused, his voice dropping the terrible, artificial Scottish accent in lieu of his terrible natural one. “Ya?”

  “I hate to cramp your style, but I sort of had a Star Wars thing going here. It’s going to throw me off if Trek gets chucked into the mix. You don’t mind, do you?”

  He snorted. “Fair enough. I was just kiddin’, anyway. I’m gonna say ‘Sexty seconds’, doh. Sexty seconds and she’ll be back.”

  I frowned. “Damn it, Bin-” But my voice wasn’t going anywhere. He’d already cut the power to everything, just as I’d asked.

  The cockpit went dark and cemetery silent. I could hear my heart racing, shoving blood through my veins. My stomach growled. I hadn’t anticipated that the glassteel would stop letting in light when the power died, but I guess I had a lot to learn.

  I’d been staring at a field of charging knights and bellowing barbarians, but now all of that was strangled out as every monitor in the Mech went black.

  This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. I should be in the open field, protecting the Dregs.

  The Dregs! I couldn’t use the speakers to warn them off, and I had a bad feeling that they’d be too brave for their own good.

  Sure enough, when I cranked the manual releases and let the cockpit swing open again, I saw quite a few of them rushing over to try and repair and rearm us. If I didn’t turn them around, they’d end up smack dab in the middle of the horde that’d hit us well before we could fight back.

  Illgott wasn’t with them. When I scanned the hangar for him, I found the ogre over near the open doors. He was looking understandably worried.

  Brave little Esper was standing in his shadow.

  “Go back,” I yelled at them. “All of you. We’ll be up and running in no time. Maybe. Keep your heads down, because this place is going to be knee deep in jerkwads in…”

  “Twenty-five seconds,” Source supplied.

  “Shit. Twenty-five seconds. You hear me, Illgott? What are you two doing over there?”

  He shrugged, looking miserable. “This little insists she can help. I can’t let her stand here on her own, can I?”

  “I guess not. You can pick her up and drag her ass inside though, right?”

  Esper was staring out through the doors at the Smash. The bruised lilac strands of the storm that were corrupting the Mech coiled in her direction, though before they could throttle her they wavered and withdrew.

  Her hands began to glow white just as a massive blitz of armored units and elves in full regalia backlit by the maelstrom began to hurtle across the basin.

  The Smash pulled up into itself and then rushed down at me in a torrent. There wasn’t time to get back into the cockpit before it struck, but I tried anyway.

  A blinding beam of pale magic erupted from Esper, driving back the Smash and sizzling right through the heart of it. I had to retreat before the Heroes got me with an arrow or a javelin, but before I dragged the armored hatch closed behind me I saw that the purple storm was gone.

  As soon as it vanished, Esper collapsed. Illgott scooped her up and ran like hell.

  The Heroes would be here soon, and the Dregs in the hangar were either going to be smart, lucky or dead. “How long until we’re back, Bingo?”

  “Twentyish.”

  An eternity. At the rate they’d been rushing us, the Mech bay would be full of them in no time. As if brought about by my thoughts, I heard a noise against the hull, and then another and another.

  “Arrows,” Patch whispered, as I heard the trio of sentry guns mounted out there start to chatter. The caliber they were using was a lot lighter than the Goblin, but it was way better than nothing.

  I was still trying to wrap my head around what I’d just seen the orphan girl do. “Yeah… Hey, do either of you guys know a little named Esper?”

  “The one that came back when Mother… didn’t? Yeah, I met her when I opened the door for her and the others. She’s pretty cool. I think handing out awesome names was one of Mother’s Knacks, actually.”

  Something hit the Mech harder, a thrown hammer or a kill club, perhaps. “What’s so great about the name ‘Esper’?”

  “She told me that it was short for Espérance. Apparently Mother had a Duolingo account. All her kids knew French. Did she teach it to you, too?”

  I rolled my eyes. “She did, and Espérance is French for ‘hope’. That’s what Mother was trying to say with the whole ‘pardon my French’ thing, in case I was too dense to work it out. ‘Whatever you do, don’t you dare lose hope.”

  One of the oblong glassteel slabs got slammed with something so hard that it cracked. The opaque filters stuttered and failed, allowing sunlight in. I hopped up on the chair and peered out, curious as to how far away the Heroes were now.

  It was worse than I’d thought. The blow that’d done the damage hadn’t been a projectile. It was a chunky mace that glowed with green spikes. The fastest of the Heroes was already clambering up the Mech, hoping to overbalance it and wrestle us to the ground.

  Others pounded on our hull, more of them attacking by the second. I watched as a monk with a shaved head pressed his face to the glassteel and glared in at me before smacking his open palm against our hull and making the metal ring.

  Patch covered her ears as more and more of them pounded on our armor plating. “Raze, on a scale of one to catastrophic, how bad is it?”

  “Fifteen.” Desperate, I grabbed both joysticks and yanked them to the left, intent on throwing the crush off of us and getting the gun going again. It was pointless, since the reboot hadn’t finished yet.

  We were almost there, though. All of my windows went transparent at the same time, filling with the faces of the Heroes who’d piled on.

  If they’d sent their best in first, we’d probably be dead. Instead, their flunkies were squandering their chance, getting in each other’s way instead of organizing some sort of legitimate assault.

  Even now, after all of this, we were still nothing to them. They didn’t see us as anything more than a pile of loot and experience, and the hundreds we’d slaughtered were meaningless in their minds.

  “Power’s back!” Bingo hollered over the speakers as everything else came back up at once.

  Off and On Again: Eventually, this almost always works. 33% chance a forced reboot wipes technological lockouts and cleanses conditions that result in Damage Over Time. Effectiveness increases by 10% with each attempt. Useable once every 60 seconds.

  Intrinsic Ability Roll: 27%

  Result: Malware Bytes Premium Installed

  The Mech struggled to stand beneath the burden of so many clamoring Heroes, so I goosed the Voidsaw into screaming life and slashed it in a wide arc.

  Mech Weapon (Melee)

  Roll: 19

  Effectiveness: 95%

  Bodies squirmed and parted. Limbs fell and blood splattered my windows with drooling viscera.

  When I stepped through the first line of them and torched the second

  Mech Weapon (Hazardous Emission)

  Roll: 15

  Effectiveness: 75%

  and third,

  Mech Weapon (Hazardous Emission)

  Roll: 12

  Effectiveness: 60%

  they finally worked out how bad things were for them. At last we were the Raid Boss, and it was time to bring the pain.

  I got the Venomous Gob
lin firing again next,

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 17

  Effectiveness: 85%

  holding down the trigger and blasting a line of hot lead in a stream so thick it felt like I could see it, mowing down enemy combatants all over the hangar, from right in front of us to all the way over past the gaping doorway they were pouring through.

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 14

  Effectiveness: 70%

  I walked the fire from left to right, and this time when the chain gun ran out of rounds I was ready, using a combination of the Caustic Laser Sight,

  Mech Weapon (Beam Weapon)

  Roll: 7

  Effectiveness: 35%

  Voidsaw

  Mech Weapon (Melee)

  Roll: 9

  Effectiveness: 45%

  and Flame Spewer

  Mech Weapon (Hazardous Emission)

  Roll: 16

  Effectiveness: 80%

  to push the fuckers back toward the hangar’s entrance as the leadthrower reloaded.

  A few of the Heroes could take a hit, but that wasn’t good enough. Even if they stood up to the spinning blade itself, the force of it lifted them up off their feet and flung them into the ranks behind.

  “Goblin ready!” Patch told me.

  I went right back to it, round after round chewing them up.

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 10

  Effectiveness: 50%

  And still, they charged. The Knights were here now, and some of their shields were deflecting the shots. All that made me do was lower my aim and skip the rounds off the ground, under their protection and up into their legs. I was burning lead so fast that I could basically

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 19

  Effectiveness: 95%

  wave the gun around and score certain hits all the way across the Mech bay.

  They still refused to retreat, though. The stakes were higher now, and they could see that this was a fight for their lives, as well as ours.

  A huge slice of sunlight let me pick my targets with surety. I only had a couple of laser designators at the moment, but Source was using them to single out the biggest of the enemies. I twisted the joysticks and swiveled us on the torso so that I could bring the chain gun to bear on the higher-level Heroes entering the mountain now, insta-gibbing lowbies with the Voidsaw as I

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Aimed]

  Roll: 12

  Effectiveness: 60%

  used the chain gun to rip up anyone who looked capable of giving orders. It took a little more time, but I was willing to keep firing the target until they splattered.

  Another tight grouping of Rockets from my shoulder-mounted Alchemical Storm

  Mech Weapon (Indirect Fire)

  Roll: 14

  Effectiveness: 70%

  helped me take the doorway and hold it. I let us pause there for a moment, and after a second I heard the area in front of the mountain screaming “THE RULE OF COOL IS HERE TO STAY”.

  “Your doing, Patch?”

  “I found some extra screaming ink in your bag, and the Rockets won’t fire unless they’re dosed with something…”

  The Heroes and their death wish were still scurrying down the hills, but when I looked closely I could see some of them pretend to pull a hamstring or take a nonexistent arrow to the knee as they quietly lay down their weapons.

  Slowly, we were dragging their appetite for destruction through the dirt. It was a war of attrition, and every soldier that I could break without having to butcher was another one that’d spread the fear to the rest.

  The vast majority were still more than ready to die, and I gave them what they wanted, firing another salvo of Rockets into the midst of them.

  Mech Weapon (Indirect Fire)

  Roll: 9

  Effectiveness: 45%

  This was a mixed batch, and I saw exploding bones send chunks of armor in every direction as bodies erupted. Before they could cope with that, I targeted a second hillside

  Mech Weapon (Indirect Fire)

  Roll: 6

  Effectiveness: 30%

  and then a third,

  Mech Weapon (Indirect Fire)

  Roll: 7

  Effectiveness: 35%

  peppering them with Rockets at random.

  They weren’t as effective if I fired them that fast, but I needed noise. Confusion. That was the only way to put the same fear into them that they’d held over us for so long, or we’d never turn them around.

  We were almost out of everything, and once everyone around me was spurting arterial blood at the sky I got us into a low crouch, making myself into a more stable weapons platform and squeezing off ten or twelve-round bursts at the new wave.

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Aimed]

  Roll: 16

  Effectiveness: 80%

  It wasn’t an accident that I’d hunkered us down with a huge assortment of bodies at our back. The fallen were full of loot, and that meant scrap. “I won’t make ya ask, boyo,” Bingo told me. “I’m on it. Just try an’ keep me alive while I do it.”

  “Thanks, Bingo. I’ll cover you.” I was glad that he’d recognized our plight, because I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to order him out of the Mech to do what needed to be done.

  “I’m going too,” Patch said.

  I had to let her, or we wouldn’t make it through this. If we didn’t convert a decent portion of the stuff into ammunition and armor, we’d run out of one or the other before too long.

  Once they were out there, I concentrated on making sure that every beam, arrow and stone struck Mother square. If one slipped by, it’d endanger my crew and the Dregs who’d darted out from cover to help them salvage what they could.

  When I was crouched like this, Illgott was tall enough to twist more rockets into the Alchemical Storm’s weapon bay. I lifted my left arm and protected him with the attached blast shield and earned a look of thanks in the process.

  “Come on, come on,” I whispered over and over as the Goblin ran out again. Everyone behind me was a well-oiled machine, and by the time Patch and Bingo were climbing back into their compartments I was refueled, partially re-armored and thirteen seconds away from getting the chain gun back into the fight.

  “How are they holding up?” I asked them.

  “Better than us,” Patch said cheerily.

  More Heroes crested the hills around us, spilling down like the front of them like water as the light on my trigger went green just in time for me to dak-dak-dakka my way through them.

  I strode out to meet them, worried that they’d get in behind me if I didn’t.

  Visibility was beginning to be an issue as the dead and the dying started to pile up. At least I could use the valleys between the heaps of bodies as choke points,

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Aimed]

  Roll: 14

  Effectiveness: 70%

  gunning down Heroes unwilling to test the unstable footing of a mound composed entirely of their fallen comrades.

  The closer they got, the faster I fired.

  Mech Weapon (Direct Fire) [Indiscriminate]

  Roll: 8

  Effectiveness: 40%

  I was squeezing the triggers so tightly that my hands were hurting, pumping round after round straight into the unfortunate faces of the front line.

  The Flame Spewer

  Mech Weapon (Hazardous Emission)

  Roll: 17

  Effectiveness: 85%

  gave me some range while the Goblin reloaded. I was in my element, doing ten things at once and thinking about the eleventh. As soon as the chain gun was back online I mounted a promontory of carrion, using the high ground to pick my targets with more care.

  We were being struck by a constant hailstorm of arrows and, well, hail from the weather Wizards. It had to be taking its toll, but armor was tracked down where Patch was. My job wa
s to deal the death, and her job was to keep us alive.

  The Mech was a godsend, but even so with the numbers we were facing the only saving grace was that the Powers That Be had sent their lowest and their worst to take part in the Reenactment. I was killing them so fast that it was hard to catch a glimpse of their level before I rag-dolled them into oblivion, but I had yet to spot more than a handful above Level 4.

  Chunks of Heroes, twisted metal and whispering smoke were everywhere.

  “I realize now that I should have already asked this,” I said, “but when will the doors actually clos-”

  I guess I saw the shadow coming first, followed quickly by the proximity sensors screaming in my ears. None of that was enough warning for me to get out of the way, even though I yanked the paired joysticks to the right as hard as I could.

  My quick reactions were enough to save us from catching the massive boulder right down the middle of the Mech, but even the glancing blow we received was enough to send us sprawling in a spray of sparks and healing potion-infused hydraulic fluid.

  We landed hard on our left side. Fortunately the shield arm was pure armor, and a quick trigger pull was all I needed to test that the Voidsaw was still operational. I was better at getting back up now, though by the time I did so two more trebuchets had released their payloads at us.

  They things in the air arcing toward us were incredibly large.

  Contested Poise Roll

  Roll: 5

  Result: Raze Failure

  I was completely enthralled by how graceful they were. They were beautiful, in their own way. The perfect trajectory they were on would squash us, but I froze as I pondered which of them would strike us first.