Never Split the Party

by Ramy Vance

  Milos lifted his hand in defeat. “Her story? Well, Diana, there is a living legend. She was responsible for ending the Siege of Tulmarth single-handedly. She’s probably the second-best MERC to have ever lived.”

  “And who’s the first?” Suzuki asked.

  “José. He’s part of her party and the oldest known MERC. José was one of the first humans to come to Middang3ard, and it is legend that he’s so old his HUD only displays in ancient Aramaic.”

  Stew laughed, downing his drink and reaching for Sandy’s. “Aramaic? Who is this guy? Jesus?”

  “He just might be,” Milos said with an air of deadly seriousness. “We don’t really know, but the man is nearly invincible. No one knows much about him except that some elder Chipmaster installed something weird in his HUD the day before he died…for the first time.”

  “Did you say, ’Died for the first time?’ As in he’s died more than once?” Suzuki asked. “I thought death here is real death, right?”

  Milos nodded. “For most of us. But for José, it's different. The legend is that he went on some quest, where his party gets in heavy with a cave troll. The troll clear rips his face off and slams him against a rock. After his party finally puts the troll down, most of them are half-dead mind you, they walk up to José, you know, getting ready to bury him and everything. They all saw how hard of a hit he took. So they finally get to him, and he’s still breathing. Faceless, but still breathing. So they bring him back to the Red Lion. None of the mages can fix him up. They say the damage is too permanent. So he spends the night holed up in his room, probably trying to figure out how he’s gonna live a life without a face.

  “When his party sees him the next day, first thing in the morning, they all lose their shit. José’s staring at them with a brand new face. Like nothing ever happened. And that was just the first time. I’ve been out with José. He should be dead. But here he is, every night with the rest of us.”

  “Cool story,” Suzuki said skeptically.

  Milos leaned in close. “You’re right to have your doubts, human, but make no mistake. José and Diana are fucking powerful MERCs and the last muthafuckers you want to piss off.”

  “Fine, fine.” Suzuki took a sip as he gathered his thoughts. “I get it. I get it.” Suzuki narrowed his eyes and in his drunken haze remembered another piece of Milos’ story. “Say, Milos, what’s a ‘Chipmaster’?”

  Milos burst into laughter. “Boy, they fucking told you lot nothing when they signed you up! A Chipmaster is something that hooks up your SD chips. I wouldn’t recommend doing it yourself. Usually the damn thing shorts out and fries your brain. It’s better to pay for quality work.”

  “And where can I find one?”

  Milos’ eyebrow rose. “Got an SD chip or something?”

  “Sandy does, but I got this dongle.” Suzuki fished out the little piece of electronics that Beth had sent him. “I’m not sure what it does, though.”

  “A dongle.” Milos looked it over, appreciatively. “Did you find this with the goblins.”

  Suzuki shook his head. “A friend sent it to me.”

  “That must be some friend. These things aren’t cheap. These things are rare. And very fucking expensive.” Milos scanned the bar. “One of the members of José and Diana’s party is a Chipmaster. I can introduce you two.”

  Across the table, Stew yawned loudly as Sandy continued to read her book. “I’m going to go grab some more drinks.”

  Sandy nodded absentmindedly, completely absorbed in her reading.

  Suzuki and Milos were talking and neither heard Stew, who sighed and walked off to the bar, raising his hand to catch Wendy’s attention. “Could I get another round?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Wendy shouted over the roar of the bar.

  One of the barmaids took a seat next to Stew. Her uniform was cut lower than the rest of the servers, allowing her breasts to bulge out of her blouse. Her lips were bright red, and her makeup brought out her strong cheekbones. She smiled at Stew and placed her hand on his.

  Stew jerked away and yelped before realizing what was happening. “Uh…hi…,” Stew stuttered. “Can I help you?”

  “The real question is, ‘Can I help you?’” the barmaid asked. “You’re Stew, right? The Mundane barbarian.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  The barmaid leaned closer and whispered in Stew’s ear. Her voice was low and breathy. “I have a room upstairs. I’m very discreet.” She rubbed her index and middle finger against her thumb. “And reasonable.”

  “Oh,” Stew gasped as he grabbed his round of drinks, his voice cracking loudly. “Oh, I’m okay. I’m with my girlfriend. I’m actually grabbing her drink. Thank you, though. I mean, no, thank you. But thank you for the offer. Uh…yeah…I gotta go.”

  Stew rushed off with his meads and set them on the Mundanes table, before sitting down and burying his face in his mead.

  “Everything okay, Stew?” Sandy asked without taking her eyes off her book.

  Stew looked up, a Got Beer? mustache on his upper lip. “Yep, babe, everything is super awesome and totally cool.”

  The barmaid who had spoken to Stew pulled a chair from another table and sat it down next to Sandy. As soon as he saw her, Stew yelped. Loudly.

  “Do you mind if I join you guys?” the barmaid asked Sandy. “I don’t really like being on my feet during my breaks.”

  Sandy shrugged as she turned the page. “Not at all.”

  “I’d prefer to spend it on my back.”

  Sandy looked up from her book for the first time and at the barmaid. “Uh…you should probably lay down then.”

  The barmaid leaned over the table and met Sandy’s eyes. “We could both take a lay down for a bit.”

  “That’s very flattering, but I’m here with my boyfriend. That one.” She pointed at Stew. “You know, the guy who’s making that weird face.”

  “I know. We’ve met.”

  Sandy slammed her hand on the table. “God damn it, Stew, what did I tell you about asking for threesomes!”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Stew objected, raising his hands in his own defense.

  Milos chugged the last of his drink and stood up. He kicked Suzuki in the shins and motioned for Suzuki to follow him. “Come on. I feel like this is the kind of drunken conversation we can bow out of. Let’s go try and get your HUD upgraded.”

  Suzuki followed Milos, who dropped a couple of copper pieces in Sandy’s lap and winked, and they left the barmaid with Stew and Sandy, who were both fumbling over their words as the barmaid laughed good-naturedly.

  Milos led Suzuki through the maze of moving, loudly cheering MERCs to a backroom of the Red Lion. It was dark, lit only by a few candles.

  The room was mostly empty. The few chairs were filled with MERCs who were smoking, drinking, and laughing.

  One of the MERCs blew a huge cloud of smoke that shifted its shape until it looked like a flower. The MERC pursed her lips and whistled, causing the petals of the flower to fall off, one-by-one.

  Next to a table was a recliner which looked like a dentist’s chair. A man sat in the chair as a woman seated next to him was soldering something in his head.

  When she moved, Suzuki could see that the HUD which the MERC was wearing had been dismantled, even though it was still connected to his head.

  His eyes were closed, and he appeared to be in some pain. The woman sitting in the chair reached over to a box of tools sitting on the table beside her.

  She took out a pair of tweezers. “Almost done.” Then she started soldering again, this time sending sparks flying up from the MERC’s HUD.

  The backroom reminded Suzuki of a seedy tattoo parlor.

  Milos took a seat near the reclining chair and Suzuki sat next to him. “That’s the Chipmaster.”

  Under the light, Suzuki could get a better look at the Chipmaster. She wore a thick smithy apron over a short-sleeved blouse that showed off arms covered in tattoos that weren’t the sort popular with the MERCs.
There was nothing elvish. No arcane symbols. Just images of 1980s TV cartoons—Tom and Jerry, Donald Duck…the Tasmanian Devil.

  “Whattaya want?” the Chipmaster asked without looking up.

  “Kid’s got a dongle,” Milos answered.

  “A dongle?”

  “Aye.”

  “Military?”

  “You know of any other.”

  “Let me finish this one up, boyo, and I’ll take a look.”

  The Chipmaster soldered the MERC’s HUD. The MERC groaned in pain a few times, but both he and the Chipmaster laughed it off as they talked, occasionally taking a break for the MERC to wince and sigh dramatically.

  After a couple of minutes, Chipmaster put down her tools and closed up the MERC’s HUD. She motioned for Suzuki to take a seat once the other MERC had moved. She held out her hand for the dongle, and Suzuki passed it to her.

  “Hmm…” Chipmaster mused. “Definitely military. Where’d you catch an admirable piece of this sort?”

  “A friend sent it to me,” Suzuki answered.

  “Aye, military indeed. Impressive. Not the sort of tech we see floating around these sorts of parts. What does it do?”

  Suzuki shrugged. “All she said was that it might save my life one day.”

  The Chipmaster pursed her lips before shaking her head. “That’s the trouble with these dongles. We don’t know what they do. Could be amazing. Could be horrible, too. Tell you what. Fancy a trade?”

  “A trade?”

  The Chipmaster pulled open one of the drawers in her toolbox and pulled out an SD card. “This is premium stuff. It will open up a brand new pair of peepers in ye skull. Lifetime guarantee too. Pop ‘em in, everything changes. Sure, there’s a teensy bit of pain. But what’s an evening of migraines for a lifetime of perks? I’ll set you up very legit wise too, seeing how it’d be ye first time. A dongle don’t feel too pretty, and we’re all under this great roof to give you and your pals a little of the ol’ show and spectacle, ya know?”

  “No, thanks. I want the dongle.”

  “Even though it’s a gamble? For all we know, this is the dongle of Dicklessness, then you lose yer dick…as in forever. Get it?”

  “So whatever this does is permanent,” Suzuki mused. “But it came from a trusted friend and she told me it would save my life, so, yeah, I get it. Put it in.”

  The Chipmaster pointed her soldering gun at him. “A gambler. I like you. Let me set ye all up, and we’ll take your skull for a spin. Little bit of pain, the process. Slightly little trip. Mighty eye-opening though. Some of the folk can’t get enough of that part, but to each their own. Not for me. Some of the dark brain dreams should be reserved for the eves when they can be held accountable, don’t ye think?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Suzuki sat in the recliner, pushing away his doubt. He wasn’t in Middang3ard to play it safe, and Beth had told him that it was important to get this dongle installed. Besides, Suzuki had always wanted a tattoo. This seemed infinitely cooler.

  “Let’s do it,” Suzuki said.

  Chipmaster clapped her hands together and pulled up her goggles. “Thank the gods,” she exclaimed. “Ain’t had something this robust and shiny in a considerable amount of time. José’s the only one who ever brings back anything with this amount of sheen to it. Heyo, José, come and check in on this dongle I got betwixt me nimble fingers.”

  Chipmaster strapped Suzuki’s head to the chair and started whistling as she fired up the soldering iron.

  “You’re gonna feel a bit of a pinch,” Chipmaster explained. “And then your brain is going to go all sizzly and you might see God or something, but you’ll live through the whole thing, on me father’s sordid life, I promise ye. Gotcha?”

  “Gotcha.”

  Chipmaster flipped Suzuki’s HUD open. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could feel the heat from the soldering iron. Other MERCs were crowding the chair now, some of them clanking tankards together.

  Suzuki tried not to wince in any noticeable way. That thought faded from his mind the moment that his brain went “sizzly.” Everything in the room got fuzzy and muddled together as if he were looking through an unfocused telescope. The eyes of the surrounding MERCs began to glow. Then they ejected themselves from the MERCs sockets and floated up into the air.

  He followed them with his eyes, which he now could see were floating out of his head as well. The eyes went up, out of the ceiling, and into the sky, past the ozone layer, out to the stars. They floated and grew larger, and stars and planets zoomed around them.

  Suzuki could see that one of the planets was Earth. His eyes bobbed closer to Earth, smashed straight through it, and came out the other side. The moon was revolving around Earth and Earth was revolving around a similarly-shaped planet. The planet was followed by another planet of the same shape and size. There were at least seven earths floating around one large, pale planet. When Suzuki strained his eyes, he could see billions of eyeballs walking around on the pale planet. One of them looked straight up and stared at Suzuki in his detached eyeballs.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, Suzuki was back in his chair. Chipmaster blew on her soldering iron and closed up Suzuki’s HUD.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  “Oh, the visions. You see, your electric boogaloo dance-with-the-stars moment was brought to you by the HUD that’s been pretty close to stapled into your skull. HUDs perceive reality. I just splintered yours a little for a fraction of a bit. Let you see all the reality out there that our little brains don’t want to deal with. See it enough, and it’ll drive ya beyond mad. But for a tickle of a minute while I torch ye ol’ HUD won’t do no damage. Now let’s see what we got here. Up and at ‘em, young squire.”

  Suzuki assumed that Chipmaster wanted him out of the seat. His legs were wobbly and it was difficult to stand, but he made it up. He used the chair for support until one of the MERCs reached out and gave him a hand. The MERC was tall and extremely lanky. He had greasy hair that hung over his face and a beard that made one question if he indeed did have a face.

  “Get ‘im up and straight, José,” Chipmaster chirped.

  “Thanks,” Suzuki murmured as he got his bearings.

  “Now what you got?”

  “What?”

  Chipmaster tapped her HUD. Suzuki nodded in understanding and clicked his own HUD. As soon as he touched it, a bright green message flashed.

  “Scent Modification,” the message read.

  Suzuki clicked the message. A variety of racial scents appeared on his HUD. Suzuki chose French.

  “Scent Modification,” Suzuki said. “Could have used that today.”

  “Aye, sounds dull as an elvish orgy,” the Chipmaster said as she put her equipment away.

  José tapped Suzuki’s HUD with enough force to nearly knock Suzuki over. All that from just one finger, Suzuki thought. How strong is this guy?

  “That’s because you lack imagination.” José voice was calm, even, —reassuring. “Most everything hunts using their noses. You just upgraded this kid to a warrior with an exceptional edge over most assassins. Don’t waste it, kid.”

  Suzuki choked back his words. He didn’t know why, but he was overcome with a sense of awe. He felt he was meeting a childhood hero. Something about José just exuded greatness. Suzuki held back the urge to ask for an autograph as José walked off to party with the other MERCs.

  “Ahem,” Chipmaster said. “Now that’ll be the flavor of my choosing.”

  “Flavor?”

  “Tall, dark, and holy is all I need, ya know.” She chuckled as she absently twirled her hair around a finger. Then she seemed to come to her senses because she looked up at Suzuki and pointed at his HUD. “Make good use of that there dongle. Now get out of here and go enjoy yourself.”

  Suzuki and Milos left the back room to the sound of MERCs chanting a drinking song and shattering glass. Their table was empty. As Suzuki took a seat, he turned to the dwarf. “Milos, can I ask you a
question?”

  “You just did.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Human, just speak. This preamble serves no purpose -- you’re a MERC now. That makes you family. And we MERCs ask, say, command, fight, fuck…like any good family.”

  Suzuki nodded. “OK, do MERCs ever join the army?”

  At that, Milos spit out his drink. “Why would you? All the drills, the early morning, the utter lack of loot?”

  Suzuki shrugged. “Higher purpose?”

  Milos leaned in close, scanning Suzuki’s eyes. “There are only two reasons why someone would choose army over MERC life: because he’s delusional or in love, and those two things are basically one and the same if you ask me. So which one are you?”

  Suzuki didn’t answer.

  “So, love it is. Who is she?”

  “No one.”

  “Bah, humbug.” Milos took another sip of his mead. “We all know she’s not “no one.” And let me guess, she joined the army and you, a reject, wound up here, right? Now you want to join up and fight the good fight by her side.”

  Suzuki pursed his lips. He thought about trying to wiggle his way out of this conversation. Some lie or excuse. Instead, he opted for honesty. “Something like that,” he said.

  Milos slammed his hand on the table. “That’s my boy! Want to join the army? Then finish some big mission that’s a thorn in their ass and impress ’em. That will get you a one-way ticket into that hell.”

  “So it’s possible?” There was a ding in his HUD. He just received a message.

  “It is possible,” Milos said with a nod.

  Another ding. He checked his HUD. It was a message. From Beth.

  “Hey, Milos, I gotta take this. Thanks for everything. Really. I’ll catch you around.”

  Milos winked as he took a long draught from his tankard. “Ah, let me guess, your delusion beckons.” He chuckled as Suzuki rushed off.

  Suzuki wasn’t even halfway up the stairs before he had opened the message from Beth. The message was short, almost terse. It read, “Hey Suzuki. Just wanted to let you know I’m still alive. Troll duty has gotten out of hand. We’re also seeing a lot of red orcs. They’ve been attacking nearby villages. It’s getting pretty rough. Anyways, just wanted to remind you about the present I sent you. Tell those douche nozzles that I asked what’s up. Miss you lots. Love, Beth.”