by Wolfe Locke
It was a good victory. Except— the giant skull was still flying through the air, and it was headed right toward me. Distracted by the fight, the flesh golem didn’t notice what was happening.
“Dammit,” I said as soon as I realized it was coming straight for me. My entire body was crushed flat under the weight of the skeleton’s head. On the bright side, it hurt a lot less than the spear in my thigh. My health blinked at near zero for a minute as my emblem triggered, but it only triggered for a horrible moment.
Yeah. I died. Nothing new.
Chapter Five: Time to Shine
* * *
After my body finished collapsing in on itself, I woke up in my room, which had become my usual experience. Dying was never fun, but I had to admit, I really appreciated the respawning. Waking up refreshed was a grim sort of benefit. The mark on my chest had decreased from three and now showed two.
I threw the blankets off and looked around. My blood pressure spiked for a second, and I frowned. My “default outfit” had changed with my respawn. I wasn’t a big fan of it. I’d gone from my normal clothes to the Third Class Pleb uniform, freshly cleaned and restored to pristine status as if it had taken no damage. It still didn’t fit quite right, and I quite resented the naming sensibilities. Pleb doesn’t feel quite accurate.
“Napoleon?” I called out, and the mimic crawled out from under the bed. “You did really well back there.”
The mimic surprised me. The mimic had really come through. Though, I was taken back by what I now saw, he’d taken on a new form that I hadn’t seen before. I hate to say it: he made a great pet and definitely did a few things that not even a dog could do. Besides, we had bonded. He was as close to man’s best friend as I could get, but when he came out from under the bed, I physically recoiled.
Napoleon looked like a teddy bear— if a teddy bear were made of random chunks of meat roughly stitched together with bloody twine. It didn’t even look like the same type of meat, either. His right arm looked like it was made from chicken breast, obviously light meat, and his left was… maybe beef? Goat? Beyond Meat? Whatever he was made of, it was horrific.
“Why’d you do that, buddy?” I asked, not really understanding and struggling to avoid retching. “I liked the dog.”
Sometimes, you just have to look for the silver lining in life. I hadn’t really liked the dog form either. Actually, the dog had been very creepy, honestly. But it was better than this. I sighed.
Napoleon toddled up to me and wrapped his goopy meat arms around my leg. At first, I tried to kick him off, thinking he was trying to attack me again and dissolve my flesh into easily digestible gelatin, but then I realized what was happening. He was trying to give me a hug. My little monster pal liked me. I gagged, but only a little bit.
“Awww,” I said, grimacing as I tried not to freak out. It was kind of endearing. Screw it, I thought, if people can pretend that other people’s kids don’t look like aliens, I can pretend my pet wasn’t ugly either.
He could be a meat teddy bear if he wanted to be. Heck, he could, and probably would, find a way to be something even more disgusting and terrible next time I saw him, and I’d still put up with him just the same.
Good old Napoleon. The most faithful friend a guy could have. My mind spun with ideas though. Maybe I can offer a few suggestions for forms.
He let go of my leg and wandered outside. I could hear the dying screams of rage from the last of the Skeletal Undead outside. They were being dispatched by my group of Crusaders, and I hoped Napoleon got his fair share. He deserved a snack, and I figured if I threw him a bone, he would revert to his old dog form.
Speaking of snacks… I grabbed some more chocolate and shoved it in my mouth. I was starving. Seriously— I needed to start eating better. I promised myself that I’d get down to the Crusaders mess hall at some point and start eating with the rest of them. If they even have one.
Regardless, I needed to get out of the room anyway. Probably thanks to Napoleon, there was a weird stink in the room. It smelled like beef that had just started to go bad. I opened the window and stuck my head out to feel the breeze and air out the room. Much better.
“Recruit!” I heard Edgar shout through the window. “I know you’re up there! Get down here.”
Ugh. Already? What’s he got? A respawn timer on him to know when to expect me back? Or just a sixth sense about being a hardass.
I’d died, spent some time in limbo, and resurrected for the Crusaders’ cause. Could he at least give me a minute to recalibrate?
“We need to fix the wall, immediately.” That was solid reasoning, but he could’ve been less hostile about it. Edgar continued, “The next wave of Undead will probably come tonight or tomorrow. We need to be ready for them. And our new wall needs to be better than what we had before. The version we had today was totally inadequate.”
He wasn’t wrong. The skeletal mages had torn the barricade apart like it was cardboard. Which, realistically, it was. At least partly. Fiberboard wasn’t much better.
“Check, I hear you loud and clear,” I replied, hoping that was the end of it. “Better wall. I’ll work on that too.”
“We also need to fix up these houses so we can use them as barracks. The big one at the end of the street can be a mess hall. I scouted it out, and it has the biggest kitchen,” Edgar continued, and my stomach rumbled. Food and a mess hall sounded good. They didn’t have a mess hall.
Edgar looked proud of his work, and I glared at him from my window. He could have just asked me about the layout and where things should go. This was my kingdom, after all, and I knew the lay of the land. I could have told him the Coopers’ house had the biggest kitchen and a detached dining room. They’d spent six months renovating it last year. The construction crews had woken me up every morning at six with their hammering. It had really pissed me off, but now, I would put it to good use. Hopefully.
“What’s wrong with the houses?” I asked, stretching and readying myself for the work ahead.. “This is a nice subdivision. It’s in a good part of town. At least, it was.”
My parents had chosen well when they bought this place, even more so when they left it to me. It felt a little like Edgar was insulting their work.
“The Undead you cleared out really ripped the neighborhood apart,” he explained, wringing his hands. “They left everything a huge unusable mess. It’s really gross inside some of those homes— the two across the street, especially. They’re full of blood, guts, and a lot of things I couldn’t identify. It’s just not sanitary. You can’t make food in a place like that.”
Oh, yeah. That could be bad. I frowned. I hadn’t thought of that. He was right. I’d have to fix that. No health hazards allowed in the Republic of Dan.
Two more Crusaders trotted up to join him. They were still all cut up from our fight with the Undead, and their uniforms were covered in bone dust and other gore.
“More to report,” one of them said, letting out a sigh. “We wanted to store the flesh golem in the big garage next door, but it’s full of spiders. And one whole wall is missing. It won’t work.”
The other Crusader nodded. “There’s a huge sinkhole in one of the backyards that we need to fill in. I’m worried things will start to come out of it. It’s possible it could turn into a dungeon spawn point, and then who knows what kind of trouble we might be in?”
“The pool across the street is messed up too,” the first Crusader added. He continued, “There’s a huge crack in the concrete, and the water has totally drained out of it. We will have to fill that in too, or it’ll spawn another dungeon or a waste water elemental.”
“Is that all?” Edgar asked, rubbing his temples.
The second Crusader spoke up. “Not quite. The basketball hoop at the end of the street is bent. We want that fixed too. You know, for morale.”
“Wait,” I shouted down from my window, squinting at the three of them. “Basketball hoops? Pools? Are those things really a high priority?”
&nb
sp; The Crusader who’d talked about the hoop shrugged. “Not all of us have a pad to crash. A little down here goes a long way. It’s important, and besides, we like sports. It’s a good way to build up the body and relieve a little tension.”
Well, that makes one of us. I shuddered.
“If this is Crusader territory now,” I started, groaning internally at the thought, “why is all of this my job? Can’t you guys handle it?”
Edgar looked at me like I was an idiot, which I freely admit, was sometimes the case. “As you like to frequently remind us, this is the Republic of Dan, remember? Your kingdom, your circus. Only you can do some of this. We have no real authority to access the network here. Besides, it takes literally no time or manpower to use the system, and I need my men protecting this place.”
I nodded, but something still didn’t sit quite right with me. “Ok, I get that, but if this is my space, can we call it by its real name? What’s all this ‘Outpost 18’ business?”
“According to regulations,” Edgar started to explain, glaring at me, “we have to call it by its official title— and by official, I mean that comes down from on higher within our organization. I don’t have jurisdiction to change— "
“Okay, okay,” I said, waving my hand to stop him. “Five minutes. Just let me rest for a second. Then I’ll get started right away.”
The Crusaders looked judgmental and rolled their eyes. but they didn’t say anything more. They jogged off to do whatever it was they did in their spare time. Play contact sports, probably.
I leaned against the windowsill and inhaled, trying to get a little more air into the room before I went back to work. The smell of frying bacon drifted toward me on the breeze. Bjorn had set up a makeshift kitchen in one of the driveways across the street and was frying up whatever the Crusaders had found in the subdivision’s freezers: bacon, sausage, vegan meat for the soy boys. He’d gotten a frilly pink apron from somewhere, and he was wearing it while he cooked.
For bacon, I’d put away my judgement of the giant and the Crusaders. They might not have had an actual mess hall yet, but apparently they’d found a work around.
He saw me looking at the food from my window and waved at me. “Come on down and have some food! We might not get any more for a while. This is literally all the food we scrounged up that was still edible.”
My stomach growled. I was still hungry. And if there really wasn’t anything else to eat, I should probably get something soon before Bjorn ran out of food.
But first things first, I had work to do.
“Save me some bacon!” I shouted across the street, and Bjorn raised his spatula high in acknowledgement.
“Lirai,” I prompted. “They’re asking for a lot. How do I build all this stuff?”
Notification – Query – “How do I build all this stuff?”
Details: The Republic of Dan is resource-poor. You will need to budget your materials carefully in order to accomplish your building quests, and more resources will likely be needed. To make repairs and assign resources, access the terminal on the desk. It will bring up the command line. It can only handle a few tasks at a time. This is not an instant process.
Okay. It sounded like I needed to prioritize. I wouldn’t be able to give the Crusaders everything they wanted, at least not right now. I’d have to pick and choose what was most important.
It was obviously not the basketball hoop or the pool. The Crusaders might like athletics, but I hadn’t played sports since second grade soccer. Clearly, we’d have to focus on fixing the wall first, with the houses coming only if I had the resources.
I felt bad for anyone who’d have to sleep outside on the ground until I got the houses fixed up while I got to stay in my warm room. But hey, sometimes that’s life. I’d do what I could.
I turned it back on, and this time, I moved the cursor to [Settlement] and as soon as the screen came up, I put in the commands.
Crusader Systems - Terminal - Upgrades - Quests – Settlement, Item Synthesis, Etc.
Username dkg1986
Password trustno1
-Forgot Password?- ( )
Crusader Systems - Upgrade Terminal
Account Login Confirmed
Welcome, Dan Hanson.
You currently have (0) unused upgrade points, and (10) unused stat points.
You have new options waiting for you:
[Settlement] [Item Synthesis]
Now populating Status Sheet.
Settlement Command Line:
* Fix up the defensive walls.
* Clean up the Coopers’ home.
* Transform the Coopers’ home into a mess hall.
So I definitely had enough to fix a big chunk of the wall, and I could clear out one house. I decided to choose the Coopers’, the one with the nice kitchen, so Bjorn could have a better place to cook. Maybe he’d give me some extra bacon if he found out what I’d done.
I made my selections, clicked okay, and waited for something exciting to happen.
Chapter Six: The Working Man
* * *
I waited for the magic to happen. A pulse, a burst of light, a rumble, but as far as I could tell, nothing changed. Not a single thing. I went over to the window and looked out, but the street seemed exactly the same as it had been.
“Lirai? Did it work?” I asked, “What’s going on out there?”
Notification – Query – “Did It Work?”
Details: A small part of the border wall has been fixed. The interior of the Coopers’ domicile has been fixed. Player has run out of resources. In order to do more, player will need to acquire more materials.
“Uh… okay? How do I do that?” I asked. I could already imagine Edgar complaining and yelling at me.
Notification – Query – “How do I do that?”
Details: Materials can be found out in the world or are dropped by enemies. They cannot be found in safe zones. Player must exit the safe zone in order to find more resources. There are limitations on how much a player can carry. Without strength augmentation, player can only hold 1.5 times their body weight.
So, I’d have to leave the Republic of Dan in order to accomplish the tasks the Crusaders wanted me to do. Well, I always knew I’d have to leave the neighborhood again sometime. I couldn’t hide in here forever. And I was curious about the rest of the world outside the subdivision, the demi-human bar, and the arena. What else hadn’t I seen?
I shut down my terminal and headed outside. Edgar jogged up to me, he already had his jaw clenched like he was ready to bite my head off.
“Were you able to do it?” he asked. “Did you clear out all the houses yet?”
“Uh, about that,” I muttered. “Well, no, not really.”
“We want to start moving people in immediately,” Edgar replied, his previous glare returning. “We’ve all been camping outside for a while. We’re used to it, but I think everyone’s going to be really happy to sleep indoors for a while.”
“Look,” I started. He looked so excited that I hated to disappoint him. “This one is out of my control. There’s only so much I can do at a time.”
“You’re doing it a bit at a time? I understand. Save power, don’t abuse the system right now.” Edgar kept going, “We can work with that as long as it gets done by the end of today or tomorrow.”
“We’re out of resources, Edgar,” I stated bluntly. “This is it. I was barely able to fix that tiny chunk of the wall.”
We both looked over. The bit I’d fixed did look pretty nice, I have to admit. Way better than what the Crusaders had done. It was made of real stone and gravel and looked like it could take a serious beating. But it was only a tiny piece. The rest of the wall was still in tatters from the fight with the Skeletal Undead.
“Okay,” Edgar said, looking alarmed. “We’ll need to resolve this issue. You should have told me immediately, how did you not know you were running low on materials?”
“Let’s not get caught on the how and why because there
’s a lot of fingers to be pointed around when it all comes down to it. So let’s just fix this. Is there anywhere else we can get materials?” I asked.
Edgar shook his head. “We’ve already disassembled a few of the houses on the street for parts. It’s all we could do, the most we could afford to lose.”
“What?! Did you not think I needed to know?” I asked.
I looked around. Just as Edgar had said, three of the houses on the street had vanished, leaving gaping holes where their foundations had been. I glared at the Crusaders. Those buildings were part of the Republic of Dan, and they belonged to me. Plus, they left an empty scar afterwards. An ugly neighborhood wasn’t one I wanted to live in.
Edgar didn’t seem to care that I was annoyed. “We need to get these materials as soon as we can. That wall’s high priority. You’ll have to leave the settlement to go get more resources.”
