by Adam Sampson
Thinking about it for a moment, he knew there must have been hundreds of orbs spent each day on base, maybe thousands. What were they doing with all those orbs? Were they leveling up friends and family without the risk? Or were they creating some secret weapon that used orbs? Peter shook his head. Whatever it was, he couldn’t do anything about it. Now was time for their reward for beating the queen.
The free weapons reward was delayed for a week. The sergeant hadn’t planned on anyone winning so he had to get it approved from the base captain. While they were waiting, they saw Rex off to the front lines. He and his squad had all gotten over level twenty and were being deployed to the front lines. Emma was particularly sad about him leaving, but Rex put her at ease with his confident attitude. If anyone was going to come back from this war, it was going to be him.
When the reward vouchers finally came in, Peter’s squad blew off hunting and spent the day in the base armory. Peter had initially thought the armory on base Beta was smaller than the one on Alpha, but this trip disabused him of that notion. Although only one floor was above ground, it was built deep into the rock. Rows upon rows of weapons took up three floors of well lit splendor. They were like kids in a candy store, running from one shiny thing to the next.
Their vouchers entitled them to anything in the armory, so they took their time finding the most expensive and best weapons they could find. Everything in the armory had a placard under it with a description and a price and they ended up reading most of the placards in the place.
They locked each weapon in place with metal straps. An attendant had to unlock it if they wanted to buy it. It was inconvenient, not being able to test the feel of the weapon you wanted to buy, but Peter figured it was reasonable since dimensional pockets made theft a real threat.
Lola almost got a sniper gun, but was instantly smitten with a certain crossbow as soon as she read the description.
Surkov Titanium Crossbow
Industrial-strength crossbow with automatic reload. Gem insert increases effectiveness of sharpshooter skill by 5%. Draw strength 200% of standard crossbow and effective range up to 600 ft. Shoots standard quarrels.
Quality: Great
Cost 390 Orbs
It was the gem insert that made up her mind for her. Rex had told them once that these types of weapons were enchanted, and it was hard to disagree with him. The best weapons in the armory had an alien gem imbedded, allowing the weapon to interface with the user’s cuff. Technology in the gem would produce an additional skill effect, along with a modest drain on their orbs. This crossbow would help her hit targets better, no matter how high her sharpshooter skill rose.
Dima and Jonas bought matching swords.
Vampiric Saber
Noldor alien sword, similar to Damascus Steel Saber. Gem insert has a 10% chance to steal target orb power on hit to perform light heal on user. Double standard weight to add durability.
Quality: Superior
Cost 300 Orbs
Both warriors liked the idea that the more they hit monsters, the more they healed themselves. It wouldn’t work on every hit but once every ten hits is still a high percentage, particularly with durable targets. And healing was the one thing you wanted more of in long fights. Dima was impressed with the quality of the swords, superior grade weapons were two steps above good, and meant that they should last a while. Jonas was just excited to have an alien sword that wasn’t made by the trolls.
Emma chose a mace, having gotten to like the one she used deep underground.
Enraging Mace
German war mace with sharpened flanges. Gem insert can enrage target of skill, lowering combat ability of target and making them attack user exclusively. One use per stan.
Quality: Superior
Cost 290 Orbs
Yoon was happy with her spear, and traded in her voucher for a shield instead of a weapon.
Gemini Shield
Woven-steel kite shield with dual grips. Gem insert produces temporary magic shield overlaying main shield. One use per half stan. Particularly effective against ranged skill attacks like fireball or lasers.
Quality: Great
Cost 325 Orbs
This gave Peter the idea to search for something besides a weapon. There were a lot of good weapon options, but if he did his mage job right he wouldn’t need a weapon. It took a while, but he finally stumbled on a hidden gem in the armor section. What initially caught his eye was the excellent grade on the description. Very few weapons in the armory were three grades above good.
Howl’s Utility Bracer
Steel Hau bracer. Gem insert fits over cuff and augments a single utility skill, doubling strength of skill. Choose which skill on activation. Useable for 1/3 a stan at a time, one stan recharge.
Quality: Excellent
Cost 225 Orbs
The bracer didn’t cost as much as other weapons, so he wouldn’t be getting as much worth out of his free voucher. But he didn’t care, this bracer would be perfect. Unlike all the other mages he had met, his main skill was categorized as utility magic. He would go from a level 12 telekinesis to a level 24 in one go! Peter was positively giddy as he imagined how powerful this would make him. The cool down was kind of long, but he could easily plan hunting around that.
Walking out of the armory had all of them on an equipment high. Each of them had gotten something that would have taken them months to save up for.
“I want to go out and wreck some shit right now!” Emma said, waving the mace around.
“Yeah! To battle!” Jonas said as he lead an imaginary charge with his saber held high.
Peter laughed and said, “Put those away. We aren’t leaving the base until we get some serious training in first. Most of us swapped out our main weapons and we need to get used to the new ones.”
Grumbling good naturedly, Emma and Jonas tucked their weapons away in their dimensional pockets. Peter had convinced them all to buy it with the orbs they had gained in the Yinglong caves. Twenty orbs for a skill was a lot, but they had all seen how useful it was.
Although the sun had set, Peter encouraged everyone to head off to training. He didn’t stay to see if he followed his suggestion though, he just raced after Lola to the shooting range. He figured that it was a good idea to test out his jump in power in a place meant to withstand a lot of destructive power.
Lola stopped at the door to the shooting range. Locked. She turned to Peter with a pleading look in her eyes. The range wasn’t supposed to be open this late. But Peter wanted inside just as much as she did, so he focused and carefully unlocked the door with his telekinesis. Complex electronic locks may deter others, but they still had moving parts he could manipulate.
Finally inside, Peter put his bracer over his cuff and fiddled with the menu to activate it.
Do you wish to activate Utility Bracer?
(Warning, bracer draws triple power when in use)
Yes No
Peter frowned at the triple power usage warning, but hit yes without hesitation.
Which skill do you want to augment?
(Warning, choice is irreversible)
Telekinesis level 13
Cleanliness level 1
Time level 2
Explosives level 2
Dimensional Pocket level 2
Peter smiled as he hit telekinesis. He had just upgraded his skill to thirteen after the caves, and this should give him an effective level of twenty-six. For a third of a stan anyway.
He looked up in time to see Lola shoot her first quarrel downrange. The bang startled him. Was that quarrel supersonic? He looked downrange to see a the target ninety feet downrange had sprouted a hole in the bullseye. The quarrel had gone right through the solid steel target.
Lola raced down range to check out the target, Peter following her. She fingered the hole in wonder; it was as centered as possible. Looking behind it to the piles of sandbags, she could see where the bag was leaking sand. Turning to Peter she said, “Could you?”
Peter shrugged, “As long as it isn’t too deep.”
He could “feel” with his telekinesis, but that feeling only penetrated so deep. Just enough to open locks normally. He shouldn’t have been surprised to feel that his skill let him go much deeper. A level 26 telekinetic skill let him feel all the way to the wall. Grabbing the quarrel with his mind he pulled it out and showed it to her.
Punching through a steel plate had not left it unharmed. The tip was sprawled and the metal shaft bent.
“Huh, this crossbow could get expensive if I destroy every quarrel I shoot. Those things cost ten times my usual slingshot ammo,” Lola said.
Peter shrugged, “More than ten times as useful though, right?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, let's see what you can do now.”
Peter started with lifting sandbags. His old limit at level thirteen was three fifty pound bags at once, but now he could lift nine at once. Walking up to the front of the range, he rocketed slingshot ammo down range, mostly bullseyes. After he got the hang of it, he was able to send 12 shots downrange in two seconds. Grinning, he lifted Lola into the air next, but set her down when she started swearing at him. He shrugged sheepishly.
Experiments stopped there though, his third of a stan was over. He felt a wave of weakness pass over him as soon as the time was up. It left him much more drained than he expected, and decided to just head off to bed.
The next two days was pure training for the squad, and they were all itching to go out hunting by the third day. Peter had plotted out a good test run of their new weapons, hitting rino-apes, lurkers, and slime-scorpions.
But as they were leaving their apartment building Rex stopped them.
“Hey Rex, what are you doing here? I thought they already deployed you,” Emma said, glad to see him.
“Hey ya’ll. How is it going? Listen, Peter can I talk to you in private for a bit? I need your help,” Rex said, looking over his shoulder.
Peter looked at him carefully. Rex wasn’t acting like his normal jovial self. Something was wrong. Peter replied, “Sure, anything for you.”
Emma sidled up and said to Rex, “Can I help too, Rex? Are you ok?”
Rex looked over his shoulder before replying, “Yeah, sure kid. You can help too. Let’s get inside.”
Once everyone was back in their apartment, Rex motioned them all to sit down on the couches.
“I came back to this planet to get you Peter, I need your help to save the world,” Rex said.
“What?”
Rex finally cracked a smile, “Well, not really. I just need you to open a door.”
“What door?”
Rex shook his head and said, “I better start over. Ya’ll don’t know it yet, but us humans have been working on getting our freedom from the trolls for years now. Not that Humans First garbage, but the actual governments of Earth have been working together to stockpile resources and gain skills so we can survive on our own.
“There are only about twenty trolls in the clan that are using us to farm orbs. Oh yeah, there is no real war, they are just using us to farm orbs, that is why everything costs orbs to buy around here. The orbs you spend go directly to the trolls. Instead of sending us to fight their war, they send us to another planet they own, Decapod. They put you to work killing monsters and take almost all the orbs you earn.
“Anyway, they will be landing today to pick up the next shipment of orbs and slaves to take to Decapod. We are going to ambush them and take back our freedom,” Rex said with fervor.
It took a moment for Peter to catch up. No war? They were just using humans to farm orbs? What was going on?
Now that he thought about it, it all finally made sense. This is why they weren't taught to work together as a platoon, they were never going to war. This is why they hadn’t been taught about their enemy, there wasn’t one. This is why they were set up to charge orbs for everything. The trolls were just using them so they could level up quickly.
Peter shifted uncomfortably when he thought about the last sentence Rex said and replied, “You want me to fight the trolls?”
“Oh heck no. Heck no. You ain’t some fantasy hero, they would kill you right away. One troll could easily kill a squad of the strongest humans,” said Rex as he stood up.
“Then how are we going to win?” Peter said, bewildered.
Rex sat back down and said, “We have arranged for some allies to meet us here. There are these aliens called Noldor, kind of look like gray emaciated elves, long ears and everything. Command got ahold of them last year and we have been plotting for this day. They can kill the trolls with this vampire skill of theirs. These Noldor hate the trolls and would have already killed them by now, but the trolls have much better ships.
Peter realized something that had never occurred to him before. They were told they were going into a galactic war, but none of them were trained as spaceship pilots or gunners. Trolls really did want humans to farm orbs, they hadn’t let them learn any useful skills.
“We told the Noldor about the troll visit today, and they are going to arrive just afterwards and kill them all for us. The Noldor said that the orbs they will get from killing the trolls is all the payment they could ever want.
“Your mission Peter, should you choose to accept it, is to ground the troll’s ship after they get here. Command thinks that you should be able to open the ship door with that telekinesis skill of yours. I will be going with you to either disable or destroy the ship. We can’t let them escape. Ideally, we will disable the ship, but the landing pad is already rigged with mines as a last resort,” Rex said.
He turned to the rest of the squad, “You five, go find some friends that you know are not part of Humans First. Make sure that when the attack goes down, they don’t touch the Noldor. Those creepy elves will kill anyone that attacks them.”
Emma cocked her head, “Why not tell the Humans First people too?”
“We already talked to them months ago. Those morons won’t work with any aliens. They promised to sabotage any cooperation we have with any alien, trolls or Noldor,” Rex said and shook his head, “Why don’t you guys go tell your friends you know are safe? Warn them to stay out of the way. The trolls will be here in three stans. I am going to take Peter here to scope out the landing zone.”
Dima, Jonas, Emma and Yoon left, but Lola stayed put.
“I am coming with,” Lola said with finality.
Rex turned to her and said, “I appreciate the thought, but this is going to be dangerous enough with just two of us. If there are three humans poking around their ship, we might get caught. You have to let us go alone.”
Lola sat with her hands on her lap, unswayed. “No. I am coming with. Peter has a bad habit of almost getting killed, I need to be there to save him,” she said.
Rex looked back and forth between Peter and Lola, “Whatever, you can come. We aren’t mission critical. They can always blow the pad if we mess up.”
Peter smiled, “That’s the spirit. Explosions are a great plan B.”
The three of them changed into red uniforms Rex had brought. The landing pad was operated solely by the Chinese and they would need to blend in.
Waiting was the worst. Peter’s stomach threatened to revolt and the fear-soaked adrenaline jangled his nerves.
Peter turned to Lola and said to her seriously, “Listen, I don’t know if we are going to survive this, so I have to tell you something.”
“You don’t have to...” she started to reply.
He held up his hand, “No, no. I have to say this,” he breathed in deep and said, “Your butt looks fantastic in those pants.”
Laughter broke up the tension, and he hugged her tightly as he said, “Also I love you.”
“I love you too,” she replied.
With an exaggerated cough, Rex pointed out that the troll ship was landing.
Like an interstellar hot dog, the ship was long and rounded. White and gray, with protrusions studded all along the outside, it was enti
rely windowless. Rex said that most of the bumps on the outside were weapons, railguns and lasers and the like. Ships like these were a big part of why humans cooperated with the trolls, Earth had no defense against that kind of firepower. The spaceship was perhaps four hundred feet from stem to stern and forty feet high. Noiselessly it landed on the pad and the front opened up. A door wide enough to fit three trolls side by side opened up, dropping down from the top like a drawbridge.
Five humans were there to greet the trolls, baskets of food on display. Four trolls exited the ship and scanned the area, then stood aside, enormous weapons at the ready. Black and featureless large guns, for that is what they were, contrasted sharply with the green of the troll skin. After a moment, they called back to the ship that all was clear.
In short order, sixteen more trolls exited the ship and started walking down the hill to the main base. Most of them ignored the humans, but a few of them grabbed a basket on the way down. The second to last troll was much larger than the rest, at least eleven feet tall compared to the nine feet the rest of them were. Once they were all off the ship, the door closed back up and the four trolls with guns jogged down the hill.
Now that they were out of sight, Rex turned to Peter and said, “You are up, buddy.”
The three of them quickly jogged up to the ship and Peter reached out his hands towards the door. He didn’t really need to use his hands with telekinesis, but he found that it helped him concentrate.
The ship was featureless and impenetrable to both his sense skill and telekinesis feel. After a few moments, he realized that regular strength wasn’t enough, he would have to use his bracer to step things up. Once he was at twenty-six level strength, Peter could feel deeper into the door.
