by Taj McCoy El
“beep- What he said. -boop”
“Fine same plan as yesterday. Ziggs you go to the far side and startle them towards us.”
Ziggs just let out a single “boop” and floated away.
Mo turned to Mephi. “You guys have to stop grinding each other’s gears.”
“But, I have learned that it helps to create camaraderie and to alleviate stress,” Mephi said in a robotic monotone while jerking around mechanically.
Mo punched him in the arm and tried to hide his laughter. “You guys are gonna be the death of me.”
“Not me. But you better watch out for Ziggs.” Mephi gave Mo his best poker face. When Mo’s face looked like he couldn’t take it anymore Mephi smiled broadly showing off his sharp canines.
Mo’s fingers grasped at the sparse grass by his knees and responded, “how is that even supposed to mean anything?”
“You’ll see… probably sooner than later.”
“Wha..”
“Ziggs is ready.” Mephi cut off Mo and got ready to grab a chicken.
As Ziggs began its impression of a blown-out siren and light show, a shadow moved behind it. It was a very large shadow, at least eight feet tall flowing between the trees. The shadow silently floated towards Ziggs when sinister yellow eyes flashed into view followed by a serrated matte black beak.
That’s not a chicken, Mo thought. It’s a flarfing dinosaur!!!
“Ziggs, Run!!!!!!!” Mephi yelled.
Ziggs thinking that the chase was afoot ran directly for the chickens in the clearing. The giant shadow chicken strode after it and began picking up speed. Mo engaged his speed and ran in an arc to the left so he could shove Ziggs out of the Shadowsaurus’s path. As he curved towards the center of the field, he cast his grease spell right in front of Ziggs who floated harmlessly over it without any notice. Shadowsaurus wasn’t so lucky and slid into a full split and floundered.
Mo raced forward watching it fall and electrified his hands and thrust both fists forward like a superhero flying through the sky to double punch the chicken in the eyes. He activated God arms and pummeled the chicken about the head. As his attack finished, heleapt clear, and punched the ground with his still electrified hands setting the grease ablaze, and he dashed over to his teammates who had gathered in the center of the field.
You have attacked
Gallus Umbradae (Shadow Mutation)
Level 13
-175 electrified fists
-78 fire
306/559HP
Mephi held a regular chicken in each hand and stared open mouthed at the flaming, flapping, shadowy velociraptor. Mo turned and saw a scene reminiscent of the phoenix perishing in order to be reborn. Shadowy wings fanned the flames, pinions curled from the heat and fell off charred and burned.
Shadowsaurus, leapt out of the fire and flapped its wings aiming directly for the three. Mephi ran for the tree line screaming.
“Jurassic Park! Run!!!”
Having nothing else to do, Mo and Ziggs followed the fearful skunk man and ran towards the forest. Looking over a shoulder the shadowsaurus wasn’t actually on their tail but was running on an angle slightly away from them. Mo wondered why until he saw the eyes. They were swollen shut and charred from his blows.
Mo decided that running would only let the mob heal. “Hey! It’s blind,” Mo yelled to his teammates. Shadowsaurus immediately changed direction, following the sound of Mo’s yell.
“Shaz!” Mo slapped his forehead and turned to run again.
Ziggs who was the slowest member of the team turned back towards the big bird, fell over on its side beginning to spin like a propeller across the ground. Ziggs was aiming for the legs but shadowsaurus must have sensed it coming and leapt to avoid the helicopter blow. Mo stared on in disbelief as Ziggs’ one mechanical arm popped out and firmly snagged a single chicken toe. It was enough to make Shadowsaurus stumble. With a wild flapping of crispy, shadowy wings, bits of ash, and feathers flew from the impact. It righted itself and swiveled its head about.
“It’s following our voices. To the tree line. that’ll slow it down.” Without another word he ran at normal speed over to the edge of the clearing with an eye over his shoulder the whole time. Mephi quickly caught up to him.
“Ziggs is too slow.” Mephi whispered urgently.
Ziggs was moving towards them but the hum from its propulsion was drawing the attention of the flustered chicken. Ziggs slowly lowered itself to the ground and cut off its lights. The chicken pecked and flapped around the clearing searching for it and was getting closer and closer.
Ziggs: Little help here…
Booms: on it.
“What are you planning?” Mephi asked.
“A distraction. Do whatever you have to get Ziggs out of the clearing, and then we can come up with a plan,” Mo said in a rush and pushed off from behind the tree he was hiding behind. He spotted a thick tree over to his right and made his way towards it and began screaming.
“Hey, chick, chick, chick!!! Here chick, chick, chick!!!”
The shadowsaurus turned to the sound and ran towards Mo at full speed. Mo continued to yell distracting the blind chicken. He pulled out his twin kukris and aimed towards the tree all while screaming, “Here, ya big blind chick, chick, chick!!!”
He reached the tree and spun placing his back to it. The shadowsaurus was thirty feet away, and he bent his knees to dodge.
please god let this work.
In answer to his prayer the shadowsaurus lowered its head and squawked. Its lumbering strides echoed in halftime to Mo’s heartbeat. And just like that Mo was eye to blind eye with the monstrous bird. He activated slide and glided out of the way. The chicken ran headfirst into the tree and Mo watched as its body crumpled and feathers flew. It rolled over on its side dazed and listless.
Ding!!!
You have attacked
Gallus Umbradae (Shadow Mutation)
Level 13
-97DP Collision
Status dazed
209/559HP
Mo took his kukri and slashed into the exposed legs hoping to slow it down. When Ziggs floated over and added a pulse of energy that ran through the beast. The shadowsaurus went rigid, and then limp.
“Wait, wait!!! Don’t kill it.” Mephi ran over and reminded them. This was too much work to let go to waste.”
The skunk man pulled out a bag and placed it over the head of the monstrous bird, cinching the strap down and tying a knot in it. As soon as it was fastened the umbra around the chicken disappeared leaving glossy black feathers next to the burnt ones.
“Bird calming 101,” Mephi reassured them.
“Yeah well now I want give Driskel a bird of my own.”
“beep- If there are more of these this could be difficult. -boop”
“Agreed this is way past the scope of the rewards.”
"I wonder why the knockers were trying so hard to finish this quest?” Mephi queried no one in particular.
“I’m thinking the reputation boost.” Mo wiped a bit of ash off his face.
“beep- We may need some help to finish this quest. -boop”
“Who cares about the rep boosts?” Mephi growled.
Mo could smell his irritation.
“Calm down Meph, this is a video game after all. I’m getting a hunch this rep boost will lead to other quests with better rewards.”
“It better… we haven’t gotten any XP or gold since we started hanging out with the reject toys and giant chicken brigade.” Mephi growled as a pungent wave rolled over the trio.
Mo could taste the frustration in the back of his throat.
“Look we do this one quest, my sister shows up, and we’re on to bigger and better things.” He gave his teammates a serious look. “Now the big question is, do we keep hunting chickens today or do we go and get help?”
“Let’s take this one back. It’s gonna take us awhile just to carry this one.” Mephi eyed the shadowsaurus.
beep- While we walk, we can
come up with a strategy for getting a hood on these mutated chickens. -boop”
“We are definitely gonna need a strategy. I also want to talk to Driskel’s son if we can. I want to know what kind of crystals he dropped. …And how long ago? If they’ve mutated like this in a week then they’re just going to get bigger every day. And Majesta seems like the type of place to up the ante.”
Ziggs let off a beep but no monotone followed.
“Were you going to say something trashbot?” Mephi asked the whirring box. Ziggs canted back and forth looking as anxious as an animated box could outside of a cartoon world.
“beep- Thanks for pulling my circuits out of the fire. -boop”
“An almost human response from a robot. Your AI can learn.” Mephi chuckled at Ziggs.
“Alright so we carry shadowsaurus back and get more info on what we might be facing. Anything I’m missing?”
“beep- A pretty face for one. -boop”
“Har… Har… our pack mule has a sense of humor.” Mo chirruped sarcastically
The trio picked up the dino-chicken and found that it was lighter than they expected, even though it was unwieldy, and began their trek back to Driskel’s farm.
✽✽✽
Mayah stood in front of the gate of Specter’s Keep. The door loomed over her daring her to enter. Mayah however, knew better than to get too close and trigger some unknown event. The keyhole was twice as tall as she was and was surrounded by seven dull gray gems. The eighth gem on the bottom left side was flashing red. The keyhole was of the old Skeleton key variety. The hole however, was a black that seemed to suck in all light. She could see small streamers of energy moving from the basketball sized gem towards the keyhole.
Vergie, Deanna and Riker stood behind her impassively scanning the vista of the surrounding lands while Mayah pondered the gate for a moment. She scanned the door looking for any booby traps recording the whole thing. She sent did a quick edit and sent the footage to Grax and Margaret so they would see it as soon as they got back.
Not much more to do here. Guess I’ll go kill some duskrass and time.
She strode down the giant plinth of a bridge towards the path and made a left, taking her to the right side of the plateau. Her companions followed her lazily. Deanna and Riker jumping over one another while Vergie ignored them.
She pulled out her whip and proceeded to imitate a weed-wacker. The blade cut through the duskrass easily. Because she wasn’t sharing any XP she gained 2XP per plant and began mowing them down without any problems. When she activated the light runes things began speeding up. The duskrass simply turned to ashes inches from the whip leaving a wide path for her to follow. A path which soon led to her glowing.
DING!!!
Sweet!
She added the 2 stat points to her mana and 2 points went to intelligence. She split the other 2 between endurance and constitution
Due to the rough terrain, her stamina took a quarter hit after thirty minutes or so, and she decided upon a breather. She recharged her whip and drank some water from one of her rations. After the five-minute break she continued on and saw the glint of a telltale blue between some boulders on the top of a steep hill that would take some effort to climb in the distance.
“What do you think, guys? Should we go and do a little recon?” The rötten made no indication of their wishes and Vergie just chuffed and seemed a little bored.
“Okay, that’s it! Everyone gather around.” Her companions came closer. “This is a team—and a family. We do things together or not at all. we are definitely going to the portal stone. If we decide to go into the dungeon zone we could be fighting god knows what. So, when I’m asking if you want to stick your heads into the lion’s mouth or not. The least you could do is give a proper answer.”
Vergie hung her head a little while the rötten chittered abashedly for a second.
“Now I’m going to ask you again, do we go in or not?”
Vergie pushed her head against Mayah comfortingly.
"I guess you’re saying whatever I want to do.”
Vergie nodded.
“Is that what you guys think?” she asked of the rötten.
Deanna placed a paw on Mayah’s foot while Riker looked around as if he couldn’t decide.
“If you’re not sure that’s okay too. We can just go in, spot the first mob, and then leave. This is for recon and not for finishing.”
Riker looked at his own feet, and then scampered over and put a paw on Mayah’s foot. Mayah bent down and pet the little guy and felt him trembling.
“Aww… it’ll be okay little fella. We’re just going for a look-see.” Riker let out a little squeak as he stared into Mayah’s eyes for reassurance. “Have a little faith,” Mayah said giving him a nod.
“Okay, time to play king of the hill.”
Mayah began imitating a helicopter again. Whip swinging less aimlessly as she had a goal in mind. They wound up walking downhill, the peak of the hill kept rising as they approached, and they reach the base of the hill in they were looking at in twenty minutes.
“Well, that’s a lot bigger than I thought,” she said, staring up at the hill. There were stone outcroppings that looked like a rough floating staircase for a giant that spiraled around the hill. The grade wasn’t so steep that she couldn’t scramble straight up but the giant’s staircase seemed like it would be less taxing.
She began using the whip to clear the way, and then climbing up towards the lowest step scrambling for purchase. Her four-footed friends were right behind her and were making her look bad as they climbed effortlessly. Using all fours to climb she would clear then climb a bit, clear, and then climb so she could make some progress. it was wash, rinse, and repeat after that. In fifteen minutes, she climbed over the side of the first step. Thankfully there seemed to be a path made out of the white sand on the outcroppings and a lack of duskrass. Each step was roughly ten feet wide and the next step was about seven and a half feet above the previous one. There was a gap between each step that let her see the down to the bottom of the hill. She was going to have to jump from one step to the next in order to proceed. The upside being that she wouldn’t be hampered by the stamina draining duskrass. The downside? A tumble to the base.
“Stairs it is then. But how are Riker and Deanna gonna make it?” She tapped her teeth with a nail, lost in thought.
“Hey Vergie, if I made a bag for them could you carry them for me?”
Vergie’s lip curled in a half snarl as she made a face that said, “You want me to be a beast of burden? You want a glorious vergax to carry food? Beasts of burden are my food.”
“Well, I could carry them, but you are so much stronger than me,” Mayah flattered the vergax.
Vergie’s bared teeth slowly disappeared.
I knew she was proud but this is ridiculous. Time to heap on the flattery.
“You’re so graceful and strong I bet it wouldn’t even slow you down.”
Vergie’s head tilted and her eyes rolled up in thought. She startled Mayah when her head whipped around to stare at Mayah and pat three places on the ground.
“I’m assuming that means you want three rations?”
Vergie nodded
“I’ll give you one and some Skaduvuurm meat?”
Vergie stuck her tongue out as her nose wrinkled in disgust.
“What, you don’t like the vuurm meat?”
Vergie vehemently shook her head no.
“Fine then. Two meals when we get to the portal stone.”
Vergie thought it over and finally nodded yes.
“Deal. Let me make a bag for them. Do you want to carry it in your mouth or around your neck?”
Vergie lifted her head and scratched at her neck with a paw.
"I guess that makes sense. Don’t want to lose a weapon, huh?”
Vergie nodded emphatically.
“Let me get the dimensions right if I’m going to do this.” She pulled out her measuring tape and wrapped it around Verg
ie’s neck. Then she measured around her chest and the distance between the two points.
Looks like you get a harness, girl. It’ll put them right on your breastbone.” Mayah stroked the big fluffy kitty on the chest to show Vergie where the sack would be.
Vergie just purred happily until Mayah pulled her hand away. As Mayah spun to walk away Vergie took her arm in her mouth and bodily pulled her back and stuck her head up into the sky and thrust her breast out.
Mayah cocked her head to the side and stared at Vergie. “Right now?”
Vergie chuffed and scooted forward.
“Okay,” Mayah said defeatedly. I guess we’re having a cuddle puddle.”
Riker and Deanna squeaked excitedly and climbed Mayah’s legs and under her jacket finally arriving on her shoulders. And happily began chittering in each ear.
“Okay…okay,” she laughed and let her fingers do the talking.
10.4 The Twisting of Arms
“What in the eight avatars is that?” Driskel yelled at the paladins carrying the shadowsaurus over to his barn. “Where are my chickens?”
“This is your chicken!!!” Mephi retorted with a wave of olfactory frustration. He wasn’t happy at having to carry this bird for three miles through a hole-infested field and suddenly dropped it. The shadow mutated chicken squawked in its hood and flapped its wings, and then went still again.
Driskel fought down a gag and covered his nose with a manure covered sleeve. “That’s not a chicken!” He yelled through his arm.
“It most certainly is!” Mo added. “If you don’t believe us take a closer look!”
Driskel glared at Mo, and then turned his attention to the partially crisped chicken. A look of recognition passed over his face, and he knelt down to examine the bird.