by Tao Wong
The only good news I have is that you can flash cook some monster meat with a burst from my rifle. Having forgotten to bring lunch, this was a happy solution, if not particularly tasty. Still, food is food and it means I can move on to phase 2 of the plan.
If everything that is easy to reach by bicycle is taken care of, then I just need to range wider. Until I’m able to find a more general solution to the transportation problem though, closer is better since I can only carry one other with me. That means that the Lorne Mountain Community and eventually Carcross are the way to go. Decision made, I swing back out to Klondike Highway and gun it.
The Klondike has never been very well kept and it’s not much better now. Already, I can see potholes and depressions occurring and I wonder how many years it’ll be before the entire highway is useless, permafrost and lack of maintenance returning the Yukon back to its pristine state. Idle thoughts as I scan the forests on either side, a part of me for the first time really seeing my surroundings again. It’s a beautiful place, but the human can only take wonder for so long before it makes it mundane. Now, having to watch out for monsters that Ali might miss, I see it all again.
Forests that go on for as long as the eye can see, lakes a beautiful glacier green, snow-capped mountains in the backdrop. It’s no wonder we had a constant flow of tourists, a veritable horde of Southerners descending each summer in search of the untouched beauty of nature, that pioneer charm that city life in the south has been stripped of.
It’s all a lie of course. Among the trees are the occasional residence, the lodges and bread-and-breakfasts that catered to the tourists. All nestled away in the forest as they attempted to convince their guests they were part of the wilderness, all the while providing the benefits of electricity, the Internet and running water. Now the lodges and B&B’s lie empty, their occupants either dead or fled. No one wants to return to the pioneer days really, even the First Nation communities demand their rights to modern conveniences like running water, working schools and electricity. It’s no wonder – the wilderness is dirty, smelly and deadly.
Morbid thoughts are pushed aside as Ali bids me to pull over.
“So, remember how you mentioned you wanted to work on some of your skills?” Ali enquires, sweet as can be.
“Yeah…” I reply warily.
“Good. Transform the bike and grab your sword. There’s a nest of ants about 800 meters in. Chop chop time,” Ali grins.
Even as I do as he says, I can’t help but ask, “Why the sword?”
“That’s your personal weapon. And you couldn’t stop talking about how cool the Guard was in your videos.” Ali says.
“Okay,” I nod firmly, not bothering to hide my path through the woods. We still haven’t left the low zones yet, so this should be a good test.
The Erethran Honor Guard are feared for their combat abilities for a number of reasons. To start with, unlike many other groups, they don’t specialise in Tech or Magic, mixing and matching to suit the individual preferences of the Guard members. Unfortunately, I have only a single spell right now and it’s not one that I will likely need to use. The other reason they are feared is due to their Class skill, their ability to enhance their Personal Weapons, transforming even the simplest weapon into something truly deadly. I can’t do that either. To be frank and Ali can be Sally, I wouldn’t even qualify to join them.
However, if I ever want to make full use of my class, I need to start training the way they train. One thing that was very clear from the downloaded footage is that they make use of their personal weapons in a very unique way due to the fact the weapons are Soulbound. It’s entirely different from any fighting technique used by humanity too, which is why all I can do now is experiment.
Of course, first I have to find the damn Ants. “Ali, are you sure its 800 meters?”
I don’t need an answer since the Ants give me one, springing their ambush as I walk blindly into it. The first rushes out from behind a bush, closely followed by another. All around me, I can hear Ants the size of bulldogs come boiling out.
I drop into a reverse lunge, letting the Ant skewer itself on my blade. Instead of taking the time to extract the blade, I let go and I shift to my back-stretched supporting leg, ramming an elbow into the ant behind me. I hear carapace shatter and spot another Ant jump towards my face, its black mandibles nearly on me. I raise my hand in a cut, calling the soulbound sword into my hand. My control is slow, my commands hesitant and the sword appears half-way through the creature in a weird explosion of light, destroying the sword itself and the Ant and pelting me in heat and broken metal. It’s bad enough that I get a small damage alert from Sabre itself as the explosion tears apart some of the armor.
Ooops. Thrown onto my back from the attack, another Ant clamps itself onto my leg and another one attempts to bite through the armor in my torso. The first actually hurts a bit, its mandibles exerting pressure enough that I decide to take care of it with a swift jerking motion of my leg. I ignore the second Ant, its attacks insufficient to penetrate the thicker armor around my torso.
Time to get back to practising. A single failure is no reason to quit. I flip myself back onto my feet, the Ant in my middle dislodged from its futile attempts and I recall the sword to plunge into its back. More and more Ants swarm me and I start moving, lashing out with punches and kicks in my mecha, calling and recalling the sword at intervals. It’s a bit of a curb stomp really. The Ants can barely do any damage to me individually and I never stay still long enough for them to pile on, the added speed and strength that Sabre provides me allowing me to over-power even then five Ant team that had me held down for a moment.
It takes a long time for me to kill them all off though and when I’m done, I must have ranged over a hundred meters, smashing, stabbing and killing. Ali watches, popcorn in hand with an occasional warning or an even rarer useful piece of advice. Once I’ve recovered, I begin the slow process of looting the bodies.
“Any progress?” I grumble, touching another body and flicking the loot into my inventory. There’s got to be an easier way of doing this.
“Of course not. You think it’s that easy to get a new skill? Or increase your current skill level?” Ali snorts, shaking his head. “It takes years for Mastery to occur and you’re on the steepest part of the slope. Gains will take forever. This? This was a warmup.”
I grunt and get back to looting the corpses, each Ant removed of its chitinous outer shell and a slab of meat. Occasionally, I get even some mandibles, though god knows what that’s for. The entire looting process takes longer than the fight and I wonder if it’s even worth bringing the bodies back. Ants, even giant ants, don’t really have a lot of meat on their bodies.
No, better to get the move on if I want to actually make it to Mount Lorne at the very least. The community is isolated enough that I might actually find a survivor or two.
It’s not even 5 minutes later when Ali announces, “We’re entering a higher level zone soon, figure average level in the low-to-mid 20’s.”
Even before I can acknowledge it, Ali continues; “We’ve got trouble. There are 8 Hakarta warriors in a building to the left at the t-intersection. “
“Hakarta?”
“Large, aggressive green-skinned individuals with tusks who come from a warrior culture. Often hire themselves out as shock troops. Closest analogue are Orcs,” Ali explains hurriedly to me.
“About time,” I grin slightly beneath my helmet. What kind of fantasy would world it be without Orcs? As I spot the two-storey log building that dominates the Carcross cut-off, I note a slight glint in the bottom window. Instinct makes me start leaning to the side and I feel the beam punch through my shoulder, my body spasming around the damage. I’m sliding off the bike into a controlled crash, the pain too sudden for my body to catch up with it.
As momentum keeps me rolling on the ground, another blast kicks up the asphalt. Pain radiates through me, my shoulder a complete mess with a hole burnt right through it. I manage
to trigger the quantum state manipulator (the QSM) just before a third shot passes through where I would have been, pain tearing through me again from the energy that passes through the dimensions. I finally come to a stop about ten feet and another dimension from my bike. I’m invisible and in another dimension so the Hakarta aren’t shooting at me anymore as I just lie on the road, dealing with my injuries.
After a time, I manage to gain sufficient control to cast my only spell, patching my wound such that I’m able to stand. When I turn to look at the building, the Hakarta are coming out in a group of five, their movements with that polished training you see in movies. Ali’s right, they are extremely muscular, green and tusky. At a glance, they’d be perfect orcs – if orcs wore body armour and carried beam rifles.
“What the hell Ali! They have rifles. Why didn’t you warn me?” I snarl as I stagger over to where my bike is, pain from the shoulder wound slowly fading.
“I did! They’re Hakarta, of course they have rifles!” snaps Ali, affronted.
“Orcs don’t have rifles. They’re Orcs!” I snarl, casting one last heal on my shoulder. It’s not fully patched, but it’s workable for now.
“I said the closest analogue is Orcs. I didn’t say there were orcs, I said they were Hakarta!” Ali says.
“Fuck it. Later. I need you to distract them so I can drop out and trigger the change,” I point away from me, bending down to the bike. I’m so not leaving Sabre here for them.
“Now he wants me to get shot,” Ali flies off, grumbling all the while. “Yohooo! Big, green and dumb, think you can hit me?”
The Hakarta react with speed, the Hakarta tasked to deal with him aiming and firing in a single swift motion. I turn off the QSM and trigger the change immediately, yanking the armor on. Unfortunately, a simple distraction isn’t good enough and the Hakarta covering my bike opens fire. Luckily, this one is caught mostly on the armor that slides over me. It still makes me jerk in reaction, sending me sprawling and I have to trigger the QSM once more as I roll away, the armor sufficiently equipped to come with me thankfully.
“Move! They’ve got a quantum grenade,” Ali shouts urgently and I bolt for it. The grenade hits the ground where I was and explodes, picking me up and throwing me forwards. It feels like a hundred burning needles have shoved themselves throughout my body and damage reports from the mecha suit start streaming in. I crawl my way away to the treeline and push myself till I’m a good distance away before I allow myself to breathe.
Thankfully, the Hakarta aren’t pursuing at speed so I have time to catch my breath. Ali keeps an eye out for me as I recover and check over the damage reports. Thankfully, nothing is broken irretrievably but a number of systems have re-routed to secondary circuits to deal with the existing damage.
“Still doing a sweep, they’ve got a scanner. Looks to be only a Mark V though, so you’ve got about 5 minutes before they’re in range. Run or fight boy-o,” Ali calls out.
Run or fight. I’m injured, in pain and outnumbered. They’ve got training, experience and levels on me. Good sense says run.
“Let’s kill them,” I snarl, retrieving my rifle and checking it for damage. Stupid but if I wanted to be smart, I’d be home. Two can play this game.
Bad news for the Hakarta. Their scanner works great, but if I’m no longer using the QSM it has nothing to pick up on. Curled up and ready to ambush them with Ali providing real-time updates on their positions, I get ready to take my revenge.
“Coming around the tree in 5, 4, 3…” intones Ali.
The Hakarta step around and I take my shot. The first shot goes for the scanner itself, blasting the valuable equipment into so much junk. Of course, the Hakarta holding it has it up to his chest so he gets shot too, though it doesn’t look like a killing wound.
I roll back into cover under the tree and keep rolling, letting the gradient of the hill get me out of the way of the return fire. A quantum grenade arrives soon afterwards, but this one does no damage as I’m still phased into this reality and the ancillary explosive damage in this reality is insufficient to breach Sabre’s armor at this distance.
I trigger the QSM the moment it’s safe and leg it to a nearby tree, spinning around and waiting. The Hakarta are aggressive, coming around my original sniping position and getting ready to finish me. They are disciplined and smart, coming around fast with each member having their own field of fire. Me, I just shoot the green bastard who is facing me straight in the face. As the others begin to swing around to finish me, I fire again before rolling behind cover and triggering the QSM.
Two more times. That’s as many times as I can use the QSM, if I keep my time in the other state short. I make sure I do, booting it not away from them but directly to them. When I get close enough, I drop back into reality, my rifle pointed straight at the third Hakarta, a moment before I pull the trigger. The blast catches it in the side of the neck, blowing his head clean off but I don’t have time to watch. There are 2 more left from the initial party, one wounded, and I need to finish them. I drop the rifle, swinging my right hand in an overhand chop direct into the arms of another Hakarta who is turning to bring his weapon to bear. Too big for close range combat, he never gets it to me in time before I disarm him and then behead him with the sword I call into being.
The last Hakarta doesn’t bother with his rifle, instead tackling me. I lose grip of my sword as I fall. Thankfully the shock absorbers in Sabre remove most of the damage and I get an arm in the way of the plunging knife, redirecting its force sufficiently that it doesn’t skewer me, just leaves a deep cut in the top of my shoulder armor. I grip him close with my arm then and recall my blade with my free hand before pummeling him with my pommel. His helmet stands the first few blows well enough but eventually shatters. A few more strikes leaves the Hakarta lifeless above me, at which point I push the creature off.
5 down. I cast another Minor Healing to staunch the bleeding in my injured shoulder where I’ve re-opened the wound and then proceed to loot the bodies. Surprisingly, the first body I loot gives me access to all their weapons and armor. I guess fighting humanoids who actually buy their equipment from the System is extremely profitable. I can’t help but grin, grabbing everything possible and dumping it into my inventory. By the time I’m done looting the bodies, I’ve received 5 Beam Rifles (Type IV), 5 Tier V personal body armor (3 significantly damaged), personal arms for each Hakarta and 3 Plasma Grenades along with 432 Credits.
“Ali, scout the building will you?” I begin to make my way back, wondering if I could somehow lure at least a few others out.
“Sir, yes Sir!” mouths Ali but I ignore it. Got to let the Spirit get his shots in, otherwise, it’s impossible to work with him. Thankfully, he still does his job.
“3 left. They are set-up in the center room of the ground floor. Looks like the leader and a couple more grunts, guarding the entrances to the room,” Ali reports back in a few minutes. I’ve set-up a short distance away, watching the building from the tree line across the highway. I nod at his words, getting a little more detail about the layout before working out the new plan.
Letting Ali keep an eye on them, I walk boldly up to the door and open it. I spin out of the way just in case, but no bombs or shots go off. A quick peak shows me it’s still clear and I walk up to the next door, pulling and priming a grenade. Once at the door, I gently depress the door handle and then quickly toss the grenade in, hunkering around the corner even as the Hakarta open fire, tearing chunks out of the door and even catching me a glancing blow.
The explosion is significantly more powerful than I expected, tearing drywall apart like tissue and dumping me on my ass as more damage messages scroll through in the bottom left of my vision. I roll around, trying to get my rifle to bear and realise I might as well not bother, the lifeless and mangled bodies of the three telling its own tale. Battle over, Ali lets the important notifications creep into my view.
Level Up! * 2
You have reached Level 10 as an Erethran
Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 21 Free Attribute Points to distribute.
Twice in a single battle? I knew I was getting clobbered by running rather than fighting and the first ten levels were the easiest to gain, but still, twice? No wonder the others had gained levels so fast. Those free attribute points were really starting to creep up there. I’d have to make a decision soon since they weren’t doing me any good just sitting unallocated.
I spend a few minutes putting out fires to ensure the building doesn’t burn down, beginning to realise how lucky I am. After I loot the bodies, I then drag the bodies out of the house and stack them to the side. No reason to let them rot in the building after all. This time, looting the bodies gets me some scrap, a few personal weapons and their System credits. Note to self, plasma grenades should not be used unless I really need them. I make a final sweep of the building, finding some minor conveniences including what looks to be a mana-charged stove, food stores and high-tech sleeping bags. As I put them into my inventory, I can’t help but think that Lana would love the stove.
Other than the bodies, there’s a single glowing crystal In the remnants of the room I dragged the bodies from which I eye askance.
“Ali…?”
“Control crystal for the fort,” Ali explains.
“What fort?”
“The one you’re standing in of course,” Ali says.
“This is a restaurant and grocery store, not a fort!” though it looks like the Hakarta have cleared out most of the grocery items and started putting together a proper base of operations.