Cities in Chains

by Tao Wong

  “Is that all?” Bimmox screeches, the automated translation carrying some of the mocking tone in his voice. “You people are too—”

  “Weak?” I ask, standing.

  I toss up a Soul Shield and Greater Regeneration, stalking forward. The bodyguards have already shifted to target Mikito, Six Arms dropping his crossbow to wade in with short swords while the other waits for an opening. Realizing I’m still up and moving, the other bodyguard swings his weapon to target me.

  “How? You should be dead!” Bimmox says.

  “We cheat,” I reply.

  Bimmox jabs his hand forward again, the spell blasting. I twist out of the way but he’s already shifting the beam to track me, falling for my feint. The Shield flares as the bodyguard’s and Bimmox’s attack caresses its edges.

  I Blink Step behind Bimmox, twisting at the hips and knees to let me build up momentum for the cut that enters his waist. He might have a few powerful spells and a decent amount of hit points, but my sword is boosted with Mana Imbue and Cleave as I attack. The first blade cuts into his waist and exits just above the middle of his chest, tearing flesh and cracking ribs. Then the follow-up blades land.

  Bimmox screams, his body butchered as his reflexive dodge puts new parts of his body into line with the floating blades that follow my attack. Fingers twist and jerk, clawed tips flashing outward to catch his balance, then Bimmox disappears, leaving my follow-up stab to strike air. His bodyguard elbows me in the face, throwing me backward before bringing his rifle to bear, triggering a series of shots I deal with by cutting his rifle apart.

  “Ali!” I shout, knowing we can’t let Bimmox heal. That attack of his would have killed most of my friends.

  “I’m on it!” Ali spins in a circle, searching.

  The remains of his rifle discarded, the bodyguard charges me with a pair of punch knives in his hands. We clash, spinning and cutting, blood flying and my shield failing. A lunge cuts across my face, tearing my cheek open even as I impale the Hakarta. I leave the sword inside him while calling another to hand and finish lopping off his arm, leaving me staggering back as the bodyguard kicks me away. Mikito appears behind him. Her naginata tears through the air and he drops, neck separated by a surgical cut. As suddenly as that, the fight in the office is over.

  “Lana,” I order Mikito, and she dashes out, her Hasted body blurring.

  “Behind you. He’s in the city core room,” Ali instructs me.

  I spin around, staring at the wall behind me, then cut into it. I trigger Cleave again and again, ignoring the Mana cost as I race to get in as fast as possible. If Kamloops is anything like Whitehorse, the city has some automated defenses that are controlled from the city core. I need to turn them off. In the background, I hear shouts and gasped words as my friends fight outside.

  A fist-sized hole finally appears and I look inside, triggering Blink Step the moment I can see within the simple cream-colored room. The Skill carries me within and above the waiting Bimmox, my sword swinging as I release a Blade Strike. The attack catches Bimmox across his shoulders, ripping loose his already injured shoulder and bathing the room in too-bright red blood. The avian falls, gasping in pain as its lungs no longer work. Even the regeneration potion it’s drunk is unable to keep up with the damage I lay on it as I land, stabbing again and again into the body.

  With the alien dead, I grasp the floating city core, the diamond-shaped core fitting easily into my hand. Nothing happens at first, the core taking a moment to check its requirements before it flashes a notification.

  Would you like to take control of the Town of Kamloops?

  (Y/N)

  “Yes,” I snap, mentally willing acknowledgement.

  I snarl as the damn core makes me wait again, a small counter appearing in the corner of my eye. Two minutes. I have to sit and wait for two minutes while the damn System lets everyone who is anyone know that I’m trying to take the city.

  Congratulations! You are now the owner of the Town of Kamloops

  Current Population: 8,785

  City Treasury: 11.7 Million Credits

  City Mana: 2,309 Mana Points

  Taxes: 20% Sales Tax on Shop

  Facilities: Shop, City Center, Educational Institution (1), Retail Outlets (15), Butchering Yard (1), Farms (7)

  Defenses: Tier IV Defense Shield, Automated Tier IV Defense Turrets (17), 6 Automated Internal Sentries

  First Settlement Acquired!

  Bonus +10,000 Experience

  A moment and the six changed to five automated sentries. It only takes me a moment to realize why. I snarl, raising my hand as I desperately try to figure out how to turn them off.

  “Defense targets change. Target all individuals marked as Thirteen Moons,” Ali chants as he floats up to me, fingers waggling in mid-air, then he shoots me a bemused look. “What are you waiting for, boy-o? I got this. Go help the ladies.”

  I pause, conflicted. If someone gets in here…

  “Go,” Ali snaps.

  I nod, trusting the little olive-skinned Spirit, and run out. Even as I run, I see the dots in my minimap flickering as friends, foes, and neutrals die. Time to finish this.

  Chapter 7

  The rest of the fight was simple enough. The other Advanced Class Sect member disappeared, never engaging us. The other combat Classers never got their balance long enough to attack us as a group, which meant that my team tore through them without stop. It didn’t help them that Ingrid kept assassinating anyone who showed any real leadership qualities. Afterward, it was just a matter of calming the population down. Thankfully, I could leave that to Lana as I walked back into the City Center.

  “Hey, the Serfs are going to be fine, right? No death spells or soul chains or anything that will kill them when the Sect is kicked out? Or if it’s commanded?” I ask Ali as I walk in, the thought striking me only now. A cold sweat breaks out on my skin as I wonder if I’ve just condemned a bunch of people to death.

  “Not that I can see. It’s possible but rare and expensive. And not effective in the long-term. Kind of like the sterility shots,” Ali says.

  I blink as the System quest updates when Ali mentions that. Well, learning that the System wants us alive, or at least not dead immediately, is interesting but not important at this second.

  “How deep in the hole are we?” I say to the Spirit, dismissing the System notification.

  “Yes, how badly did we step in it?” Ingrid’s voice floats from the corner where shadows gather. Her Skill drops and reveals the young First Nation woman leaning against the wall. She’s attempting to look blasé, but I know her well enough to read the tension.

  “Ingrid.” I nod to her and watch the Assassin pull out a nail file to clean her nails of the accumulated blood. For a moment, I wonder why she doesn’t use a Clean spell, but she’s probably doing it on purpose.

  “Depends. The Sect isn’t going to take this lying down, and the fact that you missed a few means they’ll probably know sooner rather than later. On the other hand, they don’t have a portal or a communication array set up, so they’re probably not meant to report in that often. My guess is courier check-ins and arranged meetings via the Shop,” Ali says.

  I nod, knowing that some Shops even set up specific inter-dimensional meeting rooms to facilitate such transactions. Guilds, for example, all run their own Shop.

  “If the survivors really have left, we’ve probably got a few hours before the Earthbound Sect learns of your attack. For the main Sect? Figure a few weeks to a month at most before they know something went wrong,” Ali says.

  “And then…?” I extract a piece of chocolate while I wait for the other shoe to drop.

  “Then they’ll likely try to take it back. They’re not the talking type, so they’ll come for you. Probably start local first. Kelowna probably, because it’s closer, unless they feel they need more heavy hitters,” Ali says. “If that fails, they’ll pull from Vancouver and Seattle, where they’ve got their real big boys. If all that fails,
I wouldn’t be surprised if they pulled from their Galactic forces.”

  “Master Classes?” I say, rubbing my chin. I got my ass kicked the last time I fought a high-level Advanced Combat class. I can’t even imagine what a Master Class is like.

  “Unlikely,” Ali says. “It’s a steep pyramid and the Sect isn’t exactly, well, that tight knit. It’s not like the Duchess, who can just order her people around. Most of them are relatively independent. Master Classes are a power onto themselves. They’ll likely send some mid-to-Advanced tier Combat classes to deal with you. It’s easier to dig up a few of those than a single Master. I’d be surprised if they even sent a single Master Class to Earth.”

  I nod slowly, understanding Ali’s point. My Advanced Class is already over-powered compared to a Basic Class, so a Master Class would be an entirely different existence. While Earth has a few Master Class-worthy locations—a certain dragon comes to mind—I’ve yet to come across many locations that would be worthwhile for them to visit. As I understand it, it’ll take a while for the ambient Mana pools to deepen sufficiently. The fact that my experience gain has slowed down also drives home how hard it is to advance after a certain point. And I’ve got the advantage that I didn’t have to go through all the Basic Class levels.

  “Great. Just a couple of Advanced Classes.” Ingrid snorts, shaking her head.

  I glance at her, still seeing the bunch of question marks hanging over her head on her Status bar, before smiling slightly. I understand her point though. Mikito is only in the beginning stages of the Advanced Classes, and the rest of the team hasn’t even reached that point yet. If we were to tangle with a bunch of mid-tier Advanced Classes right now, we’d be in real trouble. We only stood a chance today because everyone around here is so low-Leveled that the Sect didn’t bother to send high-Level enforcers.

  “Repercussions for the population?” I say, glancing outward. If we leave now, we could probably run. I don’t like it, but if leaving means the people here aren’t killed…

  “Varies. Those who fought on your side or helped out? Probably some torture, extended services,” Ali says. “The rest will likely be left alone. Higher overall taxes, maybe some beatings and more pressure applied to drive the point home.”

  “Not horrible,” I say, grimacing. “You said they’ve got Kelowna and Vancouver though?”

  “Pretty much all of BC. However, they’re focusing their attention on Seattle right now. From the information I’ve garnered, it’s been more troublesome than they expected.”

  “Interesting,” I say.

  We could go, take everyone up to Prince George, but I’m not entirely sure bringing a ton of people, especially some indentured individuals, would work out as well as we’d like. If the city didn’t take them in, we’d have to drag them over to Edmonton. Hell, I don’t think we have a way to transport this many even if we want to.

  “We planning on leaving?” Ingrid says, looking at me.

  “No. Maybe. I’m exploring options,” I say, grimacing.

  “We’re not leaving,” Ingrid says, her tone flat. “We started this, we’re finishing it. We can’t just go.”

  “But…” I want to point out the amount of time we’d waste. How big an opponent we’re facing. And I shut up, because I realize it doesn’t matter. Not to Ingrid. Or me. She’s right. We started this. “Fine. Get the girls to clean up and start looking for help. We’re likely going to have a bunch of visitors in the next few days and we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “Of course,” Ingrid says, bowing slightly then fading from view.

  “You know, you just called Sam a girl,” Ali teases me. When I just stare at the Spirit, he drops the act and gets serious. “What do you want me to do?”

  “They lost because they underestimated us and let us in past their defenses. We can’t let them do that to us. Let’s see what we can do about upgrading the city’s defenses,” I say. With bad guys on the way, defense is the number one priority.

  A moment later, Ali pulls information from the city core, sending it directly to me to review.

  Tier IV Defense Shield

  HP: 15000/15000

  HP Regeneration Rate: 250/minute

  Automated Tier IV Defense Turrets (17)

  Base Damage: 75

  Charges: 20/20

  4 Automated Internal Sentries (2 damaged)

  Core: Tier II Numax Mana Engine

  Battery Duration: 6 Hours Standby, 30 Minutes Active

  Weapons: Musashi Grisin Mark III Beam Rifle

  Interesting. One thing I’ve learned is that while beam rifles are ubiquitous, they’re also generally considered the lowest form of weaponry. Not because they can’t do much damage, but because the amount of damage they can do is limited to their initial construction. Mass manufactured weaponry can do damage, but it isn’t as effective as something individually crafted by a support Class. In contrast, projectile weaponry generally varies in damage, especially if you’re willing and able to pay for the hand-crafted—and Skill-generated—ammunition.

  With a flick of my hand, I call up the map of Kamloops again and pull the map out a bit. The town is settled at a crossing of two rivers. The Thompson River runs west to east and is joined by the North Thompson River, dividing the city into three parts. The northwest section is the most expansive and holds a large number of residential houses, the MacArthur Island Park, and the Kamloops Airport. Northeast, there’s little development, mostly industrial and farming locations. Lastly, south of the Thompson River is downtown Kamloops, which the adjusted town boundaries contained.

  Another thought and the map flickers, showing the extent of the shield. It covers the entirety of the adjusted town boundaries and reaches almost to the edge of the highway that runs south of the city proper. The seventeen defense turrets are spread equally around the perimeter of the shield wall. The automated sentries are located in the town center. From the looks of it, we managed to damage two of the six sentries from the earlier fight. Oops.

  “Hey, why are the turrets on buildings?” I ask Ali.

  “Makes it easier to create the safe zone. Building a turret on an existing building adds it to the System, adjusting the Mana flows and property requirements. Also, where else would they put them? In the middle of the road?” Ali says.

  I ignore the challenge, looking instead at the defenses. Assuming they intend to send help from either Vancouver or Kelowna, the chances are they’ll be hitting us from the east or west via Highway 1. Of course, once the No. 1 approaches the city from the west, it splits up into smaller feeder roads into the city, which means where they’d actually make an entrance is more difficult to tell. At least in the east, there are fewer feeder roads. On top of all that, they could just ignore the roads entirely, entering the city by walking through buildings or the fields that surround the city.

  “How are we going to do this?” I mutter to myself, staring at the information.

  The shield limits attackers from just strolling in, but since it’s a single shield, attackers could split and attack across multiple areas, weakening the shield overall before breaching it. Do it well enough and we’d have to split our troops to deal with each attack. If they were smart, they could trick us in splitting our forces and then make an end run to the city center.

  “Are we able to split the shield?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?” Ali says, looking at me.

  “Maybe have the shield powered in different sections? So that if one side fails, the other still stays up?”

  “Sure. A few ways of doing that. We can buy multiple shields and set them to generate side-by-side. There are also fragmented shields which basically do the same thing. A lot spaceships use those.”

  “Show me.”

  Tier II Defense Shield

  HP: 15,000

  HP Regeneration Rate: 250/minute

  Cost: 10.3 Million Credits

  Tier III Multi-segment Defense Shield

  HP: 10,000 per segmen
t

  HP Regeneration Rate: 200/minute

  Cost: 25 Million Base Cost + 10 Million per segment

  “Expensive,” I exclaim.

  “True. But if you’re looking at creating multiple segments, it’s a better option in the long-term,” Ali says.

  “Are the shields upgradeable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good to know.” Not that we can afford it, but the concern of having our forces split continues to bother me. “Sensors?”

  “They’ve got the most basic system,” Ali replies. “No upgrades at all to it. Figure they’ve been relying on their people.”

  “Make sense. We don’t have that.”

  A thought or two later and new information appears, showing the wide variety of options available for sensor upgrades. I tell the System to hide everything that the town can’t afford. I’m still given too many options, so I hide everything that costs more than ten percent of our current treasury. Even then, there are over a hundred options.

  “Arse. Ali…”

  “I got you,” Ali says, smirking at my attempts to navigate the town’s Shop options by myself. He waves and the list expands, repopulating everything. Next, the information shrinks again suddenly as he inputs new parameters, the total number shrinking to about fifteen options. He hums, the windows flickering between each quickly.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Sorting. I filtered by companies by Galactic Reputation points first and then by reviews from trusted sources. Got rid of your percent cost too because you won’t find anything worthwhile. Right now, I’m looking for the knock-offs,” Ali says.

  “Trying to get rid of them?”

  “Goblin’s arse, no! I’m keeping them. No such thing as your patent laws in the System, so companies copy each other’s designs all the time.”