The Oracle cackled with delight as she watched the fat black and white cat eviscerate the big man’s neck before pulling him into the middle of the trail, to be found by the rest of his gang. She shook her hands towards the sky and screamed, “When I get out of here someday, that’s exactly what I’m going to do to all you motherfuckers!”
=====
Juke-Box Slots always drew the short straw. Juke-Box was old, short, thin, and bald, and as the smallest and weakest of the bandits, he always got stuck with giving Stone Fox the bad news.
Stone Fox ordered, Manic Ball, her right-hand man, “Breaks over. Get everyone up. We need to catch them by nightfall!”
As Manic stood up to get everyone moving, he noticed Juke-Box running their way, and swore to himself, “Shit!”
Juke-Box slowed his pace and stopped just outside of Stone Fox’s easy slapping reach, lowered his eyes to the ground, and waited. He’d learned the hard way not to speak to her until she gave him permission.
Manic didn’t think it would be good for morale if Fox killed Juke-Box for simply delivering bad news, and Manic and Fox knew it was bad news, because the others always sent Juke-Box to deliver the bad news. Manic said to Juke-Box, “Don’t waste Mistress Fox’s time, out with it!”
Juke-Box wanted to, but didn’t dare to breath a sigh of relief, and replied to Manic, “Tulip bragged to everyone that he 'wasn’t afraid of no ghost', and that it was just some little ambush beast that everyone was acting all scared of. He took his gear and started walking outside the perimeter of our rally point. We couldn’t see him, but we could hear him laughing at everyone. Then he just went quiet. A few of the others grouped together and walked out to look for him, but found him dead on the trail with his throat cut. They actually found his body, whatever it was didn’t even loot him. The others are saying it’s a demon or a ….”
Manic could feel the fury from Stone Fox, and wanted to get Juke-Box out of there before she broke his face, so he cut Juke-Box off, and ordered, “Get the fuck back to the others and tell them no one goes anywhere alone, not even to take a shit!”
As Juke-Box ran off, Manic paused a second in case Fox was going to immediately lay into him and everyone else. He then said, “Boss, I’ll have everyone up and moving right away. We’ll catch them before nightfall!”
As Manic turned to carry out her previous orders, Stone Fox said, “Wait! Tulip was a big fucker. Stupid! But big and tough. If we keep moving fast enough to catch the reflector boats, whatever is out there is simply going to keep picking people off. That’s not that big a deal, it wouldn’t hurt us to get rid of some of the dead weight, but I just got a gambling quest! It says…”
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SYSTEM GAMBLING QUEST
The Fox Gang must kill the scourge of the mountains that keeps killing your gang members.
If your gang succeeds, you will receive 4 ability points, and everyone in your gang will receive 10 euphoria smoking sticks.
If your gang fails, you will lose 4 ability points.
Accept: Yes/No?
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Manic asked, “Did it give you a time frame for killing it?”
“Nope!” replied Stone Fox with a grin, “As long as we never quit ‘trying’ to kill whatever it is, I’ll never lose any points.”
Manic crinkled his forehead as he asked, “That would be a real pain though, to always have someone over here trying to kill this thing… and we don’t even know what it is.”
Stone shook her head, “It’s an ambush predator. If it could kill more than one of these idiots at a time, it would have already done so. It can’t be that strong. I’m going to leave everyone here to hunt this fucking thing down in groups of four. I really only need you, Fury Craps, Fat Dice, and Mark to go with me to take out the reflector boats. I’ll have to get my hands a little dirtier than usual, but we’ll be faster, and I’m not worried about those soft bitches in the boats that always hide behind their artifacts.”
Manic replied, “But…”
He was cut off by Stone Fox, “No more questions! I’ve accepted the quest. Tell Chips he’s in charge and what needs to be done, then grab Fury and the others, and let’s get going.”
---------
Jen, Sam, Tamako, and Pudding were waiting quietly in a defensive position for the gang to pass them by, when Jen updated them. “It looks like five of them have taken off after those boats, but the rest are just milling around not going anywhere…wait, I can sense Slim coming our way.”
As Slim sauntered into their defensive position, he cooed, “No need to worry, the only high-level bandits have taken off…well really only their leader looked like she might be able to put up a fight. Anyways, the rest of the idiots appear to be organizing a hunt to find little ole me.”
Sam smirked, “I don’t know if I would use the term ‘little’ to describe you!”
Slim ordered, “Quiet log! While I have been getting a little taller, that is not the point of this discussion!”
Sam laughed as he mumbled to himself, “Yea, ‘taller’, that’s what I meant.”
Slim ignored Sam as he continued, “I can kill them, or you all are welcome to join in on the fun if you like. If you do join in, it will allow you to get back to your lumbering sooner.”
Jen replied, “It’s all you Slim. I’m sure if you don’t play around with them too much, we can be back to grinding for credits by tomorrow.”
Slim rolled his eyes and turned to head out when Sam did something to make him whip his tail in excitement.
“What is it? Do we need to run?” asked Jen, as she watched Sam grimacing while simultaneously grabbing his stomach.
“I don’t know, but I don’t get the feeling that we need to run right away. But I think something might be coming!”
Jen ordered, “Slim, can you take out those bandits quickly?”
Slim snorted a reply as he waddled out of the camps, “I’ll be back in an hour… two tops.”
=========
As Jen, Sam, Tamako, and Pudding quietly worked on increasing their defensive traps, Jen felt Slim moving further off, but figured he was just hunting down any remaining bandits that finally decided to give up and make a run for it.
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Tamako noticed Jen getting nervous as the bird she was using came back to camp exhausted, and she said, “Whatever it is, we’ve already been preparing for the bandits, so we’ll be ready for this too.”
Jen fed her bird some meat scraps, as she said, “She’s so tired from flying all over the place for the last couple of days. I’ve got to let her rest. She’s the alpha predator bird in this area, so I haven’t seen any others that would be better to switch her out for. Slim’s also been gone quite a while now.”
Tamako soothed, “If you haven’t seen anything yet, it’s far away and we’ve got time. I’m not saying we should let our guard down or anything, but we can only do what we can do.” Tamako then chuckled a little, as she said, “And the last thing you have to worry about is Slim! He probably found some little bobcat to shack up with for the night.”
======
Jen was on the early morning guard shift and awake when she felt a sense from Slim. Slim didn’t want them to start running away or anything, but there was something he was feeling. She wasn’t sure, he was just too far away.
Jen awakened everyone as she felt Slim continuing to get closer. They were all up and ready, as they waited for Slim to arrive. Slim messaged them through their onboards and said, “It’s not the bandits, I killed them all yesterday, but I did have to chase a few of them down. After finally catching and killing the last of the bandits, I spotted a commotion and went off to investigate. That’s when I found a 20ish-person quest-hunter party that is heading our way. Levels ranging from 15 to 30. The hunters had just killed a five-person Quest party that was grinding at a jump pad about 20 miles away. I overheard their discussions about following a jump pad map in order to hunt and kill other quest parties to build up their power, loot, and to kill off any of the competition. They were taking their time with the hunter-party they were killing, but they are definitely going to head our way.”
Sam asked Slim, “What angle are they coming from? Where will they have to cross that really large river Jen spotted with her bird? Will it be upstream in the mountains in the rapids, or downstream near where it widens out and slows down?” Slim replied, “If they have a map, I’m sure they will be crossing the river down near the valley where it slows down. One of the bandits running from me actually killed himself when they crossed the rapids.”
====
Sam watched the Oracle Hunters on the far side of the river, he was worried the quest-group would send scouts across the river to clear and secure the far side before crossing, but all they did was send one man across, and he just “looked” into the woods before waving for everyone to follow.
When most of them were exposed in the middle of the river. Jen messaged, “Fire!” They all simultaneously fired their space storage rocks containing logs, rocks, and boulders into the enemy in each of their sectors of attack. The surprise and violence of action was devastating on the warriors, most were dead, or nearly-dead, from being pulverized by the logs and stones. However, there were three mages in the group with mana shields that instant-charged and blocked the attacks.
Jen did not allow the momentum to be lost and ordered Pudding, “send in the golems!” The golems charged in swinging their bronze hatchets at any of the downed fighters. The remaining warriors charged towards the golems to save their injured friends that were being slaughtered, while only a few of them remained in place to fire spells or arrows from a distance.
Jen nodded at Pudding. He ordered the golems to drop. Jen again commanded, “fire!”
While Jen, Tamako, and Pudding used their remaining space storage rocks to fire more logs and boulders, Sam used up almost all his mana with a lightning strike to smash through the mana barriers and ultimately killing two of the enemy’s mages that were targeting the golems. However, one of the mage’s had a mana shield that was able to stand up to Sam’s lightning attack.
As the remaining mage watched his party get destroyed, and his mana barrier nearly collapse, he ran back to the forest on the far side of the river with three other survivors.
Sam looked concerned as Tamako, Slim, and Jen chased the enemy survivors into the forest to try and finish them off. “At least Jen doesn’t have to watch what I’m about to do now,” Sam said to himself as he and the one remaining golem made sure to kill all the wounded and helpless enemy that were lying and screaming in the river.
The mage saw the two women coming after them and looked at the three wounded warriors that were fleeing with him and ordered, “attack them while I provide you with magical support!”
The three warriors were carrying the same cheap shop weapons and armor as Jen and Tamako. They turned and formed a semi-circle to meet the two charging women. The biggest warrior in the center was well over six foot carrying a large mace, and she called out, “I’m going to smash you bitches into a bloody pulp!” as she appeared to activate some type of power skill that made her grow to almost eight feet tall with muscles to match.
Slim slipped unnoticed past the crazed giant woman as he circled deeper into the woods to approach the wizard from the rear.
Jen and Tamako slowed their charge as they approached the three warriors, when Tamako suddenly jumped in front of Jen yelling, “Get down!” as a fireball from the mage curved over the enemy warriors and came down towards them. Tamako held her forearm up and out towards the fireball, and absorbed the fireball into the bone of her forearm, but burning her arm to the bone in the process. She immediately sent the fireball directly back at the enemy warrior she thought was the most injured.
“Damnit!” Tamako yelled as she struggled with the pain, and placed a tourniquet above her elbow to slow her bleeding. However, the enemy weren’t expecting the fireball to “bounce” back towards them, and the injured and weakest warrior she targeted was not able to move in time.
The mage was shocked and distracted as he watched one of his warriors die in the flames of his own fireball. Unfortunately for him, Slim was not distracted, and collapsed the mage’s shield before running his razor-sharp claw across the mage’s throat, nearly decapitating him.
Tamako’s left arm was hanging limp, and she said to Jen, “Now it’s two on two. You’ll need to take the big one.”
“You fucking bitch!” screamed the man as he swung his sword at Tamako.
After blocking and parrying the man’s sword, Tamako realized with only her one arm, he was stronger than she was, but her agility, skill, and speed was much greater. Tamako’s plan was simple, wear the man out, and then kill him. However, her patient approach meant that Jen would have to take out the giant on her own.
The giant-powered woman swung her mace down towards Jen. Jen was forced to use her spear to try and redirect the mace, but the power behind the mace broke her spear in half. The giant was surprisingly fast for her size, and immediately brought her mace into a back swing towards Jen’s face. Jen dove and barely rolled out of the way in time.
The giant woman let out a roar at Jen as she charged towards her again. Jen tossed a stone up in the air just above the woman’s head, and a boulder the size of a car just fell out of the stone dropping down on top of the giant woman. The giant woman’s body was pulverized by the weight of the boulder. Sam had told her the boulder didn’t have any kinetic energy when he stored it, because it would cause the storage rock to immediately disintegrate, but it would be perfect to throw up in the air and let gravity just drop the boulder onto someone.
Tamako knew that Slim had just finished off the mage, and she didn’t hesitate when the man was momentarily distracted by the massive boulder crushing the giant woman. She put her sword through his chest and then slashed him across the head cracking his skull in half. Tamako then thrust her sword through the man’s chest several more times, until she was able to loot the man.
Jen and Tamako ignored the system messages as Tamako looted the enemy, and Jen cast her healing spell on Tamako’s arm. Even though Tamako’s arm wasn't completely healed, and with Slim in the lead, they raced back towards the river.
Earlier that day, Sam had used the terms, “Shock and Awe”, “Momentum”, and “overwhelming firepower” in presenting his plan to ambush the hunters at the river. Tamako looked around the river at the massacre that took place with pity and sadness, but she didn’t let those feelings affect her actions for a second. The concept of mercy had been beaten out of her long ago by her father. However, she knew Jen would focus on the dead fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters lying everywhere.
Tamako was sure that Jen would later rationalize, “we didn’t need to kill them, we could have simply run.”
Tamako understood the reality of the Seven Decks as she thought, “you never, never, leave a dangerous enemy alive, so they can chase and kill you when you are not prepared. If the situation was reversed, and these oracle hunters had ambushed us from a concealed, protected, and defensible cover, Sam’s stones and logs wouldn’t have been enough. Sam and Pudding have almost no defense, and would probably be killed immediately. We would all be dead or captured. No, I will make sure Jen understands we had to do this, and we may have to do it again if we want to stay alive.” Tamako looked over at Sam and inwardly prayed he would get the rings working soon and get his tools for re-doing their enchantment tattoos.
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The Oracle cheered out to no one, "Did you see that boulder just crush that woman! That was awesome! Hmmmm... and that man with the storage rocks is kinda sexy. If I ever get out of here, I might just have to..."