Even the poorest bums of New York got a hot meal and slept in a shelter a few days a week.
Their party possessed nothing more than what they carried on them, which was very little indeed. Not even a change of clothes. Their food consisted mostly of unseasoned grilled meat, boiled wheat and a few other, paltry berries and such that they picked up along the way. They slept on heaps of sticks and leaves that were raked together every day.
Now, they were planning to attack a bunch of wild animals for money. Where did that leave them, in the grand social hierarchy? That they were worse off than bums was beyond doubt. Kobe wasn’t sure whether there were any lower rungs on the ladder beyond that.
Of course, that social hierarchy was far gone, which was deeply unsettling. Still, he tried to hold onto some of the more base aspects of old civilization. Basic hygiene and comfort, at least, was something they had to strive to regain. The fact that even that was lost, told him they were truly at rock bottom. What could now possibly still make his life worse?
You could become crippled, he thought, guilt squeezing him in the stomach as he glanced at Dericka’s leg. The Fixer Upper could work miracles, and it had, but still, there was only so much it could do for a shattered leg.
To the woman’s credit, it had barely slowed her down and she was full of vigor, firing off orders left and right as they huddled together in a small clearing. The forest was so thick with trees and foliage that it never really got brighter than the twilight hours, but near the crater it was starting to thin out.
“If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it smart. Twenty-four hours should still give us enough time to prepare. Remember, these goats are dumb as rocks - they’ll just charge straight for us. Let’s use that against them,” Dericka said.
Tasks were quickly divided with most people assigned to digging trenches, while others cut and sharpened bamboo stalks. He was ordered to do some more scouting and to once again perform what Dericka called a premortem, which was a fancy name for thinking of things that could go wrong.
It was a useful framework for it, he had to admit. There was something about placing yourself in an imagined future where things had gone terribly wrong, that helped to spot risks in their set-up.
First, he set out to scout the goats again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. A short distance from where they were camping, the thin tree trunks and bamboo stalks thinned out more and more as the ground sloped down.
Ducking behind a patch of bamboo, he looked out at the small valley below, the forest floor dropping down suddenly to form a large, depressed circle, as if a meteor had once struck there. It was bright, with more greenery covering the soil, perhaps owing to the lack of trees stealing most of the sunlight.
Some of the animals were asleep while others climbed on top of rocks and frolicked as goats did, hiding their true, bloodthirsty nature behind a screen of innocence. It was not hard to spot the Alpha - it was at least twice the size of the smaller goats, strutting around like it owned the place, chasing other goats away from preferred grazing patches.
There were about two dozen of them, spread out across the basin. A single scream from one of the goats would almost certainly be heard by the rest, but thanks to their positions, they shouldn’t all arrive at the same time.
Having seen enough, Kobe went back to make his rounds, trying to imagine that it was a day later and they’d failed miserably. Several wounded, one or two dead. How might that have happened?
The largest group was discussing where to best dig the trench, Jim already drawing lines in the forest floor with his spear. Kobe could already make out fresh sweat stains on the man’s shirt and decided to take a wide berth around him, having already learned the hard lesson of how vigorous movement would whip up the stink that had been accumulating for weeks.
“We should bring the trench as close to the clearing as we can without being spotted. The slope up is really steep, it would be a mistake to waste that advantage. Also maybe consider making it wider rather than deeper? We have to make sure they’re not able to just jump across.”
The goats might still approach from different directions, so they’d have to take care of their flanks as well. Most of the failure scenarios he was coming up with were some form of goats surging past their defenses and throwing them into chaos.
As he walked up to the group working on the bamboo sticks, he stepped a bit too close to Millie and caught a big whiff of dried blood and sour sweat. Kobe suppressed a gag as he discreetly took a step back and brought his hand up, pretending to scratch his nose. From the narrow-eyed look Millie gave him, perhaps it hadn’t been as discreet as he thought. Christ, but they really needed that shower unit.
Coughing into his fist, he ran his fingers over the smooth wood of a bamboo spear, nodding as he tested its strength.
“They feel sturdy enough. The points will need to be filed down to be properly sharp though, otherwise they’ll just slip off their fur. We’ll need to dig them into the sides of our position as well to avoid getting flanked.”
Considering for a moment, he walked up to Tasha, who smelled surprisingly and blessedly neutral.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking about those birds. The fight is bound to get noisy, which might draw more of them in. You and Marie have had some creative ideas before. Is there anything you could put together to better deal with them?”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about them too,” she said with a frown. “I’ve got a few ideas to try out.”
Satisfied with how preparations were going, he went over to Dericka to give a quick report and exchange some thoughts about the main risks. Once that was covered, he quickly transitioned to the topic he really wanted to address.
“So after we kill the big bad goat, we’ll be flush with Value and get to make a big purchase of goods, right? I have some thoughts about which items to include.”
The corner of Dericka’s lip twitched up as she looked him over.
“You’ve some thoughts, have you? Do these thoughts, perchance, have anything to do with hygiene and comfort?”
“They’re necessities, Dericka. Think of morale. And what about infections? Or malnutrition? We’ll all be getting scurvy soon.”
Kobe’s voice rose as he spoke, unable to keep a calm demeanor when it came to this subject.
“Let’s not get too dramatic here,” Dericka held up a hand in a calming gesture. “If there’s a choice between things that keep us alive and safe, or things that keep us clean, we still have to set the right priorities.”
Kobe looked around, saw how the people were toiling with their knees in the dirt, digging up the soil with branches and rocks and their bare fingers, adding another layer of sweat to already disgusting clothes.
He turned back to Dericka with a tortured look on his face.
“Jesus, Dericka. Don’t you see how fucking filthy we are? We’re barely better than the goats.”
She must have found his sincere desperation amusing, because she let out a short, snorting laugh and looked at him with a wide grin.
“I suppose it would be irresponsible to ignore our Chief Hygiene Officer. Don’t worry, I’m sure we can fit in a few things to lift morale. Honestly, I’m thinking of just giving everyone four items to pick for themselves and only getting a few for the whole Party,” she said, her face turning more serious. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First the goats.”
Kobe nodded, feeling determined. First the goats, indeed. He wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter them with a butter knife and bathe in their blood if that’s what it took to finally get a shower unit.
As he went to help with the preparations, he noticed one of the hummingbirds sneaking up on Elza and easily whacked it out of the sky with his spear. A few quick points of Value were always welcome. He only needed about a hundred more for an Ability, and if he got some free items on top, he could finally start acting on some of his crazier plans.
The trouble with the electrical Abilities was that they offered many ways to create and manipulate electrical charges, without offering a good way to transmit said charges to a target. Kobe remembered enough of his electrical engineering classes, to know that for electricity to travel through the air, as lightning did, massive amounts of energy would be needed, most of which would be wasted.
Even if he bought an Ability like [Create Negative Charge], that would not be enough to electrocute anything, unless the target happened to be standing on some conductive material while positively charged. Even then, there would need to be enough voltage to overcome the resistance of its skin. If only it was as easy as just shooting lightning from his fingertips.
A simple solution to the problem would be a pointy copper wire to serve as a conductor, but if he wanted to pierce a beast’s skin, he’d have to actually hold on to the wire so he’d need a non-conductive grip as well. And even then, he might need to buy multiple electrical Abilities to actually make it work.
Instead, he’d theorized a more elegant solution, using [Manipulate Magnetic Field] as the key Ability. If he managed to attach iron tips to copper wire, which would in turn be attached to something non-conductive, like a hard plastic belt or similar piece of armor, he should be able to pull them towards his targets by using a magnetic field, without having to touch anything.
Another magnetic field could be used at the same time, moving at high speeds around the copper wire to create an electrical current. There were a few assumptions, and he’d have to get used to controlling the magnetic fields, but he was confident it could work. The question was whether he was confident enough to commit to it? If it failed, he’d waste a bunch of Value. Luckily, there was still some time before he had to make the decision.
He got back to work, which progressed quickly with everyone pitching in. They dug out a ditch, sharpened spears, set up fortifications and discussed formations. After about fourteen hours the preparations were about done, so they decided to take a longer rest so everyone could be fresh for the battle. They would start around noon time for the best possible visibility.
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After a last run through of the plan, which was anything but complicated, it was finally time to start.
Kobe stood at the top of the slope, with Tasha, Jim and Dmitriy beside him. Each of them was holding a filed down bamboo stalk, with another small pile of the makeshift spears at their feet. After meeting each other's eyes with a final nod, Kobe let out a loud shout which was quickly followed by angry bleats from the goats.
The closest ones ran madly towards them, before the other goats took notice and followed the same pattern. Kobe judged that the great Alpha, standing somewhere near the center of the basin, would likely be in the third wave up the slope.
Then his focus was on the shrieking beasts that were running up, stretching his arm back, then snapping forward and launching the spear down. Even with imperfect technique, with 12 Strength and 10 Speed he threw like an Olympian, the spear whistling down to bury itself deep into a goat’s stomach.
Two of the other spears had gone wide. Kobe nodded grimly as he watched the goat continue its charge, mad with rage, barely even limping from its wound. The damn things were tough and didn’t really react to pain. With their vitals hard to reach, it would take a whole bunch of the light bamboo spears to take down a single goat.
Which was why they’d put venom on the tips.
Kobe flashed a vicious grin as two of the goats stiffened and fell down with stretched legs, as if they were carved from wood. He carefully picked up another spear, keeping his hands away from the tip, as Jim and Dmitriy did the same, Tasha switching to her bow instead as the goats got closer.
Another round of throws and two more goats went down, one hit by two spears. Tasha’s arrow went wide, as usual, and she didn’t yet ready another one. A big group of goats were coming up now, at least eight of them, with the Alpha not far behind, followed by the rest of the herd.
It was a disturbing sight, the blindly raging goats surging up the slope, revealing their oversized incisors as they screamed. The cacophony of angry bleats was almost deafening.
“Final volley!” Dmitriy roared.
The final three spears whistled down, easily hitting their targets in the large group, killing another three goats. The men then picked up their longer wooden spears, waiting for the beasts to get closer. Right before the first goat was up, Tasha finally dared to loose her arrow, which struck it straight in the chest. She let out a short, surprised laugh, then quickly darted back to take cover behind a tree.
Then the first row of goats were slowly scrambling up the top of the slope. It was almost too easy to stab them and push them back so that they went rolling down the slope, foiling the footing of the ones behind them. Two made it past the spears before quickly being kicked back down.
Seeing that the next row had too many goats, with the Alpha not far behind, Kobe called the retreat.
“Moving back! Get ready for stage two!”
Spears in hand, the men sprinted to the sides, kicking up dirt as they ducked behind trees to then circle around the trench.
A few yards behind where they had stood, was a line of spears dug into the ground to stick out at an angle. Right behind those spears was a wide trench, the bottom lined with stakes. After that was yet another line of dug-in spears, behind which stood Dericka, hollering at the top of her lungs and waving her spear to draw the goats’ attention. Elza stood next to her, eyes wide as she gripped her spear.
They had feared that the goats might follow the retreating men to bypass the barricade, but the scheme worked. With the men moving out of sight, the angry goats surged directly forward, their mad rage directed at Dericka. Most were nimble enough to maneuver around the spears, but in their angry rush they rammed into each other, heedlessly pushing their fellow goats onto the sharp points.
Some of the spears were pushed aside by thrashing goats, while a number of animals attempted to jump the trench. A few succeeded while others fell down, muted screams coming out from the pit as they were impaled on the stakes.
Kobe noticed that a number would clear the second line of spears. Jim was already moving there to support. He should be doing the same as well, but hesitated when he spotted the Alpha. The plan was for Dmitriy and Tasha to handle it, but would that be enough? They might need his help.
The Alpha screamed. The deafening sound washed over them, stunning and disorienting them. He saw how Elza dropped her spear to put her hands to her ears, prompting him to move. Kobe grit his teeth as he ran, screaming himself as the ear-piercing bleat continued, just to have something else filling his ears than that horrible shriek, like a hundred nails on a giant chalkboard.
The goats seemed encouraged by it, surging forwards, jumping onto their fallen brethren to cross the obstacles. He spotted an arrow hanging loosely from the Alpha’s side, having only shallowly pierced the skin, though it was still enough to make it turn towards Tasha.
Kobe cursed as he turned away again, forcing himself to follow the plan instead of his instinct, making a final dash towards Elza as he called out to his right.
“Marie! We need support!”
That would leave the girls protected only by Millie and Gerald, but all the threats were tied up here with them. He shoved Elza back, yelling at her to pick up her spear and fight, hoping she would have heard it through the endless screaming of the goats.
Two of them were coming in now, hopping over their impaled brothers, and Kobe slithered forward to stab one straight in the chest as he kicked the other to the side. He rammed the butt of his spear into the soft ground, leaving its victim to struggle, then quickly jumping onto the downed one while pulling a small knife from his belt. He held it down with his knees, severing its artery with one clean cut.
He could only wait for a few heartbeats until he had to get off, grabbing at the now unearthed spear with both hands while he pushed the dying goat off with his foot. Cursing as another goat rammed him in the knee, he dodged its second charge, kicked it over on its side, then leaned into his spear to pierce deeply into its chest from the side.
Another one came at him but a corpse forced it to slow down, so he simply bent down and stopped it with his hands. Grabbing its horns, he then simply lifted it up and kicked the thrashing goat down the trench with the heel of his foot.
A quick look around showed Jim struggling with two bleeding goats, but then his gaze was drawn to the screaming Alpha. Dmitriy’s shield was on the ground, cracked, and the man was leaning forward, heels dug into the ground, both hands around the Alpha’s horns as the two roared in each other’s face. There were two arrows sticking out of its side and Tasha was repeatedly stabbing it in the neck with a third one as Dmitriy held it back.
He began to move, but a blob of red in the corner of his vision made him stop and look closer. Over the clearing was what looked like a small, red cloud. His stomach dropped as he realized what it must be.
He cursed, breathed in to shout out a warning, but Dericka was faster.
“Birds! A whole swarm! Tasha, Marie, get on it, now! Kobe, you’re on the Alpha! Then we retreat as a group. Go!”
Dericka’s voice was loud and clear and they snapped into motion. Kobe kicked at a goat, grabbed his spear then sprinted to the Alpha, swerving only slightly to the side to come at it from the flank. Panting as he pumped his legs, he measured out his final steps, screaming as he jumped.
“Incoming!”
He rammed into the beast’s side, spear first, then his shoulder. The impact pushed all the air out of his lungs, but drove the beast to the ground. Crawling on top of it as he gulped for air, he pulled out the knife and started sawing at its neck. The creature bucked and bleated but it was a weakened effort. The venom must have already taken effect then, working slowly.
Its thick skin and tough fur were too much for the blunted knife to cut through. He sucked at his teeth, grabbing at the spear again, but a grunt from Dmitriy had him look up.
“It is defeated. Let’s move to help the others!”
Glancing back at the rest, he saw one goat biting at the arm of a downed Jim, while the rest was struggling to finish a handful more. Tasha and Marie were hurriedly putting together some construct of bamboo and leaves, while the bird swarm was fast approaching.
Cursing breathlessly, he forced himself up and back into a run. He was slower than before, but soon enough he was in the thick of it once again, pulling and stabbing and kicking at the last of the goats. The next time he looked up, bent over with hands on his knees from exhaustion, a red hummingbird was coming straight at him.
He slapped it out of the air and crushed it under his foot, desperately trying to catch his breath as more red birds began flitting towards them. Dericka pushed him aside, and he stared at her in a moment of confusion. Was she hitting the damn birds with a broom, like some angry housewife out of a folktale?
A closer look revealed that it was in fact a bamboo stalk, the top third split in two pieces which were held apart by small sticks and woven plant fibers. Those fibers continued up, attached to each side of the split stalk, to form a net of sorts. The result looked like a mix between a broom and a Lacrosse stick.
It didn’t look like much but was quite effective at knocking birds out of the air, which he eagerly stomped to death. One got him on the right shoulder and before he even got it off, another was on his left. He cried out as three more needles stuck him in the back and he saw the rest of the group were also getting covered in the damn things. They were getting swarmed, they had to fall back-
“Get behind us! Don’t breathe the smoke!”
Marie and Tasha were each holding one of the makeshift broomsticks but with leaves added into the net, waving them up and down to fan the embers of a small pile of green-blue plants. The plants weren’t quite on fire, but still gave off a thick pool of smoke which headed in their direction.
No further encouragement was needed, everyone running behind the pair while they struggled to get all the small red bloodsuckers off their bodies. It was chaos then, a whirl of smoke and birds, constantly reacting to small stabs of pain to crush yet another bird in his fist or under his boot.
The smoke worked wonders, the birds who’d flown through swerving unsteadily as if they were drunk, before spiraling out of the sky. Some of the swarm went around one side of the smoke cloud, but there Dmitriy waited. With his cracked shield in hand, he smashed the birds out of the sky, one bloody handful at a time.
They had a tendency to target the back, so they began literally watching each other’s backs. Kobe wasn’t sure how much time they spent like this, but at some point when he whirled around once again, ready to pluck more out of the sky, he saw that only a few hummingbirds were left.
He took a moment to get his bearings, then kicked the pile of smoldering plants apart, stomping them down to get rid of the acrid smoke. Most of their party was coughing and wiping at their eyes by now.
As the faint ringing in his ears faded away, he took stock of the carnage then. Not a single person was clear of bloody holes in their shirt, many coughing and clutching at wounds, a few bent over to empty their stomach. The whole area around them was painted red with torn feathers and fallen birds, some of which were still squirming.
A few weak bleats still sounded from the trench, which was surrounded by bloody mud and dead goats. Many of them had spears sticking out of their bodies. The Alpha lay silent and unmoving where he’d left it, two arrows and a spear standing from its side.
“That is one dead herd of goats. That’ll teach the fuckers.” Jim spat on the ground, grimacing as Dericka hooked him up to the Fixer Upper, his wounds being the worst of the lot.
“It’s a trip.” Dericka muttered.
“What was that?”
“The collective noun. You know, like a murder of crows, a gaggle of geese? A trip of goats.”
When everyone just stared at her with confused looks, she shrugged with a wry smile.
“Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Tasha cleared her throat.
“The birds that were downed by the smoke aren’t actually dead, just disoriented. We still have to, uh, get rid of them.”
She stomped on one of the writhing hummingbirds, leaving no doubt as to her meaning.
As they got to the grim work of crushing a few dozen cute little birds to death, Kobe made his way to Dericka.
“So uh.. What about those items, huh?” He said with an unashamed grin, lifting his eyebrows suggestively.
She gave a soft chuckle.
“To the victors the spoils, eh?” She took a look around, taking stock of the exhausted faces, then muttered, “I suppose it would be for the best if we did the postmortem later.”
Dericka then called out to the group.
“Alright everyone, give me a list of items you want, max four per person. Then I’ll start crunching the numbers.”
First there was confusion, but it was quickly followed by happy exclamations and cheers.
“Oh right! We got the quest, didn’t we?”
“Yes! Finally I will have a shield to suit my ambition!” Dmitriy yelled.
“And vodka!”
Kobe just closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh and enjoying the victory. Finally, some good things were coming their way. They would be getting a bit of their humanity back, he thought. Just a hint, to start with, but soon he’d have them strutting around with style.
Then, his eyes popped open with a confused frown. Had he just heard Tasha whispering ‘space drugs’?