Blue screens illuminated Chuck’s face. Data was working its way in, and his brow was furrowed in trying to parse it all.
“We’ve got enough power for STAR Four,” Dent said from beside him, the swordsman staring at screens of his own. “That was quick.”
“Small world,” the Architect replied idly. “Percentages or something.” His eyes went back and forth over rolling tables of constantly updating figures.
Dent looked over at him, waiting for a few seconds before smiling. “You want me to attempt the feed then, or…?”
“Hmm?” Chuck managed to draw his eyes away from the information briefly. “Oh sorry, this is just… nerves and I want to make sure things are as expected, you know?”
The swordsman nodded slowly and watched him return to staring at the feed. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He sighed and began pressing some of the boxes on his own screen. “I’ve also been getting messages from both Theo and Humphrey. Seems they have a sixth sense for these sorts of things.”
“Tell them… everything is fine. We’ll call them soon.”
“Already have.” Dent smiled as the progress bar on his screen slowly filled up.
“Perfect.” A distracted grin went across Chuck’s face. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”
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A cloud of dirt washed over Sally as she slid across the ground, narrowly avoiding the large club of the current troll. She muttered another curse at whoever had designed this world and hoped to meet them one day so that she could eat their brains after giving them a telling off.
While the rats and orcs had been impassive and almost begging to be run down, the trolls were constantly aggressive, pursuing her from quite a distance considering the other mobs had been pretty blind.
In addition to that, they seemed to be much stronger than the orc boss - just judging by how easily they pulped her dead pals. They took out a handful of hers for every one of them that fell.
Only five had died, and there were currently eight running after her. Chasing her into the aggro range of even more trolls along the way. At least the System was saying this was the final Quest. There would probably be a final boss at the end, and then she’d level and get more skills again… and that would be it?
Seemed underwhelming, even though it had been pretty dire since her arrival. Still, this was just a test run.
“Quick, use your special beam cannon, Archie!” She ducked behind a zombie orc as it was split in half by the wide arc of one of the trolls.
The cat didn’t respond, but kept an eye on her as his tail flicked back and forth in annoyance. Three of the undead monsters slammed the alive one with their large clubs, buckling the creature and allowing the rats and orcs to swarm over them.
While another troll was distracted by some of the small undead, Sally ran up and stabbed her dagger in its side. With all her points in Damage, her blade easily slipped through the thick skin and into the lungs of the monster. She withdrew and was skulking behind an orc before her opponent even had the chance to react to her attack.
Chuck had said only [Eat Brains] would transfer over, but all the hard coded skills she’d earned through all the conflict still stuck with her. Where to bury a blade. How to use her horde as cover. Some actual battlefield tactics.
“Good news,” Archie announced. “Video feed has been established. No pressure.”
Sally grinned, stepping to the side to avoid a club before diving away from a second. Although she wasn’t shy about putting on a show of strength, it might be hard to convince them the previous Quests were such a cakewalk when she had to pay attention to the trolls. Then again, it made her look proficient.
“Chuck said he is going to work on a way to display Universal Notifications, so that I don’t have to keep you constantly updated.”
She rolled between the legs of an opponent, slashing out at the back of their ankles. As they dropped to a knee, a zombie troll slammed them in the side of the head with a loud crack.
Still only nine out of fifty.
As much as she needed to sweat, the world didn’t seem to care about her ability to as a walking corpse - so she just felt overly hot. “They said any Outsider that drops in will be the same level as me, right?”
“Correct.” The ginger cat yawned, his appearance flickering slightly. “You are a trailblazer in more than one way… although we would need to test it to be sure.”
The Architect had mentioned there might be complications with Theo, much to the vampire’s chagrin. While the Uniques were Monsters and could be accepted by a System as they were, Theo was a Player. That meant there were expectations - he should start at level one. Something they needed to work out through practice rather than theory.
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Would be nice to have fangs here now, actually. She stepped back, zombie trolls moving in front of her like a shield wall. While the Quests hadn’t really called on anyone else being required, having some backup for the more aggressive Monsters would be neat. If only so that she could be a little lazier about things.
She said, having let her zombie horde do most of the work so far. In fairness, all she had to do was avoid dying and things should eventually work out. Her injuries hadn’t really recovered well - those auras the Outsiders used to stack were certainly missed - but she didn't feel in much danger.
Spinning her dagger in her hand, she looked over her shoulder to see five more trolls heading her way, and a grin rose up on her face.
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Theo hummed to himself. The message from Dent wasn’t too reassuring. It was clear that they’d thrown Sally off into the new world already… and in a way, he could understand why he had been left in the dark.
Perhaps it wasn’t even intended to happen right after the meeting. But if they had told him, well, he would have been very annoying about it - that was for certain. Just sitting here, now in his battle gear, he was itchy.
Just think of all the different skills or items they could find in different Systems.
Chuck had been pretty polite about creating some of the things that the vampire had drawn up on a list in the months since taking over, but eventually tired of it. Apparently, running the world was more important than designing random objects. Not that Sally and his various Monster roles hadn’t been keeping him busy. It was too easy a life, however. He craved to rise up against odds just as Sally did. There were too many things he had to bury to maintain this safe existence.
That just reminded him of something, and he opened up his Chat.
[Theo: Free, Lucius?]
[Lucius: Sure! I have the rest of the day off, thanks to Chuck.]
[Theo: Perfect, I’ll be over shortly.]
Theo smiled and stood up to stretch out. Even if he wasn’t invited to the other world, it wouldn’t be long before he got to join up to a different one - he knew Sally better than anyone, and if there was one thing that zombie liked, it was taking a bite of something high stakes.
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Sally spat out a mouthful of blood and groaned, thankful at least that it wasn’t her own. Not only were their brains gross, but no due care had been taken in making sure their blood was palatable, either. Briefly, she considered the fact that her enemies weren’t meant to be eaten, but that seemed silly. Theo would hate it here.
She couldn’t wait to get back and rub it in his face that she had been to a new world and saved an abandoned System without him. Hopefully, he wasn’t just sitting at home waiting for her still… Chuck probably would have said something to him so that he didn’t worry. As much as she hated to waste a preheated oven, there would be time to cook later after she added another accolade to her vast library of achievements.
Twenty-four trolls dead.
By now, there were enough zombie trolls to save her from having to get into melee distance herself. Rats were few and far between, and the orcs were all but gone - but now, every time a new opponent came towards her, she could command at least two undead trolls to get in the way.
Would there even be an end boss? It said that this was the final Quest. What if this was just a tutorial and there was actually something substantial after? Something worse.
“You look like you are thinking too hard.” Archie had found a fallen log to sit on and watch her idly.
“I think by now you should know that’s not possible with me.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Just… there are a lot of unknowns, even if this is meant to be simple.”
With a yawn, the cat looked back out at the constant melee behind her. “Clearly, the issue is that you aren’t suffering enough.”
Sally pouted. “I never said that.”
The stakes were high… in a way. He was right, though. There was no grounding at present. Kill aimless enemies until her zombies could do the job for her. She wouldn’t class it at suffering that she was lacking. More of… a reason to care and put herself at risk. Previously, she had fought to save herself, then her friends and fellow Uniques, and eventually the whole System.
Land acquisition in of itself was pretty dull. Even visceral combat could grow tiresome - especially if it was against low intelligence System-created Monsters. Saving people against the odds was more of her bread and butter. So when she returned, she would… oh.
She turned her head back to Archie. “I understand what Dent meant about calibration now.”
Archie nodded. “The only unstable variable is you.”
Sally rolled her eyes and focused on the trolls fighting once more. It had been a few months since she had accepted that she was a chaotic force of change. Living in paradise had been... nice, but unrewarding. Having all the brains you could eat and not having to worry about you or your friends existing was a pleasant change… but part of her tired of it.
Maybe the zombie part? She wasn’t even separate as she once thought she had been, in truth. Just an undead Player that had the benefits of both sides. The other Players in the System seemed happy to exist the way they did - Lucius’ ability and therapy sessions had kept any prospective grumps like Marius or Seven from rising up. She had seen behind the curtain, however, saw the meta layer that the others didn’t really question.
Knowing that there were other worlds with Players suffering made her want to go fix those and rescue those humans she could. Any chump could grind through an empty world - it wasn’t making good use of her actual skills and passions. She sighed, knowing that this was part of the reason she had been sent here on short notice.
They didn’t intend on working her up through the easiest or safest worlds, even if it was the most efficient way of her slowly gaining universal skills. The pair wanted to show her that she wasn’t a tool for reclamation, but a violent force determined to eat or save everyone. Next world would be something more dangerous.
Archie could clearly see her sinking, glum expression, even as the zombies tore into the living. “How about a little exposition while you’re so clearly bored?”
She shrugged. “What kind? Today has already been quite the day full of information and gross brains.”
“Chuck mentioned about how you are from a different planet than the usual Players. He isn’t wrong, but there’s more to it than that.”
The zombie paused, not wanting to get too distracted, but her attention was drawn to the ginger cat. He looked amused at now being the focal point, and holding a piece of information that she coveted.
“Sally Danger, are you ready for the truth?”