“Thanks for sticking around,” Enzo said to Rachel. “I was concerned there for a second.”
“I thought you said none of this was real,” she said playfully.
“I just didn’t want to get shot,” Enzo said, gesturing to the wounded men. “It looks like the pain limiters really are gone.”
“Well, I just wanted to tell you that what you did was really stupid, but it was also really brave,” Rachel said, touching Enzo's shoulder. There was clearly some significance to the tone of her voice, but Enzo just couldn’t parse it.
“Hey,” Enzo said with a chuckle. “You were the one who followed me.”
Rachel laughed into the back of her hand as they walked toward the five players who were hiding behind the house. The Asian woman and the man with brown hair were treating the two injured men. The one member of the group without his hands full walked up to the two of us. “You really saved us,” he said happily. “I don’t want to imagine what would have happened if you didn’t show up when you did.”
“No problem,” Enzo said automatically. “Though, it wasn’t just us. There was another party that helped kill those Deluvians. I didn’t actually see them, but they killed quite a few of the greenskins.”
The man closed his eyes and gestured a few times with his left hand. A moment after he opened his eyes, Enzo received the notification that said [Friend Request: Melkior477]. Accepting the friend request, Enzo asked, “Is there anything we can do?”
“I don’t know,” Melkior said. “We clearly need to get Dendrite and Cadmium to a hospital soon.” He turned to the black man first and the injured man with short brown hair man second.
“It hurts!” screamed Cadmium, the man with no foot. “Why!? Why does it hurt so much!?” he asked no one in particular. It was quickly becoming clear that nobody present knew how to treat the two wounded men.
Two men dressed in hooded grey cloaks over their blue uniforms appeared from behind a house. The only thing Enzo could immediately glean from the appearance of the two figures is that they were both humans, they were both men, and one was significantly taller than the other. Enzo's sidearm was already half out of its holster before he realized that the two cloaked men were humans and not Deluvians.
The shorter of the two men began to speak in a drawling Southern accent, “Even from here I can tell that you’ve been gutshot,” he pointed to Dendrite. “If you don’t heal yourself, you’ll be dead in less than an hour.”
“Heal myself,” Dendrite gasped in pain. “What are you talking about?”
The Southern man lightly pulled his cloak back away from his midsection, revealing a crimson blood stain that contrasted strongly against his blue uniform. “Apparently, we all have an ability called Rapid Healing. We can heal supernaturally quickly. Just focus on the wound and it will heal."
The two injured men closed their eyes, and their expressions tightened with effort. Cadmium’s ragged flesh writhed and flowed like a river. The destroyed fleshy remnant that was his foot untethered itself from the rest of his leg and struck the ground with a squelching thump. The skin surged forward, leaving a pale stump where the foot once was. Relief washed over the expressions of the two men. Dendrite slowly got to his feet, but Cadmium remained on the ground. His wounds had closed, but his foot was gone.
“Oh, no,” Cadmium sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “This is going to grow back, right?”
The Southern man smiled and said, “Definitely.” He lightly patted Cad on the shoulder. He turned to the group as a whole. “I’m Tantalus, that’s Redgrave. Nice to meet’cha, despite the circumstances.”
Everyone briefly introduced themselves. The Asian woman was “Volta,” and the uninjured man with medium-length brown hair was “Elias.”
Tantalus clapped his hands together once and said, “Very nice, very nice. Now… this seems like a good time for a strategic withdrawal. Elias, you support Cadmium and stay in the center of the group. Red and I will stand in the front. Melkior and Enzo will stand in the back.”
“Excuse me,” Enzo said in confusion. “Why do you want me and Melkior in the back?”
“Simple,” Tantalus said with the smile of a teacher who likes his job. “You always want your two best fighters in the very front and your two second best fighters in the very back. I saw you and Melkior score kills during the fight, so I want you two to defend our rear.”
The group started walking in the order suggested by Tantalus. They all held their rifles at low-ready, prepared for further assaults by the Deluvians. “Crazy, eh?” Melkior said to Enzo conversationally as they walked. “The pain dampeners are off, I guess. GM didn’t even mention that part. As if the potential for death and the ten-year time limit weren’t enough.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Enzo said. “You don’t seriously believe that an AI passed the singularity, became self-aware, and ascended to a god-like state, only to focus all of its powers on a video game? Unlikely, that’s what I say.”
“I don’t know,” Melkior mused. “Imagine that, at the moment of your birth, God told you that the meaning of life was making sure that three hundred thousand people had a good time. If it were me, I’d pursue that goal with the same kind of intense zealotry that we see with GM.”
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Enzo thought for a long time before saying, “No… I still don’t believe it.”
Melkior chuckled to himself for a moment. “Alright, alright. You have your opinion, and I have my opinion. Let's leave it at that."
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Their conversation was interrupted by a battle cry coming from behind them. Enzo turned to see three grey-skinned humanoid figures charging at them from behind. They were dressed like barbarians, and they wielded long two-handed swords. All three wore fur clothing, and the one in the center wore a bear skull as a cap. The clothing didn’t do much to cover them, and large portions of their grey skin was visible. Melkior and Enzo fired at them with no effect. One of Enzo's bullets struck one of the enemies and ricocheted into a nearby house.
“What?” Melk gasped. Enzo spent an extra moment lining up a shot and managed to hit one of the Deluvians in the head. There was a spark as the bullet harmlessly bounced off the monster's skull.
“They’re bullet-proof!” Enzo shouted loud enough for the rest of the group to hear. A feeling of intense fear had washed over him, and it was clearly manifested in the tone of his voice.
Dendrite appeared at Enzo's side and started shooting at the charging Deluvians. After his third shot, Dendrite unsheathed his bayonet and affixed it to the front of his rifle. Enzo's rifle clicked empty, and he swore loudly. Melkior and Enzo affixed the bayonets to their rifles as they prepared for the imminent melee. He grit his teeth so hard that he could hear the sound of them scraping against each other.
As soon as the charging monsters reached the players, one of the greyskins swung at Enzo with a heavy overhanded swing. It used the momentum of its charge to add to the force of the swing. He barely managed to dodge out of the way of the attack, rolling into the dirt in his haste.
It overextended as the momentum of its swing pulled the sword away from its body. Enzo used this half-second opening to launch an attack of his own. He charged with his already blood-stained bayonet held forward. He struck it in the throat, and the bayonet pierced one of its carotid arteries. Lifeblood spilled messily from the surprised Deluvian's neck. Enzo pushed forward, using his rifle as a lever as he pushed the Deluvian backward. On the third step, the Deluvian lost its footing, and it fell to the ground. The change in angle of the bayonet caused significantly more damage to the Deluvian as it fell. With one foot on each of the greyskin’s arms, Enzo pulled his bayonet out and stabbed viciously downward three more times. It was only when the Deluvian had stopped moving that Enzo realized he was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Pulling himself out of that state, Enzo turned to Dendrite and saw that he was wielding his rifle like a club. Dendrite’s bayonet laid broken on the ground. As Enzo watched, Melkior stabbed at the greyskin’s chest, but the bayonet glanced off harmlessly. In a blur of grey skin and silver steel, the monster cut Melkior, causing him to fall to the ground. A spout of blood fell from Melkior and struck the greyskin. The Deluvian began screaming and started grasping at the parts of its body struck by Melkior's blood. It was a terrible scream that sounded more like that of a wild animal than a man.
At that moment, Enzo had an epiphany. He shouted, “Blood! Our blood damages the greyskins!”
Enzo ran forward with the intent to bayonet the wounded and screaming greyskin, but it began to retreat before he could reach it. A moment later, Redgrave charged past him. Blood was streaming from both his left palm and the knife he held in his right. He ran bodily into the wounded Deluvian, his knife slipping past the greyskin’s ribs. Redgrave twisted the knife, and the Deluvian fell dead to the ground instantly. It was certainly a cleaner kill than Enzo's. A moment later, a series of shots rang out and the other Deluvian crumpled to the ground.
When Enzo went to check on Melk, he wasn't breathing. His eyes stared blankly forward, and his expression was frozen in a look of surprise.
“He’s dead,” Volta said. Enzo heard a thump as she fell to her knees.
Tantalus kneeled down next to Enzo in order to examine the corpse. He swore quietly. Tantalus grabbed Melkior’s skull with his hand and turned it over. The skull had been split open, and flecks of pink brain matter laid on the grass surrounded by a slowly expanding pool of blood.
“Red,” Tantalus said quietly, turning to his compatriot. “Do you think you can lift the body?” As he gave this order, Tantalus sounded like a different man.
“Body!?” Elias shouted from close behind Enzo. “What are you talking about?” He saw the corpse. “What? But he was alive just a second ago. What happened?”
“One of the Deluvians hit him in the head. He died instantly,” Enzo said, not fully aware of himself.
Redgrave picked up the corpse. The blood flow from Melkior’s head wound was already starting to slow. Tantalus turned to Volta and Enzo and said, “Enzo! Volta! We need to go!” Tantalus pulled Volta to her feet while Enzo stood up and shook his head to clear it.
Tantalus loaded a magazine into his sidearm while bleeding significantly from a wound on his wrist. He fired two shots at approaching silhouettes that Enzo could barely make out while the rest of the group ran in the opposite direction. Enzo didn’t stop running until they had reached the West Gate.
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The West Gate looked like a mixture of a castle gate and a toll booth. Four car lanes and several foot paths passed through the large portal. Several huge metal portcullises hung from the top of the gate, and two magnificent battlements stood on each side facing outward. In total, the Gate must have been about sixty feet wide and forty feet high. The wall itself was about sixty feet high, so there was enough room for the defenders to pass over the Gate but remain inside the wall. Various players in blue uniforms and NPCs in green uniforms were standing under the Gate, and about a dozen NPCs were standing on each battlement.
Dendrite and Rachel reached the gate a few steps before Enzo. The three of them jumped behind a concrete wall together. Moments later, the rest of the party arrived followed by a group of half a dozen greyskins.
“Blood! Their weakness is our blood!” Tantalus shouted to the players at the Gate. Enzo hastily poured some of his blood into one of his sidearm’s magazines. He was worried that the blood would jam the gun’s firing mechanism as he slammed the magazine into place and racked the slide.
Three of Enzo's bullets struck a greyskin in the chest in the space of a second. Semi-automatic, accept no substitute. A moment later, a fusillade of bullets struck the remaining five greyskins as about twenty players opened fire.
For a moment, Enzo thought it was strangely tragic as the Deluvians were mercilessly torn apart by overwhelming firepower. It was only a moment, however. Enzo remembered what they had done to Melkior, and any pity he felt disappeared without a trace.
Cadmium_Alchemist
https://i.imgur.com/qN8VU0m.png [https://i.imgur.com/qN8VU0m.png]