Chapter 53 - Halting the Hordeling Horde
"What the fuck?!" Søren shouted as he looked up towards the Gateway stations in the sky passing overhead.
What the actual fuck... seems like every fiction trope or game mechanic is being blended into a slapdash amalgam with no rhyme or reason, he thought to himself as he glanced back at Jarth. The young man from Karlsfjord was quaking.
"What should I do? Should I take the quest? Th-that's a lot of hordelings," Jarth said to Søren. He watched Jarth's eyes jittering back and forth as he scanned the quest notification.
"Yeah, go ahead Jarth. You'll want the rewards," Søren suggested. He dug into the pack of supplies taken from the Scrappers and pulled out a hand crossbow and a brace of bolts for it. "Do you know how to use this?"
Jarth nodded and took the small crossbow from Søren. The brace of bolts was then added to Jarth's belt.
"Thanks for this Søren. I'm better with a shortbow or dagger, but this will do."
"I'm going to invite you to the party. That way you can see where Neeka is and avoid hitting her with an errant attack," Søren said to Jarth, mentally commanding his interface to reach out to Jarth and bring him into the party. The former captive of the Scrapper's quickly accepted the party invite and his avatar and status information appeared in the party menu beneath Sehro.
The avatar had a static image of Jarth with a small numeral three in a circle beneath it, in place of the copper symbols used by Søren, Neeka, and Sehro. A second icon showed a sword and shield. Søren focused his [Analyze] skill on Jarth and was rewarded with a status screen completely unlike his own. Instead of a Path system, it appeared Jarth was a 3rd Level Warrior with a class specialization waiting for him to select. The level of threat from Jarth felt like a low copper Hordeling felt.
"Jarth, you're a 3rd level Warrior, yes?" Søren asked.
"Yeah. I got the last expy I needed after you rescued me. For surviving," he explained. "I need to visit the obelisk to pick my subclass though. I'm leaning towards Knight, but Slayer sounds fun too. I really wanted to be a Warlock, but ya know, selling my soul or first born for power didn't seem like a good deal. Mage might have been fun too, but the obelisk said I didn't have the 'app-ti-tood' for it. I think that means I wasn't smart enough, but it was being polite. Temeira got to be a Mage, but she's always been a smart one. Dran respecced as a Healer after getting his face busted up. Good thing too. Temeira might have lost her leg to a Lesser Slime gnawing on it if he hadn't. It ate through her leather armor like it was paper. "
Were Søren not wearing his guardian helm, he would have been pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation at Jarth, despite the bit of lore dump and knowledge gained. It's gotta be the corruption from Collective or maybe just bad programming. The AI and hardware processing responsible for all this must be converting game mechanics behind the scenes on the fly. There's no way any of these mechanics could interact this well otherwise. Søren shook the thoughts out of his head and returned his focus to the minimap showing Sehro sneaking past the horde of Hordelings and getting closer to Karlsfjord.
Søren > Time to start the distraction Neeka.
Neeka > I concur. Moving into position.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Jarth > What's this?
Jarth > This is awesome.
Jarth > It's typing what I think.
Jarth > Temeira would go crazy for this.
Jarth > Ahhhhhh!?! How do I get it to stop typing? Stop. Please stop.
Søren > It takes some time to get used to it, Jarth. I'm going to add a slow mode to your chat, so you don't spam the rest of us while we're concentrating on the battle.
Jarth > Ok, thank you Søren. Man, I hope he doesn't hate me after that.
Søren chuckled at Jarth and scooted up towards the ridge. He marked an area for Jarth to concentrate on and sent it over to the young man's interface. He brought up his [Artemis Scout Rifle (Silver I)] and slaved the scope on the rifle to the interface on his visor. Subtle adjustments to the zoom brought focus to the nearest tunnel entrance the Hordelings were funneling into.
Reminiscent of any number of alien movies or computer games, the horde of Hordelings flowed over the landscape into the tunnel like a shifting wave of chitin. Gonna need something bigger than this rifle. Søren delved into his [Path of the Shaper] and drew heavily on his TEK. Three matte black egg shaped devices appeared on the ground in front of him. The [Mk I Thermobaric Grenade] didn't look like much, but he hoped it would make a difference. Each one took 300 TEK to create. He quickly fashioned release mechanisms and attached them to two drones to carry the grenades to the tunnels.
Søren > Sending a present over to our Hordeling friends, Neeka.
Neeka > I wait with straight eyes for whatever you send them.
Søren attached two of the grenades to the drones, keeping the third for himself to use if needed later. A few taps on a dataslate slaved the drones to his visor and interface, sending them along marked paths with a release of the grenades at fifty feet over the tunnels. He then triggered a couple of his boosters, an [Experience Booster III] and a [TEK Booster III], increasing his XP and TEK gains by 25% for the next four hours.
The two drones flitted into the sky and darted along the path Søren had marked for them. A few Hordeling Hunters noticed the drones heading towards the tunnel entrances and expelled meter long spikes shaped into javelin like weapons at the drones. Søren panicked as one drone was knocked off course briefly, but remained undamaged, and sent them into evasive patterns the rest of the way towards the tunnels.
The Hunters chased after the drones, scrambling over Hordelings and Maulers. Several of the smaller variety got pierced by the Hunter's talons if they didn't move out of the way fast enough. Søren noticed the mission log recording these deaths, and crediting them to the party. A second graze from one of the Hunter's chitin javelins concerned Søren enough to alter the drones commands. Instead of dropping the grenades from a safe height, the drones would drive themselves straight into the tunnels in order to deliver their explosive payloads.
Søren > Take cover now!
Jarth and Neeka hugged the ground in front of them. Søren leaned forward and then sent the drones their final commands. He then triggered the timer on the grenades before the connection with them through the drones was lost. The Hordeling Hunters increased their mad scramble to try and keep up with the drones, doing little more than ensuring their death when the thermobaric grenades exploded.
The drones spun through the air, avoiding the Hunter's last ditch efforts to bring them down with the chitin javelins. Each drone flipped over at a precise distance from the tunnel entrances and engaged their thrusters to maximum, allowing them to strike the ground like metal slugs fired from a railgun. The grenades bounced free from the drones, dispersing a rich, atomized fuel into the air just half a second before igniting the fuel-air mixture. The tunnel entrances vanished in a silent eruption of dirt, smoke, and flame. Søren watched as dozens of Hordelings burst into pieces from the overpressure.
Then the muffled whump of the two explosions reached him, Neeka, and Jarth. Søren grinned behind the faceplate of his Guardian armor.
"Big bada boom."