Pecos Mark's Posse

"Is the most kills bet still on?" Kevin asked as they watched the sea horses encircle them.

"Hold. Don't do anything rash yet, but be ready to equip your weapons." Derek said to them.

Kevin chuckled and equipped his greataxe. With one fluid motion, he decapitated one of the sea horses and its half-fish half-human rider using a baseball swing. Everything after that felt like it happened in slow motion. Without being alive, apparently whatever kept the density-shifting belts operating stopped functioning because the body and head of both corpses floated to the ocean floor much more slowly than out of the water.

The other sea horses got spooked and began bucking around with their riders on them. Fishmen began to abandon their mounts and the man who had spoken from the back began to yell at them.

"What in tarnation is going on here?! You mongrels get back in there and show those interlopers what the men of Pecos Mark's Possey can do!" He yelled as he took off his ridiculous-looking cowboy hat and began to swing it at them.

The man with the hat drew up short when he saw the decapitated sea horse and rider lying on the ground.

"What the hell?!" He cried out in shock as he took in the scene and then at the party standing calm and collected. All except Brian that is. "What are you monsters?"

"Monsters? Now that's just hurtful." James said with an evil grin on his face behind his breathing apparatus.

"Slim, we gotta get outta here and warn the boss about this!" Another fishman said to the man with the hat.

Slim scowled at the party but didn't look interested in doing anything about it. Gritting his teeth he finally made a decision.

"Move out. We will let Pecos Mark know what's happening. We'll be back you filthy scum! Just you wait. This town belongs to Pecos Mark!" The fishman apparently known as Slim said to them through gritted teeth.

"What? Leaving the party so soon? But you just got here." Tom said as he looked up and equipped his sword. "Can't have you leaving and coming back with an army or something, now can we?"

And with that, the entire team erupted into battle. Bullets flew, at the enemy, surprisingly fast for being underwater, swords, axes, and maces were swung at the enemy who were completely caught off guard. Well, every direction but one. Brian was ducking behind people and stabbing fishmen with his sword more out of surprise than any tactical thought. The fishmen screamed and tried to defend themselves, but they were no match for the might of Tom's team who had been training in a live combat situation since the apocalypse began.

They all died in a matter of seconds to the team's ruthless onslaught. Slim rolled over groaning from a slash across his chest that Tom had delivered.

"You...you really are monsters," Slim said looking up at him, coughing up a spout of blood that dribbled down his chin.

"Well, you didn't give us much choice partner," Tom said, adapting the apparent Western slang they were using. "You show up out of nowhere, everyone runs for cover so they are afraid of you, then you encircle us trying to be intimidating? Oh, no, that was the wrong strategy buddy."

"You'll regret...this," Slim said coughing up more blood, then the light left his eyes as his head fell back to the sandy floor.

Tom checked his inventory and was surprised to see how many monster cores the fishmen they had killed were worth. He had gained about seventy-five common cores from killing just a few people. He could get used to this kind of reward. Especially knowing that the whole thing was a generated dungeon. Maybe the System hadn't meant for them to kill the group? Whatever the case, he decided they needed to talk to the townspeople about what was going on.

Turning back to his team Tom was about to address them when he heard a cheer coming up from the town. Everyone was coming out of their homes to cheer their killing of the group from Pecos Mark.

"What is going on here?" James asked.

"I think it's pretty obvious. This Pecos Mark is intimidating these people and we are here to save them." Tom said.

"That's not what I meant. Why did Kevin not get in trouble for disobeying, but I do?" James asked indignantly.

"Oh, that's because he takes the fights seriously," Derek replied.

"I take them seriously," James protested, crossing his arms showing he was upset.

"You just tried to shoot fishmen in the dick. Which they don't seem to have, given how they just kept coming at you." Derek countered.

"Touche," James replied.

"I do think something is off here though," Derek replied.

"Something like what?" Tom questioned Derek.

"It seems a little cliche doesn't it?" Derek asked still looking at the townspeople as they gathered around them cheering.

"It's a dungeon that appears to be modeled after a Western. I would expect it to be pretty straightforward." Tom replied shaking a few hands that were extended to him.

"Okay people, time for some space! BACK UP!" Kiera suddenly yelled.

The crowd began to die down and they took a couple of steps back from the adventurers.

"Sorry, I don't like being crowded like that. Makes me uncomfortable." Kiera said.

"Weren't you a singer in a band? Wouldn't that put you in this position a lot?" Tom asked her.

"We mostly played bars and small clubs. We could go in the back. Not a lot of mobbing to do up on the stage." Kiera replied simply.

"What about in public?" James asked as if this didn't explain anything.

"Did you miss the part where I said we played in bars and small clubs? We weren't the Rolling Stones." Kiera turned and looked at him angrily.

"Alright, alright, look. Where is the mayor of the town? Can we talk to them?" Tom said to be heard above the murmur of the town.

A man wearing a big cowboy hat and a badge that read Sherrif walked forward to talk to them, pushing his way through the crowd.

"I'm both the mayor and the sheriff. Not many folks 'round these here parts are willing to be in charge so I kinda got picked by default." The man said. "Name's Montgomery. I want to thank you for what you did to Slim and his posse back there."

"It's not really a posse though is it?" James asked.

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"What?" Montgomery questioned looking at him as though he had two heads.

"A posse. It's supposed to be a group of people the sheriff rounds up to go capture the bad guys, not a group of bad guys that raids the town." James said, pausing while everyone looked at him strangely. "What? My dad loved spaghetti westerns and I picked up on the terminology. We live in Texas for crying out loud!"

"No, it's not that. Just, of all the knowledge for you to come through with for us, it couldn't have been more useless." Derek replied shaking his head.

"Why would we care what they call them? They're clearly the bad guys here. So they died." Tom stated, also shaking his head.

"Anyway, you all came along right in the nick of time," Montgomery continued, trying to skip past the interruption.

"What is it you all need from us? We know it's coming, so just spit it out." Tom said, trying not to waste too much time in this dungeon while they had a war to prepare for.

"Well, right to the point. I like a straight shooter. We need someone that can help us get rid of Pecos Clem." Montgomery said.

"I knew it. You want...wait what?" Tom said, suddenly realizing Montgomery had said a different name.

"We need your help getting rid of Pecos Clem," Montgomery repeated, confused why Tom had asked him to clarify.

"But, these guys said they were with Pecos Mark. Who the fuck is Pecos Clem?!" Tom said starting to get annoyed.

"Why the hell do you care what they are called? They want us to go throw ourselves at the enemy and I for one think we should just, not." Brian piped in.

Everyone just stared at him for a moment.

"UUUUUGGGGHHH...fine. Continue." Brian relented after seeing everyone else was against him on this point.

"Pecos Mark? That can't be right. He's out to the southeast with his own territories. They shouldn't be here. Pecos Mark and Pecos Clem have a truce of sorts for now. If they are here, that must mean..." Montgomery trailed off as he thought. "Oh, gods! They must be getting ready for a territory war. This is worse than I thought."

"Really? We can't even get away from it here?" Tom said feeling defeated as he facepalmed.

"Well, art does mimic real life or something like that," James said.

"Not helping again," Tom said not even bothering to look at James this time.

"So, you can't help us?" Montgomery asked nervously.

"We didn't say that. Ugh....fucking wars are everywhere today aren't they?" Tom complained, looking up at the sky.

"Well, look at it this way. We can go in and storm the bases without worrying about killing anyone we shouldn't." Derek offered, trying to help make the situation seem lighter.

"Oh! That reminds me! Pecos Clem stole the town's ladies of the night. So we need them rescued!" Montgomery added.

"For fuck's sake!" Tom yelled out at this pronouncement. "Are you fucking kidding me?! Why does this fucking universe have to shit on us with this assload of cunt licking, dick slapping, sack stamping..." Tom continued on his tirade of profanity for almost five minutes before finally calming down.

He had come into this dungeon expecting some time to enjoy a part of the new System-run world that he had always found exciting when he played games. He needed this to get away from the pressures of being the leader of a guild that was in the middle of a war on two fronts where everyone looked to him for the answers to their problems and as a savior of sorts. The pressure had been building for weeks and he was finally hitting his breaking point.

"That was impressive. Even by my standards." James whispered to Jay.

"Can you give us a minute, Mr. Montgomery?" Derek asked.

"Why, certainly. Take all the time you need." Montgomery replied, now a little afraid of setting Tom off.

"Dude, you okay? You seem a little stressed for being in a dungeon. You are normally really excited about this." Derek asked Tom when they had moved away from the group.

"I don't know. This is all just too much. I come here to take my mind off things and not have to strategize about how we will protect ourselves and attack our enemies, only to find myself in the exact same situation here." Tom explained.

"Yeah, it is kinda shitty. But think of it this way. It can be practice for how we attack Shandra and The Master out there. If we make a mistake here, we won't lose any lives of our people and have a chance to learn from that mistake for the real war." Derek tried to show Tom some silver linings.

"It just automatically makes me think of the situation back at Vanguard. I can't help it." Tom continued.

"Just remember you aren't doing that alone either. We may all be busy with getting things set up for our part in the war, but we are never too busy for you. We are friends. We are in this together and the outcome affects all of us. So you can come to us with those situations." Derek said, putting a hand on Tom's shoulder to show him he was there for him.

"I know that. It's just hard, because in the end all of the decisions, all of the negative outcomes, all of the possibilities rest on my shoulders. I feel like the weight of the world is crushing me slowly and eventually I'm just going to be left as nothing but a smear on the ground that people look at in disgust." Tom opened up about the feelings he was having. "I just wish that this wasn't happening."

"Look. Everyone wishes that hard times didn't find them or that they weren't being forced to carry the weight of the burdens they are carrying. We all would love to just go skipping through the flowers all day long making new friends and sipping margaritas. But we don't get to make that call. All we can do is make the best decisions we can at the time, then if there are consequences, we learn from that and move forward to be better than we were before." Derek said, moving in front of Tom to look him in the eyes.

"But what if I fail?" Tom asked. "What if people die?"

"Think about how many people have already died. Then think of how many people you have saved in this process. We have over a thousand people now in Vanguard who all chose to follow you because you gave them hope. You were the inspiration to what they do. People have already died while we were in this fight. Even during the war. Has anyone blamed you yet?" Derek asked.

"No," Tom admitted reluctantly.

"That's because they believe in you. Even when a friend loses their life, those that saw you as a beacon are still holding onto the hope that you give them that if absolutely nothing else, Vanguard is their best hope for a life in this new shithole of a world." Derek explained. "You give them that hope and you continue to show them that you are worthy to be the leader of the guild."

Tom had to admit that Derek was right. He had been focusing on all the negativity that had come along recently and he couldn't afford to continue to do that or he would bring everyone down with him and lose any chance they had of carving out a place for themselves in this new world. His face lightened at this thought.

"There we go. You are seeing what we all are now. You aren't alone. And even at the top, people are looking to you and no one is blaming you for doing what you think is right." Derek continued. "Now, let's get back to completing this dungeon."

Tom and Derek walked back over to the group together, Derek with one arm slung over Tom's shoulder.

"You all good now boss?" Jay asked.

"Yeah. Sorry. Needed to get that out of my system." Tom replied, a little out of breath from the yelling and pacing. "Alright. So, Mark first? Kill him then see about Clem and the whores?"

"We really prefer other terms," Montgomery began but quickly shut his mouth at the look Tom gave him.

"That sounds like the best way. We can gauge their strength without having to worry about the captives first, then plan a rescue." Derek said, thinking over their options. "So sounds like we have a plan.

"Where is Pecos Mark located?" Tom asked Montgomery.

"He's southeast of here, like I said before. Just follow the road and turn south at the fork instead of continuing east." Montgomery explained.

"What road? I didn't see any..." Tom broke off as he looked back and now there was a road carved into the sandy bottom of the ocean floor.

"Anyone else get the feeling this is a beta dungeon?" James asked looking at the road that was definitely not there before.

"Almost like things weren't planned out all the way or someone might be messing with us?" Kevin added.

"Why would someone, who would have to be a System Admin, be looking into the insignificant life of our party when there are probably billions of other planets out there?" Derek asked.

"I think the bottom line is, don't look a gift horse in the mouth," Tom said.

"Don't look a gift sea horse in the mouth, I think you mean," Jay added chuckling at his own joke.

Tom just glared at him.

"Right, wrong time, got it," Jay said holding up his hands in surrender.

"Now, when we get there, we hit them hard and fast so we don't give them time to set up. Killing these guys should mean they don't know we're coming." Tom instructed the team. "We can hopefully make a clean sweep."

"Also, be ready for a gunfight. I bet that's what is being set up here. So, Kiera, you'll hold back on a point you can sniper for us." Derek added to the plan. "That will give us some ability to close the distance."

"Got it. I'll keep 'em off ya." Kiera confirmed, a glint in her eye.

"We also can provide you with some transport, since you volunteered to help us," Montgomery added.

"What kind of transport?" Tom asked.

About half an hour later, the team was standing in a gigantic clam shell half with four dolphins hooked up to the front of it, ready to head out of the town.

"We look ridiculous," Tom sulked.

"It could be worse," Derek said.

"How?" Tom asked.

"We could all be wearing seashell bikinis, singing about forks, and talking to seagulls?" James joked looking over at Tom and Derek.

"Yeah, that's one way. This also could not be a fabricated dungeon with real-world consequences." Derek replied, recoiling slightly from the vehemence in Tom's words.

"You're right. Sorry. I'm going to be positive, I'm going to have a good time, and I'm going to get some XP." Tom's shoulders straightened as he thought about what Derek was saying.

Cracking the reins once, the dolphins took off down the road, pulling the clamshell behind them.

"We're coming for you, Pecos Mark. You can't hide from what you've done!"