Phase Two of Noodles' Master Plan involved the hardest challenge of all - patience. The timing was important. Now that we'd struck at the Pigs, we couldn't hit the Centurions straight away. Four days passed while we watched and waited to see how the Hell Pigs would react. Fortunately for us, they acted like wasps. Once we'd kicked the nest, the results were pretty predictable.

"Wow, look at them go," Angel fingerspelled to me. She had a pair of binoculars pressed to her eyes with the other hand, watching as a group of six Pigs fell on a three-man Centurions patrol. Not just any Pigs: three Hyena Boys, easily recognizable by their hyena-skull helmets. The braves had been silent up to the moment they and their mounts launched out of the trees onto the trail, screeching and giggling. The Centurions were in their own territory, complacent, and on foot. No matter what Merc thought about Centurions discipline, there was no contest. The trio were slaughtered like dogs.

"Gruesome. Still, means that our cunning plan is working." My nose stuck out from the hide just a fraction, enough to catch the scents on the wind and look out through a narrow funnel of leaves and reeds. Angel had built the hide at the edge of the marsh, where it looked like one of many piled Great Heron nests heaped along the shoreline. "Clive Magazine must have ridden into Oil Town to help shore it up. I didn't expect the Hyena Boys to show up and start whacking Centurions."

"Ooohn," Lulu agreed.

"Clive’s ambitious. If he wants to hold his position, he has to look tough. Which absolutely suits our purposes," Angel signed back. "Also, Merc sent some leads on Centurion supply caravans running between Fort Hope and the warfront forts just before you woke up. It's sketchy, because the Centurions are way better at keeping their convoys secret. But if it bears out...?"

"As long as we aren't hitting a military column by mistake, we should be good," I said. "I've been thinking about what Merc said, and she's a hundred-percent right. We need Targent to think you've defected to the Hell Pigs. That means we can't involve the Maroons this time."

"No?" She gave me a querulous look.

I grunted softly, then corrected myself and telepathically signed agreement. "No, because Targent is likely to recognize Merc from her description, given she was a general. If that happens, game over. We can't involve her or anyone else in the Maroons with a history in the Centurions."

Angel's smile turned to one both self-deprecating and ironic. "And here I was, trying to scheme ways to convince Merc to hijack the wagons and lead them to safety, with you and me not even appearing. But you’re right. Targent needs to focus on us, on me. If he thinks I've defected and am in Oil Town, blabbing my mouth about Centurions secrets to the Pigs..."

I twitched my tail in agreement. "Exactly. He WILL attack Oil Town. Hate to say it, but my fellow men are predictable that way. Like, he doesn't even have to think you're giving up stuff on the Centurions. He’ll see you with the legion he feels entitled to own, dressed like a barbarian babe and giving him the finger on camera, and lose his goddamned mind."

"Mmhmm. He definitely has that kind of small dick energy." Angel took her binoculars down as the Pigs rode away into the marsh, spurring their raptors and ululating in triumph. One of them had taken a head, and was holding it out in front of him, waving it like some kind of weird censer out ahead of him as he rode.

"So, what are our options for caravans?" I asked. "It's time to make our next move."

Angel concentrated a moment, and I got an alert as a message arrived in my inbox - a copy of Merc's email, which contained unsigned, untitled columns of coordinates. I pulled my head back and lay down inside the hide to match the coordinates to my map. Each column marked out a trail from Fortuna to the Warfront.

"Clever girl," I muttered.

There was one trail that interested me for sure. It wound through a semi-concealed road, an old riverbed sunken into the earth and flanked by narrow mudstone cliffs. The trail was directly connected to Fort Hope, and it saw regular weekly use according to Merc's data. That meant it was supplying Targent with something the fort needed. Food, oil, ammunition... it didn't really matter, because it wasn't the goods themselves that were important to us. It was the degree to which their theft would piss of Targent that mattered.

"This one." I zoomed my map out and enabled sharing so that Angel could see it, and tapped her on the shoulder with a tenta-claw to get her attention. Once she was looking, I jabbed the sharp bony tip at the location. "There's a direct line from the big city to the Warfront along this road, but look at it. It's obscured from above, and the path they take, it's really out of the way compared to other trails... yet it merges into the main road barely three miles from Fortuna. They're transporting something valuable along this route, I know it."

Angel scrunched her nose up. "Looks easily defensible. For them. And if it's valuable, they'll have high-level gladiators and legions protecting it. Some of Kaban’s champions, probably."

"Yes, but..." I zoomed in on one small part of the road. "I'm not thinking we try to take this caravan head-on. I think we blow these cliff overhangs and drop rock on them. Assuming we can make explosives."

Angel was looking increasingly interested. "Explosives... I can get a Schema for that, but I need to harvest jellyfish and a certain kind of plant for the materials. Emberlight Jellies only spawn in the ocean. Firebloom grows near oilfields, so I can probably find it near to here."

We were only about thirty miles from the ocean. Not really that big of a trip for me, as long as I was unencumbered. "Shallow water jellyfish?"

"Mmhmm."

"Leave it to me, then. I'll go overnight."

"Moo too!" Lulu squeaked. Quietly.

"No, not this time," I thought back to her. "You need to stick with Angel. Protect her. She's going to be looking for this flower in Pigs territory... she needs you."

Lulu thought about it for several moments. "Hmm... ookoo."

"Hey, your speech HAS gotten better since you ate that dude. There's like… new syllables in there now." I cocked my head toward Lulu. "Did you learn anything from him? Knowledge? Occult secrets?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Lulu vibrated with recollection, then mimed shaking her 'head' from side to side. "Nuu... Hool Poogs nuu veroo smoort."

"Hah. You're not wrong." I rumbled, dismissed the map, and lay my chin down on top of my paws. "Well, I'll go to the beach, then. After a nap."

***

The idea that thirty miles wasn't a 'long' way to run still felt kind of surreal. But at Level 20 with an empty inventory, my legs chewed up the distance like it was nothing. I felt like I could canter for most of the day, bounding and skipping over relatively flat terrain, or moving by leaping between trees. I couldn't remember what it was like to be human... and honestly, I was kind of glad I wasn't one.

It took me just over an hour to reach the rocky shoreline. This was a volcanic beach, studded with barnacle-covered black rockpools and blue-black sand that glittered under the harsh midday sun. The jellyfish were not hard to find. They were the size of a human torso, white with crimson streaks that resembled licking flames. Wielding my tentacles like fishing spears, I was able to skewer four at a time. And now, whenever I stabbed something with the punch puds, they ejected rows of wicked, curving hooks that latched into things. That was pretty cool. And terrifying.

[New Creature discovered: Emberlight Jelly. Very poisonous, the otherwise peaceful jellyfish are serious but gentle threat to gladiators in the seas of Malae. The large poison sacs contain a flammable liquid that can be used to make explosives and a cheap fuel.]

"Fucking hell... did they use a 2010s language translator to write this thing?" I lashed my tail as I read.

There was a gasp and a scuffle from my left. My head snapped around, tentacles rearing. It was a kid, maybe fourteen years old, wild-eyed and hollow-cheeked from hunger. For a couple of minutes, we stared at each other. He haltingly drew a crude stone arrow, and nocked it to the equally crude bow in his hands.

"I need a Legion... I need a Legion, I have to defeat Vanara..." he whispered. "Oh man... this one's SUPER rare..."

I blinked a couple of times. One set of eyelids, then the other. Then I pulled a jellyfish from my Inventory and hucked it at him.

"AIIIIEEE!" The kid screamed and dodged out of the way, wildly firing the bow. The arrow clinked off my armored skin, and I watched it drop to the ground while the kid flailed at the fifty pounds of spicy jello encasing his legs. He managed to get it off him and fled back into the Jungle, still yelling.

"Jeez." Shaking my head, I bounded back down the shore and vanished - and tried to ignore the angry all-capslock spam in my fan chat demanding to know why I hadn't murdered a child in cold blood.

The next morning, me, Angel and Lulu left our base before dark, heading for the crevasse. Lulu and I were loaded down with barrels of what was basically napalm, while Angel jogged along on foot. We made double time with only one break to avoid a Hell Pigs patrols on our way to the secret road.

"The timestamps on the coordinates list says they should have just left Fortuna," Angel signed, huffing with effort as she vaulted a log on the path. "Which means we have about two hours to set up.

"Think it’ll be enough?" It wasn’t just her: I was huffing, too. Each barrel weighed nearly a hundred pounds, and I was carrying six. We’d nearly brought the junk turret for some extra firepower, but after some thought, had decided to leave it at home to watch our base. Just in case it was discovered.

"It'll have to be," Angel signed back. “As long as we’re not late, we should be fine. Otherwise… back to Step 1. Find the right caravan to ambush.”

It was a steep upward climb from the lowlands of the Primordial Forest – three hours of trekking before we reached the [Umbrella Crevasse]. A stretch of hard, sun-baked earth scattered with gravel and tufts of razorgrass gave way to a huge zig-zag crack that divided the volcanic plateau like a lightning strike. A hundred and fifty feet below that crack was the road, winding through a dark, chilly, damp tunnel. Even from here, I could smell it. The shade-loving ferns and croaking animals, the trickle of water running down along limestone walls. The only light this narrow, secret biome received were from a sliver of midday sunlight that lasted maybe half an hour a day, and the glowing fungi that grew in great blue and pink carpets along the canyon walls.

"This place stinks of wild Legions, dinosaurs, or both," Angel signed. "There has to be Troodons down there. Maybe even Megalosaurus. Or giant insects... mantises, beetles, Whiphorses."

"Yeah. No thanks." My stomach churned at the thought of another giant praying mantis. I’d had enough of those for a lifetime. “What IS a Whiphorse, exactly?”

"No idea. Some kind of Greater Legion, but I’ve never seen one. Just heard about them from Sam. They’re one of the two S-rank Greater Legions that spawn on the island. Super dangerous."

“Huh,” I thought back. “Lord spare me from whatever one of those is, then.”

Angel paused to continue assembling her climbing gear: a rappel line, spikes, hammer and harness. We'd sacrificed some of our precious iron to make D-rings and carabiners. While she did that, Lulu extruded a pseudopod and used it to peer over the sharp drop. "How oo woo goo’in doon?"

"Angel here's going to rappel to the ground. And you and me... we're going to have to figure that out." I padded over to her and looked down, searching the distant shadows for bugs. My skin tensed as something small rushed through the brush below, chirping... but then the ferns went still. "Way too far to jump, especially while we’re weighed down. I'm thinking that you take these barrels down the rope, one or two at a time. Then I'll pull up the equipment here and bounce down somehow."

"Ooh. Ooverhoong." Lulu made a little 'arm', and jabbed it toward the edge of the crack.

"Yeah, big overhang. Don't worry, about me, kid. Reapers are built to climb." I experimentally tensed my claws into the rock. Sadly, they did not magically sink into it. "I'll work it out."

Ahead of us, Angel took a hammer and began to pound an iron anchor into the stone. A lot more effective than my feet.

"Are you just good at everything?" I asked her, watching her rig the pulley and required knots with skilful hands.

Angel blushed, then flashed me the ghost of a smile. "I used to have pretty bad ADHD, so not everything. Just anything with my hands. I DID grow up on a ranch near the mountains."

"... New Mexico has mountains?"

Angel scoffed. "Yeah, only like... two thirds of the state."

"I guess I kinda think of Colorado and Arizona as being the mountainous part of the southwest." I rumbled with amusement. "Always figured New Mexico was like Mexico-Mexico. Flat and low and dry."

"Nope. Most of it is high and rocky and dry. In the area I'm from, you're always a few thousand feet above sea level. We had two mountain ranges within an hour's drive of us, and the City of Rocks. My dad used to take me camping out there every year, we..." She trailed off, fingers faltering. "Anyway, I need to finish this rig. Hang on."

Angel looked down. She frowned while she finished getting her line ready.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to bring up bad memories," I said.

"No, they're good memories. That's the problem." Angel gave a little shake of her head, eyes downcast while she signed. "Turn around."

"Whuu?" Lulu made a sound of concern as I sighed, heaved myself up, and turned and plunked back down.

"She's getting changed," I said to her. "I think."

Lulu bobbled in agreement. “Oohh.”

When Angel signalled me to turn back, I looked over my shoulder. She was in the armor we'd looted from the Hell Pigs Elites, including the [King Pig Valor Token]. The leather, sinew and hide armored top had looked a lot more comprehensive on a man's body. On Angel, it was little more than a scrap of decorated leather that barely covered her modest bust, plus a harness with overloaded spiked shoulder pads. Her head and face were mostly covered by a hyena skull helmet with a tall mohawk of feathers. The pants rode low. My brows arched.

"Not a word." She scowled at me as she clipped herself into the harness. "Not one."

"Wasn’t gonna say a damn thing." I made a show of licking the back of one paw and washing my face. "Other than the fact this game clearly has an all-male Eastern European dev team."

Angel groaned aloud and gave the sky - and the unseen dev team - the middle finger before she backed to the edge of the crevasse. "Alright. See you down there."

I reared onto my hind legs and saluted with a tentacle. Angel smiled, then jumped backwards into the open air.

She was halfway to the ground when I realized we had a problem.