I logged back in to find several of my skirmishers had evolved and become brutes, who were protecting surrounding the bar in ready combat stances. Poncho sat atop the bar with his arms crossed looking relaxed. When I looked at his status bar I could see his level was now four. His wife, who had never spoken to me, was the first to say something as I rose. She bowed, hand on the hilt of her blade, and gave me a report of what happened while I was gone.
“Five humans came to this location to find you, they were able to kill two of our group before we surrounded them and killed them. They were scouts for a larger group who didn’t realize we were with you. They may know now since we fought around your body defensively.” ‘Woah.’ The young Swineling woman spoke with such articulation it made me overlook what she had actually said for a moment. I just stared at her wide eyed. I guess she never spoke to me directly so I wasn’t aware she was so fluent in the common language of Yonder. After the awkward pause where I just stared at her for a moment I started to process what she said.
I mumbled the words “How long ago was this?” Still reeling from her speech capabilities more than the meaning of the words.
“A half an hour in g-” she stopped what she was about to say and made a nervous look at Poncho. Now that she was in my raid party I could read her stats fully.
Annabell - Level 5 - Swineling Scout
It made sense for her to specialize in scouting, she seemed to have a knack for knowing where to go. When traveling to the mining outpost we zig-zagged through the forest. At first I thought maybe we were wandering aimlessly but the fact we didn’t run into a single mob made me think that she was avoiding encounters. It wasn’t an aimless wander to a place she barely remembered, but an intentional path that avoided fights. Before I could follow up Poncho hopped off the bar and approached me, smacking his closed fist against his chest.
“Bell arrived a few minutes before you woke back up.” He said, giving a sharp look at his wife. “There are already a few hundred players on the way to this location. They are moving slowly and methodically in a semi circle. They will arrive here in less than an hour.” Bell nodded, looking grateful to Poncho for taking the lead. He too was articulating well but I still heard the grunts and snorts behind his words. As if speaking to him was some auto-translated speech and Anabell was really speaking common. Both Swinelings looked uncomfortable, but I would too if I was about to die at an adventuring party.
“Thanks, you two did really well.” They both looked relieved to hear me praise them. Maybe they thought I’d be upset with them since two of our party died, leaving us with twenty-two including myself. “Do we know if we can escape through the mining tunnels?” Bell shook her head no.
“They just loop back around to each other, there is no through passage within them.” She said in a distraught voice “And leaving in any direction will guarantee we run into them. They are going slow to allow more humans to catch up with them, as well as so they can reserve their stamina for chasing us when we inevitably do run. They have some pla- er…uhm humans-moving loudly as bait.” It wasn’t a good situation. If we waited for them they would increase in size, but if we went out there we were going to be met with ambushes. Any one of these beefed up Swinelings with my [Monster Sympathizer] ability could one-on-one a player, maybe even two-on-one, but if there were a hundred we wouldn’t be able to fight them in a head on battle. My ability didn’t give any defense or resistance to players, just four times damage. It was like hitting an automatic double crit every attack, but that didn’t stop the players from doing big damage right back to them. Swinelings were a weird race that had high wisdom and charisma, but all their attack styles used dexterity or strength. They also didn’t have any ranged weapons or skills. The only skill I saw on their sheets was one that let them triple their movement speed in a short burst towards the nearest target. I wasn’t sure how to utilize them without getting them all killed.
“How deep do the cave paths go?”
“They range from a quarter mile, to a couple miles in length. There were likely monsters in it at some point but they were wiped out.” Bell made a side eye at Poncho, and he nodded his head. The other Swinelings were much less sentient, one picking his nose then eating it, holding eye contact with me the whole time. He reached in and grabbed another. I waved for Poncho and Bell to follow me and walked outside the bar so I could inspect the area for myself. There was hardly any cover in the area besides the few dilapidated buildings around the plateau. If the women from Terra were with them she’d be able to pick off Swinelings from the tree line easily.
Stolen story; please report.
“If we can bottleneck them around one of the bends we might be able to fight them off. If they realize that two of the cave entrances are connected by a single tunnel they will be able to overwhelm us though.” Bell put her tiny fat fingers against her chin while looking into the distance. She didn’t seem convinced it would work. “Unless you have a better plan?”
“Unfortunately I don’t. There are a few dozen mining picks in the cave system. If we arm the Swinelings with them and get the advantage of surprise it might work. You should be able to take large numbers of them out with your flame ability. Hopefully we can hold the line. Just spam that over and over again while giving us orders and this might work out.” She made a distant stare again toward the trees where the players would soon be coming out. Then, looked at me expectantly.
“Well, let's get to it.” Bell and Poncho both smiled when I said this to them, and the Swinelings moved into the cave.
It took only fifteen minutes for the players to send a new scouting group, this one had an NPC with them as well. There were ten this time, and the moment they entered the cave system it was too late for them. Twelve of my Swineling Brutes immediately ran around the first bend in the path and hit their [Charge] skill. Only two scouts were able to react quick enough, one turning into a wisp of smoke and appearing several feet back, and the other parried the first two swings of a pick ax. The one who parried fell a second later to a third and fourth swing by Poncho who had already dispatched his target. The one who did a short range teleport shot a bolt from a crossbow, hitting a Swineling in the head and dropping him instantly. He was able to reload and get one more shot off into another Swinelings chest before he was swarmed and killed. Yuri would be able to use an employee database and AI to check if they were Terra Group or not, but I had no way of knowing until later. I had the Swinelings back up into the cave and regroup. Bell stood there nervously.
“We got trouble, the players are splitting into four groups. One of them must know how these cave tunnels connect. Shit. Shit. Shit. Two melee groups are going to try and enter each entrance, with ranged units waiting in the back.” Bell said with a distant terror stricken face. ‘How does she know this from inside the cave? Her sheet doesn’t have any range based scouting skills’ That’s when it dawned on me, she didn’t call the players humans like the other monsters, she called them players.
“Wait are you a player?” Poncho and Bell both froze for a moment, looking at each other. “You’re both players aren't you?”
“We are not players Noah, we are monsters. Just a bit mor-” Poncho cut her off before she said more
“Bell, Noah, you two need to escape. If we leave the cave from the front you’ll have time to slip out the back. We will make a full charge and distract them for you two. Get out of here and stick to the plan.” ‘The plan?’ The Swinelings were just giving me more questions than answers, but I didn’t want to get set to respawn and lose my momentum. And I especially didn’t want to spend the next few days in this game sitting in a jail cell. Bell looked like she was going to object but Ponch grabbed her in an embrace, eyes tearing up. He whispered something in her ear I couldn’t hear and then pushed her towards me. Without another word he turned to the less talkative Swinelings and snorted a battlecry. Before Bell could object they had already rounded the corner and hit their [Charge] skills.
I stood there dumbfounded, but it was Bell who grabbed me by the hand and pulled me along. It was only a short five minute jog to get to the exit, but before we left the cave entrance Bell had me stop dead in my tracks. We waited for several seconds until she deemed the coast was clear and we high-tailed it out of the cave system into the forest. Bell looked back without breaking her pace, whispering a few words, only the last two audible.
“My love.”