We'd had a breakthrough. Arjun and his team, working closely to query the reality engine, had discovered how to learn the mechanics and setup of a fight without actually having to go there. That meant we were now able to target specific fights for specific mad tactics.

I had already noticed that some bosses froze everyone in stasis while they recited their monologue while others had a protective barrier around them, preventing the fight from starting early. We needed the first type, and Arjun had a whole list of options for me.

“And what about my idea?” Sage demanded.

“What idea?”

“Not telling you yet. Arjun thinks it’s good.”

“I have three candidates. I shall inform you if enemy teams set up an attempt on any of the three,” Arjun told her.

Since I wasn’t going to get an answer there, I looked over the list he had presented me. "Yeah, this one," I said. "This looks absolutely perfect."

It was a gauntlet boss, the third highest in its raid instance. The instance was themed with witches, goblins, and animated scarecrows, a little less Brothers Grimm and more “Halloween Superstore”.

This particular raid must have been harder than average because six of the ten starting teams had already bowed out, their kills getting just a little too high to bear. I could see why. Most of the mobs and bosses here used a lot of electric and spiritual damage. Those required some expensive potions and equipment buffs in order to mitigate. The death tolls had been sky high. The remaining teams had really deep pockets.

We were targeting a Proxima affiliated team of mixed animalkin called Allotropic Understatement. Team Mongoose, the Grignarians, and a few of our crafters who were looking for a change of pace had spent the morning harassing the team, giving them a few more losses and pushing their respawn bills up nice and high.

I called back our assassins and sent them elsewhere. We had deployed some remote spy turrets outside the boss's chamber so when the slightly haggard-looking group of animalkin began forming up outside the room, I knew it was time.

"Let's go, Sage," I said, picking up my hat and putting it on my head.

We stepped out of headquarters over to our node and then from there deep into the bowels of Castle Byalgrad. Captain Kobold was sitting by our entry port in a high-backed chair, sipping a mug of what I hoped was beer. It smelled more like urine to me.

He waved a hand to us. "Greetings, friend Shad, friend Sage. Back again?"

"Just here to cause some havoc," I said cheerfully.

"You are the greatest friend a Kobold has ever had," Captain Kobold said, his eyes getting misty. "You have saved so many of our lives already and dealt blows to our foes we can never hope to equal."

"That's all right," I said, picking the door that would lead me to our targeted instance. "Be right back. This shouldn't take long."

Sage and I popped up a flight of stairs and into the room. This was a classic boss room: a dank stone room with a bright green fire in the middle. The boss was a witch, something like the one we'd helped out with Hansel and Gretel but hunchbacked and with a big wart on her nose. She had a cauldron over the fire and was stirring it. She looked up as we entered.

I raised a hand to her. "Just here to watch," I said cheerfully. "We're on your side."

"So I see, my pretties." The witch went back to her cauldron. Sage and I melted into the shadows, activating our invisibility fields.

The witch's door creaked open and the animalkin trooped in. There were sixteen of them. They spread out around the room, setting themselves up as the witch stirred her cauldron, not seeming to notice.

Finally, a badger man carrying a shield and a truncheon approached the witch. He shouted. She looked up.

"Something I can help you with? Here to buy a love potion, my dear?"

Looking exasperated, the badger ran up and kicked over his cauldron. He jumped back, cradling his bare paw.

"Ow!"

"What did you expect, Lea’lk?" a rabbit woman called from behind. She aimed a beam of healing at him. "Get in position."

The witch raised her broom. Everyone froze as her spell hit them.

She began her opening monologue. According to the system's information, this was one of the longest monologues in the game. Two and a half minutes of the witch ranting and raving about ungrateful peasants and how we took everything for granted and that sort of thing. Didn’t matter; we were about to cut it short.

Sage broke invisibility. She ran forward and tossed her Lasso around the witch's shoulders.

"Did it!" she shouted triumphantly.

It was true that Tame didn't work on bosses. It also didn't usually work on friends, but Dwight had crafted her a very special module, taking apart a couple of minion buff devices we had earned in phase two to build her a Friendly Firebox. With it activated, her Tame let her control an affiliated non-player character, even a boss.

The Tame settled over the witch. "Cancel monologue!" Sage yelled. "Get 'em!"

I held my breath. This was the part I was nervous about because I wasn't quite sure if canceling the monologue was going to work the way I hoped.

It did.

The witch snapped out of her rant. She raised her broom and shot a bolt of lightning that zapped between all of the still-frozen combat miners, dropping their hitpoints precipitously.

You see, the monologue was separate from the spell she'd cast to hold them in place. That was timed to last as long as her speech should. By bypassing the speech, we'd set her free early, but our opponents were stuck in place for the next two minutes and fifteen seconds.

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The witch ran for the tank. She grabbed him in her suddenly long and grasping talons and tore him to shreds.

"Eugh," Sage said. "That's kind of gruesome."

The witch started to rip his heart out, but the badger man dissolved into sparks. Screaming in rage, the witch raced for the next of the animalkin.

I just watched, amused. There really wasn't anything for me to do here as long as the witch made short work of them, which she did. Sage kept retasking the witch as each of the enemy fell in turn.

In less than two minutes, they were all dead. The gate creaked back open. Sage released her Tame. The witch shuddered and turned to us.

"What just happened, dearies?" she asked. "I feel like I had visitors here, but they all seem to have gone. Was I a poor hostess?"

"Not at all," I said, tipping my hat to her again. "Thanks for your help here."

"Hey," Sage said. “Remember that cool idea I had? The one with three possible targets? Well, Juana says they're moving in now. Want to give it a try?"

“I don’t know. Do I?”

I listened as she explained her idea. Grinning, I nodded. "Let's go."

#

It took us two minutes to transit between the instances. This one was an outdoor setting in the middle of a forest. A group of armed men surrounded a broken-down carriage holding single-shot pistols or steel rapiers. A woman in gauzy pink with a tall princess hat atop her head sat on the rack of the ruined coach, hands clasped to her breast as she cried out for help.

"They're coming from the north," Sage said, just as twelve of the mostly human-looking aliens, Vada’s people, or close relatives thereof, burst out of the trees.

The highwaymen went on alert right away, moving toward them. The enemy team's tank ran forward. He was carrying a shield and had a grenade in one hand that I recognized as something our own crafters had made, a wide-area taunter. It would let him attract the attention of the eight highwaymen while his team took them down.

The highwaymen were already in action as the scenario triggered, leaping forward to engage with the enemy team. No freeze and monologue here. My turn.

I emerged from the trees and targeted the tank, and then I threw High Noon. He stopped dead where he was, the taunt grenade in his upturned hand.

"What the—?” he exclaimed, looking around. "Something's wrong! I can’t throw the grenade!” The crew of highwaymen ran right past him and fell into the middle of his raid.

I stepped out, my gun in my hand, grinning. "I'm afraid we're gonna have to wait to start our duel until I see what happens to the rest of your raid," I said, as the others with him shouted in dismay.

"You're that indigenous fellow who's been messing with people. Why are you doing this?" the tank cried angrily. There wasn't really anything else he could do until I fired. High Noon was in effect. He couldn't leave, couldn't shoot, couldn't do anything except look mad while the opponents trashed his raid.

I checked with Sage. "You've got a buff on them, right?"

"Sure do," she said happily. As long as she cast Cowgirl Cheer on the highwaymen, they would count as our minions, which meant any deaths they caused would have the 10x cost multiplier applied. I was working on getting our crafters to build some sort of auto-buffing turrets that would apply a similar effect to all the bosses. If we could deploy them everywhere, it would really speed up how fast our enemies ran out of money.

"Look, we didn't do anything to you. Can't we negotiate some sort of deal? If we don't make our money back, we're sunk. My team's gonna go back into storage."

I'd heard Veda mention that concept once before. "I'm sorry," I said. "We've got to defeat all of you, or else we lose."

The tank looked like he was about to cry. It was easier to read his expression than those of the orcs or the space elves. They might not be quite human, but they were close enough.

"That's it then. We're wiped out," he said as the rest of his team fell. The highwaymen retreated, gathering around us with their swords out. But I didn't drop High Noon just yet.

"Hang on," I said curiously. "So now you're out of cash?"

He shrugged. "Basically. We really had to get this fight down if we were going to stay in it."

"Who do you work for?" I asked.

"We're unaffiliated. We hire out to companies that need good phase two and three fighters. Been working with Alabaster Sky mostly."

“Not Proxima?"

"Those assholes?" He spat. "They’re the reason my family's in debt. Made a bad deal with them three generations back and still haven't climbed out of that hole."

"I might have a proposition for you," I said. I turned to the highwaymen. "Hey guys, can we get some space here?"

"But of course, Captain," the leader said, sweeping his hat off. It had a tall red feather plume on it that brushed the ground as he bowed.

The highwaymen returned to the coach and began chatting with the unhappy girl, who cheered up quite a bit as they returned. She smiled and winked at the highwayman leader.

I turned back to the tank from the team we had just knocked out of this competition. "How many other teams are still active in your instance?"

"Three, I think," he said, frowning. "It's been pretty bad. This is only the second time we've ever encountered a Phase Three with fights like this. It's usually a lot more straightforward. And then the soul coin cost for deaths really did a number on us. The conglomerates came sniffing around, offered to bankroll us if we'd sign an agreement with them, but honestly, I'd rather go back into storage than accept their indentures.”

"How many people on your team?"

He shrugged. "You saw 'em. We have another 40 active family members who do farming and crafting for us, but they couldn't come this time because of how you locals were messing up this attempt. My sister's really put out about that. She was going to be her first time on gathering duty.”

"Sucks to be her," Sage said cheerfully. "Some of us didn't get asked if we wanted to come."

"I've got an idea," I said, ignoring Sage's interjection. "Your team know how to fight. You don't have an existing commitment to the big conglomerates. How would you like to be privateers?"

"What's that?" The fellow looked nervous.

I stuck my hand out. "I'm Shad Williams."

He looked uncomfortable but shook. "Jan Hanaspor. My company is called Bright Lights of Orion."

I assumed that that got translated since Orion was a figure from human mythology. Then again, I didn't know how much the progenitors and the reality engines had messed with the development of worlds all across the galaxy. Maybe our myths and legends were common across the galaxy.

"Well, Jan, it's good to meet you. And a privateer is like mercenaries except instead of hiring you, we let you pay us an affiliation fee."

"Why would we do that?" he asked, his brows knitting together. "I just explained we're out of money."

"Because if you do join us as an affiliate, you'll be allowed to hunt down our enemies. That is, anyone who isn't part of Team Tunnel Rat. Your respawn costs disappear and you get a bounty for every one of them you kill."

His eyes widened. "Wait, how much?"

"3% of what it costs each of them to respawn. And remember, you'll be inflicting that 10x multiplier."

His lips moved as he did the math. "The next camp over, they've had 50 deaths already so far. They've got Proxima backing them, so they've been spending like water. But that means..." His mouth dropped open. "Uh, yeah, okay. I mean, I have to talk to the rest of my team, but we could do that."

I held up a hand. "All right. Once you've got the authority to make that agreement, I want you to get in touch with our representatives up on the Citadel. Talk to Brightfeather Unlimited. We'll get a binding contract and then you guys can get back in the game. And tell you what, if you know anybody else who might like the same offer, put them in touch with me. Care of my manager, Veda Tvedra. Brightfeather Unlimited.”

"I will," Jan said hurriedly. "Yeah, let me get back and tell everybody the good news right away."

"Don't abandon your camp," I warned him. "And don't tell anyone else what you're doing, not until you're ready to start. You want to get your first few kills in when they don't know what's coming for them."

Jan nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. All right. And, wow, thanks. You didn't have to."

I shrugged. “We aren't trying to be assholes here. We're just trying to keep what's ours. It's the big conglomerates that are our real enemies."

"You can say that again," he said. "All right. Thanks, Shad. We'll be in touch."

"Oh," I said, remembering, "Sorry. I got to do this, and I guess you'll have to pay the cost, but I don't have a choice."

I raised my gun and fired a Trick Shot into his head. High Noon canceled. He just stood there while I filled him full of lead. "I've never seen anyone so happy to die," I commented as he vanished.

“He looks just like you do every time you get yourself blown up," Sage remarked. "Let's get back to Grandpa and tell him what you've done."

"I think Juana might actually think it was clever.”

She rolled her eyes. “You just keep telling yourself that.”