Shad was in total ducking hell.

Featherless avians with spiked bills waddled towards him. Flames smoldered in their empty eye sockets, and their glowing webbed feet left burning footprints on the rocky ground. Far overhead, the black roof of the cavern was a mass of spikes hanging down, sharp nightmare shapes glinting red and orange from the flames. In every direction, rocks were twisted into strange sculptures, like frozen blobs of melted wax, interspersed with pools of fire.

Through it all came the cry of the damned. A damned duck sounds really fucking weird, somewhere between a moaning shriek and a quack.

Shad's duster was a mass of rags. His feet were bare and cut in a hundred places. For the fifth time in as many minutes, he reflexively cast Quick Draw, only to have a broken fragment of bone he’d picked up earlier appear in his hand.

"Damn this place to…” Well… to hell, actually. But it already was hell.

“I'm trying," Shad said through gritted teeth, before sending a different message through his chat interface.

Bob sent.

Bob’s name blinked in his , and then its location indicator switched to ‘The Underworld.’

Shad looked around in case Bob was lucky enough to spawn nearby, but all he saw more more damned ducks.

Ducktopia wasn’t all it was quacked up to be. Don’t shoot me for that one, Shad said it first. I’d been too busy complaining about how much I hated escort quests, and this was shaping up to the be worst.

The row of ducklings we had been escorting marched relentlessly forward, not pausing when they got to a major road. The rest of team plunged in despite my warning, firing at passing cars, which in this world were a sort of tricycle with high-backed bucket seats. How their avian passengers were able to steer with feathered wings, I had no idea, but they were barely managing it. Cars swerved all around them as the squad fired into them, trying to keep any from hitting the line of ducklings as the blithering morons waddled straight into traffic.

I had a brainwave and pulled out my Multitool. Where was — there. Whistle. I pulled it out, while opening my Book of Possibilities and looking for a useful ability. Come on, come on, the point of being a Jack-of-all-Trades was to make situations like this possible.

There! Parking Lot Attendant. Good enough. I swapped it in, then stepped off the curb into the street, blowing my whistle and holding up a hand. It worked. The cars screeched to a stop and we got the ducklings across. The cars tried to run down my companions but strangely, even when I stopped directing traffic, they ignored me.

“Good thinking,” Shad said as he blew past me and down the bank on the other side. We were approaching a river, and I hoped it was the ducklings’ destination. Then, as soon as the first duckling reached the back, the onslaught began. Cats, raccoons, and foxes came charging in from everywhere.

“Surround the ducks! Protect them!” Shad bellowed, and we formed a rough half-circle at the water’s edge.

We beat back the first wave, losing Greg and Mitch. When the second wave hit only moments later, Shad was taken by surprise and went down. I swore as the group lost coherence. Bill started trying to shout orders, but nobody was listening. The ducks were swimming across the water toward the other side.

That’s when I realized a key piece of the rule set. I dropped my gun and pulled out my Multitool, racing away from the others across the bridge over the river toward the far side, where the ducks were clambering back ashore. Meanwhile, I messaged furiously, trying to find out where the respawn point was, getting some confused messages back from Shad about hell.

I had lost sight of the others, and now it was only me and a row of ducklings. Fortunately, they had cleared the river and were making their way deeper into a city. Could you call it a city when all of the buildings are multi-story piles of sticks and leaves? What do you call a collection of giant duck nests?

Dropping my gun - the brilliant move that had kept me alive — had also stripped me of what little offensive abilities I had. I’d had a flash of insight into the ruleset and fortunately, been right. This was just the kind of exploit I had hoped would be possible when I picked a non-combatant class. By dropping the gun I had come in with, the system had reclassified me as a non-player character. With no weapon or offensive abilities, it almost made sense. But now that I was living with my decision, it was more frustrating than I had expected.

A pair of dogs appeared from between the nest-like buildings ahead. They had long bristles down their spines like razor-backed hogs and a snake-like tail. Also, they had four sets of legs and horns, but they did still give me the impression of snarling dogs. They ignored me and went straight for the ducklings.

I flipped through the settings on my Swiss Army knife as fast as I could, desperately looking for inspiration. I came across the knitting needles and had the sudden idea to give the ducklings armor. Creating wearables was something I had multiple skills in. I swapped out my Parking-Lot Attendant for a couple of abilities, Granny Stitch and Etsy Vendor. The needles came out and blazed with a furious intensity, clicking fast together it roared like a V-12 engine in top gear.

I flung the finished tiny sweater towards the closest duckling even as I started the second one. Without stopping knitting, I moved between the ducks and the dogs. They tried to ignore me as they continued to snarl and move towards the ducks, but I danced back and forth, getting in their way. There were two of the beasts, and I was only able to block one at a time. I managed three more of the tiny shirts before one of the dogs lunged past me and chomped down on a duck.

I flung a knitted a little knitted sweater just in time. This particular sweater had a +50 bonus to defense against all forms of attack except one: biting. Against biting, it had +200 defense. I just couldn’t let the ducks get hit by a car while wearing these or they’d be foie gras for sure.

The slathering dog creature chomped down on the squawking bird and shook it back and forth like a terrier with its favorite chew toy. The little duck squawked indignantly. A moment later, the dog dropped it. It peered closer at the duck as if not recognizing it and then turned to look at the others. It ignored the ones with shirts and only seemed interested in the last two that were unclothed.

Stolen story; please report.

I focused on the last two garments even as I body-blocked the dogs. Fortunately, these outfits auto-equipped. How the heck did one put a shirt on a duck anyway?

A couple of seconds later, the last shirt floated down onto the last duck and equipped itself. The dogs stared about in confusion and then, with a frustrated whimper, turned and slunk back into the alley. The ducklings immediately reformed their line and proceeded down the street.

I trotted along behind the ducklings, thinking furiously. The armor bonuses to bite attacks kept the dogs from damaging them, but why had they left and ignored them afterwards?

Pieces of the puzzle were tickling my brain and slowly falling into place. When I had unequipped a weapon, the system classified me differently. The ducklings hadn't altered their behavior, but the way the mobs interacted with them changed; instead of continuing their attack, which they should have done, the dogs had seemed confused and then left.

Apparently, equipping gear had a major effect on how this system fragment classified and interacted with various mobs. I needed to find out the extent of this interaction.

The ducklings continued ahead on their pre-programmed path. Fortunately, they continued to behave as before, however the system was classifying them now as [Duckling Non-combatant NPC. Not targetable.] The extended tooltips I had available also told me they could be killed by environmental effects, which meant they'd still get killed if they decided to cross another road.

I jogged to the head of the pack and tried to anticipate their next direction. I even swapped in Read the Dev Notes to look for hidden clues. Unfortunately, the path they would take was not indicated in any way. I stopped at the next intersection, a Y where a smaller road split off to the right. The ducklings plodded on. They would be at the intersection soon.

Down the smaller road, just around the corner was a group of three muscular and angry-looking catfish hanging out on the corner. One of them had a length of bicycle chain, and another one was closing and reopening a butterfly knife. They had an assortment of prison tattoos across their scales and surly expressions. All three had orange bandanas tied around their foreheads. I don't know how the hell a catfish has a forehead. That makes no sense. And how he was flipping the butterfly knife with no hands? They were hovering about an inch over the pavement, swishing their bodies back and forth as though guided by a current.

I studied the creatures as I approached. What items of their gear would be most likely to define them? I grinned as the obvious answer hit me. I reached for the closest one’s bandana, then stopped. Just removing it might not do what I wanted.

I pulled up the search feature in my inventory and tried a couple of things. No bandanas. That was strange. Surely I had picked up some in one of the western-themed zones I had been in. I sorted by headwear and then finally face coverings. Aha! There it was. A blue bandana. I turned so the fish couldn't see it as I pulled it out of my inventory.

Judging the size of the catfish’s head, I quickly tied a knot. Two quick steps, a snatch and grab later, its orange bandana was replaced by my blue one.

"Hey, whatchu you doing? You looking to start something?" The bicycle chain-wielding fish lunged for me, flexing his flippers and swinging the chain menacingly. Before he could attack, the other two fish shouted.

"Blue, what the hell are you doing in our territory? You the crazy one, mother fertilizer, to be coming here."

The one I'd given the blue bandana whirled on the others. "You roe lickers are going down! Blue rules!" He threw himself forward at the other two fish, chain swinging.

I took two quick steps back to get clear of the melee. I bumped into a sweater-clad duck who quacked indignantly at me and continued on his way down the road. I stayed with them as the sounds of fishy violence faded into the distance behind us.

Now that was interesting. Switching the colors had changed the faction of the fish as expected, but it also changed its behavior. It assumed the identity as well. Interesting. Did that hold for other gear?

The street we were going down was now lined with booths selling food, mostly fish and bugs, and the duck proprietors were spending most of their time picking up wayward wares before they could escape and putting them back in the booth. One vendor who was selling live crickets, was having a nervous breakdown as the wares scattered in all directions.

I approached as the avian proprietor stood in the street giving great quacky sobs. I pulled up my inventory again, removing a cowboy hat and a submachine gun. The hat went on his head, and I shoved the gun into the crook of his feathered arms.

The transformation was instantaneous. The bird leapt up as if I had stuck its webbed feet in a light socket. It let out a blood-curdling scream. "Yippee-ki-yay, mother duckers! You’re all going to die!"

It swung its machine gun down to the bugs at its feet and frantically yanked on the trigger. Nothing happened. I tucked the magazine back into my inventory as I turned to leave. Behind me, a frustrated duck vendor made strangled quacking noises as he fumbled with his gun. I gave one last glance over my shoulder to confirm with an inspection. Sure enough, what had been [Bug seller, Duck, NPC] was now [Bug Extermination Specialist, Duck, Neutral faction, combat mob, Status: enraged.]

I grinned at the possibilities whirling through my mind as I continued escorting my gaggle up the street. Wait, did ducks have gaggles? That was geese wasn’t it? I couldn't remember.

Shad stepped through the portal from the hellscape and appeared on a placid riverbank. Several brooding mother ducks turned to look at him, each sitting on a small nest along the water. One of them squawked indignantly and then ignored him. Bob, Bill, and Morgan stepped out of the portal behind him. They’d lost a ton of time, but the quest hadn’t failed yet. Hopefully Colin had holed up somewhere with the ducks and they could rejoin him quickly. The sooner they cleared this duck-infested swamp, the better.

Shad:

Colin:

Shad's mouth dropped open. He was still thinking up his next question when the pop-up appeared.

[Quest Complete: Make Way for Ducklings]

Shad checked his user interface. They were way behind on the point-earning ladder. Due to repeated failures of this quest, its value was high, so he hadn't given it up after their first two failures, which had been a mistake. "It's got good point values," Bill said. "If he knows how to cheese it, we should run it again."

"Yeah, but — what the hell did he…” Shad trailed off as Colin suddenly appeared.

[Quest Accepted: Make Way for Ducklings]

As soon as the pop-up appeared, one of the mother ducks jumped up from her nest and took off running up the riverbank. She flipped out a cell phone and was quacking at it furiously, waving her free wing.

The nest of ducklings she had left behind began shaking. They quacked happily at each other and then hopped out of the nest. The small downy birds formed into a line as they began waddling up the bank in the direction their mother had gone.

Shad looked at Colin, about to scold him for starting the quest without asking, but the kid's huge grin stopped him. He held two long pointy sticks in one hand and a fluffy ball in the other. "I'll explain as we go. Just don't shoot anything yet, right?”

When the team zoned into the exploitation transport, Mak’gar the Orc was there with a leering grin, his son close by. “So, humans! You guys are way behind. You're definitely going to lose our bet."

They were much less behind in points than they had been at noon that day, and Shad had every confidence that we would catch up by this time tomorrow.

“Yeah, we'll see. We had some bad luck, but we think we have the hang of it.” He really wanted to see the look on the orc’s face tomorrow, so he gave his best dejected but hopeful expression as the team headed for the refresher.

Colin seemed to be on the verge of saying something. Shad gave him the barest shake of his head and a wink. Colin’s eyes lit up and he gave a slow nod.

"Hey Colin, I thought you were supposed to be the hot stuff. Sage is going to be mighty disappointed when I tell her about this," Rok’gar taunted with his own smirk.

Shad stopped cold and looked back at the two younger guys. Colin was staring at Mak’gar, his face flickering between emotions before landing on annoyance.

What was that Orc kid talking about? He’d been at school with Sage but that was months ago now. Was he sending messages to Sage, or thinking he'd see her again in the future? And why did he care? What was she to him?

Brotherly protectiveness surged up as Shad tried not to glare.

Was it any of his business anyway?

Damn right it was!

But not right now. Now he had more important things to think about. Like a hot shower, or making it back in time to videochat with Juana about her obstetrician visit.