Silkies! Welcome back to the stream!

Man, there’s a lot to this game. I’m not gonna lie…I’m having trouble keeping up with the learning curve. Learning…cliff?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to back down on my rule about going into new games blind. Some of you are with me on that. You get how the best part of playing a new game is figuring stuff out. Being surprised, ya know?!

But I guess it’s different when the pain is real. Surprises, I mean. You know I got blown up by a frag today? I swear I’m still a little sore from that one.

Anyway, another thing I found out is that I could access a full-blown character menu and see all my XP, skills, stats, and all that.

Check it. See all these little progress bars?

Here’s the bumps I got from the training center fiasco. Throwing, general combat skills, stealth, ambush. And the physical stats. Endurance and constitution.

Then look at these under weapon handling. Reload speed, assault rifle competency.

It’s like…pages of these bars. And the increases from Tropic Heat are tiny, little slivers! Guess that’s why peeps play this game like it’s their second job.

Or me…yeah…I kinda want it to be my ONLY job. But damn, I got a long way to go!

So, keep watchin’. I think we’re about to give that freakin’ alien lion portal another try.

—

“Lock and load,” Jim said without a touch of irony. As the oldest in our group by a few years, he was full of played-out sayings from the dark ages.

The phrase echoed off the staging room’s bare, white walls while Tony and Blackrune stood motionless, their hands pressed against lockers.

“So, shotguns?” I asked, hinting around the fact that I didn’t own one.

Jim had already summoned an Ouroboros self-loader from his locker and was feeding shells into the tube magazine under the barrel. “Tony and I bring shotguns. You guys stick with rifles.”

Tony stepped back from his locker, a wood-stocked shotgun — something more present-day than sci-fi — cradled in the crook of his arm.

“NanoShok slugs are the meta for killing dire lions,” Tony added, holding up a shell with an orange, plastic casing before feeding it into his own weapon’s trap door, “but they’re not so good for firefights with other factions.” He racked the scattergun’s pump-action and rested the weapon over his shoulder.

After checking my own weapon’s chamber and clapping the forward-assist knob, I looked up at my clanmates. “Other factions? This a PvP raid?”

Jim chuckled. “They all are, kinda.”

Blackrune stepped forward, his assault rifle dangling from a three-point sling, muzzle down in front of his chest. “Almost every raid instance can be invaded. Players from other factions can buy their way in, or the game can toss in some NPC enemies for fun.”

“Fun, huh? And it’s random?” I asked.

Tony smirked. “More like ‘unpredictable’.”

“Don’t complain.” Jim gave me a flat look. “That’s your best chance at looting better gear. You’re not gonna pull a weapon upgrade off of some Exo lion.”

I nodded my approval — not that he showed any sign of waiting for it.

Jim had hit the point on the nose, though. I wanted the phat loot. Craved it. And God knew Blackrune needed some decent drops. He couldn’t roll in the starter gear set forever, and neither of my friends had stepped up to give him free upgrades the way they had with me.

“You ready for this?” Blackrune asked me, as if to psychically remind me that he’d carried us through Tropic Heat, even with noob gear.

I smirked. “Yeah. You got your crowbar?”

Stolen novel; please report.

Chuckling, Blackrune patted his chest. “Sure do, but I don’t see us needing it on BK-991.”

He already knew the destination. Probably had the raid details memorized somewhere up in his big brain.

Jim poked my shoulder with his fist. “Let’s get this over with.”

The four of us headed for the portal.

***

There Jim was, not five minutes into the raid, covered from head to toe in deep red Exo blood. Just like last time, three dire lions had charged us. Unlike last time, they ran into screaming hot blasts from our unit’s shotguns.

“Okay, bring it, Simba. Up close and personal,” was the last thing Jim had muttered before pulling his trigger. Then he was showered down with what little remains of an Exo beast after being sheared in half by a NanoShok slug.

Now, the rest of us struggled to maintain battlefield composure while he spat mouthfuls of blood and guts onto the tall, golden grass.

“That’s nasty, bro,” Tony finally said, and the break in silence worked well to diffuse our stifled laughs.

Jim’s response — nothing but a pissed-off look barely discernible through a face covered in goo — helped get us back on track, too.

“Fuck it,” he added, giving up on slopping the remains from his uniform. “Let’s get to this cave and run our scans.”

“Burrow,” Blackrune said, “not a cave.”

Jim scowled. “Whatever.”

Like a dripping, red beacon, Jim stomped off toward the objective. Tony and I followed him into an expanse of golden grass as tall as a cornfield. We covered either flank, and Blackrune came up close on my six.

“It’s important,” he said in a low voice.

I checked the horizon for movement, sweeping my rifle’s muzzle over the miles of waving grass visible when we passed through clearer sections. “What?”

“That it’s a burrow. That’s the point. Some kind of giant sandworm on this planet, and we’re scanning for pieces of its broken exoskeleton.”

“Cool?”

Blackrune let out some kind of frustrated grunt. “Exoskeleton that can be researched, then it lets us manufacture tougher body armor.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied, eyes fixed on my arc of fire, “that’s Ouroboros for ya.” Then I nearly stopped. Nearly had to catch myself from stumbling. “Wait, you said this raid was for a relic.”

Blackrune moved to my side, still sure to glance back every few seconds to cover our backs. “Not this direction. He’s been taking us to the Exo burrow.”

For the love of…

“Jim!” I called up.

He stopped, turned on his bootheel. Walking through the taller grass had scrubbed some of the dire lion guts away, so I could see most of his grumpy expression. “Ya know, I can hear you two whispering back there. What is it?”

“Blackrune says you’re going the wrong way for the relic.”

Jim huffed, then raised his chin. “No, I’m not.”

That was the precise moment when the thought of ‘we need to get our shit together’ really latched onto my brain. It sunk its proboscis into me like a deer tick of doubt. And I’m pretty sure Jim could see it all over my face.

“Look, dicks,” he growled, “you’re lucky you’re back in the clan at all. You’re not running the show on top of it.”

I glanced at Tony. Whether he was laser-focused on covering our right flank or just avoiding the argument, I couldn’t be sure, but he was definitely staying out of it.

“Not trying to run the show, Jim,” said Blackrune. “Just, we’re going southwest. The relic cave objective is southeast.”

Jim huffed again. “So it is a cave. Burrow my ass.”

Blackrune: “It would be if we’d been going southeast from the portal spawn.”

“Look,” I cut in, seeing Jim plant his feet even deeper. “We don’t have time to go back anyway. Cave, burrow, whatever…let’s just keep moving.”

Jim appraised me for a long second, then turned his scowl to Blackrune. “That okay with you, new guy?”

Blackrune shrugged. “Not much of a choice at this point.”

Jim’s eyes narrowed at the same time I began wondering if Blackrune was goading him on, or just one of those people who stated facts without considering — maybe without knowing — that those facts would piss someone off.

Before I had much time to ponder it, a shrill, reverberating shriek cut through the air. Distant, but too damn loud. And it was coming from the southwest — dead ahead, following Jim’s path.

Then gunfire, just as distant. Same direction. A lot of gunfire.

“What the fuck was that?” Jim asked, the heavy shadow of the argument gone in an instant.

Blackrune grinned. “That would be the sandworm. And it sounds like someone beat us to it.”

I held up my gloved hand, hoping to still whatever protests were coming. “But we don’t need to kill it, you said. We just need to scan its burrow.”

“That’s right,” Blackrune said, capping it with a single nod that made his ill-fitting helmet tip to the side.

I grinned. “So all that shooting is…”

All four of us said it at the same time: “...a distraction!”

Jim didn’t need to say another word. We bolted toward the shrieks and weapons fire like our lives depended on it.