“T-20, enemy Foray so strap in. Looks like Hillfolk. Four barbarians and a what the fuck are you doing here?” Salia Slitt said.
Boyd looked around with no idea what was happening. All four members of his previous Foray were standing around him. They all looked mostly the same, except Gmol, who had grown slightly larger and slimier. He was shedding bits of ooze everywhere he moved, which was gross, but also somehow endearing. Jellybean Jenkins still hadn’t acknowledged him, but Fleon was staring at him dead on. He had his helmet on so Boyd couldn’t see his eyes, but he was sure they were blazing.
He spun in a circle to figure out where he was. Waves of nausea hit him and he fell back down to the ground so try and gain his bearings. He felt dehydrated and depleted, like he had a stomach virus or something. He shook away the feelings and stood back up to look around. His best guess is that they landed in some sort of giant, natural valley. Underneath his feet was lush, green grass, still moist with dew. He could hear a river somewhere in the distance, the water rushing down some sort of waterfall. He inhaled deeply and was greeted with crisp air, the kind you breathed in first thing on a cold mountain morning. He briefly closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of being out of a cave and back in nature, soaking it all in. Caves definitely weren’t for him. He opened his eyes and further examined his surroundings. The walls of the valley were mountainous cliffs that went almost straight up. The cliff walls were pockmarked with metal doors that featured unsettling scenes of war on their face. He sighed. This place always sucks eventually.
Realizing there was an open question in the air, Boyd said, “I have no idea. Honestly, I’d much rather be where I was, but something weird just happened and now I’m here. So let’s get this shitshow going again. What’s the deal with the Hillspeople, which direction?”
“North. They aren’t moving,” Salia said.
Boyd focused his Venian eye in the distance to the North. He wasn’t sure what a Hillperson was, but it appeared like they were poorly kempt ape-like creatures who had a random number of legs and arms that they used interchangeably. All of them were armed with an array of maces, swords, and axes that glowed an array of colors. Boyd assumed all of them were enchanted. He also realized quickly that he had no idea how to fight one, and if they started this way, he was firing after they took their first step. Their caster had summoned some sort of giant eye they were all looking through. He tried to scan it but suddenly felt a shove and fell to the ground.
Fleon looked down from above him, sword drawn, “I don’t know how you did this. I don’t care. It won’t stand. As soon as this combat is over, I will remove you the same as last time. Don’t get comfortable.”
Boyd pulled himself up to a sitting position, one hand on the ground. “I don’t want this any more than you. I’m happy to quit again as soon as we solve this problem. Get your fucking hands off me and point your sword some other direction or you won’t ever have to worry about your vow of celibacy ever again. I’ll make sure you stay more virginal than Mary herself.”
Fleon raised a hand but Boyd tinked his revolver against Fleon’s armour. The barrel of his revolver was buried in a crook in Fleon’s plate near his crotch.
“Try it motherfucker. Lay a hand on me again. See what happens. I probably can’t kill you, but I swear to God I’ll blow your cock to kingdom come.”
Fleon lowered his hand. “Fine. When this is over you will be removed, forcibly if necessary. What are the Hillpeople doing now?”
Jellybean Jenkins walked over and pulled Boyd up to his feet with a massive white paw. “I agreed to give you mercy the next time I saw you. You may now consider that debt paid.”
“Good to see you too buddy,” Boyd said. He clapped Jellybean Jenkins on the back.
Jellybean Jenkins spun and growled, “Do not make assumptions about me. I did not say it was good to see you. I don’t understand your aphorism and if you strike me again, I will initiate combat with you. This combat will be...”
“To the death? Yea, I figured as much. You're about the same.” Boyd sighed and laughed at the Dog.
Salia’s drones were bumping against some sort of imaginary ceiling barrier and were buzzing angrily against it. “Yea, so we are in some sort of magical bubble and if I had to guess they are in one too. From what I can see this is basically a giant trap designed to pit us against one another. Those two levers over there seem to be linked to either one of two doors. It looks like pulling one lever opens the pathway for the Hillspeople to whatever is front of us and then other lever opens up….one second… Yea, it opens up both the pathway and some sort of crypt or something in the distance that’s probably filled with God only knows how many creatures. Wait…Ok, yea, so it looks like there are Mana Nodes at the end of this and every time we fuck them over we lose one Mana Node. So, basically it’s a little game. If we are nice to them, we get more Mana Nodes but then we have to deal with them at the end of this. Alternately we can deluge them with whatever is in those crypts and then take whatever is left which is likely to be virtually nothing. Wait, one more twist. Behind us is a giant door. Let’s just assume whatever is behind it is bad. Not sure how that plays in yet.”
“Which lever does which?” Fleon asked.
“The one on the right is fuck over the other guys, the one on the left is play nice.” Salia said.
Gmol projected a big waving hand and then an arrow towards a small placard in front of him. It explained all the things Salia had just said along with a little pictogram. Across the way, the Hillspeople were crowded in front of something similar on their side. There was clearly symmetry in the trap. Boyd and Salia went over to little placard and started examining the diagram.
Fleon walked over to the lever on the right and reached towards it. “Just let me know when it’s our turn to action the lever.”
Boyd pulled Party Marty and walked over to slap Fleon’s hand away with the oversized knife. “You don’t throw that one period ya arrogant fuck.” Boyd felt a strong force hit him in the chest and he flew backwards onto his ass. Fleon’s hand was extended, he had clearly hit Boyd with some sort of spell.
“You don’t tell me what I can or cannot do. The choice is mine.” Fleon stood up and put his hand on the lever to try and pull it.
“Wait Fleon. Nah, he’s right. I missed something. It looks like if both groups pull enough of the right lever then all the crypts open at the same time and we are stuck fighting God knows how many critters. This is all one big trap to get you to ignore reason to fuck over the other guy. There is some sort of massive cave behind us. If I had to guess, it contains a Boss with Soul Catcher. If we play this wrong, what happens is that whatever is in that cave is inaccessible until we end up feeding it enough Ranks to make it so strong it smokes the whole lot of us instantly. If we do this thing right, and we can convince them over there not to fuck it up, we can gather probably ten Nodes a piece and walk away from this thing without having to fight one another.”
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“Or simply kill them and take theirs once the Nodes are distributed?” Fleon asked.
“Actually no, it looks likes if everyone plays this straight then the barriers stay up and we go right, they go left and that’s the end of it. Gmol, see if you can Project something high enough for them to see that if we all just pull the left lever then it’s best for all.”
“I did not make this decision yet. Gmol, do no such thing.
Gmol’s rune was already glowing brightly and was depicting a series of images high in the air. It was flashing set of images indicating the other group should pull the left lever over and over again. It also had a little flashing set of images showing the right lever equals zombie and then some sort of Apocalypse Beast that ate both of the groups. It was whimsical, but effective.
The Hillspeople seemed to be locked in a somewhat similar struggle as none of them were looking at Gmol’s message. Instead, there was a dustup of arms and hands and legs and feet between four of the members. After a few minutes, one of them emerged superior and the rest of them began forming some sort of weird mutant totem pole. The winner of the melee dashed up his friends to the top and started repeatedly lifting his left hand. Gmol shot up an image of his left hand in response.
“Gmol, no decision has been made. I remain leader of this Foray.”
Gmol sludged over to the lever and shot out some sort of slimey appendage-like extension and jerked on the left lever. The front of the Hillspeople bubble collapsed in the distance, and the front of their own bubble collapsed a few seconds later.
“I command you to cease this action Gmol. I will decide our course.” Fleon began striding towards Gmol, but stopped when Gmol lit up brightly with rainbow iridescence. Boyd had no idea what this meant but he assumed it was probably a very thinly veiled threat if it was veiled at all. “Do not threaten me Slime. You have no right to make these decisions.”
Gmol slimed his way through the front of the now open bubble and onto the next room where he promptly through open the left lever immediately and began sliming forward.
“Halt Slime! I have not agreed on this.” Fleon began jogging towards Gmol who was already well on his way to the next room. The others followed suit and began following Fleon who continued to berate Gmol to no effect.
The fourth room was the last of the bunch. On the other side of the valley, the Hillspeople were bounding about seemingly thrilled with the outcome. Alternatively, they might’ve been preparing for war. It was hard to tell which was which as the situation was highly kinetic.
Fleon raced ahead and stood in front of the levers. “No one touches anything until we agree. This is my order. I believe we should pull the right lever. This will give us an advantage in combat. We can take the remaining Mana Nodes. I put this to a vote.”
The Foray immediately descended into an argument that involved a lot of screaming, threatening, and in Gmol’s case, projection of large runes that were the God-avatar equivalent of a middle finger. The Hillpeople were growing increasingly angry across the way. It seemed like they had correctly assumed Fleon’s Foray was getting ready to do something stupid, and so they were going to oblige and do the same. Boyd saw the leader aggressively pull the right lever. “Shit. God dammit. You fucking dipshits did it again. Ya’ll suck at this, I gotta tell ya.”
“What did you say Human?” Fleon asked.
“They pulled the right lever.”
]“See, our enemy is out to kill us.” Fleon reached for the right lever but Boyd bolted in front of him.
“There is no reason to pull it. They pulled theirs because we spent all this time arguing. If you had just stuck with the plan, we would be walking away right now. Ya’ll can’t ever get out of your own damn way. Seems like anytime something good happens you trip on your own dicks trying to fuck it up. Quit makin’ everything so damn hard and just pull the fucking lever on the left.”
Gmol’s rune gave a thumbs up to Boyd’s comments via projection.
Jellybean Jenkins said, “You are wrong Human, I only trip over my penis when it is fully engorged, which only happens in the presence of a potential mate. I have never tripped over it under other circumstances.”
Fleon ignored Jellybean, “You do not get a choice Human. I do not care if you think are a part of this or not, you get no say.”
Jellybean Jenkins spoke again, “He’s right. Pull the right one. We have better things to be doing than this. They made their choice, we kill whatever comes out of that crypt and take the Nodes. This is only Level 20, we won’t have any trouble and we should get another Node out of it.” He then began drooling and then proceeded into the standard “I crave slaughter” and “I long for the cold grip of death’s touch” and “The blood of our enemies will soak this and that” type thing that he always said.
“You know my stance,” Fleon said as he put his hand on the lever on the right.
Jellybean Jenkins glared across the gap at the Hillspeople. “Pull the right lever. Let us feast on their ignorant flesh.”
Fleon again began to pull the lever.
Salia shouted, “Stop! It isn’t even two to two. It’s two and two. Boyd still gets a vote. He’s a part of the Foray again. He already said left lever. Pull the left. It’s final.”
They looked around at each other. Fleon spoke first. “I am the leader.” He thrust a finger at Boyd, “You do not vote. I serve as tie-breaker. We pull the right lever.” Fleon marched back over to the lever and put his hand on the right one. “He is no member of this Foray. I don’t know how he pulled this trickery off but he will receive no vote. I will disband this entire Foray and replace the lot of you before I let that one make decisions on my behalf.”
Salia had already flown to the left lever and was ready to pull it, “Fine, you say it should be your decision, I say it should be Boyd’s as a part of the Foray. Why don’t we just go by the traditional method and let the highest Rank member decide. That’s Gmol so we pull the left lever. Do it Gmol.”
Gmol began sludging its way over to the levers.
Boyd interrupted, “Gmol isn’t the highest ranking person or thing or whatever anymore though. I mean, well, yea, he was, but Jellybean Jenkins has gained like 2,000 Ranks since we’ve been here. I scanned him the other day with this neat-ass gizmo that Salia stuck in my eye. He’s almost Rank 3,000 now. Congrats, Puppers!”
The other party members turned towards Jellybean Jenkins.
“Foolish Human, you have mishandled the miniature bird’s technology. You should never have received such a thing in the first place. You have no capacity to use such an advanced item. Certainly you do not think that someone could gain that many Ranks with the pittance of kills we have accumulated?”
Fleon casually agreed, “Indeed, it would be impossible. Your equipment has malfunctioned. It matters not. I am leader of the Filary and leader of this Foray. If you wish to leave you may do so Salia.”
Salia’s VMR faded into Stealth, “No. Something’s off. Venian technology doesn’t malfunction. Not even for hapless twats like this guy. Plus he’s too stupid to lie effectively. I want to see if he’s right. Double J, re-open your stat sheet to us.”
“I will not. This is absurd. Fleon pull the lever.”
“Open it,” Salia said. “If you have nothing to hide then open it.” Boyd heard the VMR power on and fly into the air but he couldn’t see anything but a shimmer through the stealth tech. At the same time, Gmol began sliding backwards away from the group.
Fleon looked concerned. He scooted away from the levers and backed up against the barrier of the bubble “This is a simple request Wolf-Lord. Open it now. If the Venian and the Human are lying it will be simple to prove and we can simply remove them from the Foray and continue as two until we can replace them. Open your sheet.”
Jellybean Jenkins walked towards the middle of the room before sharply turning towards the levers, springing towards them in a flash, “Fine. Let me show you...” Jellybean Jenkins jerked the lever on the right. "...exactly how powerful I am!"
Jellybean Jenkins has left Fleon’s Fine Foray for the Filary!