Blake stared at the perfectly normal, average man walking toward him through his scope before bringing his gun down.
Vicky lowered her gun too.
The guy was dressed in an immaculate three piece suit in perfectly neutral gray with just a hint of color via the pink tie. His dark hair was combed with a part on the right side. Not a single hair was out of place. Round, thin-framed glasses completed a look that just screamed trustworthy.
They let him approach without challenge because he wasn’t a threat.
“Excuse me. Hi. Sorry.” The man’s voice was soft, almost forcing them to lean forward to catch the words. “I was hoping I could hide with you guys. You see, I got a bit distracted and now I’m far from home just as the event started. Really embarrassing, I know.” The man shrugged with a smile.
They had protocols for this sort of thing.
First, they were supposed to use their own judgment.
The guy was harmless so Blake checked that off the list.
“Vicky?”
“My danger sense isn’t pinging.”
Blake’s hand pulled the key from his pocket before he realized it.
“You’re really lucky, sir. It’s supposed to get really dangerous when all the slashers start running around out there.”
Second, if they were still uncertain they were supposed to call for the mage or truth gem.
Intense questioning would take place in the side office under heavily armed guards.
He unlocked the heavy iron-barred door and ushered the stranger inside the apartment building’s outer perimeter fence.
“Just go on up to the next gate. We’ve got plenty of spare rooms for you to ride this out. Don’t know if we can escort you home tomorrow. Maybe your militia can come pick you up? But, we’ve got plenty of supplies to go around in case you’re stuck here for the 30 days.”
“Why thank you!” the man smiled. “It is a rare thing, the kindness shown to strangers by strangers in these dangerous times.”
They turned their backs on the man and resumed their watch.
Who knew what sort of slashers were lurking out there ready to kill them and the people they had been charged with protecting?
“That was one lucky gentleman,” Vicky said.
“Yup. Good thing he was close to us. He’d have no chance out there once night hits,” Blake said. “A gentleman like that shouldn’t be out there with all the monsters and killers.”
Elsewhere, a group of white-masked slashers in black robes ambushed a group of adventurers.
The latter had just gotten their additional slasher class at Level 1 and they were outnumbered.
It turned quickly for the former because the adventurers were a battle-hardened band with over a decade’s experience as a team.
White masks and black robes were drenched in blood.
The adventurers didn’t get the chance to celebrate their first kills.
Short, controlled bursts poured down from the second story windows on both sides of the street.
It felt like an army poured fire down on them.
They only lasted as long as their mage’s magic shield.
When it shattered they soon followed.
Lt. Rico was part of an 8-man fireteam, but with Skills they could quadruple the output.
He flashed his light across the street.
The fights would draw attention.
They needed to relocate to set up another ambush.
Shit was fucked for all the amateurs out there.
They were special forces.
Each of them was a force multiplier worth multiple men.
The slasher class wasn’t a problem at Level 1. Zero compulsion to murder. That would eventually change. It was important they remained mindful of that and the need to focus on the right kinds of victims— targets! He meant targets.
On the other side of the city, closer to the southeast, two slashers faced-off inside a home turned into a slaughterhouse.
Dead people lay in cruel iron bear traps.
While others had been cut into ribbons… rather they had been filleted.
One slasher, a big, brawny bear of a man complete with a bushy tangle of a beard caked with blood and body parts, held a spiked bear trap on a chain in one hand and a skinning knife in the other. He was clad in thick animal furs as armor complete with a wolf’s head over one shoulder.
The second looked like an average man. Strong arms were hidden beneath long, cut resistant gloves. A thick leather apron covered his chest, hanging down to his knees. He wore a red-splattered, white surgical mask over his mouth and nose. He wielded a large cleaver in one hand and a long, curved fillet knife in the other. Other implements were within reach at his belt.
“I reckon it seems like we’d make a good pair,” the first said.
The second nodded.
“You trap the prey—”
“— and you butcher them.”
“Until it’s down to us two?” The second raised a brow.
“I ain’t the greedy sort, son.” The first shrugged. “Reckon 2nd place ain’t so bad when the rewards are already this good. ‘Sides, you and me are in the top ten, but we’re quite a ways away from them’s at the top. Let’s even them odds up?”
“Okay.”
“Shake on it?”
“No.”
“Verbal agreement it is then.” The trapper grinned. “So, how we gonna split this lot up? I reckon I kilt more of em. I’m willin’ to go halfsies as a sign of good faith.”
“No. You keep what you killed and I keep mine. I don’t cheat on my cuts. They have to be fair,” the butcher said.
“Alright, well, I reckon we should work quick, in case any o’ them heavy hitters are on the way. I get more out of ‘em if I skins ‘em proper like. Gonna need ‘em skins for the competition. Never know when I’ll get more.”
“It’s the same for me. I gain more when the carcasses are properly prepared.”
“Shit! You ain’t one of ‘em cannibals, ain’t you?”
“No,” the butcher said. “That’s disgusting.”
“What do ya do with ‘em meat?”
“I leave them or sell them to cannibals if they happen to be nearby.”
“Meat Parade?”
“Not these days. I haven’t dealt with one of those in a long time. Just cannibals not cannibals. Although, some of my more regular customers have gained the class.”
“Seems like there’s a valuable market I ain’t tapped into,” the trapper mused.
“Well, if we’re both alive after this, I’ll introduce you to my clients. I’m sure they’ll appreciate more fresh meat.” The butcher’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
----------------------------------------
It was a race for points.
The city burned the first night.
Newly christened slashers fought in the way they knew.
Larger groups, like mercenary companies, marauders and the like attacked the closest neighborhoods to their arrival locations or each other if they crossed paths.
Smaller groups, like adventuring bands avoided the larger groups and stronger neighborhoods while searching for good targets.
Monsters feast in the chaos.
The locals were divided.
Some neighborhoods banded together temporarily, but others saw the opportunity to settle old grudges.
Then there were those that saw a quick path to power. These joined the Slashers’ Spree and with their new class turned on their own people.
The true slashers slipped unnoticed underneath it all.
The scents of smoke and iron mingled in the air. Bangs rattled windows, while bright lights illuminated the darkness.
It went on through the night all the way to dawn when the sun’s rays chased away death for a time.
People bunkered down where they could to rest and deal with their wounds.
The unlucky dead were left on the streets for the monsters and monstrous men.
The lucky ones were burned in great pyres by their loved ones.
Within a day the smoke had shrouded the entire city in a thick, dark cloud.
Some would’ve preferred to bury the dead, but the voice coming from speakers somewhere in the sky warned of a high level necromancer among the slashers.
The first week was as the first night.
The weaker fell, strengthening their killers.
What was left of weaker neighborhoods had no recourse but to hide in the ruins of their homes or flee to those that still stood strong. Some found shelter, tenuous as it was, but most only found the quick death of a bullet or a spell as they pleaded in the shadows of makeshift walls.
Rumors had spread of slashers pretending to be one of the desperate and harmless to get inside a neighborhood or a building.
They could all see it.
Those slashers gaining points at the top of the list. Their kill lists growing each time the spires updated the scores.
One week in and it was becoming clear that the slasher’s side was winning.
Oh, the locals had reaped a toll of their own, but the vast majority of their kills had come from the new slashers. Thus, they hadn’t been nearly worth as many points.
A slasher at Level 1-10 was worth a base of 5 points, plus whatever their other classes were worth. Those at the top were truly frightening. Level 40, possibly even Level 50. The former started at a base points value of 5000, while the latter started at 50000.
It was obvious that for any chance at victory those slashers needed to be taken out.
Lindsay Taylor. A picture of a fat clown. A friendly smile on his painted face. A lie. He had the longest kill list. From the victims it appeared that he had murdered an entire neighborhood and an apartment building in the first week. Ladies, gentlemen and children of all ages. None had been spared.
The slasher clown was worth the most points, thus everyone plotted his death. Out of greed or out of the desire to save future lives? It didn’t really matter, did it? So long as the monster in the skin of a man was destroyed.
If only they could figure out his preferred victim type, perhaps they could set a trap?
Holly Foster was second. Her picture revealed a plain-looking, young woman. Though a closer look in her eyes suggested something like a shark. Her kill list revealed other slashers as her preferred victim type. Low, mid or high level, it didn’t matter, each one had the class. That made her a target for both sides.
One interesting bit was the death of one of the highest leveled slashers on the first day.
Mitchell Graham. A big, hulking man wearing a blood-splatted old-style hockey goalie mask and wielding a notched machete drenched in browns and reds.
Taken out by a team of 7.
The locals didn’t recognize them, which meant they were one of the outside groups.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The remaining slashers marked them as a threat and as valuable points since they now held Mitchell’s and those of several lower level slashers.
Perhaps, the worst aspect of the Slashers’ Spree was the world event page. Specifically, the ability to send messages. One could post taunts to a general forum or directly to individual people. There were no limits. Everyone part of the contest was fair game, which was everyone in the city.
Children received nightly videos of the clown, Lindsay Taylor, performing clownish antics. Parents and guardians caught on too slow because the slasher clown had promised to kill the children and their families first if they didn’t watch or told anyone. It wasn’t until the end of the first weak that they found out and all children were forbidden from accessing the world event page.
Hard-eyed men and women threw out challenges.
Crazy-eyed men and women accepted.
It always turned out to be an ambush on both sides.
Only the most insane went into them on good faith and sometimes they were strong or dangerous enough to emerge with the points.
People put out calls, promising to protect and defend.
Like the woman, Hayden Webb in her futuristic-looking armor asking people to go to the parks on the water near Coal Harbour if they were capable or to message if they weren’t.
Many an ambush had failed.
For none were yet understood the nature of the death that hid above the thick smoke.
It was a doubled-edged sword to reach out in that way.
One could gain advantages, but one also revealed themselves. Gave others insight into concrete things like their location or into nebulous things like how their mind worked.
The risk was greatest for Hayden as she became the face of those that would deny the slashers their victims.
It wasn’t be long before the strongest and most dangerous began plotting her permanent removal.
----------------------------------------
Alin hadn’t done much during the first week of the murder event aside from helping Fabricator Stone Lake 23571 and his mom make projectiles for the Raynanaut’s recoilless guns.
They churned through a lot of ammo providing close air support for Hayden and her team, as well as the desperate people trying to flee the murderers and monsters to get to the north end of the city and the little fort in the parks.
Accuracy was the name of the game, which meant they couldn’t use their more powerful weapons.
He had barely any time to speak with Kat or one of his friends because everyone had been needed to take a turn at the guns.
From what they had said it had been nerve wracking picking out the right targets amidst all the chaos as people ran for the lives pursued by murderers and monsters. All the while everyone was fighting everyone in the desperate soup.
He was loading the fabricator with raw iron when his ear piece beeped.
“Goldenspoon, you and your mom busy?” Captain Molds said.
“Making bullets, like usual, sir. You need us?”
“We’ve got an apartment building full of people begging for help. Need extra muscle on the ground for the pick up.”
“I’ll ask her, but I’ll go.”
“Awesome. Maybe bring the Threnosh.”
“Um, sure, I’ll ask.”
The captain must’ve seen the fabricator’s many tool-bearing arms coming out of the hump on the back of their power armor and mistaken them for weapons.
Sure, the cutting lasers, saws and drills could do some damage, but that wasn’t their purpose.
He found his mom on the other side of the hanger.
“Why didn’t she just ask me directly?”
“Dunno,” he shrugged.
Probably cause rangers under a certain age found his mom kinda scary.
It was the stories from the older rangers.
X-Ray hadn’t been shy with sharing the tale about the time a tiny woman swatted him across a few city block like he was a home run ball. The man was long gone. Killed by the Slaver King. But others had picked up the telling. It was what the rangers did for every name on their wall because one day they’d be on there too.
“Okay, I’ll go. How about you?”
“I’m going.”
“Alright, let’s armor up.”
He went to his armor’s bay while his mom said something to the fabricator he didn’t catch.
The Raynanaut descended out of the dark smoke, cutting through with its dagger-like shape.
Bullets opened up from multiple buildings.
Spells arced.
Helping cost them their anonymity.
The skyship took everything on her heavily armored hide.
She answered back with quiet fire.
Projectiles whistled down, a rain of metal death to silence the rising storm.
“What’s the deal with this place?” Alin whispered while they waited for the shooting to stop.
“Don’t know,” Kat whispered.
The ranger squad was in full kit.
Plate and chain. Threnium helmet, chest and back plates. Steel for the rest. Unpowered armor. The powered kind were too expensive. The entirety of Rayna’s Rangers had 5 they only broke out for the most desperate times.
Kat’s was styled to look like ancient samurai armor complete with a snarling oni faceplate.
Ranger command didn’t care about everyone looking the same. They provided standard gear for free, but if one wanted to customize they they could do so out of their own funds. The custom gear just needed to meet minimum performance standards.
Songbird cleared her throat.
She was part of the bridge crew as a junior officer. Basically, she filled in wherever the captain needed her. Hence her presence as the landing party’s overall commander, even if Ranger Morningstar, the elder, not Luzi, was the squad leader.
“Hayden passed us a message from the people down there,” she said. “They went into siege mode, but people started turning up dead in their rooms. Sometimes a wife or husband would wake up to a dead spouse right next to them in bed. Doors locked. Windows closed. No signs of forced entry. People dead in the hallways or stairwells. A guard dead at the gate, but their partner was fine and didn’t even notice. All with a slit throat or a bullet in the head.”
“Oh…”
That sounded like a slasher alright.
Which meant they were in the building, which meant—
“We’re going to screen them with spells and Skills. The murderer isn’t getting on board. If they try, then they’re dead,” Songbird said.
“Thanks, um, sorry, I’ve been out of the loop.”
“No worries. You guys are, like, the most important people on the ship. We’re burning through basic projectile ammo faster than we projected.”
He didn’t mention that they were down to about a fourth of the raw iron they had brought with them.
They were going to have to start weighing the risks of scavenging.
The thumps coming from outside stopped.
Songbird nodded at a voice only she could hear.
“Captain says it’s time.”
Her voice was steady.
The ramp lowered onto the building’s roof.
Shield-bearing rangers went first.
The rest followed.
They went to the stairwell and placed magitech shield generators, creating a mostly protected path to the ramp.
The door slowly opened to reveal scared-looking faces.
“Stay right there!” Ranger Morningstar barked. “I’ll tell you when you can move!”
“Everyone’s lined up and ready, like Hayden’s message said!” a middle-aged woman said. Her eyes had dark bags under them.
“Single file? Against the wall?”
“Yes.”
“Good woman. Listen up. We’re just making sure you guys don’t catch strays. Then we’ll start the boarding process. Name, age and classes under truth spells and Skills. Don’t want to answer? You’re not getting aboard. Fail? You’re not getting aboard.”
“We understand.”
“Kids first.”
“Of course,” she nodded tiredly.
Alin watched and listened from just inside the Raynanaut with Songbird, Kat and his mom.
His mom made a noise.
Songbird’s eyes widened a moment later.
“Um, looks like we’ve got incoming. Scanners are picking up a lot of movement, but not much heat,” she said.
“Heads up guys. My detect undead just pinged,” one of the rangers on the roof said through the comms. The man was an old hand that had been there since the days of the San Diego Undead War. “All directions.”
Alin tapped into the Raynanaut’s cameras.
Their human opponents had been mostly shut down by the skyship’s accurate and heavier firepower.
“Um, ma’am?” Songbird ventured.
“Yes, sweetie,” his mom said.
“We’re going to use our heavier stuff on the bigger, more powerful undead, but the captain’s wondering if you and Goldenspoon wouldn’t mind heading down to keep the faster ones from, uh, ‘snacking on the back of the line’? Her words exactly. Another squad is on the way to back you up if you need it.”
“Tell her that will be fine. And don’t worry about us. Once you’ve got everyone on board take off. We’ll catch up.”
God!
His mom said all in the same tone she used when she was leaving him baking instructions.
He wished he was as nonchalant.
As it was, his palms were kinda getting sweaty inside his gloves.
Fortunately, the Threnosh undersuit wicked it away almost immediately.
He followed his mom to the edge of the rooftop.
A bullet plinked off her helmet.
She ignored it as she rested her baseball bat-like club on her shoulder and checked the straps on her round shield.
“Mom… you should block with the shield.”
“I’ll try to remember. Let’s go.”
She jumped five stories down to the street.
He followed.
“We’re going to hit and run around the block. That’ll keep the undead from focusing on the building.”
They were coming down the street.
Zombie-types.
A mix of people and monster corpses.
The necromancer had to be high level if there were this many and this was only one street. The scans and the Skill had indicated they were coming from multiple directions.
“The necromancer will have to make an appearance if she wants to direct them into the building, which she will because she’ll realize we’re too tough to easily crack.”
She’d be after the people. For points and to add to her undead army.
“Take the shot if you get one.”
His heart hammered in his chest.
Fighting on ground level surrounded by enemies wasn’t the same as fighting from the top of a wall surrounded by friends and allies or fighting in a well-oiled squad where everyone had each other’s backs.
Plus, it was his mom.
He was simultaneously worried for her safety and worried about embarrassing her by being not good enough.
They ran.
Only his power armor allowed him to keep up with his mom’s superhuman body.
She leapt like a graceful gazelle while clubbing zombies and running over them with her shield like an angry rhino.
He followed with accurate brain shots thanks to the auto-targeting system and sliced through putrid flesh like a hot knife through butter with his ever-shifting multi-weapon.
Fingers and claws grasped their limbs but couldn’t hold on for long before they were torn off.
It was on the tenth circuit that his mom pointed out something farther down a side street.
“Boy, do you see them?”
He zoomed in on the targets she had highlighted for him.
“Are those?”
Fishmen.
He had never seen them in person out in the wild, so to speak.
Only knew about them through stories, pictures and videos… oh, and mindscape training, so, in a way he had seen them in person. Those hadn’t been real scale and blood beings, but close enough.
These fishmen were messed up.
They looked dry. Their scales didn’t have that healthy, iridescent shine.
Also, there were chunks missing from their bodies, bones were exposed. Blood had dried long ago.
“We’re detouring.”
Shit! What?
His mom cut an abrupt angle against the street, slicing the sharp edge of her shield across the bloated belly of the huge undead monster thing blocking their way.
It looked like one of the big gremlins, but it was hard to tell on account of the swelling.
“Aww… gross, Mom!”
She left the putrid contents of the thing’s guts to splash across his path.
Sure, he just jumped over it, but some got on his lower legs.
“What are we doing?”
“Keep them off me. I need to get samples.”
So said, his mom bashed her way through the undead throng all the way to the small group of undead fishmen.
She clubbed them to death… again.
Then started scraping bits of them into small tubes.
He turned his multi-weapon into a whip, whirling it overhead, slicing the tops of undead domes off.
The mass that had been chasing him came up the street so he hit them with riot control micromissiles from his retractable shoulder launcher.
They exploded across the leading edge of the undead, filling the street with rapidly expanding sticky foam that rose to about chest height.
He switched the loadout to explosive micromissiles for the undead coming down the street from the other side.
And that was that for the micromissiles.
Undead started coming out of the buildings on both sides.
He emptied his recoilless submachine gun, putting shots in brains or what was left of them.
Fortunately, this necromancer seemed to need most of the corpses brains intact because they didn’t get up.
That took care of the left side.
For the right, he deployed the magitech flamethrower from the underside of his right gauntlet. It only had enough mana for about 30 seconds of continuous use, so he pulsed it across the storefronts.
“Um, any day now, Mom!”
He speared two burning corpses with his multi-weapon. Withdrew it, then chopped across their necks, followed by a slash on the back swing.
That cleared their space, but the undead were beginning to climb over the foam using the bodies of other undead as a floor.
“Okay, I’m done,” his mom said. “Good job. How are you on ammo?”
“No more missiles. Flamethrower’s out. Out of ammo with my gun. Haven’t used my back gun. Multi-weapon’s good. Plenty of power for the force emitters.”
Their comms beeped.
“Goldenspoon, um, Mrs… ma’am. We’re almost done here. You guys should come back,” Songbird said.
They jumped and climbed to get to the rooftops. Then leapt across to the apartment building.
The undead were pouring inside and ignored them for the most part as they ascended.
The Raynanaut climbed slowly into the sky.
Songbird waved from the open ramp.
Alin followed his mom as they engaged their jump jets to catch up.
“Mom, what was with those fishmen?”
They headed back to the hanger.
“A hunch.”
“Do you think they’re in here with us? But they’re not on any of the lists. I mean, monsters aren’t, but fishmen are technically a sapient species.”
“The spires can change rules whenever it wants. But, let’s not worry until we get these looked at.” She held up the tubes filled with disgusting fishman bits.
The Quest to rescue the apartment building’s people had gone without a hitch.
They all got the chimes and their rewards.
It was a short flight to the north and Hayden’s park fort.
The off-boarding process went well and the Raynanaut was back on guard duty above the smoke clouds when things went bad.