New World Quest: the Battle for Valbrand!

Time until the battle begins: 1 hour

The monsters of the eastern and northern frontiers have been able to grow and evolve. The good news: they have stopped all infighting and united under one banner against a greater enemy. The bad news: that enemy is you! Defeat all the creatures to save the town and its people. Fight for your lives, and the lives of those around you. For the duration of the battle, death, for adventurers and townsfolk alike, will be permanent.

Reward: variable depending on contribution.

Also, you’ll be granted the continuation of your life. You’re welcome.

Orion cursed. “Death will be permanent? Including player killing?”

He looked around, seeing a sober look on all of their faces as the words sunk in.

The defensive array is still on in town, right? That means if anyone attacks another, they’d also die to the array—surely that’s enough to deter anyone from trolling.

They jogged back to town, sharing information with each other while they ran. As they stepped back through the gates, a new alert caught everyone’s attention.

Alert! Due to the World Quest: the Battle for Valbrand, the town’s defensive array has been disabled. As a result, attacking other humans will no longer mark you. Let me repeat: attacking other humans will no longer mark you.

Orion stopped on the spot, a growing sense of unease threatening to take over.

“Well,” Honeypot said, “probably should have seen that coming.”

“How would we have seen that coming?” Arika asked.

“We’re about to be fighting for our lives. Should someone be smote by the mighty-fist of the Creator just because he nicked his friend’s shirt by accident?” Honeypot’s skirt disappeared, replaced by a set of black leather pants. He sighed. “I guess it’s time to get serious.”

Ignoring Honeypot, Orion pushed the feeling of growing unease aside, focusing on what had to be done.

“This just means that we’re left to govern ourselves. Shadow, can you organize the food? It’s the middle of the night—we’re going to need the stimulants.”

Shadow nodded, taking off in the direction of the kitchens.

“Wait,” Orion said, looking over the Bomb Squad and their haggard expressions. “Take them with you. They’ll need a dose of food right away.”

“Stimulants?” Tallon asked with a fervent look. “In the food?”

“Go with Shadow, you’ll find it.”

Tallon and the rest of his party took off after Shadow, the former running just a bit faster than the rest, right on Shadow’s heels.

“Daddy,” Gizmo said, “I will be needed by Dave to relocate siege weaponry, may I—”

“Go,” Orion said. “Meet up with us when you can.”

Gizmo became spherical and rolled away.

Orion looked at Arika, realizing they were the only two remaining.

“Wait… Where is Honeypot?”

Just then, he received a message.

Honeypot: gone fishin. Cya later

Orion dismissed the message, not bothering to reply. For a moment, a small part of him worried that Honeypot had run from the fight, but he just as soon realized that was probably the little bastard’s intention.

Orion turned to Arika and asked, “Will you come with me?”

“I don’t need babysitting, Orion. Wouldn’t my firepower be better off at the gates?”

“Jesus, Arika. It’s not always about that,” Orion snapped. “We have almost an hour until it begins. I have an idea, okay? I need your help with something. Come on.”

He turned and jogged toward the center of the town. Arika watched him for a moment before the curiosity outweighed her indignation, and she followed.

***

Orion and Arika arrived at the city-hall turned council-building. They found the doors unguarded, and Orion pushed them open with a little too much force in his haste.

“Oi!” a voice yelled from inside the building, “You can’t just come—oh, Orion, uh, please be gentle. With the doors, I mean.”

Orion looked at the speaker, recalling his name was Dion—the man that had previously threatened him with a good clubbing.

“Hello, Dion. Sorry, in a bit of a rush.” He approached the table, seeing the face of each of the gate Captains looking back. “I have some more details to add to the plans.”

“Again?” Captain Blanc asked. “How many times do you want to change the plan? We need a plan to stick to right now, dammit.”

Orion was taken aback. “Again? What do you mean again?”

“Honeypot just came through and gave us the updated plan,” the scary, female captain named Gris said.

“Wait, he did? What did he say?”

“He said that he and a small force would be able to hold down the forces of the eastern gate, and to focus the brunt of the defense on the other gates.” Captain Blanc scowled with irritation. “He said you and our other strong fighters were to defend the north gate, as the brunt of the attack should come from there. Is that what you came to tell us? If not, it’s getting too late. We’ve already sent runners and messages off to redistribute the forces.”

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Orion paused for a moment, calculating his plans against those that Honeypot had set into motion. He considered Honeypot’s action over the past few days and drew conclusions as to the Priest’s course of action. After a moment, he spoke.

“It’s no problem. If Honeypot has something planned for the east, I’ll limit our actions to the other gates.”

Orion walked to the map and began laying out his revised plans.

***

“Are you sure this is the right way, boss?” Treyu asked. Rather pathetically, by Honeypot’s measure.

Honeypot sighed as he walked along underneath the street. He knew that his acolyte possessed unparalleled levels of insight in regard to mischief and mayhem, but the man’s constant complaints had started to grate on him.

“Yes, I am sure, my disparaging student.”

“But, the thing is, we’re heading kind of north, right? Aint we supposed to be more east?”

“For the love of God, Treyu,” Honeypot snapped. “Can I just have a little bit of mystery? We’re not going to the east gate right away, you buffoon.” Honeypot checked his map again. “We’re picking something up.”

“Oh, well, you could have just said that, then I would have known and not questioned it.”

“I am the Priest of chaos! Let me have some damn chaos! I told you I knew where I was going, that should be all you need to know! Trust me, you sniveling pup!”

“Pup? I think I’m older than you, boss…”

“Then act like it.” Honeypot stopped, looking up at a manhole cover. “We’re here. Go knock on that manhole, if you will.”

Treyu walked past Honeypot, slowly trudged up the dirty metal rungs that comprised the ladder. He knocked rhythmically on the cover.

Nothing happened.

“Knock again,” Honeypot decreed.

Treyu pulled his hand back, ready to knock again, when a grating sound rang out. The manhole cover shifted aside, and Honeypot could see the confused face of Tallon peering down into the darkness.

“You said nothing about the sewers, Honeypot,” Tallon said, appearing not-too-pleased with the prospect.

“Nonsense,” Honeypot replied. “I told you to bring a crowbar, didn’t I? Did you bring some of Shadow’s food? If I have to listen to my positivity-deficient friend here without it for another minute, I might drown myself in the shallow stream of excrement.”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

“Well, come on, then. We haven’t got all night.”

Treyu scrambled down and out of the way, and Tallon and the Bomb Squad on his heels.

***

Gizmo bolted the Giz-bow atop the wall near the southern gate. He quickly fastened the securing plates to the wooden walkway, then moved onto the next one, fastening the first bolt into place.

He ruminated that the feeling of what he thought to be anticipation was swelling and growing by the minute. The feeling came from where an anatomical gut would be if he were to possess one—which he clearly did not—and he focused on the odd sensation.

Each day in this world he was born into had brought such marvelous new discoveries. It had been over a week now since he became aware for the first time. He knew that to be a rather short span of time, and he wondered what new things he would have discovered a week from now.

His true love, and ultimate driving force, was still the sufferance of pain. There was something exquisite in the sensation, and even if it was something he was programmed to feel, and therefore coerced into chasing, it mattered not to Gizmo.

He considered the actions of the humans he shared a party with. They seemed to find it abhorrent to even consider someone was controlling or coercing their behavior. If getting hurt was his purpose, his reason for creation, that was simply the path he would follow. It had nothing to do with the good feelings it gave him, or the pursuit of instant gratification. Oh no. Those base instincts were below him; he was just following his purpose.

He checked the internal timer he had set when the quest arrived. Thirty-seven minutes remaining. The feeling of anticipation swelled again. He wasn’t sure if he was more excited about the battle to come, or to see his engineering creations in use.

A stray thought popped into his head.

What if I were to shoot myself with one of the Giz-bows… that would be satisfying both of my anticipatory desires.

His circuitry shuddered with the thought, but no, that would be counterproductive to the continued survival of his party.

He allowed himself a sad hum at the requisite denial.

He considered the Malignant Miscreants to be what humans called ‘friends,’ and he had started to feel what could only be described as an attachment to them. He desired for them to succeed, to live and overcome their obstacles. He didn’t like it. He recalled that when he first became aware in this world, they had to convince him he would have to keep them happy if he wanted to experience more pain—it was a simpler time.

He wondered if the change was because of his connection to Orion, who, even in Gizmo’s thoughts, was referred to as Daddy, or if his beliefs and underlying programming were inherently changed as he experienced more things.

The logical reasoning was sound that he would change over time, given that he had much more time to think and process complex issues than any other sentient being he had met so far.

The final thread on the first bolt secured itself in the wooden walkway, all of Gizmo’s previous thoughts occurring in the fifth-of-a-second it took him to screw the bolt in. He could have thought faster, but the more he started to feel what he considered to be human emotions, the slower he felt he had to compute such information. Considering and processing them wasn’t the same as data—they were complex and alien, after all.

He moved onto the second bolt as he continued processing his lived experiences.

***

Tash allowed herself a moment of rest, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. She had spent the last thirty minutes scrambling to get all townsfolk that were either non-essential or non-combatants out of the outskirts of the town and into the center. She hadn’t gone herself, of course, but she was in charge of dispatching and organizing those that did. She hoped that they’d managed to get everyone.

Surely everyone would have been alerted by the System…

She couldn’t imagine anyone sleeping through the notification that had ripped her from her slumber.

She had just arrived at the kitchens to make sure everything was in order. The runners had already been dispatched to deliver the stimulant-riddled food around the city, but one hadn’t crossed her path as yet.

As she made to open the door, the plate-armored Shadow was sprinting from the building at full speed, heading off somewhere with evident haste. He must have used some sort of ability, because the speed at which he traveled had been entirely inhuman, and his previously clunking armor hadn’t made a whisper of a sound.

She snapped back to reality and accepted a serving of what they were now referring to as Stim Food from a runner. She ate it with gusto, knowing that every second was crucial. The change was almost immediate, and she instantly felt herself become more alert.

I need to get more of this stuff for later. If we survive, anyway, she mused.

She brushed the negative thought aside, choosing to fixate on the things she could do to help. She looked down at the clipboard in her hands and ticked off ‘kitchens,’ then took off back towards one of the warehouses—her next checkpoint on the list.

***

Honeypot watched with joy as a series of explosions rocked the wall just to the right and outside of the eastern gate. Tallon and his team unleashed explosion after explosion, chipping away at the area that Honeypot had designated.

The guards atop the wall had almost had a fit when Honeypot described his planned actions. They had to ‘confer with the Captains,’ and ‘make sure you’re not a terrorist aiding the monsters,’ wasting valuable time before they finally gave Honeypot the go-ahead.

After a solid minute, the explosions stopped. Honeypot smelled the air, enjoying the scent that reminded him of fireworks. The enjoyable smell didn’t last long, as a faint yet distinct waft of human excrement lent some subtle undertones to the smell of gunpowder.

“Well, certainly smells like it worked,” Fener said, looking at the cloud of dust and smoke that blocked their vision of the explosion site.

A breeze came along and blew away all the smoke, revealing a gaping hole at the base of the wall, and the twisting tunnels of the sewers beyond.

“You smell that, Treyu?” Honeypot asked.

“Yeah. It smells like shit.”

“No, not that, you lovable twit.” Honeypot sniffed long and deep, then breathed a contented sigh. “I smell a plan coming together.”

***

Shadow sprinted to the next mark that Orion had placed on his map, unleashing a torrent of stone bricks as fast as he could from the onyx rings on his fingers. He could do two of the stones at a time, his Strength enough to handle one in each hand before quickly dropping it on the spot.

He finished, then moved to the next spot, which happened to be one of the odd ones Orion requested. He carefully placed the shape of a doorway out of the stone bricks in the middle of the street, then carefully filled in the hole, before more haphazardly filling in the gaps between the stone doorway and the walls of the surrounding buildings. He had no idea why, but Orion requested it, so it would be done.

He checked the quest timer to see there were only fourteen minutes remaining before the attack began.

Shit, I won’t have time for them all. I’ll just have to hope they can manage without me for a little while.

He took another moment to send a message to Orion before he sprinted to the next mark.