Archimedes
Once they were past the danger of being tracked by demonic bugs and had left the zoo area, the group relaxed a little. The early moments of the walk were filled with conversation as Archimedes handed out more of the cards his Auto Looting skill picked up. Then somewhere around the freeway north of the zoo, all the conversation faded to silence as they saw the changes in the landscape. When they’d come through the area last, they’d seen many abandoned homes and businesses and had fought several groups of low-level zombies and insects and left the bodies to the elements.
Yet on their journey back to base, there was an eerily silence where not even the sounds of bugs were heard. The bodies they’d left had disappeared, and the afternoon sun had baked the blood dry to the point it was no longer a bright red reminder of the fights that had taken place. It was now just a dull coat of brownish paint for the ruins. Without the random hell-cursed, insect, or dvixian popping out trying to kill them as they pushed their meat carts down the empty road, Archimedes had time to think about how closely the sight mirrored the destroyed world he had just returned from. It was far too similar for his comfort, the only difference being the lush green in the yards of homes off the main roads, trees and bushes growing in the medians of streets, and weeds fighting through every crack in the concrete and asphalt.
“Well, that’s surprising,” Nguyen said as they rounded the final turn and saw the aquarium and soda museum.
The group was greeted by the sight of a dozen robots and otters picking up corpses strewn across the green space between the World of Soda and the aquarium. Chip piled dead insects by the entryway of the aquarium, and the raccoons sat around on metal chairs, their glowing rifles leaning against the chair legs as they drank from glass bottles filled with soda.
“What?” Chedderfield asked. “You didn’t expect them to do their own dirty work, did you?”
“No, not that,” Nguyen replied. “I’m saying it’s surprising that everything seems so peaceful. I was nearly positive we might have to join some giant impromptu fight, or when we showed up one of those lizard ladies would leap out of nowhere at us. Instead it’s just . . . Well, it looks like a bunch of robot roombas removing the waste.”
“If you had wanted to arrive during a battle, you should have returned when your sun was directly above us,” Chip said, dragging the dead body of a centipede as he ran eagerly up to the group. “Though if you wait just a bit longer, we should have another one going soon.”
“How much upgrading are you all doing? For that matter, how many zombies have you killed to get the cores needed to upgrade? We’ve only been gone for half a day,” Lucy asked, looking a little astonished as her head swiveled back and forth.
“At this stage in the Era Change, finding wandering bodies is not difficult at all,” Chip began, pride beaming off his face as he spoke. “Hot Sauce, Sharpfang, Brightscales and Redeye have taken it upon themselves to make sure no slacking occurs as well. The base has thus been upgraded at every opportunity—and the more it upgrades, the more enemies there are, the more cores it can make, and the more it can upgrade. It is a cycle that will help fortify your subjects’ base against all future threats while depleting the resources of the other factions around it as those monsters throw themselves at the defenses.”
“So what have you managed to upgrade then?” Archimedes asked, looking around at the base for any noticeable changes.
“Monster-processing facilities, of course. Hot Sauce has already complained that it seems most humans do not evolve into anything worthy of dropping a core, and we still need plenty if we are to ever build a trade hub and send resources back to our homeworld in time. I hate to think what Dalean and the pups might do if we don’t send something soon,” Chip said, reminding Archimedes that while he had just been going home, Chip and the sirrušu had been seeking opportunity and a life that didn’t involve risking death every time they went to the nearly dried-up river to gather enough water to make it by.
“Speaking of supplies,” Danielle said as she pushed the cart filled to the brim with conscriptor meat toward the front of the group and the aquarium.
“More corpses for the facility?” Chip asked.
“No, these are for lunch. Come on. We gotta eat up before we move out again,” Lucy said. “Oh, and have you built a communications hub yet?”
“Of course. It is al—”
“You just wanted to call back home, didn’t you?” Archimedes laughed as he watched Chip’s snout scrunch up and twitch, trying to come up with a reason for building the communications hub.
“It was good to hear my young were still alive,” Chip admitted with a nod. “The Sirrušu and I have been working diligently to generate the needed cores to handle things in your absence. Please forgive our impertinence.”
“Isn’t a trade hub only two cores?” Lucy asked. “Wouldn’t it be more expensive to get the monster-processing facility upgraded? If it’s that big of a deal, why haven’t you taken care of it yet?”
“What she said.” Danielle nodded as she gestured toward Lucy. “But come on. We said it’s lunch time. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, and we have more work to get done,” Archimedes added as he reached into the cart, grabbed a fist full of conscriptor meat, and took a bite. “We came back to drop food off and get our upgrades and repairs done, but then we need to start taking on those defensive quests before everyone dies.”
“You didn’t want to chase after the army?” Nguyen asked as the group continued toward the gift shop. “We know which way it went. Before they switched directions and headed west, it was clear as day. The cars on the streets were crushed or tossed aside to clear the roads for those bastards. That rotting smell too.” She waved her hand in front of her nose. “Even Undead Delight couldn’t make that putrid air tolerable.”
“No. We need to stick to the objectives: eat, repair, upgrade cards, and get back out there to defend those bases . . . and, uhhh . . . Queso, you mind if we pass over the cores to our little buddy here so he can get his trade hub?”
“Why is Arc the one who gets to decide if we hand over our loot to Chips Ahoy there? We make group decisions here. It’s a democracy!” Emma said seriously, her eyebrows lowered and eyes narrowed. She reached into the monster container for some conscriptor meat only to have her hand swatted away by Lucy.
“Lions eat first until you get a couple more strength points,” Lucy insisted. “And while we may be a democracy, you’re not a voting member.”
“You can’t just tell me what to—”
Lucy popped the back of Emma’s head, forcing her to be quiet.
“Listen to your mother,” Chip insisted, still not having realized that Emma had only jokingly introduced Lucy and Archimedes as her mom and dad. “The brood’s mother is to be treated with utmost respect and admiration at all times. From her, all things are made possible.”
Archimedes was going to crack a joke about Emma minding her mommy, but he noticed Chedderfield had started to look troubled, and he couldn’t help but frown slightly as he recalled that Chedderfield had just lost his mom. “So, the cores?” he said, quickly shifting the subject away from mothers so Chedderfield wouldn’t have to think about it more.
“Oh, yeah,” Chedderfield replied with a forced smile, handing over the cores to Chip. “Make the base pretty, little guy.”
“What happened to the democra—” Emma protested once again, only to get smacked again by Lucy. The teenager's voice trailed off as she said, “This is tyranny . . .”
“Help, help, I’m being repressed—” Archimedes said in a falsetto voice, quoting one of the peasant characters in his favorite movie as a kid, making sure to add the British accent as he did. He thought others would get the reference, but as he looked around, it became clear that no one did. He shook his head and muttered, “No one watches the classics anymore.”
As they pushed the carts through the aquarium gift shop doors, and everyone started to settle in for lunch, Archimedes saw Chedderfield begin repairing his gear. His friend tapped the air in front of him, and then his samurai armor, which had been pierced by several hell-cursed attacks, glowed and disappeared. If it wasn’t for the fact he didn’t want to mess with Chedderfield’s concentration, Archimedes would have made a joke about how it looked like a magical girl transformation from one of the old cartoons as it vanished only for the armor to be re-equipped a second later. Now it had turned a blood-red color, the overlapping layers of black steel over leather were decorated with gold studs, and the neckline of the armor had curved upward providing extra protection around the neck. The color scheme, with Chedderfield’s black hair and his macuahuitl, which still had cracks and marks from battle across the width of the paddle, actually looked like something a legendary warrior in a fantasy world might wear—unlike the skin-hugging green tights, clunky fireman’s jacket, and forester cap that he was wearing. He looked like he belonged in a poorly funded high school play more than on a battlefield.
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“Nice,” Danielle commented, checking out the samurai outfit’s armor change as she upgraded her college sweater, causing it to turn into a big oversized hoodie, while the others just began messing around with their armor schemes.
Lucy in particular, who often wore just her sexy lingerie underneath her plain clothes, had begun to equip a bone breastplate too. It was a medieval style breastplate made entirely of bone. She hadn't worn any additional armor before, as she only had the stat points to handle 3 pieces of system equipment. Since each equipment slot required 4 points of strength and constitution, she had previously been using a pistol, a sword, and her armor at the same time.
“Retiring the pistol?” Archimedes asked when he saw Lucy putting on a breastplate.
“Yeah, that fight with the elephant, that trunk hit especially… I think I wouldn’t mind an extra layer,” she said as she unequipped the breastplate for a moment, only to re-equip it a second later, but this time it was a full cuirass with pauldrons. “But fuck, it looks goddamn awful.”
“I don’t know, kinda look like a cool female knight now,” Emma commented, as she upgraded her nearly destroyed breastplate into a matching cuirass like Lucy’s.
Nguyen, who Archimedes knew didn’t have the equipment slots at all for armor, just came over and awkwardly stared over his shoulder as he opened his status menu to change his gear too. He didn’t want to upgrade the tricorne forester hat and the tights from bronze to silver cards.
“Pick that one,” Nguyen said, as she pointed at the first silver option listed for the tights. It upgraded the tights from minor physical protection to an energy reinforced pair that would also add minor resistance from fire, cold and the elements.
“Fine,” Archimedes said, selecting the option. He wasn’t super concerned about what to pick, “but you didn’t pick this one just because of the last line, did you?”
Forester’s Extra Snug Tights
Current Classification: Silver
Current Level: 01
A must-have set of tights for any forester, providing hot, cold, windy and chilly protection to keep your legs warm. Reduces piercing and slashing damage. Also, the wearer will no longer have to use the john.
“More than one man in history has died with his pants down,” Nguyen said, justifying her reasoning as Archimedes' pants changed from bronze to silver rank, as well as turning a slightly darker green. “And for that one…” she began as Archimedes upgraded his tricorn to silver. “I recommend you go with the second option.”
“The ranger’s tricorne?” Archimedes scratched his head.
“The others do add more protection, but this one gives you bonuses to move speed and makes you harder to detect when you’re walking on any plants,” Nguyen said. “That move speed may save your life one day-- not to mention, movement speed means getting places faster, which is just adding extra seconds to your farming time.”
While his first instinct was to keep stacking protection, he had to admit she wasn’t wrong as he picked that option for his second upgrade and turned his dark green felt-like tricorne into a brown leather one.
Ranger’s Tricorne
Current Classification: Silver
Current Level: 01
A solid sturdy automatically fitting leather hat that helps the user blend in with the forest, move faster when traveling over plants and other vegetation.
He wanted to upgrade his spear to gold as well, but after dumping the remaining item cards into it, he was only able to get it to level 5, a single level shy of getting the spear to gold rank.
“Tough break,” Lucy mocked as she came up and looked over at the screen displaying the spear’s stats right in front of him. “It happens to everyone, getting it up can be really tough sometimes.”
“Yeah, it’s okay buddy, not everyone’s spear is as good as they want it to be,” Chedderfield snickered.
“You bastards,” Archimedes almost chuckled at their well placed verbal swipes as he shook his head. Then, looking over at Chedderfield, still frowning at his weapon, he felt compelled to offer a solution: “You know, speaking of weapons… if you just give it some time and some of your health, that macuahuitl will fix itself. The whole weapon is a self-repairing one.”
“Yeah, I know, but I was thinking it needed an upgrade anyways,” Chedderfield replied as his eyes focused elsewhere. “Oh, this is too good to pass up,” Chedderfield added a moment later as his fingers motioned through the air frantically in a series of gestures Archimedes recognized as taking cards from his inventory for an upgrade. With another flash, the macuahuitl disappeared, and when it reappeared in Chedderfield’s hands, it had lengthened by several inches, and the bone-white color of the paddle had changed to black. But other than that, Archimedes couldn’t see much of a difference though the crack that had been there was gone.
“What was the upgrade?” he asked, curious about the change since, other than the length and color, nothing was visibly different about the weapon.
Chedderfield nodded in response and then added, “Watch this.” He then touched something on the handle of the weapon, and the razor-shaped blades that ringed the paddle-like haft started to vibrate. Chedderfield raised the weapon over his head with two hands and brought the weapon down on one of the greeting tables in a swift motion. Instead of gracelessly chopping through it, the weapon silently sliced through the metal table, neatly dividing it in two. The weapon passed through so cleanly, in fact, that it got stuck in the concrete floor beneath the table, and it overbalanced poor Chedderfield, who stumbled a step and then had to work to dislodge his weapon. When he got it free, the black macuahuitl was missing a few blades, but after a few seconds, they were already regrowing.
Chedderfield had perspiration on his brow and a pleased look as he explained, “It drains a bit of energy and a bit of health to active the ability, but I think I just made a vibroblade.”
As Chedderfield was explaining this, one of the cute otters came up in a fuss, waving her hand angrily at the man. Chip immediately translated, saying, “She, ummm . . . She says this is her home, and she’d like it if you could be careful not to break anything. That things are already messy enough because of the . . . Well, she had words for the hell-cursed I do not know how to translate.”
“Tell her we’re very sorry,” Archimedes immediately apologized, feeling a little bad for the poor critter. She looked incredibly frustrated with the state of the aquarium.
Chedderfield gave an awkward apology and then proceeded to immediately bring out several cards. He placed them on the ground, and then his glowing hands hovered over them. A hollow cylinder three inches wide at the top, widening as you reached the base to five inches, and eight inches tall.
“What was that?” Danielle asked.
“I was playing around with Stiff Defense, Dicky’s innate skill. Samar gave it to me before she left. I just hadn’t had a chance to test it out before now. It requires that I sacrifice some bones or bone material cards to make what I want. The larger the structure, the more materials it costs.”
Danielle’s expression dropped at the mention of Dicky, “I miss that old marine. I miss all of them. I hope Samar and Dorthy are doing okay and made it to the college campus safely with all those kids. Think we could check on them now that we have a communications hub?”
“Yeah, I don’t see why not,” Chedderfield answered with a nod. Then he returned to his experiment and put another pile of cards on the ground and activated Stiff Defense, creating another bone white cylinder that tapered at one end. “Here’s the thing, but the skill doesn’t actually specify that it has to be walls, just a defensive structure. Here. Look.” Chedderfield tapped the air, and a blue box appeared in front of Archimedes.
Stiff Defense
Current Classification: Bronze
Current Level: 03
Ability: Can create defensive structures made from bone. The creation is based on the design of the wielder.
Creation and repair costs associated are based on size and density of the design.
“I think Michael and Dicky thought of this in terms of walls only. But the description doesn’t say I can’t make other things.” Chedderfield used his new macuahuitl skill to cut the cylinders in half. He then grabbed a shirt from off the aquarium gift store rack, ripped it into strips, and then used the strips to secure one bone half-tube against each of his forearms. “There I did it. I made forearm guards.”
“Not bad.” Archimedes was a little impressed. “You get good enough at that, and you could make a full set of gear to protect you on your next bike ride.”
“Yeah, but the big downside is that I can’t equip or unequip this like I can other items,” Chedderfield admitted, raising the forearm guard as he spoke.
“Upside is that it doesn’t take up an equipment slot,” Archimedes added. “Though if you really wanted to talk about technical loopholes . . . there is one we could exploit while we’re eating here, my good and wonderful hermano. You remember the warden class, right?”
“Yeah, I remember. Why?” Chedderfield asked as he looked down at the meat he was eating.
Archimedes switched to the warden class, unequipped his fireman’s coat, and laughed a little to himself as he cracked his knuckles, seeing Chedderfield’s anxious expression and knowing his friend knew exactly what was about to happen.
“Hey! I’m eating here!” Chedderfield protested even as Archimedes watched him open his class menu and switch over to warden while at the same time unequipping his armor and leaving the group temporarily.
“I’m doing this so you can better protect your girl, brother,” Archimedes said gesturing towards a watching Danielle while stressing the word “brother” before getting ready to throw his punch, only to have Chedderfield hold up his hand.
“Wait!” Danielle said, jumping between them and stopping Archimedes right before the punch connected.
“What?” Chedderfield asked, obviously confused by Danielle’s actions.
“Firstly, I don’t need anyone to protect me. Second, if you’re going to trade blows, that’s fine, but just don’t hit him in the face. I need that pretty mug of his to stay intact.”
Chedderfield furrowed his brow. “Is . . . Is that your only com—”
Archimedes punched Chedderfield in the chest hard enough to knock his friend down.
“Fuck. That hurt,” Chedderfield groaned as he lay on his back and rubbed the spot Archimedes had hit. “Don’t think you’re getting out of a friendly training session too.”
“Not his face though, right?” Danielle asked Lucy.
Lucy just shrugged. “Why not? Arc might look handsome with a little rugged injury or two.”
“No! That would ruin the symmetry!” Nguyen started in a panic, only to silence herself and collect her thoughts. “I mean, Chedderfield hits hard enough to knock out teeth. I’ve seen it. The last thing we need is our tank that heals through eating stuff to lose teeth.”
“Oh, yeah, fair poi—”
Chedderfield hit Archimedes with a body blow powerful enough to knock the air out of him and make him stumble back a few steps. He’d have probably fallen from the blow as well, if he wasn’t used to being hit even harder by the tails of mutated zombie dinosaurs or beaten during the training sessions he used to have with Leap Frog and Hot Sauce.
Archimedes felt a sharp pain as a second punch hit his left lower back, and no amount of training could stop him from toppling over. He was quite sure the fact he was still standing had annoyed Chedderfield enough to cause his friend to use Power Surge before throwing in a follow-up attack.