UA3: C32
Chedderfield
“That thing is a . . .” Chedderfield said again, still focused on the massive molepede that stared down at him, its incisors the size of his legs.
“It might not look like it, but it’s a dvixian queen,” Nguyen said, gesturing toward the strange woman that had healed Emma. “The Sight Beyond Sight skill doesn’t lie.”
“Wait . . . Did we . . .” Chedderfield was having trouble processing what he was seeing as he turned his gaze toward the strange woman. She had jet-black hair that cascaded down her bare back, and with her runner’s physique combined with her height, she would have easily passed as a supermodel—except for the yellow eyes that almost glowed with an inner ferocity.
“Yes. It looks like the call for help Archimedes was so eager to answer was a dvixian queen’s,” Nguyen replied to Chedderfield’s puzzled mutterings.
“Ummm . . . thank you?” Emma said hesitantly as she began backing up toward the group.
“But . . . what about the rest of the zombies?” Archimedes asked. “And how can it speak our language so well?”
“I am one of this world’s first queen-variant hatchlings,” the dvixian explained matter of factly, not at all perturbed by the obvious awkwardness of the group. “My flesh was rewoven and stranded together from a native of this world by the mother form into a suitable shape so that I would not be immediately killed off by your kind before I could establish my own . . . nest. As for the hell spawn, they were significantly weakened by a debilitating curse when we came out of our tunnels, making it easy to dispatch them.”
“What . . . the . . . fuck . . .” Danielle replied, voicing Chedderfield’s thoughts exactly. The fact that the dvixians could not only take a regular person and rewrite her genetic code to make her a variant of one of their queens, but also that she could so easily and casually admit to this was mind blowing to Chedderfield.
“I believe you will be rewarded for the quest at your base, but allow me to extend this bonus as additional thanks for your help,” the queen said, ignoring Danielle’s statement as she walked up to Emma, who was the closest member of the group to her and extended her hands to reveal a small black chicken-sized egg.
“Oh . . . yeah. Thank you,” Emma responded. She turned her head to Archimedes and Chedderfield as she gave them a “What do I do?” look. Then she took the egg carefully.
“It is only fair,” the queen said. “And I hope you know that beyond this reward, I,”—she paused, and as she opened her mouth, Chedderfield couldn’t hear anything, but he could feel a thrumming like he was standing too close to the bass speaker at a rock concert—“of the dvixian invasion fleet, shall not forget your kindness. I had believed that this place would be my grave, for none of the other humans capable of helping us seemed to want to risk themselves in order to save one not of their kind.”
“Did anyone else get her name?” Danielle whispered to Chedderfield specifically, but loud enough that the others could hear.
Lucy shook her head. “Nope.”
“Kinda . . . I think she uses vibrations,” replied Archimedes, who had a skill for alien languages. “Did you say your name was . . .” Archimedes repeated the vibrating shriek back to the queen.
“I am impressed you can so easily pronounce it,” the queen said.
“Uh, yeah, nah, no way in hell we’re trying to say whatever the hell you both were saying as you sat there with your mouth still moving after you finished speaking like some poorly dubbed horror film from the 80s,” Lucy interjected. “You’re Princess Buttercup now.”
“That name is fine. I understand your struggles with foreign languages.” The dvixian seemed entirely unfazed by the nickname or the rude way Lucy had spoken. “Now, if you are done, we must depart. We are uncomfortably vulnerable here and would like to get below ground as soon as possible.”
She said something in her language to the gigantic molepede. “Do call us if one of your bases has been attacked. We delight in building further cooperation with surface dwellers.”
Archimedes nodded and then opened his mouth again, saying something that Chedderfield heard as nothing more than noise. Then the dvixians left.
The group began their walk back to the hill where they’d started the fight, their weapons in hand for more trouble, but with the hell-cursed leader dead and Princess Buttercup clearing out the hell-army grunts, the group was relatively relaxed.
“ Don’t tell me you’re fluent now,” Chedderfield said as he looked over at his weird friend.
“It’s, uhh . . . the emissary class,” Archimedes explained. “I thought I’d switch and try it out. Apparently just befriending someone from a separate faction was enough to level it so I could use the skill and learn some of her words, so I figured I’d—”
“FUCK YES!!! BERSERKER!!” Lucy shouted, interrupting Archimedes’ explanation. “MOMMA GOT HER OWN UNIQUE CLASS!!!!”
“It seems that I have as well,” Nguyen noted. “Operative!”
“Yup. I got Gunsmith,” Danielle added. “It’s a tech-crafting class. I wonder if the faction bonuses from the raccoons will help it . . .”
“What? You guys all leveled? No fair,” Emma said with a pout. “I want to know what my unique class is . . .”
“Your unique class will be the twerp. It’ll help you specialize in debuffing adults with mood penalties,” Lucy suggested.
“I’m seventeen, damnit! I’m an adult already!”
“So’d this event level you all up?” Chedderfield asked the ladies.
“They’re going to catch up to us at this rate,” Archimedes laughed as he put a hand on Chedderfield’s shoulder. “Leveling up so quickly and taking out bosses on their own? We better step it up, or they’ll figure out they don’t need us.”
“Speak for yourself, hermano. If they figure out they don’t need me, I’ll finally be able to enjoy the comfy life of a well-kept man I’ve always dreamed of, sipping mojitos right next to our pool. Just imagine it: the ladies could be out killing and murdering people while we have cute little otters in tuxedos bringing us our drinks, making our food, and all we have to do is enjoy the sun . . .” Chedderfield got lost for a minute in the daydream as he imagined how cool it would be if he could get every otter at the aquarium to dress up in a tiny tux.
“I’ll be the one setting up a poolside lounge chair with ya, Queso,” Lucy said, “because there is no way you’re getting Archimedes to take a day off to relax and enjoy some lounging and liquor. That bastard even wakes us up at 5:00 a.m. to go murder monsters. AT 5:00 A.M.!!!”
“You’re really never going to let that go, are you?” Archimedes asked. “I mean, it was only 5:00. It’s not like I woke you up that—”
“Don’t even start like 5:00 a.m. isn’t a big deal,” Emma snapped, “you sadistic son of a— Wait!” Emma stopped and stared down the hill. She pointed at a group of people who were bent over a few of the zombie corpses doing something. “They’re looting our fucking cards!”
The moment Archimedes heard this, he leapt across the distance in a moment, large glowing wings appearing on his back before he glided down the hill. The angle of the glide put him only a dozen feet above the ground, all the remaining cards below him flying up to him as he passed over the mounds of monster bodies. Chedderfield could hear shouts from the group of people that had been trying to collect the cards as they shook their fists at Arc as he passed.
“Let’s get over there quick. I don’t see this ending well,” Chedderfield said as he picked a target to Meat-Slam toward, rushing as fast as he could to his still-injured friend, who had flown over toward the now-destroyed wall. The landscape blurred as he ran over asphalt, grass, and the bodies of the undead until he was right under Archimedes, who touched down a moment later, the wings on his back disappearing as his feet hit the ground.
Chedderfield estimated that there were about twenty people from the church out collecting cards. They had their weapons pointed at Arc and himself, but Chedderfield felt little threat from the group after looking at them. They were a broad collection of people from all walks of life. Some wore dress suits and fancy dresses like they’d been at a party before the apocalypse, others were in jeans and t-shirts, and one white-haired older black man wore a white clerical collar and black shirt and pants. Nevertheless, everyone looked like they’d been through several battles. Their clothes were torn, and they were sporting bandages and wearing the weary looks of people that hadn’t gotten much sleep.
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The priest stepped forward first with a thick black leather Bible in one hand, his priestly collar barely still attached to his shirt. He held out his other hand to Archimedes. “Hello, friends. Thank you for helping us fight off those demons.”
“Hello, padre,” Chedderfield said, taking the hand that Archimedes ignored. “I’m glad to see so many people surviving around here. We’ve been through the city, and other people just haven’t fared as well.”
“It’s Pastor Tim,” the older man said with a sad nod. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it either. We took in as many as we could when this all happened. The church”—he gestured behind him to the four-story brick building—“gained some kind of protection from these demons, but we couldn’t save everyone.” There was a haunted look in his eyes as he finished his statement, and Chedderfield could understand what the man had seen.
“Why are you being so fucking friendly with these thieving, fucking sons of bitches? They’re stealing all the fucking cards we need! They’re trying to fucking kill us by taking our damn cards!” a big man dressed in ragged clothes yelled as he pushed his way to the front of the group.
He heard the hushed murmurs of the congregation slowly building up around them and could feel the tension building from the stragglers. The people who had had their card picking interrupted by Archimedes’s skill began making their way over as well, none of them looking happy about the fact that the treasure trove of skill cards had been taken away before they could finish grabbing them.
“Your cards?” Chedderfield was annoyed by the statement. He had fought hard, his friend had nearly died, and Emma had nearly been eaten just to kill those zombies, and yet these entitled idiots were already acting like they had done it all themselves. “What the fuck are you talking about? Estas loco? We’re the ones that killed all of those monsters. If it weren’t for us, you’d be dead.”
“What? Killing a few zombies wasn’t enough? Do you want to kill us too? Why don’t you just stab me through the chest already?” an angry middle-aged woman shouted out. “Because if we don’t get those cards, we’re dead too. You’re killing us right here, robbing us of our chance to live, and you’re asking us if we’re crazy? Just do it then. Just kill us here. Go on! Do it! Just kill us already by stealing our fucking food when we’re already starving! Our cards when we’re already struggling!”
“Yeah! If you don’t give us those cards, we’re going to die,” the big man from earlier redoubled the woman’s complaint. “Padre, you tell him. Tell him we need them to survive. Don’t be friendly with these thieves!”
“We should just kill them and get our cards,” suggested another woman, still in Sunday’s finest with a purse covered in blood from likely bludgeoning more than one zombie to death with the large bag. “There are more of us than there are of them.” She gripped her fashion accessory-turned-weapon tightly to her chest.
“Just fucking try it, chica,” Chedderfield shot back, gripping his weapon as he slowly started to look across the crowd of faces for who might move against them first.
“Kill them! Take their cards!” a voice shouted out from the back. “They can’t stop us all!”
“Yeah, you think we’re killing you by stealing the cards we earned?” Lucy’s cold voice was filled with more rage than Chedderfield had heard out of her in a while. She began approaching the group with her weapon already out. “Just wait till you try to take them from us. Then we’ll really fucking kill you. I’ll slit your damn guts open, rip out your intestines and force feed them down those disgusting-ass, shit-spewing, lying mouths until you fucking choke to death on your own fucking filth, you ungrateful little—”
“Easy, Lucy.” Archimedes quickly stepped in front of Lucy, blocking her from attacking the ragged-looking crowd.
“Yeah, you should learn to calm down, woman,” the man who had first started the conflict snapped arrogantly, even as he backed up a little, practically pushing the person behind him backward as he did.
“What? You wanna fucking say that again? Come on, let me show you how fucking calm I’ll be when I finish the mistake your lazy-ass whore of a mother made when she didn’t learn to fucking swallow on the job, you—”
“Lucy, I’m with you here. I get that you’re angry . . . but we don’t need a bloodbath,” Archimedes cautioned again.
At this point, Chedderfield was unable to not chuckle as he listened to Lucy hurl her insults at the man.
“That’s right. Keep your woman in check,” the man continued even as Archimedes was trying to save him.
“You know what?” Archimedes, who looked angrier than Chedderfield was used to seeing him, finally silenced everyone as he practically yelled out, “Fine! Fuck it! Let’s do this. We can solve this right here and now. I’ll give you a free shot. I'll even give you two or three free shots. We just took out the leader of this entire army and two badass crystal brutes. You guys don’t even know what they’re called. So, please. Let's establish the pecking order right here, right now. You take your best shot at even hurting me, and if you manage to get past my defenses and land a blow that does more than just remind me how pathetic you are, we’ll hand over the cards we’ve collected.”
“That seems fair . . . I mean, we need them, and you guys have been—” the man said, looking around skeptically for support from any of the other people, only to have them silently nod even as they refused to speak up about it.
“But afterward, if you don’t hurt me at all, then once I finish breaking every bone in your hand, you hand over yours. Then you shut the fuck up, and if you ever see me, or my ‘woman’ again, you shut your mouth like your life depends on it. That sound fair to you?” Archimedes said, popping his knuckles for dramatic effect.
“Uh . . .” The man gulped.
“I mean unless you want to try her instead,” Archimedes suggested. “But I’m pretty sure the moment you throw even a pointed finger at her, she’ll gut you like a fish in front of whatever friends and family you’ve got left and then finish the rest of her earlier threat. She’s a woman who follows through on her words, you know?”
The big man hesitated as he looked over at the bloodthirsty woman, his eyes darting back and forth between Archimedes and Lucy as he seemed to contemplate the offer.
“What? Not feeling confident? Want to trade places, and I can take the first swing instead?” Archimedes asked as he slammed the bottom of his spear into the ground for dramatic effect.
This taunt finally caused the enraged man to swing his crowbar with every ounce of strength in his burly arms. If the attack had hit a regular person they’d have had their skull cracked and been laid out bleeding—if not dying—on the ground. But the tool hit Archimedes, and though it had struck him square in the head, Arc didn’t move an inch. Chedderfield barely felt the hit as a light tap even though he’d switched to his warden class and designated Archimedes as his ward. He could only assume that it was Adonis’ Protection that had stopped the mundane damage.
The big man stared horrified at his crowbar, like it had betrayed him somehow, and before Archimedes could say anything, he blurted out, “You win, man. It’s like the preacher man says, ‘Violence doesn’t accomplish anything.’” Then four bronze cards appeared in the man’s hands, and he gave them over to Arc, who didn’t even bother looking at the cards as they disappeared into his inventory.
“What about his hand?” Nguyen asked as she practically appeared out of thin air from one of the building’s shadows. “I think you told him you’d break every bone in his hand, right?”
“Could you forgive him for my sake?” the preacher asked as he stepped in. “Though he has a temper, and he may seem ungrateful, it’s only because he cares about these people. His bravery in protecting them and putting their needs before all others has kept many people from dying. It has kept our young, old, and infirm fed and safe. Please, understand.”
“Understand what? Understand how—”
“I understand, father,” Archimedes said, cutting off Lucy before she could egg the situation on any further. “And you’re right, if it meant increasing the chance that any of them would live . . . I get it.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Pastor Tim replied, holding the Bible with both hands.
“Well, anyone else wanna try it? You can take chances with me instead if you want. I promise no hand-breaking after,” Chedderfield offered, wanting the whole thing to just be over with. “Or if you’re feeling like I’m too much of a challenge, I’m sure our little one,”—he paused and pointed over at Emma, who had just gotten to the scene, the mini turret hoisted in front of her like it was nothing more than a large brown bag of groceries—“should be even less intimidating.”
No one else seemed to want to try their luck at the game, and by the time the rest of the team had reached them, the entire card conflict seemed to be over, with many of the church people already beginning to walk back to their base.
“We too late to join in the fun?” Danielle, who had taken even longer than Nguyen and Lucy since she had been escorting Emma, asked as she arrived on the scene.
“Yeah, we’ve come to an agreement,” Chedderfield said. “They don’t seem to want to argue with us about cards anymore.”
Pastor Tim sighed as he looked sadly at the people as they spread out and started to go through the homes around them, probably looking for anything that Archimedes’ loot skill had missed. “I don’t know what we’re becoming.”
“You’re going to become someone’s dinner if you stay around here,” Chedderfield warned.
“What?” the pastor asked.
“Princess Buttercup is setting up a nest here, and once she starts laying eggs, they’re going to need food. And while we haven’t seen it, I wouldn’t be surprised if human beings are on the menu of delicious foods for fresh larvae,” Chedderfield explained.
“Yeah. How many vegetarian monsters and aliens have you seen in movies . . . or even recently?” Danielle added.
“So, we have to leave?” a younger woman next to the pastor asked. “This is our home. We can’t just abandon it.”
“You don’t have to. I’m sure those dvixians might even thank you for the meal,” Emma laughed as she set down her turret.
“Be nice. They’re probably already terrified enough as it is,” Danielle said.
“I would leave, if I was you,” Chedderfield added. “I’m just saying this for your own sake, but I wouldn’t want to go through whatever you’ve gone through just to wind up some monster meal.”
“Thanks. I think we already knew we’d have to head south. Those demons were only passing through here, and I don’t want to head north toward the ‘power of death’ or whatever those brutes were talking about, where they were supposed to be heading,” Pastor Tim said. Then he walked back toward the church, his shoulders hunched with the weight of the expectations of his people.