24. The Red Brigands - 1 -
Three figures sat on makeshift stools on the edge of a river of sludge in the sewers beneath the Slums. Their half-whispered argument echoed ominously throughout the tunnels.
“No, of course I could take more than twenty!” The squattest but largest one argued, his mouth and eyes taking turns twitching. “Even if they’re armed. I’m just saying it depends on what the weapon is. A toddler can’t swing a metal bat for shit, but a toddler with a knife could do some damage.”
“Good point, Barty,” said the smallest of the group, gesturing wildly with her arms. “But what if their weapons don’t despawn when they’re unarmed?” She clutched at the air frantically, miming being stabbed by a thousand tiny knives.
“Pray, do permit me to elucidate, dear Sparks. The proper terminology to be utilized in this particular instance is 'disarmed,' not 'unarmed.' To be disarmed is to have one's weapons removed or divested, whereas to be unarmed is to lack arms entirely. Hence, it is imperative that the correct terminology is employed in order to accurately convey the intended meaning for this scenario,” the third said, looking down at her from atop his stool. He adjusted his glasses as Sparks stuck her tongue out at him.
“What kind of dumb logic would that be?” Barty argued, ignoring the grammar lesson. “Everyone knows that weaponry wielded by tower monsters despawns with them, and without weapons they might as well count as defeated.”
Just as Sparks was about to reply, a barrage of gunshots rang out from above, the explosions echoing loudly within the sewer. Sparks and Barty dove for cover, tangling into a mess, but the third member sat frozen in place.
“Get down, Jackis,” Barty hissed, spitting Sparks’s pink and purple hair from his mouth.
“Negative. It is imperative that we exercise the utmost discretion and refrain from making any sounds that might generate undue attention. Hence, it would be wise to observe silence at this juncture,” Jackis whispered quickly.
The firefight continued for a bit, with more than a few bullet casings rolling down and plopping into the sludge. As the fight went on, the three relaxed a bit. The battle was still raging above, but there had been no signs that it would move into the sewers. They stayed still, waiting for the fighting to pass.
Suddenly, a clanging sound echoed from a drainage pipe a few yards away, barely audible above the sound of gunfire. Three heads turned towards the noise. Jackis slunk back, but Sparks and Barty ran forwards, eagerly scrabbling after the small black box that was sliding down a pipe and into the sewer.
“Move,” Sparks said, shoving Barty to the side.
“Hey, no fair!” Barty said, pushing to get to the pipe first.
Both of their hands closed over the box at the same time. They tugged it back and forth for a bit before deciding on opening it together.
“Ready?”
“Yeah. One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
The box flipped open with a click, no lock impeding it from doing so. There was a single, large red pillow in the box, on which were three white marbles.
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Up above, a group of six Blood Oats in their customary reds slunk off towards their next stage, leaving a pile of shell casings scattered above a sewer grate. Similarly, a group of five Sons of Blades members in black scurried off, uninjured, leaving the scene of the same conflict. The leader of the latter group cradled two more identical objects, careful not to drop them: two small, inconspicuous black boxes.
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The Red Brigands - 2 -
Jackis, Sparks and Barty stood in an abandoned Blood Oats building. Nobody had dared move in after a demon supposedly showed up and sucked the life out of everybody in the building. The rumor was most likely false, but the Red Brigands decided to use the basement as a staging ground for their experiment since everyone else was too scared of the demon returning to move in.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Clamp,” Sparks said, holding out a hand, a screwdriver clenched between her teeth. Bart levitated some clamps over to her while Jackis held out his hands, palms out, scanning the machine for any imperfections with his skill, Simulate.
“I daresay, our schemes are almost at a head,” Jackis said. “Be most certain to fuse that cylinder, down yonder, to the sanguine receptacle, for upon activation, the tube shall unleash a profuse and indiscriminate eruption, should it be bereft of proper stability.”
Sparks rolled her eyes, but still reached down and held tightly to the tube in question, triggering her skill. The tube attached itself, melding perfectly to the tank next to it. “Done!” She said, rubbing her small pale hands together. She stepped back, looking at her creation. It was a mess of tubes and wires fueled by a tank filled with blood that they had found under a fallen table. The contraption looked like a miniature version of the portal archways, just without the dark stones or intricate runes. Instead, Sparks bent a second set of wires in an approximation of a script until Jakis’s skill gave them the green light.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Barty asked nervously, his face twitching and his eyes blinking in the way it did when he was nervous.
“I am suffused with an overwhelming confidence, my good madam, that my mastery of the arcane arts shall manifest itself in a flawless demonstration of efficacy,” Jackis replied, adjusting his glasses.
“Just… Say… It’ll work!” Sparks growled out between her clenched teeth. Jackis had always been quirky, but ever since he had gained a class, he had been going overboard. The overly complicated talking, the long trench coat, the glasses without lenses. It was all too much.
“Indeed, you have articulated it with a simplicity that belies the profundity of the sentiment expressed. I do humbly apologize if my previous statement came across as an undue embellishment of your words.” Jackis nodded seriously. Sparks looked over at him, trying to decide if the gleam of joy in his eyes was imagined or not.
“It’ll work, Barty. Please power it before I rip into Jackis.”
Barty waddled up to the makeshift portal, circled behind and gripped each side firmly in his meaty hands. His sweat made the metal slippery, but he held on nonetheless, determined to get things right. He blinked a few times, followed by scrunching his face three times to match the same amount of nose scrunches. He triggered his skill, slowly infusing the frame with what his skill called “ethereal forces.” When nothing happened, he doubled down, pumping more and more mana into his skill. The portal started emitting a whirring sound, sparks of purple light starting to form under the archway.
“It’s working!” Sparks yelled excitedly. “Full send, Barty! Full send!”
Buoyed by the lack of initial explosions, Barty sent it. Hammer down. He hauled on the visualized lever inside his mindspace and flooded his skill with as much power as it would take. Pipes rattled as the whirring rose higher and higher in pitch, purple sparks coming fast enough that there was a constant purple electric current filling the archway. Suddenly, the sparking stopped and the whirring reached so high of a pitch that the three Red Brigands stopped being able to hear it. The electricity seemed to turn into liquid, spinning so fast that it looked like slowly churning purple molasses.
“It worked!” Sparks yelled, punching the air, sending her purple and pink hair flying about. She rushed forwards, pressing a button on the blood tank. The cylinder instantly compressed, spurting blood through tubes and into the portal.
“Gonna catch me a fishyyyy,” Sparks said excitedly, running in place, her eyes fixed on the functional portal.
“Indeed, the fervent aspiration for the presence of fortunate occurrences is a natural human inclination that I do so share. May the fates be kind, and may the stars align in such a manner as to allow for a blissful resolution to this endeavor,” Jackis said to Sparks, who forgot to quip back in her excitement.
A giant hand shot out of the portal, grabbing for anything in sight. It could barely fit through the four-foot opening, thick runic chains preventing the rest of the arm from entering the basement. Stones shattered as the hand clawed at the ground, leaving long furrows in the basement floor.
The surprise jostled Barty, who clenched his right hand twice, then feverishly tried clenching his left hand in the same manner with unfortunate inaccuracy.
“Pray, Bartholomew, attend to the imperative necessity of immediate closure of the improvised portal with all due dispatch, lest any manner of unanticipated and potentially hazardous consequence ensue due to the advent of this titanic limb that tests the limits of what can be deemed commensurate with the average giant, surpassing even the norms established by their kin. I do believe that--”
“Fuck sakes, Barty, CLOSE THE PORTAL!” Sparks yelled over Jackis, diving to the side as the hand groped for her. The appendage strained against its chains, inching further into the basement. She looked up to see what he was doing, but whatever it was, he wasn’t closing the portal. She scrambled to her feet, took four quick steps and lunged, tackling Barty to the ground.
As soon as both of Barty’s hands left the framework, the portal winked out, severing the hand at the wrist. Chains fell heavily to the ground as black blood spurted from the detached limb. Sparks pushed off of Barty, getting back to her feet and leaving him pressed into the ground. She ran towards the hand, where Jackis was already using his skill to analyze it.
“Unknown material,” Jackis mumbled before realizing that Sparks was next to him. “My esteemed colleague,” he corrected, “my analysis skills have led me to the conclusion that the material composing the object under examination is, as yet, unknown even to my skill’s current understanding and classification. A fascinating discovery, to be sure, and one that piques my curiosity and ignites my imagination to the fullest of extents.”
“Alright, Jackis,” Sparks said, rolling her eyes and giving the nerd a shove. “Cut the shit, what is it?”
“I… I don’t know,” he said, looking equally lost and excited.