Chapter 134 – I’m in charge now

Jack stared at the giant Tortuga leader for a long moment.

“What?”

“I surrender,” he said again, struggling to maintain his constant flow of magic.

Jack squinted at the man. He had every intention of killing this guy, but he had just surrendered. He hadn’t really planned on a surrender. If anything he was more of a ‘take no prisoners’ kinda guy. He glanced down at Nutt for help but the little goblin was busy dissecting the turtles Jack had just killed. Their bodies hadn’t faded away yet and Nutt was oohing and awing as he plucked out eyeballs, cut off fingers, and ripped off chunks of their skin. He even stuffed their shells into his void sack. Jack turned back to the leader.

“What do you mean you surrender?”

“I can either fend off the horde of zombies, or I can fight you. I can’t do both. I’d rather save my people,” he grunted.

“What If I don’t accept your surrender?”

“Then I will fight you,” he growled, “But are you truly so confident you can beat me and my kin all on your own? You’re already broken.”

Jack glanced around at the remaining turtles. By now they were all covered in paint and presumably being controlled by the leader.

“Honestly? Yea. I think I could still probably win.” Jack grinned.

“Human arrogance,” he huffed, “what are your plans to deal with the zombies after you’ve beaten me?”

“Run away I guess” Jack shrugged.

“To where?”

That brought Jack up short. He didn’t have any plans beyond killing the sector leader and taking control. Now that he thought about it though, wasn’t he just painting a giant target on his back? He told himself the Golden Scale wouldn’t attack him, but that had just been an assumption. They might be the kind of people who were perfectly fine killing off people in the name of the ‘Greater Good’. Also, there was that Summer Elf he still had to worry about. What if she came looking for revenge? Jack wasn’t strong enough to deal with her just yet.

“So, what are you suggesting?” Jack narrowed his eyes at the Tortuga leader.

The leader didn’t respond for a long moment, still locked in deep concentration as more and more paint spilled out of his brush.

“Hello?” Jack asked, pulling the turtle out of his concentration and earning him an angry glare.

“I can’t talk and focus,” he growled. “Help me defend the dome while I rebuild it. Then we can negotiate my surrender.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I swear on my soul-“

“Hold it!” Jack interrupted before the turtle could swear a soul oath. “I’m not getting involved in that shit again. If you want to swear on your soul, swear it to this guy.” Jack grabbed Nutt by the scruff and held him in front of the Tortuga leader, who looked taken aback at the suggestion.

“Very well…” he said, “I swear on my soul that I will not betray you and willingly hand over control of sector six.”

“Accepted!” Nutt squeaked.

“Very well,” The turtle nodded, returning his focus to controlling his troops.

Jack glanced around to see how he could help. The big problem at the moment seemed to be the ghouls. There were several openings in the dome and the ghouls were still raining down from above and wreaking havoc in the dome.

“I’ll deal with the ghouls. Try and get the roof sealed as fast as you can.”

“Are you sure you can handle the task? You look… not well.” The leader peered open his eyes to inspect Jack.

Jack just shrugged in response. It was either go insane dealing with Rodeo hallucinations, or deal with the fact that every inch of movement set his body on fire with pain.

“Here,” Nutt said, tapping Jack’s leg. He looked down at the goblin extending a potion to him.

Lucidity Antidote

Type: Antidote

Rarity: Uncommon

Toxicity: 63%

Grants immunity to all hallucinogenic effects.

----------------------------------------

Product of Nutt

“Thought you said you were out of reagents?”

“Those turtles were immune, used their parts.” Nutt pointed at the ransacked corpses of the turtles they had just killed.

“Desecration…” came an angry rumble from the leader, but Jack just ignored him as he threw back the potion. It tasted horrible, like rocks, paint, and rotten flesh. Jack choked back the potion and watched in horror as his skin started to turn the same light gray color as the upgraded turtles.

“Nutt…”

“Interesting side effects. Should be fine.” Nutt said, taking on an academic tone as he examined Jack.

Jack just sighed, remembering the pink orcs that had welcomed him to the second floor. Jack retrained his focus once more, pushing the pain he felt completely out of his mind until he felt nothing. With his focus now shifted he held his breath. The hallucinations didn’t return and the blurry painted world calmed down a bit as Jack started to descend back to reality. He pulled out a health potion from his void sack and put it to his lips.

“Stop!” Nutt screamed, knocking the potion away in a surprising jump of athleticism.

“What the hell?”

“Did you not read the toxicity levels on the antidote? If you drink a potion now, you’ll get potion sickness and probably die!”

“Oh yea… How long?”

“Several hours at least before it’s somewhat safe to drink another potion.”

Jack returned the potion to his void sack with an annoyed grimace. He had been so used to chugging health potions nonstop on the first floor. He needed to remember that wasn’t going to be an option on the second floor. Maybe it’s time to recruit a healer, he thought to himself.

“I can help.”

Jack glanced back at the Tortuga leader who seemed to be paying some attention to the conversation as he vied to maintain full control of his troops. With a twist of his brush a small stream of paint broke off form the river still flooding out of his brush and stretched out towards Jack.

“A buff,” he said as Jack retracted from the paint. Jack stuck out his foot with some trepidation and let the paint crawl up his body. The technicolor paint formed a framework all over his body and then solidified into a solid black. “This will provide basic reinforcement to your body.”

Jack gave a few test moves. He felt sturdier, and his movements had a spring like motion to them.

“All right. Nutt. You help out down here. I’m going up top.”

Jack ran towards the wall and jumped upwards, launching himself towards an opening on top of the dome. He was met by dozen of ghouls who swarmed him like flies to rotten meat. He cut through them with ease as he danced across the top of the dome. With its defensive layer of paint absent, there must have been a hundred ghouls that were climbing up it. They seemed far less interested in entering the dome now that Jack was out here, the draw of easy prey too much to pass up. Jack turned on them like a storm possessed, slashing through one ghoul after another with a practiced ease.

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Slowly, like puzzle pieces falling into place the dome reformed itself with the gaps getting replaced with the Tortuga shells. The dome was constantly shifting beneath Jack as it reconstructed itself to make up for the missing pieces.

As Jack carved through one ghoul after another, he realized his AP was climbing up quite fast. He threw a passing glance at the sea of zombies that surrounded the dome trying to burst in. None of them seemed particularly difficult to kill. He was up here by himself and seemed to be doing just fine. What would happen if he just stayed here all week killing zombies and racking up AP? Hell, that might be exactly what the turtles are doing, Jack thought. He hadn’t had the opportunity to go shopping on the second floor yet, but certainly he wasn’t the first one to have this idea of just killing monsters for money. He wondered how the Tower dealt with inflation.

The dome took about thirty minutes to fully rebuild itself. Jack had gotten bored killing ghouls and was just kinda jumping around back and forth as they shrieked at him in frustration, trying and failing to swipe at him. Soon, only one hole was left on the roof and Jack let himself fall through, watching as a shell closed off the entry behind him.

The situation on the ground seemed under control as well, with even a fair amount of the turtles no longer under their leader's control and taking verbal commands to push back the zombies at various openings. Nutt even seemed to be handling a chokepoint mostly by himself, throwing one potion after another into the choke point and firebombing the area. The zombies didn’t respond well at all to the flames. Last Jack watched as the Tortuga leader fended off a section all by himself, letting out angry roars as he swung his giant paintbrush back and forth. The tip had taken shape into a deadly glaive of technicolor paint that he used to cleave through the zombies with ease. He seemed to be venting his frustrations on the zombies. Soon, all the zombies had been pushed out and the dome completely sealed up, albeit a little smaller in size.

Jack walked up to the leader who was inspecting the dome, and saw some of his troops who all met Jack with extreme hostility.

“Peace brothers. We knew the Tower might punish us. We have lost.” The leader said, turning to Jack as his soldiers reluctantly lowered their weapons. “Allow me a formal introduction, I am Kain Everbrush, leader of the Painted Shell Tribe.” He crossed his arm over his chest and bent ever so slightly in a bow.

“Jack Atlas. How about you hand over that sector now?”

There was a tense standoff for a moment. Jack was a little concerned that he was just going to break his oath once everything was relatively safe. Jack had broken pretty much every oath he’d ever sworn so he wouldn’t allow himself to be shocked if Kain did it as well.

“Very well,” he grumbled, his black eyes going distant as he focused on his own interface.

A notification popped up.

Kain Everbrush has relinquished his council seat to you. Do you accept?

Y/N

Jack selected yes and another prompt appeared.

You are now the City Council Member for Sector Six. Please choose a name for your faction.

Jack grinned at the message, wishing he could see Hannah’s face right now. He mentally typed out Hannahwherethefuckareyou and selected enter, firing off his S.O.S.

[Faction Hannahwherethefuckareyou has been officially registered, please take this time to familiarize yourself with the city interface menu.]

An entirely new menu popped up this time.

City Sector Control Interface

Sector: Six

Faction Name: Hannahwherethefuckareyou

Faction Leader: Jack Atlas

Faction Members: 1

City Coins: 0

Quests Available: 0

Quests Completed: 0

Entry Price: One Moonlight Beast Heart

Sector Upgrades / Sector Quests / Sector Monsters / Messages / Settings

Jack selected the Entry price, setting it too free. He wanted to flood the sector with as many climbers as possible, and with any luck Hannah would be one of those climbers waiting for him. Outside of that he dismissed the menu. He would explore it later, but in large it would be Hannah’s problem to deal with. For now, he needed to figure out how to survive until then.

“Tell me,” Kain started, “Do you have allies on the outside waiting for you?”

“One,” Jack nodded. Kain grimaced at that.

“You aren’t an assassin sent on behalf of another faction? You really came here with… a goblin as your only backup intent on taking the sector?”

“Is that weird?”

“It’s certainly unorthodox,” Kain said, seeming confused by Jack’s recklessness. “If I may be so bold, could I inquire as to your ranking on the first floor?”

“Show him, show him!” Nutt piped up excitedly, pulling at Jack's arm.

When Jack had opened up his rank nine supply chest, the number nine was imprinted on the back of his hand. Nutt had told him it was important but Jack had completely forgotten about it. He focused on the back of his hand and watched as the number nine reappeared.

This drew several shocked gasps from the surrounding Tortuga’s, who all fell to a knee bowing their heads deeply. Even Kain was on his knee, staring at Jack’s rank with some reverence.

“Excuse me my lord. I thought it strange you didn’t use mana once, but now I understand why. You simply didn’t need to. Please, it would be an honor for the painted shell tribe to serve someone of your status. Allow us into your faction and we shall be the shell that protects you.” Kain spoke rapidly. Jack threw a skeptical glance at Nutt who just flashed him a knowing grin.

“Please… Don’t kill us… we can be of service to you.” Kain said again, his tone nervous.

Had he known his rank would earn him this sort of reaction he would have been flashing it every chance he got. Probably could have taken control of the Golden Scale on the spot. He glanced around at the dome. He was going to need people anyways to stay behind while he went off to claim other sectors, which brought up another question.

“Can I assign proxies? Like if I want to leave this sector and put someone else in charge?”

“You can in the settings menu. Although if they die in your absence, then you lose control of the sector. In addition if at any point you yourself die, then you lose control of every sector. I take it this means you plan to make a play for another sector?”

“I do.” Jack nodded at that. It was kind of annoying that he had to rely on other people to take over the city, but he guessed it made sense.

“Then all the more reason to invite us into your faction. We already have an established fort here and would be happy to maintain control in this sector.”

“What the hell were you guys doing here anyways? I know the beast hearts and all but is that really it?” Jack asked.

“As you’ll find out,” Kain sat down with a sigh, “sector six is largely a waste of time. The upgrades are pitiful, and no one stays here long enough to do the quests as more rewarding options can be found deeper in the city. It’s hard to compete with anything sector two and the Twilight Lord can offer. Our goal was simple, harvest AP and recover enough hearts of the moonlight beast for the entirety of my tribe to upgrade.”

Jack glanced around at the Tortuga who had yet to receive any sort of upgrade. There were a lot left.

“There is much work left to be done, yes, but many have already been blessed with the racial upgrade and sent out to get supplies.”

“Wait, so there are more of those super turtles out there? Did I just get lucky and catch you guys with your pants down?”

“Yes,” Kain’s eyes flinched when Jack called them turtles. “Although I wouldn’t call it luck.”

“Why not? Seems pretty lucky to me.”

“Because we got greedy. We’ve been harvesting the zombies for AP. The Tower doesn’t like when climbers do that, but we figured we would be able to defend ourselves against any sort of retribution.”

“Huh.” Jack nodded. He had been wondering about just that very thing while killing ghouls up top. “So how did the Tower respond?”

Kain looked at Jack as though he was an idiot.

“Wait. You think the Tower sent me? I don’t work for the Tower. In fact, I’ve got a standing reservation to kill the Tower.”

“Fool,” Kain snorted, “we are all but playthings to the Tower. It will bend our fates to its machinations, of that you can be certain.”

Jack grimaced at that. He would have to be careful to make sure he wasn’t playing into the Tower’s gambit. Although he wasn’t sure he would even recognize something like that if it happened again. He would just have to be more chaotic and reckless going forward. But he was more inclined to invite the turtles into his faction. Especially if the Tower wanted them dead.

“Alright,” Jack sighed, “you guys can join.”

“Me first!” Nutt screamed, practically biting at Jack’s ankles. He punted the goblin across the dome, sending him an invite at the same time. Then he sent out invitations to the rest of the turtles and watched as the faction number climbed up.

Faction Members: 178

“How many of your elites did you send out?”

“Forty.”

“Why so many?”

“Did you already forget everyone out there wants us dead? Plus, we are surrounded by a literal horde of zombies. I needed to send a battalion just to ensure their survival.”

“How soon will they be back?”

“A few days hopefully. Why?”

“Because the Golden Scale was preparing to attack you all. They’ve got reinforcements coming down from the upper sectors.”

“Let them come, with you at my side we shall decimate their ranks against our iron shells,” Kain growled.

“Hey, I’m in charge now. Not you. For now, we wait.” Jack glanced at Kain who seemed to completely forget he was no longer calling the shots. The turtle looked uncomfortable with the idea that he had to follow orders now.

“What is your plan?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t have a plan. I’m not the plan guy. I’m the kill stuff guy.”

“Then who?”

“Hannah,” Jack said, distracted by a new notification appearing.

“Hannah? Is that your queen?”

“Ehhh more like really mean sister,” Jack said, pulling up the city interface to check the notification he got.

[You have one new message from: Mayor Mortimaxx]

Jack stared at the notification. This can’t be good.