Chapter 138 – Mercenaries

The charging tortugas came to a confused stop as they approached the group attacking the dome. The attackers weren’t trying to blow it up like everyone had thought, instead they seemed to be fighting each other.

“I should have noticed,” Hannah said, watching with a careful eye. Jack joined her in scanning the battlefield.

There were maybe seventy or so adventures. Mostly human, but a few elves and a pair of orcs. At first it seemed like a free for all, but as people fell dead the sides started to become clear. One side was clearly outnumbered, but that fact didn’t seem to bother them as they carved through the ranks of their opponent with apparent ease. Jack honed in on the one who seemed to be leading the infighting.

He fought hard on the front lines with a white glowing long sword. Floating above his head was another sword much the same as the one he was wielding. It danced with a life of its own as it struck out from behind an opponent, earning the swordsman an easy kill. An axe swing came in hard, lightning crackling around the head that threatened a destructive power. The swordsman disappeared, only to reappear holding onto the second sword that had been floating behind his attacker. He swung hard at the axe wielder’s neck and removed his head. He continued like that through the ranks of the enemy, teleporting from one sword to the other, always appearing when a sure kill presented itself.

“So that’s where he’s been,” Jack said as he watched the swordsman. “Wonder why he was working for the Golden Scale. I always knew he was an asshole.”

“Looks like he switched sides,” Hannah countered.

The group of seventy quickly shrank to around fifty. That’s when people started running away.

“Don’t give chase,” the swordsman commanded, turning to face the watching tortuga.

The man had a square jawline and blonde hair that he slicked back. He wore a simple coat of brown leather armor. Despite his just being in combat, he didn’t look tired or disheveled. He dismissed the sword in his hand and the one floating over his head. Jack realized they had been constructed of mana as he watched the weapons fade away. The man spotted Jack and Hannah among the tortugas and smiled. It was Devin, the former leader of the U.F.E.

Devin was one of the few people who actually believed Gideon’s betrayal. He was also one of the few people to admit to his failures. It was by no means his fault entirely that Rodeo had gained such an upper hand, but he definitely played a role in it. After the first floor was transformed, he gave up his position as leader and disbanded the U.F.E., citing his distaste for politics. He stuck around a little while after that, even helping Jack and Hannah with the occasional job on the first floor. He was one of the few decent sparring partners Jack had. He left for the second floor after only a few months, stating he needed to find his purpose. It was also important to note that he had been involved in completing the Dungeon of Xinnolath, meaning he had an epic class now.

“The Golden Scale? Really? Working for Gideon is your newfound purpose?” Jack immediately accused as he stepped forward to confront Devin.

“I was hoping to have this sorted out before you showed up,” Devin complained, eyeing the retreating soldiers.

“Explain,” Hannah said, stepping up beside Jack.

“Yea explain!” Nutt echoed, shaking an angry fist at Devin.

“Hannah, good to see you,” he nodded towards her, and gave Nutt a confused look. “Yes, I’ve been working with the Golden Scale-“

Jack immediately drew his daggers.

“But” Devin held up placating hands of surrender, “only as a spy of sorts.”

“A spy? You?” Hannah cocked an eyebrow.

“I’ll keep it simple,” Devin smiled. “I started a mercenary group. The Golden Scale hired us. I figured I could spy on them from the inside, learn how they work, learn more about Gideon’s motives, all while getting paid by the enemy.”

“Thought you said you were done with leadership?” Jack Narrowed his eyes at Devin and his small band of mercenaries. It was comprised of three elves who were all much shorter than any elf he had seen so far. A pair of orcs, one dwarf, and the rest human.

“I’m done leading armies,” Devin admitted, “but a small group of well-trained soldiers that I picked myself? That isn’t so bad. Surprisingly, I feel more in control of my life as the leader of a small group than I ever did as commander,” he admitted with a thoughtful shrug.

“Say we believe you,” Hannah started, “what was all that fighting about?”

“Me and my group were called down from the third sector to come help take control of the area. Unfortunately, several other members were called down as well. When I learned it was Jack who had taken control of the sector, I knew I would have to end my career as a spy. Zeth was prepared to use his soldiers as bait while we went and took out your base. That little quarrel you just witnessed was me revealing I’m not actually on their side. They didn’t take it very well, and I’m hoping the fact that I just killed the lot of them is good enough proof that I’m on your side.”

“What? You want to team up?” Jack asked.

“Why not? Last time we did I got an epic class. I’m curious what I’ll get this time. Plus, it should be fun to watch how you handle being in charge. I promise I won’t be a constant headache like you were for me,” Devin smiled, his eyes twinkling with menace.

Jack exchanged a glance with Hannah, and she gave him a small nod. He needed allies, and having another person with an epic class was hard to turn down. This might actually be possible, Jack thought with a smile.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Alright,” Jack extended a hand and sent Devin and his mercenaries an invitation to the faction. Devin’s face went sour for a brief second.

“Can you do something about the name?” he asked.

“I’m honestly not sure,” Jack shrugged.

“You better figure it out,” Hannah added in.

Jack turned to the tortugas who still had weapons at the ready and waved them down. “Can you open this up now?”

With a nod Kain placed his hand on the dome and a few moments later a large opening appeared. There was awkward celebration upon their return with the tortuga being elated their elites had returned and simultaneously suspicious of all the new members.

“Should we do some team building exercises or something? Think we could find a ropes course around here?” Jack asked Hannah as they found a spot to sit down. It was awkward to say the least inside the turtle dome. Devin and his mercenaries look wholly unimpressed to be inside, and Jack couldn’t blame them. The tortugas weren’t much for privacy so everything was just sort of open outside of a small area to store and hand out supplies.

“No. Not like we’ll be fighting together a whole lot. You said you wanted the tortuga to stay in control of this sector right?” Hannah asked.

“They probably won’t agree to any other sector after I promised to let them charge an entry fee to the city again.”

“About that—Don’t let them do that just yet. I’m thinking we’ll need people in the city to pull this off so we should make it easy to get in. Or at least provide them with an alternative path to getting in. Can you give me access to this city interface you have now?”

Jack pulled up the city interface again and gave it a quick scan.

City Sector Control Interface

Sector: Six

Faction Name: Hannahwherethefuckareyou

Faction Leader: Jack Atlas

Faction Members: 203

City Coins: 39

Quests Available: 10

Quests Completed: 7

Entry Price: Free

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

First, he focused on the faction’s name real quick. He was tired of people bugging him about that. A prompt appeared.

Change Faction Name for 100 City Coins? Y/N

Jack rolled his eyes and immediately dismissed the prompt. The damn cheap ass system was going to charge him for everything it could possibly think of. He glanced at the faction members. With Devin’s new band of mercenaries, the total had shot up to 203 members. It felt like both a lot and not nearly enough.

Then Jack noticed the city coins. Thirty-nine. He stared at it confused for a moment, which prompted a breakdown to appear.

City Coins:

City Coin Allotment [Daily] = 25 City Coins

Common Quests Completed = 14 City

It looked like someone completing a common quest earned him two city coins per, judging from the seven completed quests. Originally, he assumed that the Golden Scale had been hoarding all the quests, but it looked like others had managed to snag them. He had ten new quests he could issue meaning three of them had either been failed or abandoned.

The daily city allotment of coins wasn’t much, but it was still a nice surprise. Although it did make him a little suspicious of Kain. If the tortuga leader was earning coins passively just how many had he been sitting on? He was in charge for several months after all, so he was bound to have a lot. It was hard to believe he wasn’t spending them on anything.

“Hello? Can you do it?” Hannah snapped her fingers in front of Jack.

“Sorry. I’ve got money to spend-“

“Please don’t buy anything before I get a chance to look it over,” Hannah pleaded.

Jack focused on the Faction members, and it pulled up a list of everyone’s names and roll. Currently everyone was at the rank of “Member”. He found Hannah’s name and was able to give her the second highest rank of City Councilor which was one below Faction Leader. As a quick test he tried promoting Kain to the rank of City Councilor but was hit with an error message.

Error: Your faction only controls one sector. Please take control of more sectors in order to assign more City Councilors.

He couldn’t argue much with that logic.

“Did it work? You got access?” Jack glanced over at Hannah whose eyes had already gone distant as she looked at a menu only she could see.

“Yea,” she answered, “I’ll need some time with this. Make sure no one bugs me.”

“I’ll go find us a healer then.” Jack pushed up off the ground with a grunt and limped over to where Devin’s mercenaries had grouped up. Devin looked a little annoyed.

“We can’t stay here,” he immediately said. “I don’t even think they have a bathroom here.”

“I doubt we’ll be here for long,” Jack shrugged, “But you’re probably right. They’ll need to move this to somewhere more defensible. Especially as we start taking on more sectors. They built their base in the middle of a zombie spawning point to use as a natural defense. Things will only get worse here as we take control of the city.”

“How many sectors are you thinking of taking over?” Devin asked.

“All of them.”

“You know-“ he started.

“It’s impossible, never been done, yadayadayada,” Jack interrupted. “I’m in one of those classic ‘Evil-god-ruining-my-life-and-making-me-complete-an-impossible-quest-or-he’s-going-to-kill-me’ type situations so I don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

“So business as usual,” Devin smirked.

“Business as usual,” Jack agreed.

“I was worried you might end up lost with your whole… situation. Glad to see you’re as motivated as ever. How’s it been without…” Devin trailed off with a look at Jack’s torso.

“My core? Worse than expected. The Epic class definitely helps with the padded stats but shit’s going to be an uphill battle every step of the way.”

Devin grimaced. “Any leads on how to fix it? I know Hannah was looking into it.”

“Not really. But if you come across anything related to Andurian, let me know. That asshole is involved with the solution somehow.”

Devin tried to introduce Jack to his group of mercs, but he was too tired and still in a fair amount of pain, so he opted to commandeer one of his healers instead. The healer was a warpriest not deeply specialized in the healing arts, but he was good enough to heal any of their wounds and reduce some of the fatigue their muscles were feeling. Jack and Hannah agreed to have a meeting with everyone tomorrow and work out a plan for going forward, but for now, Jack was going to sleep.