Chapter 139 - Plans

“You sure you wanna do this?” Devin asked.

“Not really,” Jack grumbled, “but I’m about to lose my mind from boredom. You positive your healers can keep up?” Jack glanced over at the surrounding mercenaries standing atop the dome with him and Devin. When word got out that the two of them were going to “practice”, it garnered more attention than Jack was expecting.

Over the past couple of days, he had gotten to know some of Devin’s new group. They all knew who Jack was, at least the humans did. The big surprise was they were all fans of his. Either they had directly witnessed his exploits at one point or had at least heard the stories, and they played a big part in convincing Devin to team up from what he gathered. There was a pretty common theme among the mercenaries Devin allowed to join – they all had an obsession with getting stronger. Which was odd seeing Devin wasn’t really the ‘obsessed with getting stronger’ type.

“It’s a straightforward goal really,” Devin admitted when asked, “I’m not as obsessed with getting stronger like they are. I like to think of myself as a moral leader of sorts. I got to witness firsthand the kinds of things people will do for power. Figure that should be my goal now – making sure people are acquiring power the right way.”

“And what’s the right way?” Jack asked.

“Combat.” Devin frowned as though he was admitting a truth he didn’t quite believe himself. “At least the Tower seems to think so. Why else would it make us constantly fight? I can at least make sure my people are getting into the right fights.”

Jack cocked an eyebrow at him. “If you think I’m going to be getting into any sort of noble fights-“

“I don’t have any illusions about the kind of fights you’ll be starting,” Devin interrupted, “I’m already aware. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but don’t think I won’t step in if you cross a line.”

“Think you can take me in a fight now huh?” Jack smirked.

That provocation was what led to a ‘training duel’ on top of the dome. His band of mercenaries claimed they were out here to defend the arena from the ghouls, but in reality they just wanted to watch.

Jack pulled out a pair of simple steel daggers he had on hand and gave them a few test swirls in his hands.

“You can use your actual weapons. This is supposed to be real training, isn’t it?” Devin challenged.

“Can your healers handle corruption debuffs? I’ve also got a mortal wound's passive effect. Going to be a bitch to heal anything,” Jack offered.

“Worry about yourself,” the nearby Warpriest smirked. Jack just shrugged and pulled out his main daggers, giving them a flourish as he fell into a stance opposite his opponent.

Devin held out his hand and forged from his mana a pure white longsword. A second one materialized over his shoulder and aimed itself at Jack. He barely had time to roll out of the way as Devin shot it at him like a bullet. It whipped past his head at a surprising speed and Jack spun on his heels to deflect a follow up that never came. The sword hung lazily in the air behind him. Jack exploded in a burst of speed towards Devin, but he disappeared right before he could connect with his daggers. Jack glanced over his shoulder to see Devin appear holding the sword he had just launched at him.

So that’s how it’s going to be, Jack mused. He sprinted back towards the first sword, pushing his speed even faster this time. Devin responded by teleporting that much faster. Jack cut through nothing but air a second time in a row. When he turned around to launch at Devin once more the sword at his back struck out at him. Jack overwhelmed the singular floating sword with ease. It didn’t seem to have much strength to it by itself. While he was busy fighting with the floating sword Devin started launching projectiles at him. White swords shot out like lasers from the tip of his blade, although they disappeared when they missed. Jack launched himself towards Devin yet again, only this time he was dodging projectiles. Devin managed to sneak one sword into the barrage that was twice as fast and hummed with a dangerous power that nearly took his head off.

Jack hadn’t really fought against someone who could teleport. Sam could to some degree, but he wasn’t a challenging fight so he never counted sparring matches against him. Devin on the other hand seemed to at least understand the nuances of how powerful teleportation could be in a fight. Jack felt like he was a runner stuck between third and home.

There were limits though. Devin couldn’t do this forever. He would run out of mana eventually and Jack counted on his stamina lasting longer than Devin’s mana supply. The problem was that if he knew that, Devin definitely knew that – which meant he would be making a move to end the fight here soon.

Jack swung at Devin one final time only for him to teleport again. Jack followed through on his slash, spinning on his foot. Once Devin was in his sight he let go of his dagger, throwing it as hard as he could at the man. Jack was rewarded with a pained grimace from Devin as his dagger pierced through the man’s leg.

With Devin surprised and in pain, Jack exploded in his fastest burst of speed yet, but Devin had planned for even that.

As Jack made it halfway across, he realized there was a third glowing white sword stuck in the ground. Jack remembered the sword that nearly took his head off when Devin was launching attacks at him. He just thought it was a stronger version of the attack, but it looked like it was an actual sword. Which meant Devin could likely teleport to it as well. Jack barely had time to react as Devin appeared, grabbing onto the handle of the sword and swinging at him.

Jack twisted awkwardly and managed to block the blow. Devin’s swing came down harder than Jack had anticipated, and with the awkward angle he was at his block was less than perfect. Devin knocked the dagger out of his hand and it went flying up into the air. Jack felt a sword rip through his side as Devin launched the other two floating swords at him. Jack lashed out with his fist, letting the tension bleed out of his arm and swinging in hard like lightning. He felt Devin’s nose crunch under his fist as he hit the man three times more in the face with unreadable speed. Jack managed an awkward tackle and pulled a knife out of his void ring to bury into Devin’s skull.

“Stop!” someone screamed as Jack brought the knife down. “You already lost!”

Jack stopped the knife inches away from Devin’s face. He glanced around at his surroundings, panting hard. Three swords were hanging in the air, all pointed at Jack, radiating with deadly power. He glanced down at Devin who had a hard expression peering out from underneath a swollen face. He wasn’t rattled at all, and still had his swords primed to run Jack through.

He rolled off Devin with a sigh. This was his loss. Again.

“How about we call that one a draw?” Devin offered as his healers repaired his face and tended to the corruption in his leg.

“A draw?” a red haired mercenary named James or something like that scoffed. “You had him dead to rights boss.”

“You’ll notice he didn’t use his mana once,” Devin countered with a knowing smirk at Jack.

“Yea but you never used your real sword,” James rebutted.

“Real sword?” Jack raised an eyebrow, “you holding back on me?”

“And you didn’t use your gun. We can go back and forth on this all day. Like I said, it’s a draw.” Devin shrugged.

Jack bit back some frustration at that. Not only was he losing, but people weren’t going all out against him. Sure Devin was right about not using his gun, but Jack was the one who always went easy on people. Not the other way around.

“Next time use your sword,” Jack demanded. His mood had gone sour and he pushed up off the ground, stalking towards the small opening to get back inside the dome.

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He found Hannah arguing with Kain.

“He promised me we could charge for entry to the city again,” the leader growled.

“And I’m telling you we can’t do that. I want people to have easy access inside. We need to be recruiting, not boxing people out,” Hannah said.

“What’s all this about?” Jack asked.

Kain turned to Jack, his eyes furious. “I’ve been informed you are withdrawing your promise to allow us to charge a beast heart to get inside. Is this true?”

“I don’t remember promising. I just said I was fine with it. But If Hannah says you can’t, then…” he trailed off with a shrug.

“Ridiculous, then I’m better off taking my warband and farming them ourselves.” Kain snorted.

Jack sighed. He was in a bad mood and didn’t want to be dealing with this shit already. He scratched his chin, making sure to flash his rank nine mark. “If you jump ship now then I’ll have no choice but to consider you an enemy.”

Kain’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you won’t make it to the front gate alive if you leave.”

The room went deadly quiet.

Somewhere in the back of Jack’s mind he knew the threat was a bit too much, but he was already losing everywhere else. He couldn’t start losing here as well. Besides, he was never going to be a good and honorable leader. At the end of the day, it would be join – or die.

He tilted his head at Kain, a lazy smile forming on his face as he searched the tortuga’s eyes for a response. The leader looked down, not saying anything.

“We’ll figure out a way to make you and your troops whole again,” Hannah quickly added. “Even if we have to stick around after and help you farm the beast cores. For now, I need you to work with me.”

Kain slowly nodded in response, still throwing suspicious glances at Jack.

“You have to fight one of these moonlight beasts?” Jack asked an approaching Devin.

“Yea, you didn’t?”

“I took an alternative route into the city,” Jack replied. “What are they? Hard to fight?”

“Not so much hard as a pain in the ass. They’re literally giant desert tortoises. Large circular shells that kinda look like the moon, hence the name moonlight beasts. They have crazy high defense, and their giant size makes them difficult to manage. General strategy is to distract the turtle while your mages supercharge a giant spell capable of breaking through its defenses.”

“That's all that’s out there? Giant sand tortoises?”

“Pretty much. The goal of this floor is the city, so the Tower doesn’t give anyone much reason to head out into the desert. I’ve heard some rumors of powerful beasts the further out you go, and the occasional story of an adventurer getting lost out there and going insane. No idea if any of it’s true though.”

“Can you tell me what you were spending your City Coins on? I know you're not so foolish as to just sit on them.”

“Honestly I was doing just that,” Kain admitted, “if you look in the sector upgrades section of the interface, you’ll see an option for a fortress for around 8000 City Coins. Highly defensible, lots of traps built in. That combined with our ability to defend ourselves would have made it almost impossible to take the sector from us. We actually would have had a decent chance at farming enough cores to upgrade the race of my entire tribe.”

“Well, the system is designed in a way where you have to spend money to make money. Had you actually been utilizing it you could’ve gotten that much faster…” Hannah trailed off as Kain started to glare at her. “Don’t get mad at me because you couldn’t figure that out.” She glared right back at him.

“Listen,” she said, turning to Jack. “I’ve got somewhat of a plan forming. The first thing we need to do is get this base moved.”

“But this spot has good natural defenses,” Kain protested.

“It was a good idea,” Hannah agreed, “but as we take over more sectors it’s going to be worse and worse sitting in the middle of a monster spawning point. What’s the plan for when we control six sectors of the city, and you have to contend with a horde of super zombies?”

Kain had no response.

“I also like your fortress idea,” she said, placing a placating hand on the tortuga’s arm. “I would have gone about it a different way, but you are correct, defense is the name of the game here.”

Kain nodded, seeming somewhat appeased by Hannah.

“For now, Devin, I want you and your group to find out how many quest boards there are in the sector, and then find the one that can be turned into a fortress. That’s where our new home base will be. I want to make sure we are the ones getting each and every quest we issue out.”

Devin started laughing at that.

“What’s so funny?” Hannah cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s just that the first time I met you two was at a U.F.E. base that you attacked because we were hoarding all the quests. Now here you are doing the exact same thing. It’s really kind of funny how we’ve come full circle.”

“Only difference is you’re working with us now,” Hannah grinned. “So can you do it?”

“We can,” Devin nodded.

“What about me?” Jack asked.

“You, me, and Nutt are going to find a quest board and issue ourselves some quests. We’ll keep doing that and rack up a bunch of City Coins until Devin gets back. Kain, you and your elites are welcome to join us, but you should also prepare your troops to move out.”

“I’ll stay and debrief the soldiers on the plan,” Kain said, turning away.

“Jack, go find Nutt and get ready to head out,” Hannah quickly said as she turned to follow Kain. Jack watched as she grabbed the tortuga by the arm.

“Listen,” she said quietly. “I’m not lying when I say I will find a way to help you and your tribe. I’m sorry about Jack. That was a bit heavy handed on his part, but…”

“But…” Kain slowly repeated.

“But you can’t betray him. If he gets it in his mind to kill you, then there is nothing that I can do to stop it. Promise me you’ll work with us on this, and I promise you it will be worth it. I know it may seem ridiculous right now, but I’m not lying when I tell you that he will conquer this city. I can only imagine how good the rewards will be for you.”

Kain stared at Hannah for a long moment. “I believe you. You can count on us.” He said with a strange hand gesture over his heart. Hannah returned the gesture and then walked back over to Jack.

“Well, that was nice of you,” Jack offered.

“You can’t go threatening to kill our allies, Jack. We actually need some degree of teamwork to pull this off,” she complained.

“Sorry. Was in a bad mood. Felt right in the moment,” Jack shrugged. Hannah was right, but he felt like he was also right. She could be the carrot, and he would be the stick.

“Lose the duel?” She asked.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Jack scowled.

“I never knew you were such a sore loser.”

“Because you’ve never seen me lose this much,” Jack complained. “Where the hell is Nutt?”

“I don’t know. He wouldn’t leave me the hell alone, so I made some random potion requests, and he scampered off to make them.”

Jack and Hannah found Nutt almost completely naked. He was playing some sort of gambling game that involved rolling dice and picking up tiny bones. He looked to be losing terribly.

“They wouldn’t sell me any ingredients. They made me gamble for it!” Nutt protested as Jack shelled over the AP to buy his equipment back. Luckily, he didn’t have anything the tortuga actually wanted so it was relatively cheap to re-equip the little goblin.

The trio made their way out of the dome, through the zombies and out of the graveyard. They found the nearest quest board with relative ease and began to issue out quests.

Quest: Zombie Slayer

Quest tier: Common

Quest Sponsor: Hannahwherethefuckareyou

Objective:

Kill 100 Zombies.

Reward:

+10,000AP

As far as quests went, it sucked. In addition, they could each only have one quest at a time. Instead of sharing the quest they each took the quest for themselves separately. They didn’t care about sharing the rewards, they only needed quest completion so they could get city coins. They had about 89 City Coins at the moment thanks to the daily passive income. Hannah wanted to unlock the uncommon quests first which was 200 City coins. Completing the quest itself would net them 2 city coins per, meaning they were going to have to kill a shit ton of zombies.

“We can actually do this quest multiple times, right? Like is it repeatable for us?” Jack asked.

“Probably. Common and uncommon quests are usually repeatable. It’s the rare and higher that tend to be unique. If not though, we can just start bringing tortuga with us.”

Jack nodded, killing off a few nearby ghouls as hopped onto the roof of a house.

“How you wanna do this?” Jack asked, surveying the surrounding city.

“You round them up, I shoot em down. Nutt you-“

“I’ll set up traps!” Nutt offered, running off.

“Five bucks says one of his traps is going to backfire and almost kill all of us,” Jack sighed watching the goblin.

“Wouldn’t be the first time an idiot on our team has blown us all up,” Hannah smirked.

Jack grinned back at her and turned to jump down to the street and start wrangling zombies. Then a system message appeared.

[Sector One of Broken Moon City is now under control of the Summer Wind faction.]

[Three Sectors now under independent control. Upgrading city danger level to rank three]

[Upgrading…]

[Upgrading…]

[Upgrading…]