Everyone sprawled out in groups of two, as we stood on the edge of the vineyard… wine trees?
“What are these called anyways?”
He gave me a look, “What are what called?”
“The wine vines or grape trees. The ones the grapes come from.”
He laughed and I’m instantly annoyed.
“It’s a vineyard-”
“Yeah, I know that-”
“And these are called grape vines.”
Damn. I was so close too. Well, I’m tired of pretending to be a douchebag to fit in with douchebags that I don’t care about. Plus, I totally knew that word, I just hadn’t remembered it.
“Thanks Fork, so what’s the plan?”
His laughter stopped at that, but what was I supposed to do? That nickname was divine providence and I wasn’t one to discard something that good.
“Dick. We’re going in to patrol and clear out animals, generally we’ll try to stay within shouting distance of the groups to either side. Simple enough for even you to follow.”
“Yeah, you definitely seem like the thinker of the group.”
He scowled and so did I. Some people you just don’t get along with right off the bat. Me and Fork had that kind of relationship. Which meant one of two things, either a legendary bromance or, what seemed to be more likely now that the remains of society was busy being flayed alive, a fight to the death.
If I have to kill him I better get a Feat for it. The whole system kind of chaffed my ass. Feats were such bullshit. No XP meant no farming. Ahead was an endless sea of risking your life in steadily more threatening scenarios to build up strength. Farming was dead, D-E-D dead, unless you had some sort of fetish for pursuing low threat scenarios for no reward. Good thing I’d always hated farming in games.
“Why aren’t you going in?”
I had been spacing out, “Well? Why aren’t you? You know this place better than me.”
“Fine, same time then.”
“Absolutely not, I have the gun, clearly I’m supposed to be the backline.”
I, to my credit, only somewhat, vaguely gestured at him with my shotgun.
He pushed through the wall of grapevines and I plunged in behind him.
It didn’t get easier the second time, the sense of being trapped in an infinite shrub, which is entirely more terrifying than it sounds, before we broke through into a clearing. Only at the corners where 4 of the grapevines met was there enough space for the sun to shine through. Other than those little squares of light, the overgrown wine vines, grape vines, covered the sky in totality. There was an eerie effect, where you can see the rows going down and to each side going into the distance, but it was more of an illusion than a clear shot. I didn’t catch sight of anyone to our right or left. It seemed worse here than it had where Vivi and I had visited yesterday.
“Gloomy as hell.”
“You’re telling me, come on.”
“Why can’t I see anyone else?”
He sighed, “It’s some weird effect, it looks like you’re seeing really far, yeah? Well you’re not. Visibility is 20-30 feet in any direction.”
Good to know, also not good to know. Why was this kind of information parceled out at the moment, there should be briefing sessions like we had in Ontiveros’ auditorium. Maybe they already had those types of meetings before I had arrived.
We continued to pace our way through the silent grove. I took out my baseball bat and slung my shotgun into my backpack through the loop.
“Are you trying for some hipster-ironic-thing with those shirts?”
I looked down, ‘Come and Get this Pussy’. Holy- holy shit. I nearly gagged. That was bad, even for my level of ‘acceptable apocalypse gear’. I was suddenly really glad I killed most of the cat horde. Dying horribly was the least they could do for shredding and pissing on my normal shirts and leaving me with…this.
“I wasn’t really looking for fashion advice, thanks though.”
He grunted. Some time passed in silence as we moved deeper into the grapevines.
I looked up, ready for a bird. Not seeing one had me scan the treeline, I spun in a slow circle.
“What do you see?”
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“Quiet. Keep an eye out.”
“Don’t te-”
“Dude, shut the fuck up-”
Fucking squirrels. Their short sentences were easy to confuse with birds, until you heard the ‘ch-ch’. Dead giveaway. Skav- rats were more of a middle-ground somewhere between birds, squirrels, and snakes.
I didn’t want to tell Ron how I knew any of this and give away my biggest advantage against the animals. If I voiced it and the animals overheard me it’d turn into apocalyptic levels of annoying if the animals became aware that they were announcing all their attacks ahead of time. I’d already gotten too close to spoiling it with the rats the other day and it’d change the apocalypse game for the worse if I got sloppy. I really needed to be more careful, much easier now that I wasn’t on a 48-72 hour bender.
“I gotta bad feeling and I thought I saw something, get ready.”
He paused before hefting up his pitchfork, or at least I think he did, my eyes trawled the surroundings.
“How do you know?”
Idiot. I.D.I.O.T.
“I just told you, I thought I saw something and my gut is telling me it isn’t friendly.”
At that I swatted a squirrel out of the air then spun to jump and smash another one in the treeline that I heard announce its own impending attack.
Ron gored one like a shish kabob, then another ran up his pitchfork up his arm and toward his eyes. It landed on his face as he snapped his fingers and ran, face-first into a tree. Pulped squirrel and he didn’t look any worse for wear.
Well, on the injury front at least, his face was full of pulped squirrel. Dude, what the fuck is up with people in the apocalypse. These were people that voted.
I felt like I had some time-freeze, precog ability. I’m sure it looked like that too, because I was absolutely crushing the squirrel onslaught, louisville wood ready and waiting for any woodland critter that wanted to get some.
Blunt weaponry was the way to go, at least for the small creatures, because as the attack quieted down, I was noticeably clean while Ron was… getting sloppy. He wiped squirrel chunks out of his eyes, I stuck out my tongue with a grimace, “Gross, dude.”
He spat and then grinned evilly as he spun his pitchfork to sling off two of the impaled squirrels. Towards me. The first spin of his pitchfork sent the first one that I dodged and I was ready for the second whirl as I line-drived the squirrel corpse right back at him. Since it was already punctured, I got splattered, but still got the better half of it when the small body lost all integrity as it slammed back into him.
I laughed and Ron did too.
Well shit, time to ruin this little moment of bonding.
“So, I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out…” I let it hang.
His eyes narrowed.
I activated Evil Eye to try and unsettle him a bit as I said the next bit.
“You’re the Usurper, it’s obvious, don’t deny it.”
“...What? What the hell is a ‘Usurper’?”
Damn, he totally looked like he was telling the truth. He also looked skeeved out by my glare. I could tell that since he was now holding the pointy bits of his pitchfork in my general direction. I’m pretty perceptive when sober.
“Ah? Nevermind. Must have been confused.”
“You’re a real weirdo.”
“Been called worse by better.” I looked around, “Are we done with this shit?”
“No, we need to reach the end of the grove.” He gave me a questioning look but then abandoned it to take a minute to bury each of the squirrels near the base of the grapevines. I wanted to ask, but decided to hold off for now. Observe and gather, then pounce. I was getting too pounce-happy. That’s definitely a thing.
We continued to move through it and I will deny it if asked, but I kind of regret ruining the moment of comradery between us. Man… making dude friends was simultaneously super easy and super hard all at the same time. I had definitely just blown up a bro-moment. Huge party-foul.
I reminded myself that finding the Usurper, collecting my knight-loot, and getting the hell out of this place was far more important than making friends. Also, critically, was getting Meredith out of here and safely to Ontiveros. Some of that feeling was the potential Feat rewards, but deeper than that, it was an opportunity to do an objectively good thing and I kind of wanted that more than I wanted to keep bathing in animal blood.
Speaking of… Damn I wonder if my folks are alright. I was feeling like a worse and shittier son every day that I screwed around here taking luxurious baths while fending whatever this band of crackpots had in store.
We both tried conversation, but my accusation had upset the fragile moment of bonding and soured any attempt at rekindling it. Well fuck him if he’s going to fixate on an accusation of being a ‘usurper’. And the fat jokes. Though, to be fair, those were entirely unintentional and based on his own mistaken assumptions and refusal to introduce himself from the start. I mean, he carried a fucking pitchfork, who does that? ‘Fork’ seems very appropriate in that light.
I heard a snap as he dropped to a knee. I was combat ready in only 2-3 seconds. I really needed to get out of my head, especially when in these kinds of situations.
Ron’s eyes were closed, “Two… no, three. Approaching.”
“What? How can you tell?”
“I can feel the hooves through the Earth.”
Wait. “Wait. How did you have Earth Affinity and not, ya know, die?”
“Not really the time to go into that.”
I mean, fair, but still. I smelled Penitent System info and I wanted the whole damn pie of this broken piece of crap.
It sounded… familiar, still, I was having trouble placing it. A carnivore?
The memory hit me, of the ‘Half-Day of Peace’, one of the animals I had come across on my hike out of my camp spot. The figures came into eyesight as they approached and flanked out to either side of us.
Fucking deers. Deer. Three of ‘em.
One of them had some impressive antlers while one looked to be a juvenile with budding horns, the trio was rounded out by an antler-free, full-sized deer. Momma bear-deer.
“What do you want?”
Apparently, in the apocalypse, deer are Human-flesh gourmands. Who would have guessed? Also had a surprisingly hoity-toity dialect. I wouldn’t have guessed either of those with a million bucks, a thousand years, and a hundred-thousand typewriter monkeys.
“Can you take the buck?”
Ron stiffened then got into a fighting stance, “Yeah, keep the other two off me.” At least our wavelengths seemed to match for combat, if not personality-wise.
While papa-deer shook its head and swung its horns threateningly toward Ron, the other two flanked me as I twisted back and forth. I remembered my shotgun, but just a bit too late to finagle it from the loop. They were too close.
“What’s the deal with Human-flesh?”
“This some sort of revenge thing?”