Quick Reference sheet - Universal rules for the Restricted Action System.
* The R.A.S is imposed at the request of the current World's Overseer (Overseer Kannan)
and may be disabled at any point if the Overseer deems it necessary or if a Bane is encountered.
* Standard rules for the R.A.S are as follows : Each active combatant (up to a total of 12) will be given 5 Earth seconds to perform any action they wish within the given time.
* Entering the 'zone of control' of a hostile will allow them to react as if it were their turn. This can include assisting comrades, counter attacking, or fleeing. The Overseer recommends you not underestimate this fact!
* Zone of Control is defined as an area around each combatant extending three meters from the end of their arm span.
* Special allowances are also given in the use of explosive ordinance, vehicles, and animal life.
* Certain Skills and abilities granted by the System may also change or interfere with these listed rules. Overseer Kannan recommends they be seen more as guide lines to be referenced rather than inviolable laws.
* Lastly, the Overseer would like to thank you for participating in this trial of the Restricted Action System. Take heart in the knowledge that what we learn will assist countless worlds!
Tom's jaw slowly tightened, grinding his teeth as he read over the list once more. Then again.
It wasn't hard to understand, in fact the plain text was quite easy to process. A simple breakdown of how fighting was supposed to work in the new, System altered world. If anyone could call a mysterious force casually applying its own rules over reality as 'simple'.
The final bullet point was the cause of his anger. A trial? This..Overseer Kannan, was using his entire planet as a test for this insane way to make people fight! What kind of psychopath could think of something like that and imagine it was a good idea. Tom could think of nearly a dozen reasons why it was a fucking stupid thing to try and he hadn't even put much effort into it!
His palm itched through the bandage around it as he squeezed the butt of his rifle, fingers tracing along the deep splintering crack that run through the wood after its encounter with the metal face of a Clockwerk Scout.
The gun he had taken from its body stuffed into his bag along with all the spikes and small cartridges it used as ammo he could manage to fit. He hadn't had time to stop and actually inspect the weapon, wanting to put distance between himself and the neighborhood before more of the things showed up.
It didn't help that his shoulder blades were itching again, the constant sensation of being watched leaving him turning around every seconds to glance back down the road. A few times he thought he saw flashes of something moving close to the ground, but it could have been his eyes playing tricks after having two life threatening encounters in as many hours.
As the road widened again, going from a two lane strip into a proper four lane highway, Tom finally realized what was bothering him so much about his trek so far. It wasn't just the lack of people, in fact he accepted that he was probably in the very slim minority out wandering around of their own volition currently.
But what was odd, were the cars, or lack of them specifically. When the System had first activated, it had stated that all vehicles were going to be disabled. So where were they all? Surely countless people would have been caught mid travel, especially on a Sunday afternoon.
The idea of all the old grannies and grandpas coming home from Sunday service and being stuck miles from home with things like those lizards or the Clockwerks running around had Tom grimacing.
Even here, on one of the main roads ran through the majority of Ashville, and intersected with countless smaller roads that lead to suburbs and apartment complexes there was nothing.
All four lanes were completely clear of any kind of vehicle, there was no one walking or sitting by the side of the road. It was surreal walking down an empty highway, just small, vacant buildings on either side that had been abandoned for a decade at least.
Trying to shake off the lingering bits of anger regarding the System, and unease regarding all the people that would have been traveling, Tom decided to distract himself by looking over the gun he had 'acquired' from the Clockwerk scout.
Slinging the overstuffed duffel bag forward, he used one hand to undo the zipper and gingerly take out the strange gun. He hadn't checked to see if it was unloaded, a fact that made him cringe a bit. Going through everything he had only to die from a misfire would be far too embarrassing. His grandpa would probably kick his soul straight back into his body after spending so many years preaching gun safety and understanding.
It was closer to a brick than a gun, a smooth black barrel set down into a hefty copper colored metal frame. At a guess, Tom would say it weighed at least eight pounds, which was getting hefty for a handheld weapon.
Tilting it to the side, he found what he had been looking for. A small bronze latch he thumbed up, causing the barrel to snap upwards with a satisfying cer-chunk, the dull gray of one of the spikes it used as ammo popping up and needing to be pressed back into for the barrel to snap closed.
Judging from the tension on the spike as he pushed it into place, the barrel had some kind of system in place to keep the spikes from simply sliding out of the barrel as it was loaded, as the barrel itself was the same diameter of its ammo.
It was something for someone with the knowledge of guns to take a look at. All Tom was concerned with was how to load it, how to fire it and how to keep from hurting himself with it.
Thankfully it shared many similarities to a normal firearm, with a regular trigger and safety mechanism that could be toggled on the opposite side of the latch. The only unique part was at the grip of the gun, the textured metal meant to act as a handhold slid to the side in the same manner the plates on the Scout's legs to reveal several of the small battery looking cartridges stuck inside.
The more he looked, the more Tom was almost certain they were used as propellant for the gun, he couldn't think of any other way it was able to launch the spikes with enough force to casually punch through wooden walls and continue on without issue.
He had gotten distracted as he studied the odd weapon, the dilapidated store fronts slowly being replaced by locally owned shops and the occasional strip mall. Though the feeling of being watched hadn't eased up at all, he was growing used to it as he looked around.
This area of town was one he was familiar with due to having to drive through it whenever he visited Mary or went grocery shopping. It wasn't quite as developed as the inner city, still in that odd transitional period where the larger buildings hadn't swallowed up the landscape and small specialty shops were spread out along the side roads.
In fact Tom's favorite place to shop was just down one of the side roads coming up. Callahan Mini Mall had been in business for nearly forty years, at least according to Mrs. Anne Callahan herself, and they stocked everything but the kitchen sink. Though Mrs. Callahan liked to brag that she could get that too if you paid enough.
She was a chatty old lady that ran the business with her middle aged sons and their wives. Tom jokingly referred to them as the Callahan Clan, as the store was usually filled with a few shoppers and the rest of the space was taken up by all manner of Mama Callahan's children and grandchildren. It gave the place a nice, homey feel that Tom enjoyed despite the higher prices.
Over the years of shopping there he had somehow become a friend of the family and attended more than one dinner at the prodding of the matriarch of the Callahan family.
So as he heard shouts and yelling from down the road leading to the store, he decided to take a look.
“Just one last time. Then straight to Mary's.” Muttering to himself, he set off down the road towards the store. The squat rectangle of a building had suffered some damage from the Gates, a few windows were broken, plywood hastily nailed over the missing panes of glass. Beyond that it seemed that the store had come out just fine.
Tom was treated to two strange sites in a row. One was a pair of SUVs that had been wheeled in front of the stores only set of double doors. The vehicles parked so that they formed a V, with the hoods facing outwards. The second was the sight of one of the younger children casually sitting on the roof of one of the cars and watching the road.
As he stepped around the corner and onto the paved parking lot of the building, the young girl saw him and nearly rolled off the roof in a panic as he raised his hand to wave at her. “Daddy! Daddy there's a weird guy outside!” The young girl began to yell as she hopped off the side of the car and bolted inside, her muffled voice almost audible even from the distance he was at.
“I'm not that weird right?” His self esteem damaged but intact, Tom took the opportunity to tuck the spike pistol into the waistband of his jeans after making very sure the safety was on.
From inside the store came a flurry of movement visible through the still intact windows as several people poured out of the entrance. The front runner of the group raising a rifle and taking aim over the hood of a car as the rest spread out.
In what felt like just a few moments, Tom had an entire sea of gun barrels pointed at him.
“Hold it right there! What's your name and what do you want?” He looked to be in mid fifties, with a receding gray hairline and paunch visible through the tightly tucked dress short he wore.
Tom raised both hands into the air and came to a stop before yelling at the old man
“Fucking hell Doug, is that any way to treat honorary family? Your momma is gonna shove that gun straight up your ass if she hears about this.”
Doug lowered the rifle and squinted over the top of it before shaking his head and motioning to every around him. The tension slowly vanished as the pair met halfway.
“Aw shit, I'm sorry, Tom. Things 'r tense right now and everyone's a bit jumpy.” Noticing Tom's bandaged hand, he tilted his head back to the store. “C'mon in, I know Mama will wanna see you and we've got an issue brewing.”
The next few minutes were a whirlwind of all the various members of the Callahan family that Tom was familiar with coming up to say hello as Doug struggled to lead him into the employee office in the back. There was quite the crowd in the building, easily two dozen people mostly consisting of adults and their younger children with a few teens moping around and sneaking candy bars from the shelves when they thought no one was looking.
The pair finally broke through the small crowd and into the large employee office in the back, the murmur of people talking vanishing as Doug closed the door.
“As I live and breath, if it isn't Thomas! Young man this is no time to be out shopping!” Sweet and slightly teasing, the matriarch of the Callahan family greeted him.
Anne Callahan was nearly seventy years old. Her crows feet had turned into crow legs and her hair was a dusty gray. But her eyes were still bright and she walked with an energetic spring to her step that could put most people to shame. That same energy allowed to her to raise four children and run a store and it apparently it also extended to managing the family now.
She caught Tom in a rib creaking hug before fussing over him. “You're a bit sweaty aren't you, hon? Did you walk all the way here? My goodness, what happened to your hand?! I certainly hope you didn't need that gun on your back.”
Tom blushed faintly, unable to escape the motherly attention radiating from the woman as Doug grinned behind him. He was finally able to gently push her away, though it was more because she allowed it than anything else.
He coughed slightly to cover his reddened face “I'm fine, ma'am, promise. My car wasn't working so I walked up this way, trying to get to Mary's parents. I've had a few, uh, encounters on the way I guess you could say.”
He used the system terminology without realizing it as a whimper came from further back in the room. He hadn't noticed before but Doug's wife, Linda, was standing next to a long table that had been cleared off, another woman Tom didn't recognize was on top of it, a bloody bandage wrapped around her lower leg.
Seeing his gaze, Anne tsk'd softly and shook her head. “Poor thing. Just after all this mess started and we were rounding up the family, she came stumbling in to the parking lot, clothes all torn up and talking about lizards the size of horses. Thank the good lord that Linda was here and able to get her leg bandaged or else I don't know what would have happened.”
A chill ran up Tom's spine as he looked at Anne and back to the woman on the table. “Actually, Mrs. Callahan, I think its best we all have a sit down. I've got some things to tell you about.”
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After Mama Callahan had called in a few more people to listen, Tom had ended up telling everyone about his run ins with the strange new creatures roaming around. The assembled folk muttering and talking to each other. It was clear a few didn't believe it, but everyone had received the notification from the system and witnessed the Gates flashing across the sky.
Through his entire recounting of events, Anne had been quiet, simply listening and absorbing the information. As he finished, her eyes opened, and they were not the gentle eyes of a grandmother that Tom had come to know.
They were the eyes of a woman that had raised four children and ran a store as a single mother in a time when it was frowned upon to be anything other than a housewife. Someone used to being put in difficult situations and not only dealing with them but thriving through them.
“Douglas, I want you to get some more of the boys together and make sure someone is always watching outside, understand? No back talk from anyone, and go get the kids away from the snacks. We may be here for a while.”
She looked to Tom, her mouth opening to say more only to be interrupted by a weak moan from the woman on the desk as she struggled to sit up.
Linda hurried back over to her, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder and tried to coax her back down.
“Wait please, wait.” The woman mumbled, still slightly delirious from blood loss as she raised a hand.
“Please, my son is the daycare down the road. Bright Adventures, can someone go get him, please? His name is Aiden. That's where I was going when all this happened. He wasn't even supposed to be there today but I agreed to work and...” Her words devolved into ugly crying, her body shuddering.
Linda took the womans hand, squeezing it softly “Of course. We'll make sure your son is fine just fine and get him back here ok? But until then you need to stay down. I wasn't able to do much for your leg and if you move around too much it may bleed through the bandages.”
The woman continued to cry as Linda hovered over her, leaving Doug, Tom and Anne to themselves.
Tom sighed and asked Anne “How far away is the daycare on foot?”
“All of ten minutes, sugar. Are you going to go take a look?” The old matriarch had a knowing look on her face as Tom sighed once again, longer this time.
“Yea, I can't just not go. You'd have to be heartless to ignore that.” He tilted his head towards the crying, sniffling woman and grimaced.
“You're absolutely right. Are you heartless, Douglas? Are you going to make that poor mama worry about her baby boy?” She fixed her son with a stony glare.
Doug turned away grumbling “No damnit, I was just thinking of who all we could bring. I wouldn't trust half the boys in there not to shoot their own damn hands off trying to aim. I'll get a few together and we'll go. We only have enough guns for a few people though. I'm not taking all of them and leaving you here with nothing.”
He turned to Tom “I'll get it sorted out and we'll go that way in a minute. If you want something to drink or eat help yourself off the shelves and I'll send someone to get you when its time to go.”
As their little meeting broke up, Anne stood up and gave both her son and Tom a quick hug each.
“Be safe boys. If you do run into a big lizard, bring me back its tail and I'll make some soup.”
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Tom had spent the few minutes waiting on the group to assemble by finally using his ability to analyze the gun and knife. Without a sheath for the knife he left it with his bag, choosing to take the now named Spiker and firing it in the parking lot.
Clockwerk Spiker (common)
Average Damage
36
Damage type
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Piercing
Durability
100.00%
Not really a lot of information to work with, but it was interesting to know that it was considered to be completely undamaged. Along with the odd fact that the System considered the average spike to hit about twice as hard as a .22 round. At this point Tom wasn't sure what metric the system was using to gauge effectiveness but he felt it was flawed.
For the firing test, he had taken a few empty soda cans and lined them up along the grassy edge of the ditch. The trigger had taken a surprising amount of force to actually fire. Forcing Tom to squeeze with two fingers instead of one.
He was rewarded with a satisfying vibration and hiss from the spiker as it lobbed one of the gray spikes straight through the can with a crunch and buried itself almost completely into the dirt of the ditch.
Unfortunately that was all the time he had to experiment, as Doug found him and introduced him to the group that would be going to the daycare. It was just five people, including the two of them but all were armed with rifles (with the exception of Tom who chose to use the spiker instead) and they were all seasoned hunters.
After a whirlwind round of introductions, the group composed of Doug, Tom, Blake, Darrel, and Stanley set off down the road. The atmosphere was intense, with Doug having explained what exactly the group was going to do and why.
All of the other men were parents and the idea of it being one of their children stranded had them all moving at a good clip down the road. Only the sounds of boots and shoes hitting pavement filled the air, with Blake leading the group down an alley between an abandoned hobby shop and barber.
The glass of both buildings was shattered here as well, and there was a stripped down car resting on the ground almost identical to the ones Tom had seen prior.
“Woah hold up. Hold up.” Tom called out softly from the back before heading over to take a look at the car frame. Just like with the truck, the frame itself had dents across it where the scavengers had stripped it of metal.
“There's Clockwerks around here. Stay quiet and listen for ticking. If you hear a sharp whistle, almost like a train, then one's seen you and its about to come right at you.”
He had already explained about the R.A.S, much to the confused skepticism of the group. Honestly Tom couldn't really blame them, it was hard to wrap his head around and he had dealt with it.
They spread back out into a line, moving slower, ears straining for any out of place sounds among the quiet buildings. Tom watched the buildings and corners, tension knotting in his shoulders with every moment. Waiting for the Scout to come around the corner, or the lizard to come bursting out of the shattered window of one of the store fronts.
But nothing happened. There was no charging automaton or bellowing lizard. Just his quiet breathing and the rustle of clothing as they continued on. Though they came across more stripped vehicles, a few of which had holes punched through the frames similar to what a spike would do, but Tom couldn't find any laying around.
As they neared the daycare, the signs of fighting picked up. One of the hunters pointing to a bloodstain that had soaked into the road. Another noticed what looked like an oil stain and metal shavings.
With each new discovery, their pace increased until the group was practically jogging, moving around stripped cars and discarded spikes. In the lead, Darrel went to move around one of the stripped vehicles and stumbled backwards cursing, raising his gun as he moved.
The rest of the group followed suit only for the man to let out a shaky breath and lower the rifle. “Fuck me, I guess you weren't lying, Tom.”
Several dead juvenile ferals were heaped into a pile, a thick layer of orange blood still leaking onto the road. Spikes riddled their bodies, large holes torn in their sides where the rounds had punched straight through their thin scales.
“These are the small ones, the bigger ones are the size of large dogs and their scales are dark red. The ones I dealt with were in a pack of five. There may be more of them, so keep an eye out cause they move really damn quick. You'll want to catch them before they get too close.”
They all took turns staring at the pile of lizard corpses before slowly moving on. It got worse as they came around the corner and onto the daycare's road. Signs of fighting littered the street, with spikes stuck in the ground and surroundings, dead ferals, and the first destroyed Clockwerk the group had seen.
It was one of the Scavengers, its burnt orange armor punctured with nearly a dozen spike rounds. One had went straight through its helmet and was poking out of the back of its head. As they neared its body, the smell of sickly sweet smell of rotten meat filled the air, becoming so intense they had to cover their mouths to pass by.
“Ugh, did the other one smell like that?” Doug looked to Tom, disgust on his face as they left the body behind.
Tom opened to mouth to speak, caught a final whiff of rotten meat and retched, spitting to the side and gulping fresh air. “Christ, no. It didn't smell like anything, and it was beige, or kind of khaki colored. Believe me I'd have fucking noticed if it stank like that.”
They came across more lizards and orange Clockwerks, both the Scouts and Scavengers, their bodies scattered across the road and all of them absolutely ruined by huge numbers of spikes. Several of these Clockwerks also stank of rotten, leaking cloudy reddish fluid that no one tried to look too closely at.
The daycare itself was a cute little yellow building with BRIGHT ADVENTURES written across the top, each letter curvy and practically bursting with the enthusiasm of the painter. Though the cheerful aesthetic of the building was marred by the broken glass of the two front windows and the bodies practically heaped around the place.
The area in front of the daycare was a battlefield, with three stripped cars, lizard carcasses and automaton wrecks littering the road and parking lot to the left of the building. The front steps were smashed to splinters and there were craters in the wood from impacts of some kind. The glittering tips of spikes shining in the afternoon sun littered the grass and mixed with the orange blood from the dead ferals.
“Jesus Christ, what was going on here?! Let's go!”
Doug set off for the ruined porch of the building, followed by Tom and Stanley while the other two men waited with guns ready across the street, watching the front of the building and the road.
As soon as Doug stepped foot on the grass in front of the building, a shadow shifted in each of the ruined windows. Two pairs of blue eyes glowing from within the building.
Tom noticed it first, diving behind one of the stripped out cars on the road and screaming at the other two.
“Windows! Doug get the fuck down!”
The older man reacted by turning and sprinting in an ungainly waddle for cover in the dip of a ditch along the parking lots side.
Something wasn't right, the Clockwerks should have fired already. They had plenty of time to take shots at Doug as he ran, so why hadn't they?
Tom's brain raced as he looked over the dead lizards and orange Clockwerks, the realization finally dawning on him.
They were all shot from the windows
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” He screamed back at the two hunters taking aim with their rifles, the men only hesitating because they weren't sure if children were still inside the building.
Leaning his head up over the frame of the car, Tom yelled towards the building. “Hey! I know you can hear me. Are there still kids in there? We were looking for a boy named Aiden. His mom sent us to find him. My name is Thomas. Can you understand me?”
The silence stretched on, the area completely quiet except for the thudding in his chest as he waited. Just as he began to wonder if they could understand him at all, a woman's voice came from one of the windows.
“H-hello? Are there people out there? Humans I mean.” A young woman was peeking from the corner of the window, the pair of blue eyes to her right.
“Yup! We're humans. I mentioned it a moment ago, but my name is Tom. Who am I talking to?”
“Kelly, I help run the daycare. They said you're looking for Aiden?”
Tom shared a glance with Stanley and Doug, the man's gray haired head poking up from the ditch like a gopher. The site causing Tom to let out a snort and earning him a glare.
“Yes ma'am, his mom sent up to come get him. She's right down the road at the Mini Mart. Are you familiar with it?”
He began to slowly stand up from the behind car, his hands raised non threateningly. Stanley took a breath next to him and slowly stood up as well, though his rifle was still held in his hands as he spoke.
“Does Jessie still work here? She took care of my son when I used to drop him off. Been a few years though.”
The woman in the window paused and vanished, reappearing as she opened the door. It seemed Stanley's question had convinced her.
“Hurry up, come in! All of you. Its not safe outside.”
Tom glanced at all the dead bodies and shook his head “No shit, lady.”
As the group entered the daycare they were greeted by the young woman, flanked on either side by two of the most intimidating thingsTom had ever seen.
They were beige colored like the first he had encountered, with the same dull blue eyes. That was were the similarities ended.
Each was nearly seven feet tall, with broad shoulders and thick arms and legs covered in layers of metal plating, no sign of the almost anemically thin frame of the Scout was present in these models. They looked like NFL linebackers on steroids, with the sculpted armor of their helmets and backs lacking the fins of the first two types and replacing them with backwards sweeping horns on the helmet and interlocking plates on the armor itself.
Both carried what looked like an upscaled version of the spiker he had, the massive bricks of metal gleaming threateningly as the robots looked at the group.
As the woman reintroduced herself as everyone, Tom squinted at one of the Clockwerks.
Clockwerk legionnaire
? ?????
The eyes of the robot snapped towards him as he squinted and it rumbled like a freight train.
“Do not do that again or I will consider it a threat, Human."
Its voice causing everyone to jump slightly as Tom stared at it.
“You can talk?” If they could talk that means they could think and if they could think... His stomach twisted at the thought of the Clockwerk he had killed.
“Of course I can speak. It would be an issue if I were unable to issue verbal commands.” It rumbled on, oblivious to his inner turmoil.
“Can all of you talk? All your models I mean, like the uh, the scouts? Are you..” His voice was shrill, and everyone was starting to stare at him as the world began to spin.
Both of the legionnaires began to stare at him, their eyes flashing amber for a brief instant and their guns lifting fractionally.
“Calm yourself, human. They are not sentient as we are. They are programmed to obey commands. There is no true life in them.”
The legionnaire had guessed the cause of his distress in an instant, its words causing Tom to deflate in relief only to backpedal as one of them stepped forward, its towering frame hovering over him and its eyes staring down at him.
“We will have words as to why you killed it at another time. For now, Caretaker Kelly says that you have come for the little ones. You are their families?”
Doug spoke up first, squaring his shoulders to stare up at the intimidating soldier. “No, but we were asked to help take care of a woman's son who is here, a boy named Aidan. If there are other children that need help then of course we'll do what we can. But we aren't related to them if that's your concern.”
The legionnaire stared down at Doug, its cold metal exterior betraying nothing as it glanced from the assembled men to the wreckage of the yard outside.
“So be it. This situation is untenable. We are almost out of ammunition and The Twisted will not stop until they have overran this place.” The two Clockwerks shared a look and nodded to one another.
“There are twenty children in this building raging in age from three to six with three caretakers including this one.” It nodded at Kelly.
“You will not be able to move that number of small humans without transport, it is too dangerous to allow. Julkani and The Twisted are both in this area and both pose an unacceptable risk to the small ones.”
Tom and Doug shared a look with each other. Moving that many children would be difficult normally. With the added threat from the lizards and hostile robots it would be completely impossible to do safely. Doug sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair.
“What do you suggest then? You've already said they can't stay here.”
The robot nodded “Correct. Solution; Stay and help maintain perimeter of this building from incursions by the Julkani and Twisted. Allow one member of your group to return for additional assistance from our Centurion at the Cleansweep Scrapyard which is located approximately twenty minutes by foot from this location.”
Everyone looked to each other, sharing uncertain glances and shuffling on their feet. It was fine to want to help out, and doing something good like helping find an injured mother's kid? That was easy to get involved with, it tugged on the heartstrings especially since they were all parents themselves.
But going alone through hostile land to get help from literal robots that looked like what science fiction and Hollywood had written about for decades? That was asking a bit too much, they had their own families to think of as well.
Tom let out a groan as he realized he would have to go. Compared to the rest of the group, he didn't have kids or a family to look after, and he knew how to deal with the monsters roaming around. Before an argument could break out among the group, he nodded towards the legionnaire.
“Twenty minutes? Fine, just...give me some directions and a better gun.”
The legionnaire rumbled like a thunderhead “This can be done. Remain here.” Despite its size and bulk, the beige Clockwerk turned and moved further into the daycare with surprising grace, its metal feet hardly making a sound as it walked.
Doug turned towards Tom, concern in his eyes “You sure about this? We could always try and go back and get more people to help. No need to be a hero.”
“That'd probably be smarter, yea. But you heard the tinman, those orange ones, what did he call them, Twisted? Are they trying to get in here for a reason and we both know its nothing good.”
The pair recalled the rotten smell coming from the destroyed orange bots littering the road and yard of the building with a grimace.
Doug relented with a sigh and shook his head.
“Fair enough. Just keep your ass in one piece, you hear? Mama would never forgive me if I let her favorite customer get killed.”
Tom grinned and shook his head, fully able to imagine the hell that Mama Callahan would bring down on her son. “No need to worry about me. You'll be the one holding down the fort, right? Keep yourself together, don't get eaten and I'll be back before you know it.”
The two men shook hands as the legionnaire returned with a small laminated map that turned out to be a travel brochure that had been torn in half to only show the local area. A large circle was around the daycare, with an arrow pointing towards the scrapyard, the business located on the lower east side of the city, in that gray area where homeowners didn't like to have it so close but it wasn't close enough to make an issue out of.
It also gave him a short rifle that the legionnaire called a Thumper, along with bandoleer to clip the boxy magazines the weapon used to.
.Made with the same solid metal parts as the Spiker, the Thumper's black metal casing shined as Tom gingerly took the weapon and examined it. Small in size compared even to his .22, with a snub nosed barrel that extended just a few inches from the body and made of bulky, squared parts, the gun looked like a metalworker had dabbled with gun smithing and created an abomination of a submachine gun.
Thumper (uncommon)
Average Damage
50
Damage type
Piercing/explosive
Durability
100.00%
A square, boxy magazine extended from just in front of the trigger guard, a latch able to eject the current magazine with a simple flick and fit another. It was an ugly, ugly gun, but beggars couldn't be choosers and according to the stat screen it hit like a truck.
“Uh, why does it say it does explosive damage? Does the bullets explode?” Tom glanced up from the screen extending from the gun to the legionnaire.
“Every fifth round in the forty round magazine is a miniature explosive capable of rending armor. The weapon is traditionally used in close assault roles against heavily armored targets but should serve acceptably in the current circumstance. Be sure to brace properly or else the kickback could dislocate or break your shoulder. Regrettably we do not have any other weapons acceptable for both an unaltered human physique and the current situation. It will have to do.”
Tom blinked at the deluge of information and just nodded along. He was given two additional magazines for the gun and given a brief lesson on how to use it before the legionnaire deemed him fit to leave.
The group couldn't have been at the daycare for more than ten minutes before he found himself heading out of the door under the watchful eyes of the two robots and his group.
“I wish you luck, human. If we survive, I will wish to speak to you again.” The robot rumbled from its perch in the window, Doug standing next to it. “Keep your ass in one piece, we'll keep it together here!”
He waved back at them before focusing on the road ahead. The road to the Scrapyard was easy to follow, but it was long and who knew what was roaming around at this point. Taking a deep breath, he squeezed the cool metal of the Thumper and set off.
“Time to get to it.”