Chapter 7

Before I even made it to the doors of the saloon, a bullet hit me in the arm.

Real bullets obviously didn't feel like this. A spark of pain, arguably annoying, but not crippling, spread out from my upper shoulder and blood started to ooze out. Aside from that initial reaction, the only other indication that I had been hit was the dip in my health bar. It went down by about a quarter.

I hadn't even reached the end of the bar, yet, and staggered against it.

Eve, or the bartender, or whoever, pushed a bowl of almonds toward me. I started to raise an eyebrow at the dumbest response to a bullet wound I had ever seen before I remembered that this was a game world.

A handful of nuts later and not only was I feeling better, I felt better than ever. A glance at my health bar showed that it had turned a flashing yellow.

"Woah," I said. "Is that how Mario feels when he eats a star?"

Nobody answered me so I kept moving. This time, I crouched toward the doors.

When I got there, I pushed through and ran to the left where I remembered an alley was between the saloon and whatever building was next.

When I rounded the corner a gun was pressed to the side of my head before I could even bring mine up.

"You an Agitator?" the voice asked.

I looked past the end of the gun and saw a young man, around the age of 19, with an almost "Billy the Kid" look of a saggy hat and a blue bandana around his neck. He wore a leather vest over mostly denim clothes. I examined his username.

EdtheMund2021

Level 11

Profession: Ruthless Bounty Hunter

"No," I said as quickly as I could. "I was coming out to see what's going on? Looking to level up."

The pistol lowered. "A raid is happening, again." Ed let out a sigh. "Real Agitators, but not doing Agitator stuff."

He peaked out and pulled back against the wall of the alley with me.

"What do you mean?"

He started reloading. "It's a group of Agitators that my gang has had a feud with. They like to do raids on Easter." He smiled up at me and knocked the cylinder of his pistol back into place. "We like to stop them."

"How many of you are there?" I asked, suddenly wondering what other people's gangs looked like.

"Eight today," Ed inched forward and past me to the end of the alley. "Most of mine are in Aberdine and won't get here until the raid is over. I've got two in the hotel. Want in?"

"I'm already in a gang," I said.

He shrugged. "Then don't shoot me or mine. You'll know soon enough who the others are."

He sprinted from our cover and toward the hotel. I assumed his plan at this point was to rally with whoever of his gang was in town and move from there.

I sent Coot a chat.

Sammy#0421: Meet at the hotel. 2 gangs in town. Raid is going down. We're on the side of the Gladiat0rz. Don't know who the other group is yet.

D0C70RC007: Not sure, either. Pinned down at the post office. Send help. Or a coffin.

"Damn," I said out loud and sprinted after Ed. Gunfire peppered the ground around me. One bullet hit me, but all that changed was my health bar went from the flashing yellow to the original white color. I took no damage.

Almonds were basically a free hit. I would need to remember that.

I slammed into the door at the hotel and hit the floor as bullets riddled the glass. I still wasn't able to see who had been doing the shooting but noticed the bullets were hitting the floor next to me.

They were shooting from up high.

The rooftops.

"I need to get to the post office," I shouted to Ed as he ran past the front desk and up the stairs.

"What the hell for?"

"Coot," I sighed, realizing I hadn't had a chance to explain more about my gang situation. "My gang is two people. The other one is pinned down at the post office."

To my surprise, Ed nodded. "There's a ton of cover if we go out the back steps of the hotel. Let's get my men and then head that way."

I sent Coot a quick message to let him know we were on our way. I added that he should do less about shooting at them and more about staying alive until we get there.

Ed lead the way of the stairs, where the stairs ended in a hallway that went both left and right. The gang leader took a right and then started firing before I had even reached the top.

When I joined him, I saw what he was shooting at. The end of the hall was an open doorway out to a back porch and stairs down to the ground level.

Several men were standing and kneeling in that doorway and shooting down the hall. A quick glance at my map showed me why.

Directly to my right was one of the hotel rooms. Inside were two dark blue teardrops. The rest of the Gladiat0rz were just as pinned down as Coot was.

As I drew my pistol, Ed holstered his and drew a bolt action rifle from his back. With practiced motions, he brought it up, aimed, fired, and rotated the bolt in and out faster than I could empty my Farmer's Pistol.

+25 XP

+25 XP

You are now Level 2.

We cleared the doorway but knew it wouldn't keep. I grabbed Ed and dragged him back into the room where his friends were.

"We need to move quick," Ed said. "They'll be back."

I quickly examined the two people.

JemmyCloister

Level 16

Profession: Gold Digger

KentuckyPaddler

Level 19

Profession: Mountain Man

Jem was a woman that looked about my age, but I wasn't entirely sure. She had more blood and mud on her than I figured were in all of Easter. She carried what I first thought were two pistols but soon realized were actually two sawed-off shotguns being held like pistols.

Ken, or Kentucky, or whatever you wanted to call him, was surprisingly clean in some sort of fancy banker suit with a top hat. He had no blood on him and I wondered if he had just been holed up in here the entire raid or if he really was just that good at not getting shot at.

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"This is Sammy," Ed said, surprising me for a moment at knowing my name before I realized he had already examined me as well. "Her gang is going to help us push back the Colossals, but first we need to save her gang." He ran past me and slammed the door shut. I realized I had left it open and pushed past my embarrassment to grab the nearby chair and slam it under the doorknob.

"Uh," I was all sorts of lost but decided to continue what Ed had said. "I've got a guy over at the post office. His name is Doctor Coot, but it's with all those letters as numbers."

"I don't think we can do this, Ed," Ken said to their leader.

"We defended Easter before," Ed smirked at Ken. "When it was just you and me and no ammo, remember? Four of us," he nodded out the window, "soon to be five. The Colossals have no chance."

It was bravado and meant to inspire, but I could see Ken wasn't having it.

I didn't know anything about this game world or the people who populated it, but I knew a lot about one thing, and that was how to be a mom, or a grandmother. I knew that this fear would either take root and he would just let them kill him so he could 'not deal with it' later or we could stamp out the fear now and replace it with some good old-fashioned confidence.

"Eve was in the bar," I watched as Ken's eyes perked up. I figured everyone in the game knew who Eve was. I held no delusions about how special I was, and if they were going to roll out the first digital person to introduce me to my retirement, then they must have done that for everyone. "She told me to get out here and help you. Help you save Easter. And she didn't tell me that so that I could die. She knows how badly I need to level and get good at this game and she sent me out here to you guys."

It was a blatant lie, but to Ken and Jem I just pulled out a piece of toast with the face of baby Jesus burned into it.

I looked right at Ken. "Ken, I have only been here a day and I don't know where anything in this town is. Can you stay by me in case the group gets split up?"

He nodded. It was slow, but it was there.

Ed was at the door with his rifle over his shoulder and his hands on the chair.

"Ready when you are."

I decided to take the lead and hoped the rest would follow. There was no bravery in that decision so much as practicality. Coot and I wouldn't get the experience we needed from the raid unless someone from the gang finished it. If I stepped out that door and was gunned down, I might take one of them with me, and my new companions could use my corpse for cover, buying them precious moments to get to Coot and save him.

On the other hand, if Ed goes down, the drop in morale for his gang would get the rest of them killed. That might not be entirely fair to Jem, who I hadn't read as anything but present and still alive, but she seemed to be in step with Ken.

The pull of the gun that I associated with auto-aim hadn't had a chance to kick in before I was already squeezing the trigger. The bullets slammed into the wall to the right of the door as two men, one with a pistol and one with a hatchet, came running in the door at me. The guy with the hatchet almost got me when Ken's pistols roared behind me taking him down. Jem's shotguns barked and sent the gunman back through the door and over the railing outside.

That was when I realized that the sounds must be muted, or maybe the limitations of my original body were echoing through my memory. A shotgun going off less than a foot from my head should have deafened me, but I felt nothing when the noise hit.

We stalked toward the door together and made it almost there before a woman in a bandana rounded the corner with a shotgun.

"Window," I heard Ed shout.

Without thinking about it, I dove at the still closed window. I crashed through and landed on the deck that, to my happy surprise, wrapped around to the side of the hotel. Ed, Jem, and Ken all landed next to me, but Jem was groaning. Blood oozed from her side where a large hole had been made.

Without even thinking, I dug into my bag and tossed her strip of jerky. I didn't know how much I had left and hoped I wouldn't need it again before I had a chance to get more.

On the porch, we could hear them stomping up the stairs with more clarity.

"The railing," I said before leading the charge over.

Two bodies thudded into the ground next to me and I was surprised my health hadn't dropped. The landing had been painful, but not damaging, I guessed. Behind us, I could see Ed firing with his bolt action rifle. Each shot was a headshot. It was mesmerizing to watch. I could see as he aimed, then the slight tug down on the end of his gun as the auto-aim tried to drag his rifle to the center mass right before he tugged back up, only slightly.

Then the raiders' heads exploded. One by one, each pull of the trigger was a headshot.

I aimed my pistol at the stairs and fired to push them back.

"Get down here," I shouted.

Ed was beside us in a second and then leading us through what looked like a farm in the middle of the town.

It wasn't. I would find out later that the stables and fenced in areas were all set up to house animal auctions. To our luck, there wasn't one today and we were able to sprint through the area they would usually parade the animals.

That was when I began hearing the gunshots from the other direction. My minimap showed red teardrops, raiders, with their points aimed at a building that I figured had to be the post office. I didn't have time to open up my map fully, or I would have likely seen Coot over there.

I held up my hands and dropped to a crouch. They were still coming at us from behind, so I ran toward the nearest horse stall and hid behind it. To my relief, each of my new companions dropped into a crouch too.

Whether Coot's attackers saw us on their maps or not, we didn't have long. The rest of their gang were right behind us and had access to party chat.

I moved as quickly as I could in a crouch toward the edge of the stall. Then I stood up and ran around firing.

I hit nothing.

The three men on the other side of the stables all survived my onslaught with little more than curious looks on their faces.

Which was totally what I had planned. Absolutely. I meant to miss.

And that's why they weren't ready when my companions followed me around and mowed them down in a monsoon of bullets.

Maybe it wasn't a monsoon, but I'll bet each of them was going to tell their gang leader it was.

"Where is he?" Jem asked.

I pointed at the post office.

"Awesome," Ed's smile implied that he had at least some part of a plan. "Everyone into the post office."

We all ran in just as the rest of the gang caught up to us. I was hit in the leg, but it wasn't enough damage to even worry about my food situation. Once we were all inside, the shooting stopped.

"Why did it get so quiet?" I asked.

Ken was the one smiling now. "They can't shoot people in the post office?"

"What?" That didn't make any sense to me.

Ed explained. "The post office, your camp when the flag is up, and anytime you're talking to a vendor you are essentially immune to attacks. It allows for the market to continue without harassing being used to slow the movement of goods," he shrugged, "anymore than waylaying deliveries already does, anyway."

"Great," I said. "We can just stay in here and kill them."

Ed shook his head. "We can't shoot our guns while we're in here and they can still win the raid by killing sixty percent of the city's population."

I rolled my eyes and started looking around for Coot. When I didn't see him, I checked my map.

Coot's map marker showed him hiding behind the mailroom counter. Now that I knew bullets weren't going to be killing me I went over there and waved down at him.

"Howdy, partner."

He looked up and smiled his toothless grin at me. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

"Hey," I called back at the Gladiat0rz, "if they can't shoot us in here, why were they shooting at Coot?"

"To keep him pinned down," Jem said. Her face indicated she was disappointed at this revelation and I suddenly understood why.

"This was a trap?"

Jem nodded. "They wanted us here so that a handful of them could watch us and hold us here while the rest went about winning the raid."

"Fuck that," I shouted and began reloading my gun. "There's five of us now." I pointed at Ed. "You said you and him stopped them with just the two of you."

"That might have been a bit of an exaggeration," Ed admitted. "We stopped a raid but it wasn't against the Colossals."

"Let's change that, then," I said.

Ken held up his hands. "I get that you're excited, but that's a dumb idea. Five of us or not, their numbers are upwards of twenty-plus veteran players."

I shrugged. "What do we get if we lose?"

"Dead for an hour and a ding to our reputation," Jem said.

"My reputation barely exists," I said, "and I don't know, yet, how in-game reputation works, but those folks out there are people. We might take a ding to our stats if we fail, but the people out there will know we fought for them. That has to count for something."

Ed smiled and started emptying his rifle and then reloading it with bullets that were a slightly different color.

"I don't know where you came from Sammy," he said, "but I like the way you think."

"What about the dead part?" Coot called out.

"We've died before," I laughed. "It hurts less the second time."

"You're just a pain in my wrinkled ass," Coot mumbled as he climbed out from behind the counter and started reloading his own gun.

"Alright," Ed finished loading his gun. "What's the plan?"

"Oh," I shrugged, "no plan. I was just going to run out shooting." Everyone stared at me blankly for a moment before I started laughing. "I'm kidding, well, sort of. My plan is still in the middle stages." Before Coot could be a smartass, I held up my hand and explained. "The way I see it, they are likely surrounding the post office with enough people to hit us if we escape, but not enough to keep us here if we force our way out. Those numbers, whoever's left that we haven't killed, would be better used killing townspeople to end this quick." I tilted my head to the side as I thought out loud. "I'll bet they only have one person on each side. They would only need two, but the extra two would be backup. We need to either clear one side, or make them think we're all going to hit one side so that they all shift that way to cover it." I pointed to the far side of the post office. "What's that way?"

"The post office is also a train station," Jem explained. She was sitting, looking rather tired, on a bench against the wall. "That way is the tracks and then the road out of town."

"You alright?" I asked. "You need something for your stamina or whatever?"

"I'm resting," she waved me off. "It'll be back to normal in a minute."

I filed that in the back of my mind as likely important to remember. "Man, it would be nice if a train pulled up right now."

I snapped my fingers. "Or better yet, you all got horses?"

They nodded. Coot shook his head at first, but then the goofy old-timer nodded enthusiastically.

"Is there a way to communicate with our horses?" I asked.

"Communicate..." Ed snapped his fingers, "Oh, you got a live one?"

I nodded. "Is there?"

"Yes," he said. "We can all call our horses, from just about anywhere, by whistling."

"So, if I whistle, he just comes here?" I asked for clarification.

They all nodded.

"Do they come right to the spot I whistle from? Or is it a direct line to us from where they are?"

Ed's eyes lit up as he understood what I was asking. He ran over to the train tracks side of the station and pressed against the wall. "As close to where you are as they can get."

I smiled. "Everyone get against that wall and whistle. Then, when I give the word. We're getting out of here."