"You get your ass kicked again, Marcy?"
"Shut the hell up, Darlene. Not in the mood for your lip. And where's breakfast? If you ate the last boxes of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, there will be hell to pay."
Darlene elbowed the girl next to her, and the whole group laughed. It was easy to tell when Marcy lost a fight. First, she stormed out of her pod, stomped down the stairs, and went looking for breakfast. Then, while eating six bowls of her favorite cereal, she'd slowly go over the fight with them, outline the tactical situation, and they'd brainstorm to find a solution. This time was different. She ate one bowl of cereal, then rummaged in the old refrigerator where they kept the soda and pulled out a bottle of Dr.Delights Maple Sarsaparilla. She'd found a pallet of the stuff downtown at the soda distributor, gathering dust in the back of the warehouse, and bought it all for next to nothing. After passing around a bottle, no one else touched the over-sugared soft drink. Marcy had a huge sweet tooth and loved her new drink. It was advertised as 'All natural, using only the finest cane sugar.' It also had four times more sugar than anything else on the market.
She went back to the table, knocked back her first bottle, and then looked around the room. Her eyes had a haunted look to them. "Crap, but that was scary."
"What got you?"
"A Jagular. Had to be. There was a long howl that sounded like 'Haloooo', and I froze up like a punk-ass beginner. Then, like a fool, I looked up just as it dropped on me. Sliced me up good, and we rolled around on the jungle floor, tearing into each other. Not much of a fight, he had me from the start when he got both claws into me. It was like fighting a snake made out of razor blades. I thought I caught a break when he let me go after I put a dagger in his gut. I ran, but he was right behind me, or ahead of me, or above me. If I turned to fight, he disappeared. If I ran, he slashed at my weak spots. I almost made it out of the forest, but I was bleeding too heavily. The last thing I saw was him standing over me, those weird multi-faceted eyes coming closer and closer..."
The table was dead silent.
"And then asshole politely said, 'See you at breakfast, I'll make the pancakes.' and then he sliced my head off."
"What the feth you fighting!!?"
Marcy grinned, "Sorry, that's Double Secret Pinky Swear level information."
"Seriously? We're all on the Grand Council. Didn't we already swear?"
Marcy looked at each of her five closest friends. People she'd squabbled and fought with as they grew up, and then banded together when they realized no one else would be looking out for them. "Important information requires additional oaths. And I'm bending the rules by telling you guys things in the first place. But this is important for us."
All the teenage mercenaries linked pinkies around the table, swore each other to secrecy, and then demanded that Marcy give them the details. This type of info was never talked about in-game, and only in their headquarters in the real world. Guild Security was taken seriously.
"I think I've found our Patron."
"Patron? You mean a Sugar Daddy? I'm suspicious already."
"I think Marcy is talking about a Whale, a guy with too much cash."
Marcy let them blabber on and get it out of their system for a minute. "I said Patron, and I meant Patron. Someone we can get support from, financially, and give a little loyalty to. But it's fething complicated as shit, and so many moving parts. First, we've got Baron Billy and his gal, Layla. Both of them work for ACME. Just moved up to VP. I've got a contract with them, and shit is happening, it's trickling in some cash now, with a lot more on completion. He's got some pretty big plans in the game and has a lot of his company's bigwigs involved. I'm working on expanding the flow of money from him to bring in more of our troops. I'd love to have all five of you together with me and the whole outfit in one place."
"Tricky if the shit hits the fan. We've always diversified."
"Yeah, that does worry me. Other problems, too. He could use us and dump us. We're mercs. And he's operating at a high level now. That might mean more contracts, or we pick up enemies. But when I add it all up, I don't think it's a bad move to support the guy and draw some cash from him. This big expedition south will be interesting. Also a pain in my ass. You should see the lard butt I've been training. Any of the ten-year-olds could take him in a knife fight. He's so fething pathetic, I had to find specialists to get him any levels."
"That's it? Training a fat guy to fight? Sounds like business as usual. What's so damned good about this Baron?"
Marcy opened another bottle of Dr. Delight's and leaned back in her chair, balancing on one leg. "Turns out he's got some good people working for him. So good, he doesn't quite know what he's got, and they are damnably sneaky and hiding shit. Hell, hiding in plain sight! I've been training with them, watching them, and no one seems to blink or pay attention. Some good camouflage going on."
"Oooh, and you're getting your ass kicked by them! What classes?"
"You won't fething believe it. Nothing meta, not even close. Shit nobody knows about."
"Well, tell us! Holy crap you take a long time to get to the good part."
"Put a sock in it, Darlene. There's a big guy who's a Butcher, sells sausage. A guy who herds cows and goats, and wyverns around. A pony express rider and a barmaid."
"Um, those are classes?"
"They're contract workers, supposedly with no fighting or adventuring skills, and yet pulling shit out of their asses every time we fight. Last night, I got conned by the Shepherd into going into a forest full of mutant critters and taking a trip to a Hunting Shrine of Artemis. The Shrine is aces. Great skills and rewards at this little place hidden in the forest. Then we go back to hunting, and the guy I'm with pulls some horror movie shit. We sparred before, and I knew he could summon magical dragon armor and swords, but this..."
"Wait, how does he have Summonable Dragonscale Armor? That's supposed to be Tier 5 and locked behind the Dragon Warrior class, which takes a rare heritage. There's like one person known who can even achieve it right now. Bastard is always bragging about it."
"I'm getting to it!! Turns out, the guy's a metamorph of some type. Instead of a knight in armor, he turns into this weird thing with bug eyes, antennae, fangs, clawed feet, and huge blades on his arms. Creepy as shit. I'm sitting there with my mouth open, and he just fades away, full camo effect."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Nice! What did you hunt?"
Marcy looked at them and shuddered. "I didn't. That's the freaky part. He hunted me! We've been having fights to the death each night. He said this was ours. But I couldn't see him. And he kept making weird animal noises. I swear the damned chimera were following his orders. I couldn't go ten feet without something biting me in the ass while I'm trying to watch out for ambushes. It was some scary-ass-psycho-predator shit. But in the end, he acted like it was a game. Said he'd make pancakes and see me at breakfast. Like this was a normal night out for him."
The other five girls looked at her in curiosity and disbelief. Marcy never talked about fights like this, not even real ones with bullets flying. "So now you have to deal with this guy?"
"Heck yeah! I gained an entire rank in Desperate Dodge and another in Danger Sense in just that fight! It was awesome. And the Beastwoods is a great place to train with a Hunter's Shrine we can take advantage of. And that's just the start of their bullshit. The Barmaid is crazy good with poisons. She's got me on a training schedule that makes me puke three times a day, and she says she has 'People I should meet to learn more.' Secret society stuff, maybe an assassin's guild. Hard to say. She took me down hard. Not even close."
"How'd you do against the messenger? Did you have to fight his horse?"
"His damned horse is huge, and no, he didn't bring it to the fight. It watched, and I swear it laughed at me. The fight wasn't close. The guy has two gods powering up his spells. Burned me to a crisp. I did manage to tie the Butcher, but I got the feeling he wasn't fighting as hard as he could at first. Showed off lots of tricks, but grinned too much. He should have gotten me, even fighting like that, but I threw a Hail Mary, got lucky, and we double-killed. Next fight with him should be interesting."
Darlene shrugged, "I don't get it. So the Baron has a secret army of kickass fighters, and you want to go to work for him? Not quite full double secret pinky swear level, if you ask me."
Marcy shrugged, "I think we should take the Baron's money, but align ourselves with the Barmaid and her crew. They know all the secrets. They trained the fat ass so fast it was scary. The Baron gives them free rein because it pays off. And I've been checking them out as much as I can, and I think they're the real power behind the throne, playing the long game. They've shown me gear that isn't in any database, spells that no one has, and weird skills. The Butcher turned into a fire giant for god's sake. I was so thankful I'd trained to fight the Stone Behemoths in Boulderdash. It was the only thing that kept me alive in that fight. Other groups of Tier Fours are getting their ass handed to them in the best dungeon. These folks treat it like a day off. And the loot makes me drool. They've got their shit together."
"And what makes you think they give a rat's fart about you? Or us?"
Marcy spread her hands and shrugged, "Not sure. Call it a hunch. They need more training from me, but that's just part of it. They're showing me too much. Revealing secrets. Feels like they're trying to draw me in a little. Ben even invited me to go into the Pit with them. That will be a fething fun night!"
She paused, then said to the group in a low voice, "They've got plans. I can feel it. And they need more people. Regular players who go as hard as they do and know how to keep their mouths shut. Lots of shit happening. Lots of money is flowing in and out of Gadobrha. And the Baron is selling stuff for real cash now. No one else has that yet. Even if we farm the hell out of the dungeons and give him his cut, I think it beats what we're doing now."
"Yeah, we saw that. There's been talk about maybe spending some of the slush fund to upgrade gear. Sweet things are going up in the online stores."
Marcy scowled and slammed a fist on the table. "Stupid talk. I veto that right now. Don't you see? We can earn that shit ourselves and start selling the extra through the Baron's shops. The merc deal was great for early cash and training. But this could work out better. I'll keep playing my current game, and little by little, we'll bring you guys in and start hitting the dungeons. Maybe I can even wrangle a building in the city to fix up as a permanent HQ."
"And if nothing big turns up?"
"No loss, we go back to mercing, but with better gear and better levels. Did I mention I'm ready for Tier 5? I'm holding off for more enhancement points and some boss hunting. How's that Astral Artificer class working out for you, Darlene?"
There were snickers around the table, and Darlene looked pissed at being called out, but then wilted. "It sucks balls, to be honest. I keep losing my little robots in dungeons; they get lost or run after fleeing mobs, and they eat up my cash. And three-quarters of the time, my astral spells are useless because I can't see the stars. Telling a monster its horoscope doesn't do much when my Starlance spell doesn't work. All the synergies I was counting on aren't adding enough to my DPS, and without a ton of enhancement points, I can't get around the 'must see the stars' requirement. I'm only level nine."
"Reroll then, once you get here. I met a combat alchemist, you could try that, and they have a great mage's guild for fire magic. You could go either way. With a little help, you could be Tier three pretty quickly and twice as powerful. Think about it. And pass the word that anyone who isn't pulling their weight should consider rerolling as well. We know more, we've got the dungeons to train in, and can source low-level gear easily."
She stood up. "Nearly dawn. I'm getting back in the game. Get to thinking on shit, and I still want weekly reports on casualties, training, and expenses. No slackers."
Everyone saluted, or flipped her off, and she grinned at them before racing upstairs and diving into her pod. As usual, the pod found her diet to be lacking and began pumping her full of nutrients and cleaning the sugar out of her bloodstream. She relaxed and faded into the game.
She appeared in her usual spot and started to stand up. There was a crowd there, staring skyward as four shining, white horses pulled a flaming chariot through the sky. It buzzed over the town, made a U-turn, and headed back. It was almost impossible to stare at, like looking at the sun, but the huge passenger in the back could only be the Butcher.
Jealousy and admiration hit Marcy hard. "Damn, how'd he score such a pimped out ride?"