His perfectly placed shot smashes through the undead’s lips and teeth.
-120! Critical hit! Tonsil Shot!
The zombie spouts flame from its eyes, ears, nose and mouth, windmills its arms and topples over backwards. Tendrils of smoke waft from the window, and Ryuk is awarded double EXP.
“Talk about some heartburn!” Hiccup laughs as a store brand SafeKrogerWay healing potion appears in his mechanical hand. “What? It’s prophylactic.”
He chugs it back, wipes his lips, curses the flavor, and smashes the bottle on the ground. Up the front steps he trots, kicks in the unlocked door and goes face first over the threshold when he overbalances. “FICK! … I mean, um, I meant to do that!”
“I’ll cover you,” Ryuk tells Tamana.
She keeps her buster sword at the ready and stumbles when she accidentally digs it into the doorframe. With a sheepish grin on her face, Tamana yanks her sword free and blows a strand of white hair out of her eyes. Ryuk enters, his marble gun at the ready, the rest of his magazine of molten marbles still in the weapon.
“All righty then,” Hiccup says once everyone is in the foyer, “We need to make this quick and dirty.” The inside is a shambles. Furniture is smashed and overturned, clothes and possessions are littered about, and smears of gore are everywhere. The air is heavy with the smell of blood, ripped bowels, and decomposing zombie flesh.
Tamana gasps. “It’s like a bad American horror movie in here.”
“It’s not that much worse than Jatla, really,” Ryuk reminds her.
Her face contorts as she considers for a moment. Finally, she nods.
“I’m pretty sure the way we want to go is down.” Hiccups points beneath his feet and stomps the floor, just in case they’re unclear as to where ‘down’ is. “Also these one percenters keep their best shit down below. Anyone see a door?”
“Um … ” Tamana takes a quick look around, smacks her buster sword against an end table and sends a Naklin vase filled with Kadupuls to the ground. The three jump when it shatters, and Hiccup expresses his gaseous disapproval.
“Holy flying fick, Tammy, you’re killing us here!” He rattles his ax at her. “Why don’t you just equip an accordion, bagpipes, and glockenspiel and have your own Loud Lives Matter parade!”
“Sorry.” She bows and scuffs her toe in front of her. “Sorry again.”
A muffled cry for help comes from a coat closet.
“Probably just women or children. Ignore them,” Hiccup examines a few of the busts in the foyer that haven’t been toppled over. “Come on, rich people, where’s your secret switcheroo?”
He stops in front of a bust of a bad tempered, disgruntled, disgusted, dyspeptic looking fat guy. “This must be the fat rat bastard you popped in the pie hole.” He strokes the bust’s head with his mechanical hand and puts a finger in each nostril, prods and twists.
Thumping and more muffled cries makes Tamana to turn to Ryuk. “There are people in there,” she whispers. “We have to help them.”
Again, Hajime’s quote, comes to him – do both. Ryuk steps forward. “Hiccup, we’re going to go help those people.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever – you get after it, Do-right,” the goblin says as flicks his finger at the statue’s lip. “Just be sure to clear the rest of the house first, and if you run into trouble, deal with it and I’ll call you when I need you.”
“I’ll open it, you keep your gun ready,” Tamana whispers to Ryuk as they approach the closet.
“Got it.” He holds his marble gun at chest level as Tamana opens the door.
“Don’t hurt us!”
Ryuk immediately holsters his weapon when he sees a pair of gnomes cowering in the jacket closet. The male gnome’s salt and pepper beard stretches well past his belly; his forearms are prominently tattooed with otherworldly script. His female companion’s gray hair is pulled into a tight bun and secured with a pair of knitting needles. Their footgear is scuffed and torn and worn, and they both sport a heavy brass anklet. Most noticeably, they’re missing their pointy red hats.
The gnomette flings herself forward and wraps her arms around Ryuk’s waist. “You saved us!” Tears of joy stream down her wrinkled face as she looks up at him. “It was terrible! Awful! Horrible! Terrible!”
“Don’t hug him, Chantrea! He could still kill you!” The male gnome brandishes a pair of pruning shears in a most unconvincing and half-hearted manner.
“Please,” Ryuk tells him, “we’re not going to kill you.”
If we were, you’d already be dead, he thinks.
Tamana smiles at the pair as a sudden realization spreads across her face. “You two are from Unigaea, aren’t you?”
“How did you know?” Chantrea asks.
“The tattoos on his arms. That’s the script they used in that world, isn’t it?”
Ryuk has seen the Thai-inspired script before burned across the chest of a mysterious warrior they once encountered in Ultima Thule. Unigaea was a VMMORPG world that was popular for a brief spell in the 2060s until a disgruntled player with a source code bomb destroyed it; those few NPCs that escaped became refugees in Tritania.
“It is,” the male gnome steps forward and offers his hand to Ryuk. “The name is Arun, and this is my wife, Chantrea.”
Hiccup bellows from the other room. “Yo-Ho, treasure enthusiasts! Hot ficks, I figured it out! Never mind your do-goodery. I need back up, so get your asses in here!”
Arun lowers his bushy brows and scowls. “You’ve brought a goblin with you?”
“Um … ” Ryuk scratches the back of his head. “Actually, he brought us.”
“So you’re here for the treasure in the family crypt then, aren’t you?”
“It wasn’t our original reason to come here to Kayi. We’re actually here to hunt zombies.” He looks to Tamana and shrugs. “Somehow, we’ve ended up as looters.”
“C’mon you two – chop-chop! We got stuff to steal! Let’s fickin’ go!”
Arun straightens his back and puffs out his chest. “Then let us help you. Mr. Bannon and his atrocious twin daughters have been the bane of our existence for years!”
“Honey … ” Chantrea places her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Don’t say things like that. The twins weren’t too bad.”
“Not too bad? They took away our pointy felt hats! And look at this!” He gestures to the brass band around his ankle. “If either of us leaves the property without their permission we will be permanently deleted and they’re the ones that set up the magic! I know what I am,” Arun says, “and by permanently deleted I mean just that – these bracelets put a kink in our D-NAS that will force an auto-delete function.”
“That’s awful,” Tamana empathizes.
“And as you can see,” Arun glowers at the ankle cuff, “whatever type of magic this is, it is still in effect.”
“You two had better not be dead … ah, fick!” Hiccup joins the two and rolls his eyes when he sees the gnomes. “We’re not here on a rescue mission. Sorry, gnomes, you’re on your own.”
“You’ve already rescued us,” Arun tells him, “at least your friends have, goblin. We want to help you now.”
“Help us?” Hiccup raises an eyebrow at the gnome. “And the name is Hiccup.”
“Are you sure, Arun?” his wife asks. “Are you sure we should help them?”
The stout gnome gives the three Mitherfickers a determined nod. “I know where the treasure is. Follow me!”
(0)__(x)
“I already know the way,” Hiccup informs the group as they pass into the foyer. “So save the tour guide shit.”
Arun gives the goblin a curt shake of the head. “No, no you don’t. You’ve found the booby trapped passage that you’re supposed to find, the one that leads straight to your gruesome, violent, painful death. The non-booby trapped passage that leads to the treasure is through the pantry.” The gnome gently takes his wife’s elbow and guides her around the busts that Hiccup knocked over.