“Third? You guys need to get on the entire buying up buildings in Whitehorse. I’m not sure why Roxley isn’t buying more, but as residents, we get a discount. Buying a place makes it a safe zone as you guys probably know, but what you might not have realised is that if you get 80% of the buildings in the Whitehorse city zone claimed, the entire city becomes a safe zone.
“That what you’re thinking of for information?” I smile widely, knowing that it is.
“That… that will do,” the Mayor just blinks at the series of notification windows popping up in front of him as I get my quest rewards. I smirk mentally, noting how it has derailed the rest of their enquiry. Right, time to get out of here before they remember they had anything else to ask me. “Good. Ms. Badger, let’s go.”
I turn and start walking away before Luthien finally speaks up. “What are you planning to do John?”
“What I’ve always done isn’t it? Whatever the hell I want,” I shoot back and walk out.
“John…” Ali is floating beside me as I walk to Sabre, leaving Ms. Badger to catch up. Ah good old Chinese culture, not even able to think of her as Andrea in my mind since she’s an old person. “Not saying I’m a people-person, but what the hell?”
“I don’t like those guys,” I say.
“No shit.”
“They’re idiots. They want to start a fight that they can’t win with Roxley. Hell, they had the Shop from day 1 and could have gotten knowledge of the System pretty fucking easily, but they’re so affronted by Roxley that they refuse to talk to him or go into the Shop and use it properly. Luthien and her friends obviously know about it, but somehow, they haven’t mentioned shit. Or perhaps they haven’t been listening. They let Jim and his people run around not knowing about looting for over a week!
“They’re so fucking incompetent and then they fucking start accusing me of whatever the fuck it is they were accusing me of, they can go fuck themselves,” I can feel the frustration that’s been building up inside me want a release as I snarl out at Ali mentally, “I get it, we need to work together. They don’t have money to pay me, don’t have any resources and are desperate. They could have asked nicely, but they decided not to. So fuck them, I’ll be damned if I let them drag me into their petty games. My life, my rules. I’ll help them the way I want to and for the rest of it, they can fuck themselves.”
Ali backs off a bit as I bite his head off, a hand held out placatingly. I draw a deep breath, forcing some calm over me and hit the button on my helmet as the Elder comes out, hiding my face as I straddle Sabre. Time to get this shit done.
The ride back is held mostly in silence. This time around, my inventory isn’t stuffed to the gills with cheap materials, so I’m guessing the Elder hasn’t really done as much buying as I thought she would. Then again, I have no idea how many Credits she managed to get. We only stop once, pausing long enough in the fort for me to show it to her and switch ownership briefly to allow her to gain the experience before I take control again. She doesn’t protest when I do it, which is good. I’m not sure what I need a fort for, but I bled for it.
Back at Carcross, the moment I roll in, the quest completes.
Level Up!
You have reached Level 11 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 11 Free Attribute Points to distribute.
Finally. Unfortunately, from now on Level Up’s are going to slow down again with experience requirements for each level twice as much as previously. I’m still far behind most of the combatants in Whitehorse, at least in terms of absolute levels which is not surprising. From what we’ve worked out, it’ll take me roughly twice the amount of experience to go up a level compared to those who started with a Basic class.
The Elder heads into the Tagish Centre almost immediately, leaving me to sit on my bike in the middle of the road wondering what next. Beyond curt nods, no one pays attention to me. Everyone is obviously caught up in their own work and I realise, for all that I’ve done them a favour, I don’t belong here.
I feel a wry twist crossing my face, a half-remembered piece of advice coming to me - do good, but never expect gratitude. I give myself a mental shrug and turn the bike around, waving the guards to open the door. Right, there’s another town to check out anyway, just about 20 minutes down the road - Tagish. Ali tells me no one from Carcross has tried to make contact that far as they’ve needed to keep their fighters close on-hand. It’ll only take me a few minutes and if I find even a couple of survivors who want to head into Whitehorse, I’ll earn more Credits than hunting.
I take the Highway down, though really, it’s a 2-lane road that’s pitted and potted. The scenery is gorgeous and dramatic as usual, towering cliffs next to the road and straight drops with untouched forests and mountainous vistas in the distance, bisected by the glacial Tagish river that can be spotted once in a while. Occasional birds flap in the distance, some looking larger than normal and something that I can only describe as a short-nosed pterodactyl.
At Crag Lake, Ali starts telling me to slow down and I spot the group soon after. There are about a score or so humans walking together and eyeing the scenery for potential trouble, mostly adults with a small scattering of children. They look rough, beaten and scared and there is more than one injured among them. As I approach, the leaders in the front level guns at me and I stop a good distance away. It’s only when I drop my helmet and show my human face that they actually relax.
These are the survivors from Tagish, everyone that is left. They’ve left a trail of bodies behind them, those who never grouped up in time, those who died defending the group and the fallen from the initial monster attacks. The entire group looks like they would shatter in a stiff breeze and it’s only the insistence of the leaders that have kept them moving.
I channel my healing magic and do what I can for those that need healing, offering up the bike to the young to speed up the group as I walk. It’s not the best option for defense, but since Sabre can self-balance, it’s the fastest option. I keep my rifle with me as we make the trek to Carcross, my head swiveling for potential dangers as the occasional sob is choked off behind me.
It’s a strange thing, escorting such a large group on foot. The first time we are attacked, it’s by a spine monster which rises from the cliff face, its presence hidden by simple camouflage. It starts the ball rolling by firing spines into the group from its back, each spine over a foot long and dirt brown. We lose another human that time, a spine impaling her chest and heart. I’m wounded too in my shoulder from the initial barrage as I move to put myself in front of the kids on my bike, which means killing it was not the easiest with a single hand to maneuver my rifle. Luckily, the fact that I’m doing the most damage drags its attention to me so we spend a few minutes shooting at each other from the cover of rocks away from the main group. Damn but sneak attacks suck.
The second and third time, Ali warns us well in advance and I’m able to intercept the danger. The first is a crazed wolverine, so fast and vicious I end up having to fight it in close range since I couldn’t manage a killing shot at distance. As fast as the wolverine is, it doesn’t have a sword and lopping off its paws is sufficient to end the fight. The third time, I fight my first slime monster, a gelatinous greenish-purple creature that rolls along the forest floor leaving a trail of slimy destruction behind it and which sits at Level 42. It’s only Ali’s coaching on where to shoot that lets me defeat it – seems like the creature uses a diffused nervous system with a small number of clusters that must be destroyed, otherwise, it’s pretty much immune to most damage. Unfortunately for it, slime doesn’t work well against beam weapons and being able to attack from a distance forces the creature to chase me around in a futile attempt to hurt me. The slime gets me a slime nervous system core as loot, a spongy mass that makes up its central nervous system. According to Ali, it’s quite prized as a material for bioware implants.