The Krauts were hovering back, watching and waiting. I was sure that my rush into their ditch had spooked them, as had the death of two of their guys in such a short time. It was a good thing too because I couldn’t imagine the carnage they’d visit on my men if they’d done a good double-time forwards.
Maybe I’d be the only one left.
I kept low, the plasma rifle in my hands. Simultaneously peering over the lip of the entrenchment, I brought up the stats for the rifle.
Plasma Rifle, Superior (Ranged Weapon)
DMG 2-16+3
Spd Med
Damage x3 to unarmored foes
‘Burninate your enemies at an affordable rate!’
It was just a tad stronger than my own weapon, fielding a plus 3 to minimum and maximum damage. But instead of being a plug-in recharge, it fed using long blue-green cartridges, each with twenty shots stored. I shifted the rifle to my left hand, using the lip of the ditch for support to steady it while I blindly pawed at the body next to me to try to connect to it and open a loot box.
Boom. There it was. Three cartridges for reload alongside two world-war style sticky grenades and something called a whiz-nuke, alongside other stuff that looked decidedly unuseful at the moment. I took the weapons and closed the box, opening a new one for the whiz-nuke.
Need big booms but don’t have the cash? Be a whiz and buy whiz-nuke! Small field tactical nukes salvaged from the ruins of the Washington DC Wasteland, they come about as cheap as a tactical nuke can. WARNING: Due to the circumstances of their origin, these grenades are highly unstable. They might concentrate their damage into a small area - or they may explode into a less-damaging but much wider radius. Caution is advised.
Whiz-Nuke
DMG 6 - 180
One-use, Thrown
Random diameter of blast, may explode in inventory as the result of blasts or burning.
I saw a flicker of movement and stared into it.
Critical success! +1 to your observation skill! A system message read. A moment later, the figure of a kraut low-crawling to flank my position came into sight. Damn, the guy had seriously been invisible just a moment ago. Fricking game rules. Made the reality of the world seem broken.
I pushed the butt-stock of the rifle into the crook of my shoulder and took aim. Breathe, relax, aim, squeeze. Pop, the round tore through the air in an instant, blasting into the man’s side. He screamed and rolled, a full fifth of his health gone.
More yells rose, all from the center point. A grenade sailed through the air, one of those whiz-nukes. Screw that. I stood up, reversing my grip on my rifle and bunting it away. A plasma blast took me in the solar plexus and I went with it, falling to the dirt of the trench, sending a message as I fell.
If you all aren’t in cover right now, you better do it quickly. Something nuclear is about to detonate and I have no idea what the blast radius is.
A shockwave swept over the top of the ditch, blasting sand and gravel, followed by the booming sound of nuclear mayhem.
Save failed, my game log read, and I didn’t have to wonder about what it meant since I could feel the humming of my plasma rifle whir down. Those idiots had just EMPed their weapons and shields. I grinned, watching the dust and dirt suck back in over my ditch as the vacuum of the blast yanked and pulled at its surroundings.
Guys, it’s time. Not what we’re used to, but just charge. Straight forward, bullets flying. They made a big boo boo and you are not going to have to worry about those shields anymore.
The triple-echo of live arms fire resumed, more screaming sounded, and I got back to a hunched position. I could hear the sound of Germans crying out in pain. I popped my head back up and tried to get a good read of the situation. Either my timing was crap, or the German commander wasn’t the idiot I thought he was, because I popped up just in time to get kicked in the eye with his dusty and possibly steel-toed nazi boot.
Partially-blinded, the debuff read. I staggered back. Dazed, another one read. Was this a sadistic AI commentary or were they really things the system was putting on me? Whatever it was, the kraut hopped into my ditch with me.
“You have done serious damage to my men. Killed two. Panicked one enough to throw our, vwat do you Americans call it, Hail Mary?” He punctuated his words with a punch. I felt then saw that on his hands was a pair of brass knuckles, each protrusion topped with the skull-faced vision of the SS.
My health dropped a fricking 25% and I fell to a knee.
Dizzy, my game log said. And boy was I ever. I could feel bile rise to my throat, food try to escape from my stomach. What the fuck was going on?
“You are pathetic. Filthy Americans. The pure stock of Aryan whored out to the animals of the world. What mix are you, mongrel?”
I tried to raise my rifle and he laughed, grabbing it in the middle with one hand and throwing it away.
“Screw you,” I mumbled as loud as I could. Then a super handsome pale kid leapt in, blasted a round into the commander's face, and I kicked out as hard as I could. The man flailed back in surprise.
Blunt!
“You dicks need to take a long think about your beliefs,” he yelled. “You’ll have plenty of time to do that in hell.”
He squeezed a round and then another. The German commander dropped back onto his posterior, then kicked for the man’s groin. But he dodged sideways, popping another round into the Nazi.
His health was at 23%.
I worked my way back up and stumbled over but Blunt pushed me back with one hand.
“I got this, Poobah. You’ve done enough here. Let us have a piece.”
I nodded, then turned and threw up. These system debuffs were no joke. I hadn’t felt this bad since my first duty posting. All of us had gotten together for a hard drink. Had to have the guys next door buy the alcohol for us since we were so young. The night had ended with me barely making it to my top bunk, then showering the rest of them in chunky bits of half-digested chicken and rum.
A message prompt popped up in my system notifications and I cranked it open.
So, man, dude, the hot tub is running for a thousand credits. He won’t come down any more and I ain’t seen one any cheaper anywhere around here. I say we go for it.
What the hell. I waved Doug’s message away, accidentally approving his purchase as I did so and cursing in a broken, slurred voice. Luckily Blunt was taking care of the fight for me.
A distraction like that in the middle of battle could be deadly.
The commander dodged the next shot and popped Blunt in the face. He dropped back hard, just like I had, and his aim went wavy.
Yeah I wasn’t staying out of this. I flopped forward and grabbed the German, his snarling face inches from my own.
“Victory on all fronts,” the NPC screamed into my face. A loud explosion sounded and out of pure instinct I tossed him into the air, then watched the nuclear blast shred him as it carried him away.
“Awsome,” Blunt slurred, flopped against the trench walls.
I held up a hand and extended my thumb. The debuffs were at 95% completion in my log, so I’d be out of it very soon. But for the moment it felt like I should maybe avoid any sharp movement. I made my way over the lip of the trench and then was treated to a message that I somehow had not expected.
“Victory!” The masked man cried, his voice cracking. “Hitler Homies are TPK! Bandit Troop triumphs with just a single death!”
+100 reputation rating with Gojia X civilians. Your reputation is now 100.
My palms went cold and sweaty, my heart jumped a beat. Screw the reputation thing. What had just happened to my crew?
Victory trumpets flared and a bunch of fighter jets swooped overhead. But someone had dropped.
I shook my head. No, no way. This was going to be easy grinding and level ups for everyone.
But I knew better. In any fight that ever happened, someone could die. I always knew that. But I just didn’t expect it here. Things had been going so well.
“Kudos to the victors!” the man continued. I shook my head, dazed. In our logs a system notification flashed, demanding our attention.
WELCOME TO LEVEL EIGHT! BUT, WOW, TALK ABOUT WORKING YOUR PEOPLE TO THE BONE! MAYBE TRY TO LEVEL UP WITHOUT KILLING YOUR WORKERS NEXT TIME.
I growled and gritted my teeth.
Deus Ex was mocking the death of my people. I wasn’t going to let him gloat for long.
I quickly popped a level-up point into my Constitution for some more health and then another one into my Intelligence. Because maybe if I hadn’t been so damn stupid I could have saved my guy.
Along with the level up came a full glut of cards. One for each of the Nazi pricks that we had offed.
Fiery Clash
https://i.imgur.com/vCC6m6I.jpg
Level 1 (Very Rare)(3CP)
Activate to instantly become a powerful explosion. Take no damage from this temproary transformation. Deal 10 - 100 damage to all within an area equal to a circumference of just as many feet.
'They'd taken everything from him. Now he'd take everything from them. No matter the price.'
Joker’s Wild
Level 1 (Very Rare)(0CP)
Activate to level up a card as if this card were a duplicate of the card selected. Successful combination requires a successful learn check at the selected cards rarity level.
'He was insane in every manner, and yet whenever push came to shove . . . he got the job done.'
Smoker’s Wit
Level 1 (Common)(2CP)
Activate to gain a +1% to your learn skill
Gain another +1% to your learn skill per 1 point of sacrifice from your permanent pool of base hit points.
Shake Ya Moneymaker
Level 1 (Common)(1CP)
Double Charm bonus for any equipped Charm-increasing items. All money gained from Charm-related skill checks, or from looting enemies defeated through the use of Charm skills, grants an additional 20 credits.
‘Doesn’t really matter what you want to say, words fail on your tongue when I shake it your way.’
Iron Defense
Level 1 (Common)(2CP)
Passive: +20 Hitpoints
+20 Physical Armor Soak
Activate once per day to gain another 20 hitpoints
'He wasn't very tough when you found him unsuited. But when the armor went on, it was time to vacate the area.'
Roly Poly Battle Bot
Level 1 (UnCommon)(3CP)
Activate to summon a Roly Poly Battle Bot with 15 hp, no agility, and a slow attack of 3-36 damage. Attacks ignore energy shielding.
May only be summoned once per day. Roly Poly Battle Bots lose energy and stop working at the end of any day in which they are summoned.
'When the Taharan People fought their war against the Empire, they lacked numbers. But what they didn't lack was ingenuity.'
Another notification appeared, this time a system prompt from the area.
Please assemble in the victory circle in the center in order to receive your credits. Then proceed to loot the battlefield in an orderly fashion.
I thought about sorting through what I had and learning some cards, but now I had a team to think of. And I wasn’t about to become some dictator. We’d look through them during downtime, after we got to grips with everything that had just happened.
The lot of us stood from where we crouched and ambled over to the center of the ring. Clouds of still suspended dust wafted through the battlefield like a chalky-tasting fog, rendering the rest of my fellows shadows. I knew Blunt was okay, staggering along with the help of my supporting arm while his debuffs wore off.
But who was the other guy, the one who had died? And how had it happened?
A glowing ring drew us forward, perfectly concentric, its orange-hue burning through the dark. Blunt and I were first, stepping in then rearing back in surprise as images of the screaming crowd were thrust in front of us. People standing, out of their seats, a few flashing an upside-down V. Beyond the broadcast image, the rest of the battlefield was hidden.
They were static, through, operating as if they were a screen made of air, broadcast upwards by the lines of the ring. I could turn and see different aspects of the crowd. I saw that some of them were throwing items. One of those items glowed blue and I knew I’d have to make a beeline for that one.
The thought filled me with shame. I still didn’t know who’d kicked the bucket.
A man came through into the ring. It was Dragon and his dark skin was painted over with the dust of the battlefield. I met his eyes and I could see immediately that he didn’t know either. His eyes were hard, though, and he looked more than ready to kill some more nazis.
The next man was Phil, his eyes wide and bloodshot. Dude knew, I could see by the hollow look in his eyes, and the drag in his stagger, that he’d seen it. But this conversation deserved the whole crew. We waited until Turtle came in, dragging a wrecked leg behind him.
“GhostFace,” I stated numbly. The others nodded.
“He was point blank on that nuke blast,” Phil said. “We were too close and he’d thought maybe he could toss it far enough away to save our asses. Worked for me. Didn’t work for him. Stupid thing blasted hard center, but light outside. It was like the sun where it went off. More like a sunburn by the time it got to where I was standing.”
I nodded. It was all crap, but the description on those nukes had shown them to be extra crappy crap. The grand dookie. It sucked hard that one of us had fallen because of it.
“We’re going to pour one out for him, pick up our loot, figure out our cards, and go sort it with those frat kids. One human dead in this arena is enough. Level yourselves up too. Who knows what random stuff Deus Ex might want to throw at us.”
The rest of them nodded. The arena system seemed to pick up on it, because the audience screen lowered and we were once again treated to a view of the entirety of our battlefield. The dust had cleared and Nazi flesh smeared the sands. Around the area lay weapons and items, thrown there by our adoring fans.
Good. I’d give the best of it to those frat kids and see if I could get them through this, and into the safety of my compound. Probably I’d give them the cards as well.
They’d need all the help they could get.
We left the circle and moved about the corpses, gathering up everything, not bothering to see what they were. Move in, collect, move out. We could check it again in the safe zone of rec area. Around us people cheered, danced — I even got to see the wave undulate through the crowd members.
I wondered if any real humans were up there in the stands. The thought put a bad taste into my mouth.
As we rolled through, grabbing up everything, I just barely noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the animal gates was opening. Oh hell. I quick thought a message,
Don’t look now but Deus Ex is letting out some monster. I think the idea was that we’d be so entranced with checking out our new loot that one of us would get mauled. Weapons live and alert.
Giving no indication that he knew that it was there, I made my way to a nearer corpse at a slow gait. Goosebumps pimpled my skin. It was hard to wait.
The creature that came out stalked lower to the ground, hunched and hovering, more humanoid than animal but still full of sharp, dripping fangs and wicked raptorish talons. Its pale skin practically glowed in the sunlight and I wondered if that wouldn’t have the in-game effect of lowering our accuracy. I’d just have to make sure that it didn’t matter.
Blunt, make an excuse to edge a bit right. Dragon, forward a bit more.
I sent messages correcting their positions as the creature stalked out. I saw the nostrils on its wickedly-curved nose shrink and flare, as it stalked better into my side-eyed view of it. The eyes were milky-white, the face a stretched humanoid grimace topped with lanky-gray hair that reached half way down its easily 12 foot frame.
Might be a bit of a clobber, but I felt like we had this.
Now!
My message cast, I turned and blasted it as fast as I could get the shots off, blazing energy repeatedly battering it in the chest. From their angles in a circle about the beast, my men blasted it with rifle and machine-gun fire. It dropped in a bloody heap almost as quickly as we’d turned on it. I looted it to the cheering shouts of the masses, then we stepped to our ring, descending back to where we’d come from.
