Chapter 78: Dodgeball

“Wake up, you bastard.”

“Wha? Brett?”

“How have you survived this long? You sleep like a drunk brick. It took me five minutes to wake you up.”

“I’m just lucky, I think. And I don’t sleep outside much.”

“Well, thank the heavens for this base, I guess. Get up. I got a system message assuring me I’d be safe while you were gone. I bet you have one saying where you are going.”

Sean checked, and found he did.

Village Event Eminent!

You’re about to be teleported to your first village event. Prepare your best weapons, armor, and resources. There’s no telling what you’ll face!

Participants will be teleported directly to the event.

Teleportation incoming in: 2:13

“Shit! Brett, grab my pack.”

“No need! Here.” Brett tossed him his belt, which he caught and set on the bed near him. “I rigged it up to hold three of your weird apple potions and put a couple hooks on it for your chain weapon. You shouldn’t need more, I don’t think.”

Sean shimmied into his armor as quick as he could, then clipped the belt on. Brett wasn’t wrong. He had his darts, his knife, his spear, his heavy weapon, and his cures, such as they were. He didn’t need the pack, probably. Brett, having thought of most things in advance, tossed him a couple of apples just before the entire room vanished and Sean found himself, just for a few moments, in an in-between sort of space.

Fuck. It’s so empty. Sean had seen true dark once when he was a kid on a field trip to a cave. It was unsettling. Sure, the cave guides had done their best to play the experience up and he had been eleven-years-old, but there was a terror in the pure darkness of that underground world that went beyond the normal.

Here, Sean couldn’t see anything. But it wasn’t because of a pure darkness. In the space between things, he could still see just fine. There just wasn’t anything to see. He had heard somewhere that infinity itself wasn’t really scary, that it just looked like nothing. Here, that wasn’t true. Where pure dark had been terrifying, this was more so.

The emptiness shook him down to his bones, to the point where he almost reflexively triggered Hard Time on himself to speed himself up and even make it seem like he was in there less long. As he mentally reached for the skill, something in him shouted down that idea with the same kind of instinct that would have kept him from jumping off a skyscraper or sticking his head in a campfire. It seemed, somehow, like a very, very bad idea.

And then, just like that, he was out, surrounded by dozens of weird aliens.

“Sean!” Almost as soon as his feet hit the ground, Spike noticed him and rushed over. “Did you just get here?”

“Yeah, just now. You?”

“The same. I think it’s syncing up our arrival times for all of these.”

“Do we have any idea what’s going on here?”

They were standing on a reasonably hard, uniform surface in a large, rectangular room. It was a bit like a large warehouse, well lit but devoid of other interesting features beyond having plenty of space.

“No clue, but I’m sure it’ll tell us soon enough.”

The rest of the offworlders milled around, only a few who happened to be the same species choosing to talk to each other. If this test ended up accommodating team-ups, there would be a few pre-made groups but the biggest would probably contain about three members. That wasn’t great if they turned out to be human-hostile, but at least it wouldn’t be the entirety of the offworlders united against just Sean and Spike.

The apparent tensions between the groups were hammered home when a commotion broke out behind two paired up offworlders, both of whom looked like larger humans made out of brown stone. One of the stealthier offworlders had apparently snuck up behind them and tried to attack them in some way, from what Sean could tell.

The offender was covered up with complete enough armor that Sean couldn’t readily identify what it looked like beyond being relatively human looking and relatively small. And to all appearances, it might have been entirely screwed now that it was discovered, given the size and numbers difference in play.

“Do you know those species?” Sean asked. “I haven’t seen either one before.”

“The small one, I have no idea. But the big guys I’ve seen before. That’s not actually rock, for the record, and they aren’t actually slow. Some of them have DEX builds, just like everyone else.” Spike glanced around, making sure nobody was approaching them, watching Sean’s back as Sean continued watching his. “Why?”

“I thought it would be good to know. They are showing a lot of restraint right now. Seems like a good trait.”

Spike snorted and took a drag off his cigarette. “Those guys?” He laughed. “Look again. Closer.”

Sean did, although it took him some time to figure out what Spike was talking about. The big not-stone guys looked calm, but they were touching their weapons and Sean’s SAV was high enough to see that they were actually trying to pull them out. They weren’t letting up, either. As the seconds wore on, they applied constant, hard pressure to the handles of their sheathed arms but couldn’t actually get them out and into play.

“The Apocalypse System is stopping them. It’s probably stopping all attacks. We’re probably actually safe and don’t need to be paranoid like this, but…”

“Better safe than sorry?”

“That’s it. We don’t know how long the protection will last, or if it applies to everyone, or how many of these bastards would take advantage of our vulnerability if they could.”

Sean split one of his apples with the Mystereamer, handing half to Spike, who arched his eyebrows but accepted it without question and started munching away. By the time they had finished them, the Apocalypse System finally made itself known.

Daily Challenge: Combat Dodgeball

The rules of this game are simple. Competitors will form teams, which will then go to either side of a big line. Your task is to hit members of the other team with one of several balls. If a ball makes contact with a member of another team who fails to catch it, they are sent to the sidelines. When all members of a team are sidelined, the opposing team wins.

If the ball bounces before making contact with a member of the opposing team, it is considered “dead” and cannot sideline anyone until re-thrown. If an opposing team member catches a thrown ball, stopping its motion without losing contact, the thrower is out and one of their teammates returns from the sidelines.

Only one member of each team can touch a ball at any given time. Damaging other players with the balls is not prohibited. Leaving the field of play or crossing the line between the two team areas will result in an immediate sidelining.

Two team captains will be randomly selected, and teams will be chosen by alternating selections from those players.

Prohibitions on violence will be lifted as soon as the game begins.

Enjoy!

“Shit,” Sean said.

“Yeah, shit. I wonder if they have dodgeball on other worlds.”

“With the same rules? Probably not.”

Suddenly, a member of what Sean was pretty sure was Eike’s entourage glowed momentarily. Eike wasn’t among the offworlders. When the glow subsided, Eike’s friend had a blue dot on his chest while the other team captain, a mostly-human man with unnaturally orange skin, was marked with red.

“I’m first,” Eike’s teammate said. This was apparently a statement of fact rather than something they were fighting over since the other person merely nodded. Mini-Eike looked over the group of contestants, almost immediately settling on the larger of the stone men for his first selection. Orange, chose the other, probably not wanting Eike to get both members of the set.

Shortly after, Mini-Eike pulled a member of the squid race, followed by Orange picking a smaller humanoid that looked like it was built for speed. It was about halfway through the selection before either Spike or Sean were called, with Spike getting pulled over to Eike’s team.

“Be careful out there. If I’m on the opposing team…” Sean started.

“Yeah, I get it. Helpful until competition demands otherwise.”

Spike nodded then departed for the other team.

Sean didn’t end up getting picked dead last, but it was close. At the end of the selections, it was just him and the assassin-class who had tried to take down the stone men before. Semi-Eike eyed both of them and glanced toward Spike. He clearly didn’t want both humans on his team at once, for whatever reason, but otherwise would have to keep an eye on the assassin and the stone man to make sure they didn’t kill each other and leave him at a disadvantage.

In the end, the human team-up seemed less dangerous. Sean trotted over to Spike, trying his best to keep his distance from the other competitors as he did.

“Good. Now we just have to wait for this to start.” Spike was squatting down and swaying a bit, warming up.

“And watch the line.”

“Why?”

“Think about it. The system didn’t tell us how we’d get the balls, right? They don’t know.”

Spike mouthed a silent “oh” of realization before motioning tiny-Eike over and letting him in on that piece of Earth information. The team captain didn’t comment on it one way or another, but did go say a word or two to several teammates, all of whom moved subtly closer to the line separating the two sides.

It didn’t take long for the sound of a coach’s whistle to fill up the space, signalling the start of the game. At the same moment, five standard-issue red foam dodgeballs appeared spaced out over the line. The space itself was pretty big, much bigger than the usual volleyball court size, and the opposing team was caught almost completely off-guard by the sudden appearance of the dodgeballs.

By the time the dust cleared, four out of the five balls were on Sean’s side of the line. Spike managed to beat Sean to the ball they were nearest to and he and the other three ball-holders on their side threw at the same time. Spike’s ball wiffed, dodged by a smaller and faster contestant. Two of the others hit, leaving them with a substantial early lead.

Then, oddly, the opposing red team member threw his ball to another person on their team, who caught it with a long, snake-like arm. Wrapping the ball at the end of their appendage, they reared back, throwing the ball so fast Sean could hardly see it. Apparently the red team captain hadn’t wasted his pre-game time. He knew who his ringers were.

Just like that, the bigger of the two stone men was sidelined, with four of the dodgeballs in enemy territory. The next volley of dodgeballs from the enemy side was near-simultaneous, with only a slight delay from snake-man so they’d all arrive at roughly the same time. When the dust cleared, two more of Sean’s team members were out. The blue captain motioned for the ball, which one of his people gave up.

Rearing back, he threw it. It was a good throw, if not as good as what the snake-man could do. It impacted with one of the weaker, more mental-skill-looking red-team members, hard. He was immediately teleported to the sidelines, Sean got ready for the next throw from the snake-armed man, only to see him paused, looking over at his own sideline.

Sean looked as well, finding the most recently eliminated member of the opposing team collapsed. A grinding sound from the other side of the line suddenly showed him why. Where once was a red dodgeball of normal construction, now stood a red boulder, very clearly made of some kind of metallic rock. It hadn’t changed shape or size but was now dangerous in a way it hadn’t been before.

The game, apparently, was now on for real.