CWD: OE ~ Fourteen

Nacho darted along the path without being seen. Brie and Reuben were about two hundred yards away, and he raced up to them so noiselessly that he needed to avoid a reactionary blow from Brie when she finally noticed him. Motioning them to the side, they found three trees close together with enough foliage to hide among.

“Where’s my pack?” Nacho looked around for the mobile kitchen. The looks of incredulousness on their faces told him everything that he needed to know.

Reuben wrinkled his nose and scoffed. “Uh, right, so, we tried to bring it with us, but it sounded like we were trying to walk around with a thrift store under our coats.”

“We left it there for the same reason you left it there.” Brie reminded him with a knowing look. Nacho reluctantly agreed that it had been the right choice to leave his mobile kitchen behind, but he hoped that it would be okay while they were gone. He hated the idea of replacing it. He’d spent a ton of credits on the spices and ingredients, and he’d made certain modifications to the original design. Starting over would be no fun.

Nacho quickly told his friends about what he’d seen, knowing they were under an incredibly tight deadline. Reuben squinted at him, a half-grin on his face. “A Brewer, huh? Do you think she can do root beer? I’m only risking my life for some random lady if she can do root beer.”

Brie didn’t respond to that, nor did Nacho. The Berserker did give the cook a long, studious look. Then she leaned in close and stage whispered, “Did I hear you use the word… ‘pretty’…  in your detailed description of her?”

“I can’t tell you for sure.” Nacho wasn’t going to go down that road, not right now. Auburn hair swaying gently in the breeze meant nothing to him right now. “This isn’t helping us get to her before Nibbles and Henry get back to their camp. We need to go, now.”

Reuben chuckled and nudged his wife. “He never said the word, but we both heard him not say it. Lots of details. Luxurious auburn hair. A remarkable sparkle in her green eyes. Sarcasm and sea shanties…”

“Not helping,” Nacho hissed quietly. “Also, I’m nearly positive I never used those words.”

“Look, lover boy…” Brie’s eyebrows pulled together as she frowned. “I know rescuing a damsel in distress sounds good on paper, but we came here for our friends. Taye and Abby might be in real trouble in the CrossWorld. Shouldn’t we go there first?”

Nacho grunted in frustration. “It’s not just the damsel in distress thing. We need a Brewer. If we get someone who can make us Mana potions, then we can stay in Active Combat indefinitely. With plentiful Mana, Reuben can keep us healed. When we find Kristie, she can use her Death Blossom ability without worrying about dying from lack of Mana. Trust me. We need Jennifer.”

“We or you?” Reuben winked broadly at the cook, getting a flat stare in return. “We. Got it. Totally ‘we’.”

“Maybe,” Brie took a fresh grip on her lacrosse stick and squeezed it hard enough that they could hear the wood getting stressed. “I just hope we don’t die trying to rescue her. Our friends would think we abandoned them.”

Nacho soberly got his friends to start moving. While they were fairly quiet, he didn’t think they would be able to sneak by all the zombies he’d seen. He wracked his brains, trying to think of where they could go after Brie charged forward and smashed that chain. They were going to be chased by hundreds of people, both alive and dead. Or possibly… made of cake? Nacho was still trying to figure out how Nibbles had turned a human’s arm into cake, but he was leaning toward a magical item and not a class ability for one simple reason: no other Necromancer he’d ever met could do the same.

His eyes were drawn to the Portal, about a mile south of their current position.

Simon Spear had said there was a dungeon near the Portal, and his description of it made it sound like it was a Skills Box dungeon. But where? Most likely it would be somewhere between the Portal and the Muddy River, if they had already been able to scout it even slightly.

They were out of time to run any further reconnaissance. They would have to grab the Brewer and escape into the dungeon. They’d have more of a chance doing that than running through a forest full of the undead. If they could, they might just make it through the Portal. Nacho wanted to return and gather reinforcements from his guild members down in the Bove’s Lair, but it seemed that the necromancers were not only planning on that: they were hoping for it. That was enough to ensure that Nacho fought against his instincts and pressed onward.

The dungeon might make the… Nacho tried to think of what the guild name could possibly be. The walking dead and the order of the fist? Sounded a little too slice of life for him, too long. Walking Fists? That was fairly likely, and he felt like the Brewer had mentioned something along that line in her ‘rambling’.

He could only hope that the Mind Players would think twice about coming into a dungeon without a surplus of Body Players; though they may have plenty of bodies to throw at any issues that arose. At least in a dungeon, the Dinner Party would be able to use the narrow corridors to their advantage, and fight their enemy one person at a time. The Necromancers would be fools to chase them into the confines, where their swarm tactics would be utterly useless.

The only thing that made this rescue plan even slightly plausible was Brie’s ability to run at super speeds and bash anything that got in her way, out of her way. She was practically a hammer tornado. If he didn’t have so much faith in his team, he would have absolutely attempted this rescue on his own instead of putting them at risk. Nacho offered some food to his team, but they grimaced and indicated that they had plenty on hand.

That left him with plenty of food that he didn’t mind eating. After the Donut Disaster, Nacho had plenty of leftovers. Brie was also wearing a brand-new belt which contained a pouch for peanut butter balls, and a bandolier of tubes of the strawberry cottage cheese ‘Life Hack’ yogurt. Nacho pulled out a round, rubbery, food item and got to chewing. Eventually, he was able to get it down by drinking nearly half a liter of water. “A cross between jerky and bubble gum. I love both of those, so I guess I’m just not seeing the issue other people have with it.”

When they got near the one undead guard closest to Jennifer, Nacho pulled his friends lower to the ground. “Brie, charge forward and get the Brewer free. Reuben and I will start pounding zombies over here to cause a diversion. Once she’s ready to go, we’ll head to the southeast. I’m hoping we can find the dungeon that Simon Spear talked about, and we can use it as a fallback point to limit how many enemies can come after us at the same time.”

Reuben nodded and curled his hands into fists. “Blood and cheese, bro.”

“Careful, love. After he made donuts, I’m worried that your battlecry will give him bad ideas.” Brie winced as she realized what she had just said. “Doesn’t Muenster cheese have lamb blood in it? Ick. Speaking of ick, we’re going into combat. I hate to do this to ourselves, but… I’d take a donut now? I didn’t realize just how many enemies were around.”

“Sure.” Nacho removed six of the donuts from a Storage Slot, tossing one to her as he tore off a chunk and started chewing. It gave his jaw something to do, and he liked the feeling.

“Urrg. Flat, greasy hockey pucks.” Brie gagged as she forced the food down.

“It’s like sugar mixed with sawdust, cooked in rancid duck lard. The consistency is reminiscent of beach sand next to an oil spill.”

“I sometimes forget that you grew up in a house where your parents would critique the food in front of a server and make them bring the report back to the cook.” Once his bite hit his stomach, Nacho had officially eaten a full portion of food; which allowed him to boost one of his stats. He chose his Fitness, since this next battle was going to be equal parts fighting and running. He also equipped his armor directly from his Storage Slot, and was immediately ready to go—pot on his head, wok on his chest, skillet on his back, knives poised and ready to strike.

“You’re too harsh, sweets.” Reuben started chowing down on a donut. “Once you get past the texture and the taste, they aren’t that bad.”

“This is food.” Brie eyed her remaining few bites like the bread might come alive at any moment and try to wiggle down her throat. “What is there besides texture and taste?”

“If you think eating them is bad, you should’ve tried cooking them.” Nacho shuddered at memories of the Donut Disaster. To be fair, after he rolled out the dough and cut out the donuts, the cloud of floating millet particles hadn’t seemed like it had impacted the final product too badly.

He had no prior-world experience with cooking, so the concern and assumption that things were going to go wrong was just his natural state. Things had usually turned out okay. Not this time. The grease had spat and *hissed* like a living animal, as if the millet flour was personally insulted by his lack of experience baking. The donuts at least looked correct, but no matter what he had done, he had been unable to get the rarity to show as anything higher than ‘Common’.

Brie steeled herself. She was a realist, and the reality was that forcing the food down was going to help keep them alive. The Berserker ate two donuts without pausing, finishing by sucking down a tube of yogurt. She glowed a bit as she increased her Fitness Stat by one hundred and ninety-five percent of her current maximum; winding up with a Fitness of sixty-five. Some quick calculations showed that was going to give her strikes an additional thirty-two and a half percent damage, and her health jumped from fifty-four to one hundred and forty.

Frankly, Nacho preened a little at how effective his concoctions were. It was clear that she agreed with him that a little suffering up front was far better than actually suffering during combat.

He chased the bad donuts down with some Life Hack of his own. His Fitness was jacked all the way up to seventy-three, which gave him an additional thirty six and a half percent on damage. With his knives, Reuben’s Positive Vibes, and their Special Tier one WarCry ability, he would be dishing out twenty-six Health Points with each slick of the wrist. Small Blades gave him a bonus, but it was the fact that he could attack four times in a single second, two attacks with each knife, that really put him over the top.

Reuben doused them all in his happy magic, and they all glowed.

“Brie, go!” Nacho directed quietly, not wanting to reduce her ability to take the initiative in combat.

“Can do. Stay fresh, cheese bags.” The Berserker took off in a blur of Combat Dash, heading directly toward where Jennifer Ales would be chained.

“I love that woman more every single day.” Reuben chuckled as he watched her go. The closest zombie in armor shuffled forward, sword raised. There was no surprise on its ruined face, and Nacho could only mentally shrug at that. If there was one thing that undead were famous for, it was attacking with nearly no lag time as soon as they found a target.

Now it was their turn. Nacho decided that if he was going to be a distraction, he was going to be a big one.

Greetings, Player! During this bit of Active Combat, we ask that age-old question, how do you kill something that is already dead? The typical answer is usually with force, a lot of force, or maybe throwing those donuts you made for your guild as if they were rocks. Either way. No Store, No Regens, no kidding. May your future be delicious!

Reuben charged forward to intercept the zombie that was trying to slice at Brie. Throwing a single punch, he liquified the rotten face, destroying its entire head thanks to the Sausage Clips of Striking around his wrist. “Killed the thing with one blow; they have less than twenty-eight health!”

Other zombies came forward, and something about them changed. Going by the way their vacant eyes suddenly started darting around and how the bodies moved more fluidly, Nacho knew that the Necromancers were seeing through their eyes and taking direct control. The Mind Players were zeroing in on the intruders, and would likely arrive any minute now. Nacho called out, “Gotta get out of here before the fluid guzzlers get close enough to buff their meat toys.”

“There’s a better way of saying that, I just know there is.” Reuben threw punches left and right, killing any zombie that came close and laughing the entire time. “This is awesome! I’ve never gotten to see what my level really means compared to other people.”

One undead warrior hacked into Reuben, but he only took a regular sword’s worth of damage—ten Health Points, minus a point, because of the terrible, yet effective, donuts.

“Trust me when I say that it’s better to be punching up at monsters than testing yourself against humans.” The undead surrounded Nacho, and a wild smile rampaged across his face. “I love being surrounded. That means I can kill in every direction. Let’s dance, zombies… I wonder if there’s a delicious secret you’re hiding.”

He struck out with his blades, each strike ending the unlife of another zombie. Hopped up on defense-boosting donuts and strawberry yogurt, he realized that he could fight creatures at this level indefinitely. In fact, as he hadn’t used a skill yet, he wasn’t even losing hunger points.

Congratulations! You have killed Four Novice Zombies!

Tier 0 Standard Summoned Creature = 0 Credits!

You get nothing for killing these zombies except a vague feeling that you should wash your knives before you prep your next meal.

“Huh.” Nacho looked at his blades and blinked in surprise. “Never really thought about that. If I use the same knives for fighting and cooking… is that unsanitary? Let’s try cleaning them next time, and see if that impacts my prep work.”

“You don’t usually wash them?” That, more than fighting meat puppets, seemed to be making Reuben’s stomach churn.

“I clean the blood off. Ow! Stop distracting me!” Another zombie had come up and hit him. Nacho whirled and hacked his cleaver into the head of the offending undead.

Health remaining:  147/156. Pathetic, rookie numbers.

Damage dealt: 18/18! Instant kill!

Reuben punched the heads off two others with a single motion, apparently just to see if he could. “Woo! If you can blast the heads off of two zombies with one punch, why use two punches to blast the heads off those zombies?”

As they stood in a circle of gore, Nacho looked around and noticed that all the trees in the area were rustling as things moved past them. It was time to run. “Reuben, let’s get to Jennifer. I’m hoping your fitness-focused girlfriend has lacrossed the silver off those chains.”

“Fitness-focused wife, not girlfriend!” Reuben reminded him at maximum volume. “Lead the way, boss man!”

A spell exploded near them as robed fingers rampaged through the foliage. Nacho whirled and ran, but they weren’t out of Active Combat yet. Zombies were everywhere, and Nacho felt surreal for a moment, as though he was running in a horror-themed forest after dark. But he grounded himself quickly. “The stink is bad, the danger is real. Keep it together!”

One undead guy stumbled out in front of him, and Nacho tumbled into a midair somersault, swinging and neatly severing the head off its shoulders as his momentum took him past the corpse. The System flashed another message cheerfully informing him that he’d killed a zombie but got nothing for doing it.

Nacho and Reuben made it to Jennifer’s glade, the Guild Leader trying not to be annoyed at how slow the Healer ran. It wasn’t his fault: Nacho had gained a total of fifteen more points in his stats than Reuben at the same level. That meant that everything from his vestibular sense, to his ability to process input and react, was just better as a result. Adding on the buffs from his food, there was simply no way to make a comparison to other humans anymore. Maybe gorillas? Cheetahs?

They entered the clearing and found a strange sight awaiting them. Brie’s face was bright red with rage, but not at the zombies. Those she could, and did, kill nearly contemptuously easily using Mr. Lacrosse Stick. No, the Berserker was glaring at Jennifer Ales, who was free of the chain and rushing back and forth packing up her brewing supplies.

“We don’t have time for that.” Brie told her firmly as she loaded up an orb and sent it hurtling into a dense group of staggering dead people. “Leave it, or I leave you.”

“This stuff is too expensive to just leave here! I’m almost done, please!” Jennifer flung a long spoon and glassware into her Brewer’s pack, then slung it onto her shoulders. She gripped a nearly three-foot-long spoon in one hand and an equally long paddle in the other. “There! Ready, let’s go!”

Nacho knew from experience that fighting while wearing her backpack wasn’t going to be easy. “This mission just turned from a rescue, to an escort mission. Ales, start running!”

Brie blitzed into the middle of another throng of oncoming zombies, drawing them to her, and using her Defensive While to block every single one of their attacks. Her counterattack mowed the group down. Reuben moved to punch the ones trying to attack from her blind spot,

A scarlet spell grenade exploded near them, and Nacho grabbed Jennifer by the arm and started half-running, half-dragging the Brewer. ‘We need to go, and I hope you can run with your backpack. If not, we’re going to have to dump it.”

“I can run, don’t you worry. I have a Brewmeister ability that allows me to do all sorts of things with my gear.” She threw him a confident smile as she got her legs situated and started running on her own in the direction they had been moving. “Keep them off me, yeah? Not a huge fan of the whole not-getting-paid-for-the-work-I-do thing we had going on here.”

Nacho was a little taken aback. There was a ton of bravado coming off this person who had been a captive less than five minutes ago, for who-knows how long. With Brie and Reuben covering their back, they sped through the forest, stumbling across another path that cut southeast through the trees. Nacho could smell the Muddy River, and he altered their angle slightly: this path just might take them to the dungeon.

“We might have a problem!” Brie’s voice carried perfectly to the front of the group as they ran, her years of being the Captain of the Lacrosse team shining at this moment. “Tier one zombies coming in fast!”