CWE: OE ~ Six

When they reached the apartment he shared with Brie in the actual core guild area atop Armor Mountain, Nacho thought Reuben would bail. When he didn’t make the move to go in there, the cook realized that Reuben likely wanted to get to the bottom of this ‘problem’ business as well.

Kala came marching down Main Street in her black armor, her huge sword sheathed on her back. “You’re gonna do it? You’re just gonna let him make the challenge like that? I can’t believe you’re that easy.”

“What?” Nacho wondered out loud, getting a shrug from Reuben as the Death Knight stormed right by them, refusing to pause and elaborate. It was clear she was on her way back to Jalapeno Town, as they’d extended the Eastern Road down to the southern end, to where the big Oilbark Tree straddled the entrance to the Deep Buggy Darkness. There, they’d set up a system of ropes and pulleys to create an elevator that took you down to Jalapeno Town, which followed the curve of the mountain to the south and to the west.

There was another wall down there, called the Habanero Heights. The Heights had its own trench in front of it, and was the final fallback of the Guild in case something was attacking from the air. Before she could get out of sight, Kala stiffened, turned, and marched back to them. “Look. Becky said I shouldn’t take out my frustrations on you, or Reuben, or Gustav and Gary.”

“I hope you mean to say…” Reuben lifted his fist. “The Ghost Pepper Brigade!”

The GG’s—Gustav and Gary—were new to the guild, but the two had brought a whole squad of warriors who were very committed to combining the spirit of Sparta with a community college’s fraternity.

Zack wanted to get along with Gustav and Gary, but the GG’s didn’t take him, nor their present situation, seriously. In many ways, the Ghost Pepper Brigade was… not meshing with their new reality. For one, they didn’t talk about their Tiers and level. Instead, they’d translated the whole thing into the Scoville Scale, which measured spiciness, and Nacho hadn’t been able to figure it out. To be fair, he had not put in a lot of effort, especially since they already had such a clear method of understanding.

Nacho had decided to think of them more as a mercenary group than any regular fighting force. The strangest thing about their entire cadre, and the reason the Death Knight hadn’t lost her leadership role even when administering extra-judicial punishments in the form of beatings… was that they were completely enamored by Kala.

They went out of their way to complete any task they gave them in an over the top fashion; often to their detriment. She had once told them to leave her apartment ‘right now’, and a trio had thrown themselves out of the window… over the cliff. Only the fact that regeneration was active kept them alive to brag about the feat of idiocy.

“Right. Becky also said that talking to people through my helmet might be off-putting.” Kala inhaled and removed her helmet, letting her short black hair free. “Fine. The situation made me angry… wait. Did people tell you yet?”

“They didn’t!” Reuben lifted a hand to forestall any information. “Wait. I’m kind of enjoying the mystery. Don’t tell me too much. I want to be kept in suspense a little while longer.”

“That’s stupid.” Kala grimaced and pointed a finger at Nacho accusingly. “He’s after you.”

“Me? Why, and in what way?” Nacho was completely taken aback by the strange looks that she was giving him.

“He is invoking one of your foolish rules in the guild charter. It’s not a good one, and I think you’re a fool for allowing it to be added to your contract.” Kala replaced her helmet, and the eye holes darkened unnaturally. “I’m going to go down into the Deep Buggy Darkness to work off some… emotions. Also, there’s new stuff spawning on the fourth level. Big beetles, Tier zero.”

“Save the meat!” Nacho couldn’t hide his excitement. “I want to try bug gyros.”

“No.” Kala rejected his request with a disgusted grunt and moved off.

“Becky does good work.” Reuben squinted at her. “I think she’s making progress. That was an apology. Or close to it.”

“Yeah, I think it was.” Nacho turned to his buddy. “So… someone is after me.”

“A universally loved S-classer.” Reuben wiggled his eyebrows. “Who could be after you, and why isn’t he already six feet under?”

“Nice. People are allowed to dissent, it keeps things from getting out of hand.” Nacho turned and started walking to the Guildhall. He was dying to try out his Splatter Millet on the grains he had in his Storage Slots, but first… whatever this was. Patting his stomach, he muttered, “I haven’t forgotten about you, donuts. Don’t you worry one little bit.”

They continued down Main Street, where a market had popped up on either side. With over five thousand people now in the guild, there were vendors selling any number of things, from clay plates that weren’t made of yellow and red Juxtaposition plastic, to handmade furniture from Old Bill himself. He was bizarrely great at designing and creating wicker chairs.

Nacho had big plans for the Main Street market, but he was re-evaluating it after his fight in the Millet Meadows. That had driven home the very real possibility of his entire guild getting wiped out. There were too many people that were looking inward, wanting creature comforts instead of progressing, and this market showed that all too clearly.

Maybe he had known that, deep in his subconscious. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t pushed for anything to be done about it yet. “More raw truth to face. What a day. All I wanted to do was to figure out the Splatter Millet, pound out some flour, and get to making donuts.”

“Talking to people is hard for you, huh?” Reuben poked Nacho in the sides to shock him, then stepped away as a knife passed through where his hands had been a moment previously. “Don’t worry. I have your back. If things go south, you can always kill him and eat him, whoever ‘he’ is. No? I saw you wince. Was that too soon? Can we not joke about cannibalism yet?”

Nacho shrugged, even though he was feeling great discomfort over the direction of this conversation. “If you can’t joke about cannibalism, what can you joke about? Just not with Brie, or you’ll need to join me in sleeping like a princess on my kitchen shelves instead of in some bed like a sucker.”

“With my wife,” Reuben pointed out.

“Meh.” Nacho slapped a bored look on his face. “If I wanted a wife, I would just bake one. Then I’d know she was sweet.”

“Oh, what-ever.” Reuben’s reply went unanswered as Nacho pushed through the front doors of his guildhall. The breakfast fires were dark and cool, as no one could cook in this world without getting a potentially lethal dose of Putrid Mana. In the back kitchen, the Brittanys were busy getting lunch ready—which meant repackaging up the leftovers that Nacho had made. Fast-food chili, in this case, left in his icebox room to keep it cool.

That was another issue he had to figure out. The ice was melting too fast. It just wasn’t efficient. There had to be a better way to keep things cold—his thoughts were interrupted as a voice boomed through the gloomy hall.

“I’m invoking my right as a member of the Guild to call a vote of no confidence against Guild Leader Nacho!” Reuben and Nacho both turned to look at the person that had shouted. There had been no reason to  be so loud, as the man had walked in with them. Zack smiled back at them even as he held out his hands for his weapon. “I call for a trial by combat!”

“You can't possibly think that this is a good idea, Zack.” Nacho  informed him calmly, even as he undid the straps of his mobile kitchen  and let the backpack fall to the floor. “Plus, you can’t initiate a vote like that on your own.”

“I represent almost a thousand people, everyone brought in by our Guild Master.” Zack informed him as a massive Greatsword appeared in his hands. “That's plenty of people that agree with me. I read the rules.”

“You clearly didn’t, Zack.” Nacho continued to speak calmly, hoping that he would be able to deescalate the situation. “It takes someone representing twenty percent of our total population to call for a vote of no confidence on their own. If you represent almost a thousand people, that's still not one in five. Drop the sword, or face the consequences.”

All that did was make the man laugh. “What can you do? Sitting back in your comfortable kitchen while the rest of us do men's work! You know what? fine, you think that you can take me? I don't even need to represent people, I'll just take you down, and anyone else who stands in my way. This guild is going to be my guild, and we're going to do what I want to do with this guild!”

“I’m going to report you to the Department of Redundancy Department.” Reuben softly muttered, thinking he wouldn’t be heard.

“Quiet down and get ready to work, Healer.” Zack demanded as he tried to dash forward and cut Nacho in half. The Guild Leader swayed out of the way, smiling the entire time.  It was not a happy smile, it was a tight-lipped, ghoulish facsimile of a grin.

“You just attempted an unprovoked attack on your Guild Leader.” Nacho informed Zack quietly. “I only wish there were more people around to see what happens when people do the dumb.”

The Berserker screamed in sudden pain as black markings started to sear themselves into his wrists. They were forming words, but currently they were unrecognizable. In an attempt to escape the inescapable torment, he threw everything he had into trying to bring Nacho down for good.

The cook, for his part, Merely avoided each of the attacks in an almost bored fashion. Massive sword swings came at him one after another, and he dodged them with inches to spare. “Looks like you are used to throwing your weight around. No technique, no training, clearly no real skill. Just a heavy sword and an impressionable audience. You forgot a very important thing, Zack.”

“Stay still so I can hit you!” Zack grunted at him, clearly thinking that Nacho was the  source of his pain. In a way, he was right. But not in a way that mattered. He let out a shout, and his skin turned a dark Crimson as his  heart began to beat erratically. “Berserkers Rage!”

Seeing the man use a skill that allowed him to ignore pain in order to  continue his offense, Nacho finally  decided to take him more seriously. With a quick gulp of a Life Hack smoothie, his Fitness score increased by nearly fifty percent. There was no way a single skill from a fresh Tier one combatant was going to be able to match that increase, So he simply continued evading attacks until the Berserkers Rage wore off.

Finally, Zack could no longer keep up the effort, and let the tip of his sword fall to the ground. He  stood there, heaving for air, and glaring at Nacho. Clearly stalling for time, he managed to speak around the pain of markings being burned into both of his arms. “Fine, Nacho-chode. Tell me what I forgot.”

“Fact of the matter is, you can't challenge me.” Nacho told him with a sad smile, “You aren’t a member of the Chips. I essentially have two guilds. In one, I’m a Guild Leader. In the other guild, which I won in a bet, I’m still the Guild Master. Tell me how much Hunger and Thirst you have. How much Hunger does that Skill take?”

“Ten percent and twenty percent remaining. Berserkers Rage takes Fifteen Hunger.” Zack replied instantly, the color draining from his face. “How did you…  I didn't want to tell you that!”

“Activate Berserker’s Rage.” Nacho ordered the huge man. Without a second of hesitation, the other man did; attacking him once more. Again, Nacho held him off, though this time used his knives to parry the attacks as needed. When the Skill wore off once more, Nacho gave another order. “Stay right there, and don't move. Don’t access the Store, don’t eat or drink anything. Brittany!”

“Yes, Chef!” the Kitchen assistant squeaked out, eyes wide at the sudden violence that had come to the Guildhall.

“I want you to go outside and tell everyone to assemble here. As fast as possible.” Nacho turned around to face Zack once more.

Brittany hesitated, then finally worked up the courage to ask, “Why?”

“We don’t have the capability to jail people.” Nacho informed her heavily. “I want people to know what will happen if they break the law. There aren’t second chances.”

Zack audibly swallowed, and sweat poured off his forehead as Nacho finished his thought.

“There are most certainly not repeat offenders.”