CWD: Sewer Skewers ~ Thirty-Three

As their heads popped above floor level, all three of the men blanched and ran to intervene. Reuben pulled Brie back and whispered furiously in her ear, while Taye tackled Abby and wrestled her to the floor.

Kala slammed her helmet on and gripped her sword in both hands, taking a deep inhale as though she were about to command her forces to attack. Nacho flipped through the air in a flashy maneuver, landing between the factions and shouting for attention. “Everybody stop! Before you do anything rash, let me explain that I’ve found a new recipe for the ultimate in quick combat snacks! It’s called Life Hack Yogurt: plain Greek yogurt, strawberry jelly, and cottage cheese!”

“Kill th…” Kala's voice stuttered to a stop as she processed what Nacho had said, then thundered, “You… that sounds disgusting!”

Abby guffawed from her position on the ground, glaring hatefully at the Death Knight. “See how little you know, Kala. That's an old weightlifter’s recipe. Not enough protein in your basic yogurt, so you add cottage cheese to get you there.”

“It’s practically a liquid!” Brie’s eyes lit up as her attention shifted hungrily to the cup. “Yes! Hey! Cups are fine, but we should put that stuff in a tube. We could basically make it like Gogurt. A quarter portion of nutrients I could swallow down with a single breath to get fed and gain bonuses? Ahh… yes, please! Why didn’t you start with this instead of pocket pancakes?”

“Everyone is welcome to make a suggestion on better ideas before I have them,” Nacho stated blandly as he handed her a cup. “Otherwise you’re just complaining about the fact that I came up with it first and are therefore showcasing your ignorance. Twice. Now, we all need to get out of here, and we must get along.”

The grinding of the bees chewing through cement was getting louder, and once attention was called to it, everyone involved in the fight backed down with guilty expressions. Nacho passed the Life Hack yogurt around to his team, and even though Kala snarled as she gulped down her cup before rage-eating a peanut butter ball, she seemed far less shaky after eating. “Fine. We’re healthy, we have food to deal with our Satiation levels, and we have water from the Store. Let’s get out there and kick some bee butt!”

From the sound of it, a million of the Mis-Bee-Haves were waiting out there. They also needed to account for the Bumble Dumpers, and finally the queen bee herself. Concrete began to crumble around the doorframe—Nacho had to assume they hadn’t gone for the metal, as chewing through steel was probably more difficult than chewing through concrete. Kala’s people wearily regarded the wall, seeming to resign themselves to the fact that their Guild Master was leading them on a suicide mission.

“You sucked down that yogurt like it disappointed you.” Nacho shook his head firmly as she tried to figure out if he was insulting her. “I’m not going to sugar coat this free advice, because you’d probably eat that, too. Charging into a swarm of bees that absolutely have a Tier two with them is a terrible idea. If you try to force your people to go out there, knowing what’s waiting on the other side… I will do everything I can to kill you just so that they have a chance at living. I won’t stand by and watch you mistreat them to that level.”

The Death Knight froze stock-still, taking deep breaths as she contemplated attacking or backing down. Her sword wavered, then slowly slid to the side. “You have a better idea?”

“There’s a staircase, and it might lead down into the tunnels or outside,” Nacho calmly reminded her as he waved at the point of egress.

“Why did…? I thought you went down the staircase already and had to come back. Isn’t it blocked?” Kala pointed the hilt of her sword at him as Nacho shook his head clearly, so there would be no misinterpretation. The Death Knight cleared her throat and grunted. “Oh. I thought you… look, my bad, okay? I was going to lead us out in a blaze of glory because I thought we were just waiting to die in this killbox. Obviously we should explore the stairs first.”

“Let’s not forget the point of this quest: getting the Dragon Spear. That is the main objective, second only to making sure that Crave doesn’t get it.” Reuben started to herd everyone down the steps, pausing to point at Eduardo, who’d collected the Gauntlets of Monster Destruction from Bill’s corpse. “If you’re going to use my gauntlets, great. Otherwise, we should see if someone else has the skill to use them.”

“You’re giving out free weapons?” One of Kala’s people, a dark, skinny guy with black hair, raised his hand. “I have an actual boxing skill!”

“You’re at Tier zero?” Nacho questioned absently.

The guy nodded, so Eduardo stomped over and slammed the gauntlets into the guy’s chest. “I’m Eduardo. These were Bill’s. We called him Scrubz, or Young Bill. He was my friend, and if you turn out to be a crappy person, I’ll hunt you down and cut your hands off.”

“Um. Hello there. I’m Ahmed. If I can, I’ll rename the gauntlets to Bill’s Gauntlets in his honor. Any monster I kill, I’ll think of him,” the brawler stated slowly as he pulled the gauntlets away from Eduardo’s crushing grip. He slid them on and laughed in astonishment. “The Patrons heard me! They’re now called ‘Young Bill’s Gauntlets of Monster Bashing’. I’ll even do an extra point of damage if I yell, ‘For Bill!’ before I attack.”

Nacho, as well as the others that he could see, actually felt touched by that gesture. It was a rare moment when the Patrons decided to do a properly nice thing. Reuben kept on herding folks toward the stairs, keeping the moment from stretching. “Come on, people. We’ve got to get moving. I know you’re all abuzz with ideas, but If you don’t hurry, you will be *buzzing* with bees killing you. Yes, not my best joke, but I really don't want to be penetrated by a stinger longer than my arm.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the collective teams joyfully discovered a concrete hallway that led to the outside of the building. Further exploration indicated the possibility of revealing a path into the KC Cesspit from the convention center proper, but the concrete raining down the stairwell from the bees’ destruction of the wall above informed them that they didn’t have the time to figure it out.

Nacho turned around to face his people in the corridor. He had his skillet on his back, his pot on his head, and he was ready for whatever battle might materialize. He slowly chewed a peanut butter ball, then chased it down with a cup of his strawberry Life Hack yogurt. The slurry went down pretty quickly, though the chunky cottage cheese texture was going to take a bit to get used to.

He promptly added the bonuses to his Fitness, since he was planning on being on the front lines of combat the rest of his night. Taking a breath to center himself, Nacho addressed the two guilds. “When we get out there, we’re going to run to the Yard House restaurant down the street. I can almost guarantee that we’ll find a doorway nearby that will lead us down into the sewers; the stairs we found in the cesspit were labeled. Keep in mind, five of us are marked, but we can use that to our advantage. The monsters will focus on us, and you can hit them in the rear.”

Myron tittered, only for Kala to silence him with the *squeak* of her helmet as she turned to give him a dead stare. Reuben ignored the byplay and doubled down on the immaturity. “That’s right. Blast them right in the butt! You know what we should do? Start a new raid group. The Posterior Patrol? Thoughts?”

Brie didn’t acknowledge her husband except to add, “Joining our party isn’t a bad idea. Kala. We’re the Brunch Force. Don’t mind the name, it’s a… we have a food thing going on. Don’t ask.”

Kala didn’t respond right away. Nacho figured it would be a fight, and that she’d want them to join her party. A pleasant surprise occurred as a defeated sigh leaked out of the Death Knight’s helmet. “Fine. We’ll join your Brunch Force. How about we rename it the Lunch Bunch?”

“Maybe next time, if we decide to downgrade our naming conventions even further. Like… if we take a bunch of blows to the head.” Brie kept her voice even. “Just join the Brunch Force.”

“Hold your human treadmills there, Brie. For the record, Lunch Bunch is really good.” No one could tell if Reuben was trying to soothe things over, or if he genuinely believed that it was a good name.

“Human… treadmill?” The Death Knight’s voice was on the edge of breaking, clearly unsure whether they were making fun of her.

“Can’t hold your horses; they turn into monsters if you don’t do it right,” Reuben informed her earnestly.

“Let’s just join them, Kala. Before we get more of… whatever this is,” Ahmed called, banging his fists together. An instant later, several *pings* rang from the System as Kala and her people joined the Brunch Force.

Nacho peeked outside of the building and confirmed that the coast was clear. At first. As soon as his head poked past the stone, the mark on his neck lit up, and big bee bodies lifted off the convention center, angry about something they didn’t understand. He withdrew inside, and they returned to swarming through the hole in the roof.

Steeling himself for combat, Nacho sprinted in full armor toward the Yard House, followed by the others as closely as possible. Thanks to his massive Fitness, Nacho reached cover under a copse of trees to the north of the convention center and was forced to wait for more than a dozen seconds until the last of the group finally caught up.

There was enough dead foliage and branches to hide them, and it seemed that the mark on his neck produced some kind of line-of-sight signal. The cook took a quick head count, finding that they had about twenty people all told. Nacho thought about sending someone back to the Residence Inn to call in the rest of the Brunch Force, but they didn’t have the time. They couldn’t spare a single person, and frankly… most of the others would only be a burden against the Tier one monsters, and bait at best against the Tier twos. Worse, Crave might already be at the inner sanctum’s golden puzzle door.

Nacho and the Brunch Force had just reached their target street when the *cooing* started. After the first call, there was suddenly a whole lotta cooing going on. A slow glance upward revealed that endless flocks of pigeons had perched on the rooftops, flexing their weirdly muscled wings and stretching the tendons on their necks. They were staring directly at Nacho and the Brunch Force.

The cook kept his knives sheathed, as he had a plan to help in other ways. He started to call out directions, only for Brie to take charge—as was her right as field commander. “If you have a projectile weapon, concentrate on one bird at a time. Take them out before they can get close, since we want to avoid their Cootie attacks. Abby, the pigeons will concentrate on me, since I’m marked. I’ll take point, and when they swoop in, you pluck their tail feathers.”

Ahmed ran forward with his gauntlets raised. “I can block an attack if I don’t punch. I’ll block, punch, then block again. Put me where I’m needed.”

Kala also shoved her way to the front. “My armor should keep me safe.”

“It won’t. They attack with a damage-over-time debuff that hops to anyone else that gets too close. Eduardo got hit with it and… actually, how did you get rid of it? It had something to do with the Green Room, right?” Nacho released a growl of frustration when the meaty man merely shrugged in confusion. “Everyone with the Scarlet Symbol of Accusatory Trespassing will stand with Brie. That’s me, Reuben, Eduardo, and Kristie. The rest of you get back and attack while they focus on us.”

“I know how he got rid of the Cootie debuff! Tell you later!” Reuben paused for a moment to mutter into Nacho’s ear as he ran over to the people who would be attacking from a distance. Spreading his arms wide, he incanted, “Positive Vibes for everyone!”

The glow on his hands flashed outward, rippling across their troops. Reuben ran back to Brie and activated his buff again, as there were too many people for him to get all at once. With a nod from Brie, Hazel opened combat by hurling her purple grenade magic. Feathers, screeches of pain, and bursting magenta projectiles filled the air.

Taye followed up with an exploding arrow as Kristie used her pink missiles to sizzle one of the pigeons out of the air with a perfect shot. It gave out a *squawk* of surprise and fell to the ground… then exploded. The cook could only stare in shock; even if they’d had the time, Nacho wouldn’t have been able to process a single ounce of meat from that particular pigeon puddle.

Brie joined in the fun by whipping a lacrosse ball upward like a trebuchet, the concussive force of the explosion taking out a pigeon easily. Everyone smiled when they learned what they could accomplish when their stats had been juiced like snack time at a daycare center.

The grin melted off Nacho’s face as five pigeons landed at once and opened their beaks, targeting him with a collective sonic attack. The air wavered in front of their beaks, and the biting bugs appeared out of nothing.

“Sorry, bird. Can’t accept that debuff. I’ve got this, Nacho!” Brie rushed forward, and the Cootie Attack was spun away, all the creepy-crawlies being dispersed by the hurricane of power. Kala, Ahmed, and Abby hit the five birds from behind, and the road became a slaughterhouse. The Berserker twirled her weapon, winked at Reuben, and made a ‘V’ with her fingers. “Stay fresh, cheese bags.”

Bird after bird was sniped out of the air by Taye, the Archer coolly ignoring dangerous situations in order to reach hearts and minds with sharpened metal. He drew so much aggro that the flock tried to rush him from behind, and Brie was forced to Combat Dash and *crack* her stick into the face of one of the frontline pigeons.

In the blink of an eye, she smoothly transitioned into a Defensive Whirl, and the sonic *coo* hit her weapon, only to be dissipated. She laughed as savagely as only a Berserker could. As her ferocious exhilaration echoed off the buildings, she was moving once more, and another bird got Mr. Lacrosse Stick slammed into its gizzard.

Nacho knew they couldn’t get pinned down. He spun across the alleyway as some of the birds dove too close to the ground, his cleaver making short work of anything unfortunate enough to gain his ire. As he flourished his knives to remove the putrid blood coating them, he led the charge to safety with a command of, “Follow me! Everyone to the Yard House; we’ll hold them off there! Taye, Kristie, Hazel, get to that door—be ready to give us some cover fire!”

Kala hacked into a pigeon, refusing to retreat even though more of the parasite-spreading buggy birds were on the way. Nacho noticed her when he turned to make sure he was being followed, and had to force himself not to leave her there to be felled. “Kala! Follow the plan! You’ve done well so far, but now you run!”

“Stop telling me-! Ow!” the Death Knight roared as she took a hit that sent her tumbling. She didn’t bother to see what had attacked, merely turning the momentum into a roll back to her feet, then a shaky run.

From there, it was a race to the stairwell.

The good news was that the pigeons ignored Kala and the rest of the Brunch Force as they ran down the street. That was the only good news, as those marked by the Scarlet Symbol of Accusatory Trespassing were forced to dodge a whole host of contagious *coos* as the pigeons exclusively targeted them.

One bird got too close, only to vanish without even a chance to squawk in surprise as the Berserker’s weapon cratered its chest cavity. Brie sucked down a red and yellow tube of the Life Hack yogurt. “Move forward! I’ll hold them off.”

A light show of Hazel’s purple grenades erupted into being overhead, followed closely by Kristie’s pink missiles and Taye's explosive arrows.

It was barely enough… but it was enough.

The Brunch Force made it to the stairwell and hurriedly started their descent into the KC Cesspit of Patron Playfulness. As the last person moved into cover, Brie used the last of her Hunger Points to dash over in a flashy blur of chainmail.

Nacho escorted her inside, then slammed the door and locked it to to the beautiful noise of a cacophonous *cooing*. The birds were not happy that they had been locked out, and the cook could only laugh as he stepped away and let the barrier block off the birds. “They might have muscles, but opening a door with your feet isn’t easy.”

The birdcalls slowly petered out, and the pigeons drifted off when it became clear that their meal ticket wasn’t returning. It took a few minutes, but the System finally let them know that Active Combat was over, and they all started to heal.

“I never thought I’d be so grateful to descend into a sewer, but after all the stuff we’ve faced up there, this ‘cesspit’ is a breath of fresh air.” Reuben took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “Literally. The sewers smell better than the buggy birds, for sure. Also… I pulled a monster drop.”

Nacho’s attention snapped to the Healer’s hands, curiosity and excitement in his eyes, only to freeze in confusion when he saw that his friend was holding up a small stack of feathers. “What… ah… what are they?”

“I'm not going to use them here, since they are consumable items,” Reuben explained excitedly, “but all we have to do is stick the sharp end in the ground, then lay down in the air above it. Essentially, it allows us to sleep as comfortably as though we are in a deluxe feather bed, but in reality, we will just be floating in midair! This would have been a game changer at sleepovers when I was a teenager.”

Utility items were always nice, but frankly the cook was a little annoyed that Reuben had decided to get all excited about them at this moment. There were far more pressing things that demanded their attention.

“Right; listen up, everyone. All we have to do now is run to the inner sanctum’s puzzle door and ambush Crave.” Nacho was hoping that the opposing guild was still wandering cluelessly around. “We know where we’re going, so they can’t have beaten us to the inner sanctum, right?”

“Only one way to find out.” Kala grimly hefted her blade and started walking. “Hurry up, cook. I have revenge to serve.”

“I’m told that’s a dish best served cold?” Reuben called over, his voice echoing in the sewers. “Nacho, check your recipes?”

“Now’s not the time, sweets.” Brie gave her husband a peck on the cheek in passing. “Good work up there. We didn’t lose a single person.”

“Oh… you.” Reuben blushed furiously as he tried to hide his sudden massive grin. He winked at Nacho as they started following the chalk markings that Bill had left to guide them toward the inner sanctum. “Blood and cheese, y’all.”