CWD: GA ~ Thirty-Seven

Nacho hurried away into the forest and got back on a game trail. Running warmed him up, the blanket felt good across his shoulders, and the world smelled so much better than his… cooped up kitchen. He chuckled at his own wit. It had been raining a lot above ground, given how green everything was, and the edge of dampness to the cold air.

Reuben and Brie must’ve retreated a bit, because they were out of transfer distance once again. Nacho kept checking his Stat Sheet as he made his way north, waiting to see when they came into range once more. He’d need to triangulate their location, but that shouldn't be too difficult. Now that he was away, his mind turned to what he had just done.

Though he hadn’t necessarily liked killing Hogan and Whitney, and he wasn’t sure what that decision might do to the world, but Crave had two less flunkies. Other henchmen remained, such as Red Suzy Blacke and Rizzo the Dungeon Rat. Would their eventual destinies change, given that everything else had shifted? There would be no way to know.

Still, it was safe to say that Crave and Nacho were now the bitterest of enemies.

Motion caught his eyes, and he dropped into a ready position.

*Whuf.*

“You again? How do you keep finding me?” Nacho scooped up the green dog, noting that pale green highlights were starting to creep along its darker green flank. “Come on, you can’t stay here. Crave will kill you just for whatever scrap of a credit he can earn.”

Grasping the wriggling puppy to his chest, Nacho continued his hurried pace along the trail. After checking for the hundredth time, he sighed with relief the instant that his friends were back in range. Moments later, he smelled a fire, so he followed his nose until he spotted Reuben standing next to a tree, wearing his prized leather Helm of Helming. He had equipped his left gauntlet and was holding a bow. He and Brie had evidently cleared away the underbrush near a deadfall of trees, which offered them protection on three sides.

Once Nacho got close, he stepped out onto the trail. “Reuben! It’s me, Nacho. Don’t shoot!”

“Nacho?” Reuben dropped the bow unceremoniously into the dirt as he ran and grabbed his best friend. “Nacho! What the what? We thought you might be dead. I said you were still a part of The Dinner Party, so you had to be alive, but Brie wasn’t so sure. I told her we had to keep hope alive—and I was right!”

As they approached the deadfall, Brie leapt to her feet, bounding over the fire with a Combat Dash. She smacked into Nacho, hugging both him and Reuben for all she was worth. For the escaped cook, it was heaven. His best-friends-turned-family were still alive, and they were all together again. He guided his friends back to the fire, because the morning was frigid.

Nacho figured they would have some time before Crave came calling. The man was definitely going to come after him, friendly note notwithstanding. He’d poured over a thousand credits into Nacho, and there was no way he wouldn’t want him back. Besides, Nacho had killed both Hogan and Whitney, and Crave wasn’t the type of guy to forgive and forget. Then again… there were a few times that Crave had let things drop because there was no strategic advantage. There was a possibility, however small, that such a response might turn out to be the case this time.

It was hard to tell.

Once they were comfortably seated around the fire, Nacho told them about his adventures and how many credits he had earned, as well as the addition of Colonel White Beard’s recipes to his Aria.

“Biscuits?” Reuben blinked slowly, a grin forming at the edges of his mouth. “I’m loving this idea of biscuits. Cool dog, by the way. Is it an alien?”

“I mean… I think we’re the aliens here. As for the biscuits, I’ll need a kitchen once we get settled, because cooking in a kitchen is so much easier than balancing pans on makeshift rocks over a fire.” Nacho pulled a face and looked back forlornly. “I’ll miss that kitchen. Where’s the Mayor? Taye, Kristie?”

Reuben squeezed his eyes shut. “They survived the cow attack and came south with us, along with a few others, to see if we could free you. Taye is actually a pretty good tracker, and then we used the ‘transfer credit’ option to determine when we got close. We got separated after that thing came charging through again, and we’re not sure what happened to them.”

“The cow thing is… a Calamity-class monster, a creature that ranks up faster than anything else around it and goes on massive killing sprees.” Nacho explained with great concern, as though merely speaking of it would call the beast to swoop in on them. “It’s called the Bove.”

Brie raised an eyebrow at his dramatic flair. “With ‘the Bove’ around, I’m pretty sure Mayor Dan took his people back to Armor Mountain to make sure his wife and daughter are okay. We don’t know for sure. Reuben and I figured we’d stay behind to run a frontal assault on the dungeon entrance. Reuben was going to lead the way, and I planned to come in after him, swinging my hammer.”

“Risky.” Nacho was so glad that, in the end, that hadn’t been necessary. “Especially with the number of ranged attackers they have.”

Reuben laughed nervously. “We would’ve learned how powerful the Ring of Cheese turned out to be, wouldn’t we?”

“Glad we didn’t have to.” Brie ended the conversation with a firm hug.

Nacho looked into the faces of his friends. “I say we go to Armor Mountain and try to start a guild. I had a taste of what we might be able to accomplish if we had enough people. I was able to upgrade two of my Skills all the way to level nine, and I still have seven hundred and seventeen credits left.”

Reuben smiled excitedly. “We noticed, and we liked it. We did a little work on our own, while we planned your rescue. We found a few Boarcanotors, big boar things, that we killed. Also took out an entire herd of Wight-Tailed Deer. Got a couple hundred credits ourselves.”

“Good job.” Nacho felt his brow furrow. “Speaking of monsters, we’re going to need to take out the Bove. We’ve seen what it can do, and it’s only going to get more powerful. Sooner is better than later. I’m thinking we might be able to find its lair, since it hit Taye and his family early. We might be able to track it from there.”

Brie tilted her head consideringly, placing her big hammer on the ground in front of her. She knocked the handle of her weapon against her knee, thinking. “That might be harder now, with Jimmy dead. It’s not that Mayor Dan and Taye blame us for what happened, but they don’t exactly trust us. The night we met, there was the Bove attack—which killed five of their people—and then raiders came and killed another friend before kidnapping you. Now that you’re on Crave’s hit list, I’m not sure that Mayor Dan will want us to join them.”

Nacho opened his mouth to suggest they sneak back to the Coop of Chaos and wipe out Crave and his party one by one. He knew their movements well enough to plan a raid… but he stopped before the thought left his lips. He might be able to handle the bloodshed, but would Reuben and Brie? Brie might, but not Reuben. The big guy was as soft as they came. Even more so, he didn’t want to spend this Juxtaposition murdering people, and certainly not forcing his friends to do the same. He’d already lived that way, and it still weighed heavily on him.

Not this time. Hogan was wrong—being stuck in the kitchen wasn’t punishment; it was a gift, when he could choose to do it.

Nacho thought about adding a stick to the fire, but they had to get moving north. There was a good chance that Crave would send people out to hunt for them as soon as possible. “Why don’t we run back to Armor Mountain and see what Mayor Dan and Taye say when they try my new biscuit recipe? Also, I can cook chicken now! I think I might be able to fry up most any barnyard fowl.”

Reuben feigned confusion. “I don’t understand. Will your fowl food taste good, somehow?”

Nacho chuckled delightedly as Brie sighed in mock annoyance. “Reuben, you and I are birds of a feather.”

“We featherbrains will flock together.” Reuben smiled warmly at him. “It rhymes, so it has to be true. Hey… where’d the dog go?”

The group scanned their makeshift clearing for a few moments, but none of them were going to risk themselves searching for an untamable monster. Still, Nacho felt a slight pang of loss when it didn’t return. He shook the feeling off, knowing that there was a good chance that it’d find him randomly again, or one of them would die if they went hunting for it now. In any case, he couldn’t worry about it.

The other two had stashed Nacho’s backpack and gear back at Rocky Top when he’d been taken, so they opted to swing by there first, before hurrying on to Armor Mountain. On the way, they kept their eyes open for deer or any chicken monsters, but it seemed the local fauna had begun to lay low after the numerous Bove sightings. The monster cow liked human meat the most, but anything living could be snacked upon.

It took the trio most of the day, but they reached Rocky Top before the sun went down. Six fresh graves greeted them, marked by sticks lashed together with string to create crosses. Those six deaths were such a waste, though the same could be said about all the casualties of the Juxtaposition, which were countless.

Nacho was pleased to retrieve his backpack and supplies, which included a pretty good amount of flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and baking powder. He couldn’t transfer everything from his box to his backpack, so he had to get creative, lashing a few things to the outside. On the plus side, he found a pocket that was perfect for his Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. It was ironic that in the past, he’d have prioritized magic daggers and poisoned arrows, but now he was more concerned about his ingredients. “What a difference a character class makes.”

Since they weren’t using their Skills, Nacho pushed them onward at the highest speed he could enforce. He figured Rocky Top was the first place that Crave would check, and he had no idea what kind of lead they had. They should be able to camp somewhere along the game path on their way to Armor Mountain, which was a full day’s walk away.

As they moved rapidly through the forest, practically bare of leaves due to the season, they discussed what they could do with their collective nine-hundred and seventeen credits. Nacho wanted to set aside enough credits for an oven and a stove—both were definitely Tier zero class items, so they'd be two hundred credits apiece. Other random kitchen items tallied up to roughly another hundred credits. That still gave them four hundred and seventeen credits to play with, so leveling their abilities was definitely the next step.

He was already ninth level in both Small Blades and cooking Magic, and fifth level in Ingredient Processing. He didn’t need to upgrade his Ingredient Processing until they came across monsters higher than seventh level, so he pushed his friends to spend the money on themselves instead.

Brie was at second level with her Athletic Endurance, which wasn’t that critical, since Nacho could keep her fed. As for Combat Dash and Defensive Whirl, she was level five for both. It was Reuben that truly needed the leveling love. His Marketing Skill was still at level zero, which he didn’t like. Healing Hug was at third, and Positive Vibes were at fourth.

Nacho gladly transferred the credits to Reuben, who used the two hundred and eighty credits to boost himself up to fifth level in both his useful Skills. He managed the entire process as they traveled and gave Nacho a glimpse of his updated Stat Sheet.

Reuben Colby

Class: Healer

Level: 0

Experience Points: 100 to Level 1!

Current Credits: 13 (637 total Dinner Party pool)

Build Type: Balanced, Instant

Body:

• Fitness: 10
• Metabolic efficiency: 10

Mind:

• Mental energy: 10
• Circuit: 10

Satiation:

• Hunger: 100
• Thirst: 100

Total Health Points: 30

Bonus Physical Damage: 5%

Health Regen: 10% Health Regen/minute

Total Mana Pool: 25

Bonus Spell Damage: 5%

Mana Pool Regen: 10% Mana Regen/minute

Skill Slots (3/4)

• Healing Hugs (Active) Level 5: 25 Health Points Restored Upon Hugging
  • Mana Cost = 10%
  • Hydration Cost = 5%
  • Metabolic Cost = 0%
• Positive Vibes (Active) Level 5: Weapon blessing: (applies to whole party, lasts 5 minutes) Adds 10% physical damage
  • Mana Cost = 5%
  • Hydration Cost = 10%
  • Metabolic Cost = 0%
• Marketing (Active) Level 0: Able to lure creatures to a location. Impacts up to Level:1
  • Mana Cost = 5%
  • Hydration Cost = 5%
  • Metabolic Cost = 5%
• Open slot

Nacho didn’t have much experience in sharing Stat Sheets with party members, as he’d rarely been in a party during his time as the Shadow Killer. He did note that they still had six hundred and thirty-seven credits left, but saving them for his eventual kitchen simply didn’t make any sense. They had to use every last one of their credits to improve their chances at combat first. Credits were renewable; their lives weren’t.

The Bove was going to be a high-level Tier one monster, requiring Brie to do huge lump sums of damage, and that could only be possible if her Skills were at the peak of Tier zero. That meant increasing her Combat Dash ability to the max at level nine, giving her an additional eighteen percent increase in her damage.

Alternatively, upping Reuben’s Positive Vibes ability would accomplish the same thing, and that could be spread out among multiple people. Checking his math one more time, Nacho made the final choice. They would crank Reuben’s ability up to nine. As soon as the upgrade was complete, he realized that it wouldn’t be long before they’d have to start leveling their classes. They couldn’t get Tier one Skills without being a Tier one player, and that thought was concerning. The Dinner Party hadn't even been active a full month in this world yet.

They found a pretty secure place to camp in front of a stand of trees, an alcove made of tightly grown alien-looking climbing vines. Starting a fire, Nacho made his signature pancakes, which he imbued with cooking Magic, since that would help Brie dish out more damage.

After dividing up watches—Nacho was given the last one—they got to sleep most of the night away. Lying next to the fire, back with his friends, he slept well enough to dream.

Too bad that in the Juxtaposition, dreaming could get weird.