Pete was wearing a plain green uniform that didn't appear to offer any protection at all, and the rifle he held felt heavy and ungainly. He looked left and right as he ran, catching sight of Craig a short distance away, separated by a few dozen Company soldiers all running off the ship ramp and onto the ground of a beleaguered world. Pete's HUD had been replaced by a simple display, which showed a hundred health points in the form of a simple red bar at the bottom of his vision and nothing else, but his chat function still worked.
[Pete] We stick together, yeah?
[Craig] Absolutely. I'll join you as soon as I can get through the throng.
A message appeared at the top of Pete's vision, accompanied by the sound of a brass fanfare.
>> WELCOME TO WAR
>> Congratulations! You have been conscripted to fight against the rebel menace as a Regulation Profit Enforcer. Kill enemies to gain financial rewards which can be used to acquire relics that will enhance your abilities. Fight your way through the rebel ranks and kill Morrikal the Shrieking Maw and free this world from the oppressive grip of the rebellion!
>> Commissions can be earned during your progress, granting you the ability to command and inspire other troops, utilize advanced weaponry, vehicles, and lead our brave soldiers to victory!
"Five Belch Bucks for every rebel scum you kill!" a distorted voice boomed from behind as the introductory message disappeared.
Pete turned to see a pair of speakers jutting out from the side of the craft he'd just exited, but he was unable to see more as the two hobgoblins running up behind shoved him forward as they headed toward the enemy lines. Feeling like he was running with two left feet, Pete turned and let the current of soldiers carry him along, edging to the right a little so that he could get closer to Craig.
The little goblin did the same thing from his side, and they soon sidled up next to one another, jogging at a steady pace as they were ferried to the battle lines.
"You know anything about this battle?" Pete called out over the sound of shouting and distant artillery fire.
Craig shook his head. "Nothing. If we were fighting on Artemis Prime, perhaps I could help, but I know nothing about this world or the rebellion we are supposed to quell."
Pete looked left and right as they ran. The surrounding area was filled with trees, and the air was hot and humid. He got a definite tropical vibe from the surrounding environment, as though they'd landed on an island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
The soldiers up ahead began to spread apart a little as they continued on, and Pete saw that the trees were thinning out in places where large, ashen craters marred the land. He was about to comment on that fact when a sharp whistle drew his attention to the sky a moment before the world erupted around them.
Bodies flew amid a hail of debris as Pete was knocked sideways. Something heavy hit him in the back, driving him to the ground as dirt was flung up into his face. He felt the weight of heavy bodies pressing against him as he lay prone, ears ringing and a strange pressure in the back of his throat.
He struggled to shove a hobgoblin leg off his back and slid free as the other soldiers that had been knocked over got to their feet. A goblin hand reached out, grabbing his arm and helping him up. Craig's face greeted him as he stood shakily, ears still ringing.
Pete quickly surveyed the scene. There were half a dozen dead bodies scattered around beside a smoldering crater to their right, and several wounded soldiers were milling about, green blood pouring out onto the thirsty soil.
"We need to move!" Craig shouted.
Pete nodded, pointing off to a nearby clump of trees. "Over there!"
They ran, ducking low as bullets shot overhead and the other Company troops began to fire back into the trees at the unseen enemy. The sounds of gunfire, artillery, and shouting voices were deafening, adding to Pete's discombobulation as he half ran, half stumbled toward the trees.
He and Craig reached cover and ducked down. Pete checked his gun, cocking the firing mechanism and noting that it would likely only fire a single shot before he had to cock it a second time. There were bullets strapped to a belt at his waist and a small leather case on his hip, which he quickly confirmed had more ammunition.
Not wanting to enter the fight without any idea of what they were facing, he moved to the edge of the tree trunk he and Craig were hiding behind and peered around. Figures were moving through the trees in the near distance, large shapes with bright red skin. They looked like demons as they charged through the trees, and Pete squinted to get a better look.
A trio of large figures emerged, all shirtless, their chests and arms vivid crimson, curved horns protruding from their heads, cloven hooves instead of feet. The figures were large. They weren't quite as tall or broad as hobgoblins, but they still stood a head above Pete.
Their crimson bodies were painted with vivid blue markings, which looked like they'd been carved into the flesh, and there were crossed-out coin symbols on their shoulders and foreheads. The figures were badly scarred, staring from beneath heavy brows with impenetrable black eyes. Instead of guns, they wielded large, jagged blades, and they moved with speed through the trees, seemingly ignoring the gunfire of the Company soldiers arrayed against them.
Pete turned to Craig.
"They look like demons."
The little goblin shook his head, clearly not understanding.
"Demons," Pete said again. "With the pointy tail and horns. All they're missing are the pitchforks."
"I don't understand," Craig yelled back.
"From my world. They look like demons the way they're portrayed in my world. Evil bastards from hell."
As Pete turned back to consider the enemy once more, he reflected that the System had clearly decided to change the rebels to look like demons, perhaps so that Pete would have an easier time killing them. In the original painting he'd examined with Silkfeather, the rebels had been a mix of goblins and elves, with a few other races in the mix. Some kind of joint effort had been organized with people of different races all coming together to fight against the Company.
Given how many Dominion citizens were probably watching the whole affair, this new vision of the enemy made sense from a propaganda standpoint. The Company was both rewriting history and literally demonizing their enemies.
"Well, that's gonna make this a hell of a lot easier," Pete said, leveling his gun and aiming at the charging rebel.
Craig sidled up next to him, raising his own rifle as the charging rebels plunged into ranks of waiting troops, slicing them apart with their long, curved blades. Many of the demon-like rebels were bleeding from bullet wounds they'd taken, but they kept fighting, driven into a frenzy by some force or other.
Pete aimed at the closest rebel and fired. The gun bucked in his hands, but the shot went wide of the mark, hitting a Company soldier in the back rather than the target he was aiming for.
"Shit!" Pete hissed.
Craig's shot was more accurate, hitting the enemy as it turned toward them, the bullet burrowing deep into the demon's chest. The rebel turned, roaring in pain as it caught sight of Pete and Craig. They both ducked behind the trees and cocked their weapons.
When Pete leaned out to aim again, the rebel they'd hit had covered the space between them impossibly fast and was just a few feet away. The curved black sword came slicing down, and Pete held up his rifle in an effort to block the attack.
There was a loud metal clang as the blade sliced right through the rifle and clunked into Pete's skull with a sickening shudder. He had just a moment to consider the demon's pitch-black eyes before his vision darkened and he awakened back on the ship's departure ramp, gun in hand, staring out at the carnage up ahead.
>> YOU HAVE DIED
>> RESURRECTION PENALTY: 300 Belch Bucks
Pete sighed. "Damn it!"
He looked around, trying to find the location where Craig was presumably still fighting. A shimmer of light to his left drew his attention to the little goblin as Craig appeared next to him, wearing a bemused expression.
"Damn it!" Craig said.
Pete chuckled. "Alright, so we're weak as hell at the moment and those rebels don't seem to care if they get shot. Until we can pick up some of these relics, I say we try to pick off as many weak enemies as possible. We should also try to snipe any that are nearly dead."
They both made their way down to the battlefield as artillery continued to fall and bullets flew. To their left, another troop carrier landed, its door opening up and a ramp lowering. Dozens of fresh-faced Company troops jogged out of the ship and headed for the battle lines.
Stolen story; please report.
"I don't understand our enemy," Craig said. "They possess artillery but also seem to fight with blades?"
"I wouldn't try to make any sense of it. This whole thing is just one giant propaganda film. The enemy isn't going to be logical. I mean, they're demons trotting around on hooves, for God's sake. Plus, you saw the crossed-out Belch Bucks on their foreheads, right? They're designed to look like powerful, evil bastards, and the Company troops are portrayed as the underdog in this fight."
"I see," Craig said. "So, this scenario is designed to foster sympathy for the Company while demonizing the rebels."
"Exactly."
They moved to a cluster of rocks nearby, which was on a slight rise. The area gave a clear view of the bloodshed below while providing cover from machine-gun-style fire, which had commenced from the other side of the battlefield.
As they moved into position, Pete reflected that the little nook they'd managed to find within the boulders was far too convenient to be a matter of coincidence. It was exactly the kind of feature he'd expect to find in a first-person shooter during the early game when the character was particularly squishy. The position gave them a clear view of the battlefield below and was also near enough that they might be able to pick off a few enemies if they were lucky.
Pete and Craig huddled together, taking in the scene. Beyond the trees directly beneath them, there was a large expanse of beach with only a few clusters of rocks here and there. A small river ran through the center of the area, splitting two sandy riverbanks, and Pete could see rows of artillery and machine gun emplacements on the opposite side of the bank.
Hundreds of rebels stood behind wooden and stone barricades, all stripped to the waist and bearing the same features as the demonic creatures they'd encountered earlier. Some held guns, while others hefted large, curved swords. There were also what Pete assumed were elite troops with spears and shields, walking at the rear of the rebels, vast wings jutting up from behind their backs.
Behind all of this hovered the giant figure of the harpy they needed to kill. She was around the size of two buses standing end to end; a majestic creature with wings outstretched, a feminine body covered with white and crimson feathers. While every part of her below the neck was bird-like, her face was completely human, achingly beautiful, and marred only by the fathomless black eyes that looked out at the scene below.
Large numbers hovered above her head, neon crimson digits counting down from two hours and currently at one hour and fifty-eight minutes.
"What hope do we have of reaching her, let alone killing the creature?" Craig said.
"It's a roguelike," Pete said. "We're gonna keep dying and picking up relics. Eventually, we'll get to the point where we can reach her and hopefully have enough relics so we can put her down. Need to limit how often we die though, because the timer will get shorter and shorter."
Craig frowned, clearly not understanding the logic of what Pete was saying but willing to go along.
"We just need to get as many relics as we can," Pete added, sighting down the barrel of his gun and scanning the area below. "There's no point in trying to reach the harpy yet, not while we're so weak. We need to pay back our resurrection debt and buy some relics; otherwise, we're just gonna keep dying. For now, just concentrate on picking off any weak enemies. My aim is for shit, so we should go for the same target to increase our chances."
The goblin moved up alongside Pete, holding his gun ready.
"There," Pete said. "That one's almost done."
Among the dozens of soldiers and rebels fighting ahead of them, one bedraggled demon figure looked as though he was about to keel over. Dozens of bullet holes riddled his chest and arms, and he could barely lift his sword as nearby Company troops shot and stabbed at the figure.
Pete fired, and this time the shot actually hit his target. It missed the demon's head but thudded into the top of the rebel's neck, sending a gush of crimson blood flying. Craig followed up with a shot that hit the rebel only a few inches from where Pete's shot had hit.
The demon figure fell backward, its body turning to ash before it hit the ground.
>> KILL ASSIST: +50 Belch Bucks
Pete grinned, cocking the rifle again. "What did you get for that?"
"A hundred and fifty Belch Bucks," Craig replied.
"Okay, and I got fifty. Looks like we get two hundred total for each standard kill. That's good. Won't take long to pay off our resurrection debt as long as we don't die too often."
They took aim at another enemy, who was less wounded and who had moved around to the side of a group of Company soldiers. The demon was carving into the troops with its curved blade, too close for their rifles or even handguns to do any good.
"Big guy on the left there!" Pete said, aiming and firing.
Once more, the shot went wide and he hissed in annoyance, preparing for another shot while Craig fired and hit the demon in its shoulder. Pete aimed and fired, this time aiming for the center of the rebel's chest rather than attempting to get a headshot. With his Agility at zero, he was going to have to play the odds and avoid anything too sophisticated. Hopefully, he could pick up some relics as the game continued, which would mitigate that weakness.
This time he hit. Blood poured from the demonic figure's nose as it faltered, the black blade slipping out of its hand mid-attack as it slumped to the ground. The rebel's body disintegrated as the Company troops continued to back away. Some of them turned and cheered, raising their fists in the air as they shouted their thanks.
>> KILL BOUNTY: 150 Belch Bucks
"The other side!" Craig called out, drawing Pete's attention to a pair of demonic figures that were cutting their way through a knot of Company soldiers.
One of the rebels was larger than the others, with large crimson horns that held a small flame between them.
>> ELITE ENEMY: RELIC BONUS!
The temptation to go right for the elite rebel was strong, but Pete and Craig focused their fire on the two regular demons to either side. More Company soldiers joined the fight, firing at the hulking elite figure but doing little to slow the demon's progress.
Unlike the smaller enemies, the elite enemy wielded two swords, swinging them in a wicked, never-ending dance like a lethal dervish as they cut through ranks of helpless soldiers. Pete managed to get two further assists by helping Craig kill the two wounded rebels fighting at either side of the elite, finally getting enough coin to pay off their initial resurrection debt.
>> RESURRECTION DEBT PAID!
>> FIGHT ON, SOLDIER!
Pete had been wondering how many bullets the standard rifles held before they would need to be reloaded. That question was answered as he shot the hulking elite, the bullet thudding into the brute's left shoulder. He cocked the weapon again but found it empty and had to quickly fumble with the bullets lining his belt to reload.
Craig ran out of ammo a moment later, and the two quickly reloaded, aimed, and fired again. The elite rebel was cutting down Company troops like a farmer reaping the harvest. Dead bodies lay all about, green blood gushing from goblin and hobgoblin alike, severed limbs strewn about while the survivors struggled to drag themselves away from danger. Brave medics with white armbands and golden Belch Buck symbols at their center ministered to the wounded, pulling them out of harm's way as they applied bandages and various other ministrations.
As he aimed and fired at the elite, Pete reflected on the lengths the System had gone to in order to make the Company soldiers seem both utterly underpowered and heroic in comparison to the rebels. They fought side by side, watching each other's backs and plunging into danger despite how overpowered the demonic enemy seemed to be.
The Company troops shouted encouragement, stared sternly down the enemy, charged without hesitation, and in all other ways exemplified what it was to be a dutiful and courageous soldier. Everything Pete had learned about the Tongsly Belch Corporation and the Dominion more broadly suggested that quite the opposite would have been true in reality.
The Dominion was governed by greed and self-interest, with a few individuals holding all the power and wealth while the masses struggled to survive. Soldiers sent to quell this rebellion would undoubtedly have been better armed and armored than the rebels, but Pete doubted very much whether they would have been given state-of-the-art equipment. He couldn't see them bothering with medics, either.
Everything in the Dominion came down to profit, and clearly, the cheapest commodity on offer was labor. That being the case, it would likely be easier and cheaper to send waves of cheaply armed soldiers to crush the enemy rather than making any attempt to preserve troop lives or adequately protect them from enemy fire.
That thought was pushed from his mind, however, as the elite demon below suddenly looked up, its attention now fixed on the two pesky soldiers firing at it from the safety of a cluster of nearby boulders. Ignoring the feeble attempts nearby troops were making to kill the rebel, it kicked out at a nearby hobgoblin, sending it thudding to the ground, and then started running toward Pete and Craig.
They emptied the last of their rifle fire into the demon as it chewed up the ground and ran at terrible speed toward the boulders. Pete dropped his rifle, pulling out the revolver instead and aiming it at the approaching enemy, hoping that his eight points of Luck would be enough to overcome his lack of Agility.
Unlike the rifle, the pistol fired rapidly, one shot after another. Pete peppered the oncoming enemy, one shot successfully hitting the demon in the cheek, while the others dealt glancing wounds or thudded into its chest. Craig tried desperately to reload in time, raising his rifle just as the rebel reached the boulders and, with one jump, leaped up to where Pete and the goblin were positioned.
Pete fired his last round, then dropped the gun and reached for his combat knife as Craig lunged forward and shot the rifle up into the demon's face at point-blank range. The rebel shifted its head to one side at the last minute, and the bullet only grazed its horn. Before Craig could fire again, the demon's blades cut through his body with two horizontal arcs that divided the little goblin into three pieces.
Pete lunged forward, climbing clumsily up a high point of the rock he was sitting behind and kicking himself toward the enemy. Instead of heading directly for the demon's heart, as he'd hoped, he was sent hurtling behind the rebel, catching the knife in his right hand on the creature's arm and shifting Pete's momentum enough so that he swung around and thudded against the rebel's back.
More in desperation than out of any lingering skill he'd carried from his Penny Pincher class, Pete thrust the blade up through the demon's neck, stabbing again and again as hot blood poured from the wounds. He clung to the rebel's back the whole time, gripping tightly to one of the horny nubs jutting from the creature's body as he stabbed over and over.
A clawed hand grabbed Pete around the neck and hurled him around. The world shifted as Pete felt himself wrenched over the demon's body, flying through the air before hitting the rock with a bone-crunching thud. The wind was knocked out of Pete's lungs as he groaned in pain, waiting for the end, which would surely come.
He blinked, eyes focusing on the enemy as the crimson blur in front of him took form. He saw the elite enemy fall to its knees, blood gushing like a river from the many wounds on its neck. Pete's combat knife was still jutting from the rebel's neck, having cut a savage gouge through the creature's flesh as Pete had been yanked forward.
The demon's soulless eyes regarded Pete for a moment before it disintegrated into dust, and the combat knife went clattering to the rock below. Pete tried to move and winced immediately at the pain that coursed through his body. Several bones had likely been broken when he'd hit the rock, and he suspected his back might even be broken.
>> ELITE KILL: 500 Belch Bucks
>> AVAILABLE RELICS:
+| Debtfire Lighter: 2% fire damage to ranged and melee attacks.
+| Pocket Ledger of the Fallen: reduces incoming damage by 2%.
+| Credit Card of Rapid Liquidity: increases agility by 5.
Pete watched as three icons floated in the air in front of him, arranged in a horizontal line. Pete doubted he'd live much longer, but at least he'd pick up a relic before being sent back to the start.
Pete grinned as he spotted the small, plastic-looking credit card icon hovering on the right side of the relic options. He selected the icon, and a small version of it suddenly appeared in the top left of his vision.
Darkness swallowed him a moment later, and he was once more returned to the starting position, just as Craig was running off up ahead. The little goblin noticed Pete and turned around.
"You died?"
Pete nodded. "Yeah, but I picked up my first relic. Doesn't get me back to where I was, but hopefully now I can run without tripping over, and I might be able to even aim the damned gun."
The goblin nodded. "Then we have a way forward."
Pete looked up into the distance and spotted the countdown clock above the giant harpy's body ticking down from one hour and fifty-eight minutes.
"Yeah. Now that we know how it's done, it's time to pick up the pace."