Shimmying through the narrow corridor between buildings that obscured Myrtle’s tunnel, Jack eventually reached the street. What he saw sowed a seed of confusion that quickly blossomed into horror.
Dozens of corpses littered the gutters.
Some bled into the brick and granite and cold iron of their impromptu graves, while others had glassy eyes and foamed-over lips. The latter reminded him of cartoonish depictions of animals with rabies, but he knew what it actually came from. He’d caught his sister like this several times. Whoever these people had been, they had died not from wounds but from an overdose.
There were women, men, and one slumped form that had to belong to a child. Though when Jack took a step back, his motion caused this young girl to stir, and she peered up from where she still clutched at the cold hand of a woman with dead eyes.
It was horrible, and it was everywhere.
Jack glanced down both ways of the tilting street he was on, and more corpses littered the sides. A few even covered some of the graffiti he’d spotted a few days back. One crumpled form partially obscured the ‘P’ in the phrase, “Make the Bleeders pay”, that was painted in red across one of the buildings across from him. Wherever he looked, death was there.
How? Jack couldn’t quite form the word. But still, his mind reeled at both the death and the implications.
Why?
In his rapid study of the situation, he spotted a barricade in the direction he and Myrtle had fled from. To his left, a similar barricade was set up just as the street turned out of sight.
“OY!” A voice shouted from somewhere down the street.
Jack whirled, looking for whoever was calling. He spotted a young boy no older than twelve pointing at him emphatically.
“WE GOT A RUNNER!” the boy screamed.
There was a whistle of displaced air—no louder than a large fly—and Jack barely had time to look up as an object descended toward him. He yelped in surprise and took a step to the right. The object thudded into the wall near where his skull had just been. It was a spear in technicality alone. If Jack had to guess, the shaft had once belonged to a broom, while the spearhead was a pair of shears.
Connected to the base of the spear was a tightly woven wire, thin as silk. With a mighty tug, whoever had thrown the weapon pulled on that string, and it rocketed backward with a clang of metal against stone.
“GET ‘IM!” the boy yelled again, and this time three spears shot through the sky to fall toward him.
“Wait!” Jack shouted, but knew it was futile.
Still, he couldn’t believe what was happening. Why were these people trying to kill him?
Not waiting to be shish-kabobed, Jack lunged to the left, then sprang forward, stepping over several corpses as he rushed to the opposite end of the street. The spears clattered against the cobblestones, and he heard at least one spearhead shatter like glass.
Cursing, he neared the other barricade. He could spot movement across it as whoever was defending this side noticed his approach.
“Please! Don’t kill me!” he yelled over to them.
“Go back to your side, ya bonepickin’ dreamer! We don’t trust your kind!” a woman shouted from behind the barrier.
A man rose to the top of the collage of furniture and carved stakes and broken glass. He wielded a large iron chain and swung it menacingly at his side. His thick neck was covered in a network of scars, and his fists were the size of hammers. He scowled down at Jack as if he were the worst sort of criminal.
“I’ll give ya to the count of three before I clobber your brains across the ground, boy,” he warned.
The chain cycled through the air in a hypnotic dance of imminent death.
Jack slowed to a stop. “I’m not one of those guys! Please! Just let me through. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“You came from Rig’s territory, boy. If you think we’ll fall for another of his tricks, you’ve got another thing coming. Tell your master that we won’t bow to a rat-bastard like him. He can’t have our children, or our minds, dammit!”
There was a chorus of cheers and agreements from behind his barricade.
The chain’s circling quickened.
“Three.”
Jack paled. “Please, man. I have no skin in whatever sick game you guys are playing. I won’t be any trouble. Just let me through.”
“Two.”
The mechanic’s anger flared. “Are you serious?! Just like that? You’ll deny a stranger safe passage just because of the direction he came from? How stupid and narrow-minded are you?!”
“One.”
Jack didn’t wait to see how competent the chain-wielding defender was with his weapon of choice. Scrambling back the way he came, Jack sprinted away. He rushed to find a solution. He’d gone from the cramped tunnel to daylight, and now it felt like he was caught in the no-man’s-land of a war.
I need to get off this freaking street! Jack concluded.
He decided not to just rush back into the narrow alley he’d exited from, as it would inevitably lead one or both sides of this conflict to the one safe route he had in and out of the city. But his need to flee this portion of the town remained.
There!
Jack switched directions and headed toward a storm drain that had seen better days. Still, with his increased dexterity and perception, he got the impression it would just barely hold his weight should he keep up his momentum. The drain connected to a sloping roof that barely covered the second floor.
He passed the small child with her mother, and she met his gaze. It was nearly as dead as her mother’s, with the only noticeable difference in the twin rivers of tears pioneering their paths down her grime-slick face. Hopelessness lived in those eyes. She looked away, and Jack’s heart broke for her.
This is wrong. This is all so wrong!
Anger at both sides of this conflict boiled in his veins, but he had too little information and power to help her right then. The best he could do was draw attention away from where the girl mourned. It was a pittance, he knew, and he hated his attacker all the more for preventing him from helping her.
“The runner’s back!” that frustratingly perceptive boy yelled, and spears started to rain down from above.
Jack narrowly dodged two by diving to the side, but a third clipped his right bicep. He cursed, but fought through the burning pain of the gash and made it to the storm drain. Jack pushed his fledgling awareness of his new stats to their utter max and felt like he saw a route upward. With a defiant yell, he jumped, moving up higher than he ever had in his life. It was just a matter of inches, but going from a vertical of below-average to well above it was still disorienting.
He flew through the air, and his left knuckles scraped against the exposed edges of the brick. He managed to grab a handhold with his right, but that meant all of his weight crashed down on his bleeding arm, and he couldn’t prevent the scream of pain that escaped his lips. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever experienced—far from it. But it still made his vision flash red.
Jack hung there for a breathless moment, but the hiss of another spear jumpstarted his body, and he tucked his dangling legs inward and resumed his climb. He wasn’t sure which to blame—his adrenaline or higher stats than any human from Earth had any right to enjoy—but he made it to the slate roof in a matter of seconds. Though the slanted peak was terribly unsteady, Jack didn’t slow down. He dashed across the bottom lip until he reached the end.
He didn’t hesitate.
Jack jumped, pumping his arms with the unyielding strength of a man who refuses to die. He arced through the chilly air, and the wind howled in his ears. The tin roof opposite him rushed up to meet him. He landed hard, but managed to stay on top of it. He gasped, excitement and dread taking turns battering at the gates of his heart.
“HE’S ON THE ROOF!” the boy suddenly screamed, and there was a chorus of shouts and curses.
Worse, he heard the unmistakable clamber of limbs as what had to be a dozen people rushed toward his position. The tin roof was warm beneath his fingers, and he pushed off it with a grunt. Jack glanced behind himself and caught sight of eight figures with a variety of cudgels and spears, and chains, with more scrambling onto the roofs behind them. All of them were painfully thin, and a few had the glassy eyes he was coming to associate with dreamers.
Based on the context clues he’d gathered, he determined these were members of the same Rigs that Myrtle had chastised. But instead of the few he’d counted with him then, there was now a veritable horde of junkies.
He didn’t give them the chance to catch up.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Moving with as much agility as he could muster, Jack sprinted from roof to roof. It was surprisingly easy, thanks to the convenient proximity of each of the slum’s buildings. He moved from slanted ledge to slanted ledge, navigating around chimneys and the occasional tent or clotheslines that cluttered the flattest of roofs. While he ran, he noticed several people collecting silky threads that webbed from building to building. At first, he thought they were the clotheslines, but as he passed more and more women and children painstakingly gathering the thin material, he realized what it reminded him of.
Spiderwebs.
The imagery wasn't lost on him, and its implications settled on Jack's mind with the finality of an executioner's axe. Worse, now that he was looking at it, he recognized the razor-thin material. Myrtle had been resting on one such wire when he'd met her. And given her street names, he started to understand where all this wire had come from.
It was Myrtle's old web, and they were cannibalizing it now that she was dead and gone. He couldn't be sure, but he was now fairly certain the thread connected to the makeshift spears thrown at him was these very strands of the dead queen of the streets.
Up here on the roofs of the slums, he was able to glimpse just how widespread her web has been.
And now she was gone, and all that she once connected was tearing itself free, angry as a hornet breaking free from a cobweb.
Jack vaulted over the lip of another angled roof and saw the end of the slum’s district ahead of him.
Despite his speed, he could hear the far more adept free runners gaining behind him, their years running and ruling these roofs serving them well. That was concerning, but it paled in comparison to the line of warriors blocking his path away from this gang war.
They were all women, by Jack’s observations, and each wore a maroon shawl identical to the one Myrtle had worn. These women were lined up single-file across several roofs, each brandishing a variety of broken glass daggers, chains, and an assortment of garrotes, whips, and silk-wrapped fists. The unifying theme across all of their weapons was the spidery thread that Jack had seen others collecting from around the rooftops.
“Stop right there, luv,” a tall woman with a maroon bandanna obscuring her forehead shouted.
She was one of the warriors with a pair of glass daggers.
Jack slowed, but did not stop.
The woman flicked her wrist, and one of her daggers glinted in the air as it shot toward Jack with the force of a rocket. He tried to move out of its trajectory, but it seemed to redirect midair. He gasped in pain as he felt its jagged edge carve a line across his left cheek, barely slowing in its passage. A split second later, he heard a moan of pain behind him, and whirled to see one of the dreamers, cudgel raised, freeze midstroke just inches from where he was.
Jack scrambled away, clutching his bandaged hand to the fresh wound as he stumbled over to another rooftop.
“Thank you,” he gasped, still reeling from how near he’d been to a bludgeoning attack.
He hadn’t heard the willowy man at all.
The tall woman flicked her wrist, and the glass dagger unsheathed from the dreamer’s sternum and flew back to her grip.
“Oh, that wasn’t for you, luv,” she said with mocking sympathy. “I just needed to remind those buggers whose roofs they’re on. Us spiders don’t like it when rats enter our webs, now do we, girls?”
There was a chorus of agreements from the women standing beside the tall and graceful warrior.
She pointed the tip of her bloodied blade at where Jack had come to a stop just a few paces away. Behind him, the dreamers had slowed to a halt as well.
“That one’s ours, whore!” a dreamer shouted from the other side of this brief stalemate.
The very stalemate Jack was now in the center of. Again.
“Come and get him, you anorexic rat!” Greta called back right as Jack inspected her.
[Greta Tundle - Level 11]
Jack took a step closer to the group of women.
“Not another step, unless you want my knife to find its way into your throat, boy. I thought my warning shot would’ve told you to stay put, but I guess I need to spell it out for ya,” Greta warned.
“He was on our side when he popped his head up, so he’s ours by right!” the dreamer called to Greta.
“Yeah, well, it seems he wants a spider’s touch, so you run along and tell that coward you call a leader he knows where to stick it should he grow tired of hiding in that hole of his!” Greta shouted back.
The dreamer bristled and moved to rush the fierce woman, but another dreamer pulled him back by the shoulder, shaking her head while glaring at Greta.
“What in the hell is going on?” Jack demanded, his arms raised in what he hoped looked like a placating gesture, though he was ready to close his fists to fight at a moment’s notice.
Greta scoffed. “What rock you been hidin’ under, luv? We’re at war. Now, care to explain why ya stumbled onto our turf before I gut ya?”
“War? Aren’t you already at war with the shroud and orcs? Why fight each other?” Jack inquired, lowering his arms just a fraction.
Several of the women laughed. It was not a jovial sound, but one boiling with bitterness and contempt. Greta was the loudest of the bunch.
“Ya still wet behind those ears, luv? Whoever taught you the way of things needs a serious beatin’ if ya think that this is anything new.” She put her hands on her hips, though she still gripped those wicked daggers tightly. “Now, explain yourself, handsome.”
Jack thought quickly.
I can still fix this.
“I come from Olric’s farm out past the wall. I came from Thurnfeld, but only briefly. Please. I have no idea who you are or why those guys wanted to kill me. All I’m trying to do is get into Thistlebrush and—” He cut himself off, remembering Olric’s warning. “—And help some people there.”
Greta cocked one hip and seemed to digest his answer. He waited impatiently, scouting possible exits from this roof that still led in the direction of Thistlebrush proper just ahead of their barricade. Just as he was ready with at least two routes, the tall woman spoke up.
“Ya know, it’s the damndest thing, but I actually believe ya.” She laughed at herself and shook her head. “Damn ya to the void and back, but you’re either the stupidest man to ever exist, or ya genuinely don’t know shit about what’s going on. However, I’d suggest coming up with a better lie about where ya work next time. Everyone knows old Olric doesn’t take on farmhands. Are ya his bastard, or something?”
One of the women hit Greta in the shoulder and whispered, “You know he’s not, Greta. Olric doesn’t—”
“Oh, hush, Violet,” Greta scolded, but then looked back at Jack.
“I’m actually his farmhand. Got hired yesterday. I wore the old man down until he caved.” He gave them his best conciliatory smile.
“That so?” Greta replied, skepticism plain in her question.
Jack nodded. “Now, can you either explain to me what in the hell is going on, or let me by?”
Greta paused again, pursing her lips in contemplation. After another few moments, she shrugged and sheathed her daggers. The other women took her cue and lowered their weapons, though none of them appeared relaxed.
“The war started a few days ago when our leader’s corpse was found danglin’ in an alley. Had the stink of an ambush written all over it. Rigs claimed the kill and said that he was now in charge of the slums. Without our leader, Myrtle, to stop his manufacturing of dreamsnatchers, our streets have been running rampant with fresh dreamers doin’ his every whim just to get another hit.” Greta swallowed hard. “It’s been hell, luv.”
Jack couldn’t find his voice.
Greta took his silence as confusion, and so she continued, “Our matriarch always kept that accursed stuff from flooding our home. But now that she’s gone, it’s up to her spiders to continue what she started, even if that means guttin’ every dreamer.”
Jack’s vision flared to life with a system notification.
[New World Quest Unlocked: The Slum Wars]
╔══════════════════════════════╗
║ QUEST OBJECTIVES ║
╠══════════════════════════════╣
║ ? Help the Spiders or Dreamers defeat ║
║ the other side. [0/1] ║
║ ║
║ ? (Optional) Discover what really happened ║
║ to start this bloody gang war. [0/1] ║
║ ║
║ Quest Difficulty: Veteran ║
╚══════════════════════════════╝
╔══════════════════════════════╗
║ QUEST REWARDS ║
╠══════════════════════════════╣
║ ║
║ ? 25,000 EXP ║
║ ║
║ ? New Rare Title ║
║ ║
║ ? 1 Rare Item ║
║ ║
╚══════════════════════════════╝
Jack blanched at the quest difficulty.
Veteran?! Seriously?!
As he read it all over again, he wondered about the optional quest objective.
Don’t I already know what happened? Those bleeders, Lori and Sathem, ambushed us and killed Myrtle.
A part of Greta’s story flashed into his mind.
She said that Rigs claimed the kill. Is that what the System is referring to? I need to tell one side what really happened?
He considered knocking out that objective right then and there, but immediately thought better of it. Jack wasn’t an idiot. He could tell that if he mentioned his involvement in Myrtle’s death, these berserking warriors would kill him in a heartbeat.
No. He needed to play this carefully.
“I’m sorry that Myrtle died. She seemed like an incredible woman,” Jack started, lowering his hands to rest at his side. “I will help you guys as best I can, but only once I get stronger. Once I have a class, I’ll come back and help you uproot that bastard, Rigs. I promise.”
His entirely genuine conviction seemed to impress upon the new leader of the Spiders, and Greta gave him her first real smile.
“Did ya hear that, dearies? We got a boy with quite the big pair of britches! Claimin’ Olric as your patron, and you’re gonna get a class in a timely fashion?” Her grin went crooked. “Alright, luv. We’ll let ya through. But be sure to keep that promise of yours. We need every fighter we can get, and don’t abide by leeches in our territory. Understand?”
She patted the hilt of her daggers meaningfully.
“I understand,” Jack replied, pushing down his ego for now.
He was getting really tired of everyone calling him boy, runt, or weak. It just gave him another reason to get stronger, and quickly. That meant he’d need either a big sidequest or a bunch of them so that he could level up as soon as possible.
“Off ya go, then.” Greta turned the side and waved for him to pass them by.
Jack walked across the tin roof and shuffled through the wall of women. Many of them retained their resolute scowls, though a few seemed to take him in with an altogether different kind of assessment. He felt his cheeks flush when two of the girls—no older than he was—winked at him in near-perfect unison.
Focus, he reminded himself.
Jack strode past them and kept his shoulder back and chin raised. It was with no small amount of speed or relief that the earth mechanic left the slums and its war behind for now and entered the town of Thistlebrush.
He wasn’t here for a fling. He was here to save the world.
No pressure.
