Don’t Bring a Gun to a Rock Fight

  “Stop being a couyon, Remi.” Troy shouted as he and the boys crouched behind a shield the youngest was projecting from a bracer he had enchanted. “We’re not here to poach your territory.”

  ‘Then what the hell you doing here, Troy? Squirrel stroking? I may be a fool, but I wasn’t born yesterday.” Remi shouted as he moved to the other side of the tree he was hiding from the flying thingamajigger that Troy had apparently appeared out of.”

  “We’re here to take you to one of those dungeons. They gave us one to pick up knuckleheads like you while they gather up the cities.” Troy answered.

  Remi shot again. “That ain’t no dungeon. That’s a spaceship. Are you an alien wearing a Troy suit?”

  “Bec moi le chu. Couyon. I ain’t no alien in a Troy suit. I’m god damned Troy. I took your Lizzy to prom.” Troy said and the oldest boy shook his head, wide eyed as Remi proceeded to rapid fire every round they had. Mud Bug, the name they had given their dungeon, came to the rescue and projected a shield for them as it hovered overhead.

  Hearing Remi reloading, Troy used his swampwalk skill to get behind the smaller Remi and grab the shotgun which Remi refused to let go of and proceed kicking Troy’s shins while he hung from the weapon. Fortunately croc’s weren’t very effective weapons, even in sport mode.

  “Calm down runt.” Troy said while swinging Remi side to side making it harder for Remi to kick him.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down, you big ape. Just let me shoot you once so I can see if you bleed red or green.” Remi said as he pulled himself up and down either trying to shake the shotgun out of Troy’s hands or get himself into position to kick something more sensitive than Troy’s shins. Based on Troy’s long history with Remi, he figured Remi hoped to accomplish both. Starting to get a little annoyed, Troy spun once and used the tree Remi had been hiding behind to knock the belligerent gnome off of the weapon. Mission accomplished. Quickly racking the weapon he pointed it at Remi who held up his hands and calmly said, “Now Troy. No need to get rough. I was just wanting to make sure you weren’t an alien. You know how I’ve always considered you my best friend. Hell, if it turned out you were an alien in a Troy suit, I would have killed them and had the skin stuffed and mounted so I could share a beer with you whenever I wanted.”

  “Shut up and listen.” Troy interrupted him. “You come with us or you will die when the insects arrive.”

  “That’s fake news. They’re just saying that so we leave and the slimy rich New Yorkers get to take all our fishing spots.” Remi countered.

  “It ain’t fake news you fool. It’s a twenty twenties conspiracy theory.” Troy told him.

  Remi smirked like a litrpg protagonist, “Are we at the, it’s real, but here’s why it’s good for you, stage already?”

  “We’re at the I’m going to tell Lizzy you’re acting a fool stage.” Troy said. “You’re coming with us. We could have picked up five families in the time I’ve been messing with you.”

  Remi thinking he finally had Troy beat, smiled and said, “Ain’t no way Lizzy is leaving her house.”

  “We’re taking it with us.” Troy countered.

  “How can you…” Remi started to ask.

  Troy cut him off. “Mud Bug, portal to my house.” A portal opened and Troy pushed Remi through it.

  “Remi, you better not step a foot on to my porch with those nasty rubber slippers.” Mrs Troy’s name rang out as she came around the corner of the house wielding a large wooden spoon. Remi, not being a fool, quickly reached out and stopped his momentum by grabbing the handrails on the steps going up the side of the porch narrowly avoiding getting the offending shoes on the first step. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, he quickly wiped the rails where he had grabbed them. Better safe than sorry when it came to dealing with Troy’s wife.

  Always a little timid around Mrs Troy, Remi looked at his feet and meekly said, “Sorry, Amanda. It was Troy’s fault.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Amanda, glaring at Troy said, “I know. I saw the whole thing. Now you two fools stop playing games and let’s go pick up Lizzy and your house so that we can get back on schedule.”

  *****

  “I concur with your assessment, Lorem.” Bessie said. Her globe now had somewhat of a face and appeared to be wearing glasses. “We should tell Master what you think.” She opened a portal and the book floated through. Bessie just dissolved herself as there was already a copy of her in the control room.

  Jim looked up from where he was looking at a map with the other Bessie. “Figured something out?”

  Bessie bobbed up and down, “Lorem analyzed the work. There were actually two sets present. The majority of the original essence systems have been overridden. Lorem can explain the rest.”

  Lorem floated closer and explained, “The original set seemed to be set up to protect against dungeon incursions and increase the essence in the area like what we found in the Great Canyon.”

  “Grand Canyon.” Jim corrected.

  “Whatever. Anyway, that system was mostly removed and tied into another system. The purpose was almost reversed. Instead of the essence being stored or used to improve the local area, it was as we originally thought, being transmitted somewhere else. They also had facilities to condense skull shaped crystals and a teleportation system to ship them out.”

  “I feel like you’re burying the lead. What kind of system was the original tied into?” Jim asked.

  “Some of the runes appear to be those used by demons.” Lorem said. “Works involving non-sentient demons are banned and only the strongest sects and organizations dared deal with the sentient demons, so I don’t consider my stored information anywhere near complete. However, I am one hundred percent certain, the modifications were made by demons. Or they were made by someone trained by demons. Apparently they gathered ambient essence and the locals used frequent ritual sacrifices to gather even more.”

  Jim nodded and said, “Makes sense.”

  Lorem raised a bony eyebrow, “Care to explain how that makes sense on an essence locked planet?”

  Jim nodded, “Sure. After they wiped the Atlantean experiment and rebooted, they created a prison of sorts to hold the criminal, wicked, deranged, and depraved. A devil and his demons were contracted to run it.’

  “Who wiped it and contracted with this devil?’ Lorem asked.

  “The old gods. When Atlantis failed, they thought purifying the pool of souls by separating the contaminated and defective ones might help finally make something useful out of this world. It didn’t. They somehow always find a way to screw things up.”

  “And how do you know this?’ Lorem asked.

  Jim pointed at the maps, “I’ve got a few more spots marked on the map for us to check out as we work our way south.”

  *****

  “Why would we trust some creepy guy calling himself The Dark Lord?” Ji-Ho asked.

  “He’s really trying to help us.” Yohan said, getting flustered.

  “So says the creepy guy with shadow abominations. Begone filthy demon. I cast you out.” Ji-Ho said.

  Yohan’s head dropped and he raised his arms in exasperation. “I give up. You’re right. We’ll just absorb them. I just thought it would be better if we talked first.”

  Smiling internally, Ji-Ho knew the scout would eventually come to this conclusion. “Good. We’ll be able to cover more ground that way. No point in trying to convince them. We know our methods are harsh, but we are trying to help. When you interact with them, just tell them what they need to know and leave. The Lord wanted you to focus on training anyway. Your path is not social or political.”

  The dungeon ship maintained its cloaking and hovered near a village and began expanding its influence down to the ground and underneath it in order to spring up and claim the village before anyone had a chance to escape.

  Yohan went back to the training area to level his skills and shadows.

  *****

  Drake felt it was time. The warrior he was fighting was nearly completely drained of stamina. He stuffed the man’s attempt to wrap his arms around his legs by pushing down on his shoulders, driving him into the ground as he stepped to the side and mounted him from behind. A single punch to the back of his head finished the bout.

  When the man reappeared after signing a dungeon contract, Drake held out his hand. “Get some good levels for your skills?’

  The man's eyes moved back and forth quickly as he went through his notifications growing wider and wider with each notification. “Yes… Hell yes, Master. Thank you.” the man looked at Drake for a few seconds before asking, “I’ve seen you fight as an archer, caster, rifleman, heavily armored knight, and a few things I’m not even sure what to call. How did you get so skillful at so many forms of combat?”

  Drake chuckled, “Where I come from originally, there were sects that controlled everything. They had avatars of gods as leaders and they preyed on the newly integrated planets, mining their essence before the citizens really had a chance to make something of their home world. I spent hundreds of lifetimes reintegrating over and over. Fighting from level 0 until the sects took control of the planet, then I would integrate again. New class, new skills, new methods.”

  A glowing ball appeared. “Master, it has been three days.”

  Drake patted the man on the shoulder and apologized to the line of people waiting to challenge him. “Duty calls. I’ll try to make time to come back here every few days. I relinquish my title of champion.” A portal opened and Drake stepped through.

  *****

  Siegemaster stood facing a man wearing a pair of what he called six shooters. The ogre lifted the enormous hat they had made for him off his head and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He had destroyed the boots they had made him the first time he used any speed at all. The boots had looked nice, but he got a better grip with the boots his momma had enchanted for him. Texas was the name of this place he was currently recruiting in. It was the massive ogre’s favorite so far.

  A man walked from the small crowd that was watching and looked to the opponent and asked. “You ready?” The man nodded. He looked to the ogre and asked, “You ready, siegmaster?” The ogre moved his hand close to the two leather pouches holding a single pebble each and nodded.

  “On Go. Three, two, one, Go.”

  The crowd cheered when nothing seemed to happen other than a gust of wind blowing the man’s hat off. The man slowly fell to the ground with a hole where each eye used to be and his body disappeared. The ogre no longer had pebbles in his pouches. When the gun man reappeared, the man who had officiated the match said, “Now, do you believe us? Told you that you’d be dead before you even drew iron.”