Chapter 451: There’s always demon portals
Carl lost count of his kills. He and Seamus had found a kind of deadly rhythm, where the fire wizard blew up or fried the first round of spawning shadows, then as the rest tried to kill him, Carl warped out and cut them down.
“Y’all don’t even need me,” Becky said with a frown, standing near the wizard. “Maybe I should, I dunno, run over and help with…”
“Big boy!” Seamus interrupted with a yell, his fiery projectiles bouncing off what must have been a nine foot lizard-beetle. “I think my fire’s doing shite all.”
Carl gave Becky a ‘you were saying?’ kind of eyebrow raise, then vanished himself with Reflection before moving forward. So far his arena rewards hadn’t been particularly helpful. He had a power gem that let him detect detection—like a counter-espionage power to help him hide better.
It was a damn comforting thing to have, but it didn’t do him any good in a straight up fight against a horde of demons. He’d also leveled and got a new power called ‘Second Chance’, which was supposed to basically save him from a lethal hit and give him some mana back once on a long cooldown. This also definitely made him feel better, but wouldn’t come up very much. Or so he hoped.
Seamus gave up and switched targets, his seemingly endless rain of fiery missiles now blasting away at the next poor bastard that entered the world. The ‘big boy’ came scuttling forward, some combination of black arms and mandibles chomping in anticipation as it moved towards the Irishman.
Becky got in between, and Carl circled. He honestly had no idea where to hit it. Without any obvious way to get at its head (except warping—but warping into the air usually sucked), Carl eventually just settled on ‘generic torso’.
He timed his Surprise Strike and slash/stabbed his Mirror Shard into the thing’s gross flank. The blade sliced through carapace as easily as it sliced through pretty much everything else. A horrifyingly juicy burst of demonic bug goo sprayed like water from a kinked hose, a good portion into Carl’s face.
“Oh God.” He warped out of principle and spat, horking and trying not to throw up or taste. Or even imagine tasting. “Why didn’t your aegis stop it?” he said in a kind of choked, drunken tone, spitting and trying to wipe it off.
“It don’t stop harmless.” Becky laughed, smashing her mace into the beetle as she dodged and swatted away its mandibles. “It ain’t acid or poison, or I’d have known. Now stop bein’ a big baby and kill this thing.”
Carl dry heaved and stumbled his way back to the demon, this time slicing off its ‘main’ legs as he kept his face well away. When it was suitably de-limbed, Becky dragged the whole damn thing back to the portal area before smashing in its head.
“Shit, you’re getting pretty strong,” Carl said, still trying to wipe goo with his sleeve. Becky winked and started walking back, then looked at his face and shook with a snort.
“What?” Carl touched his face, suddenly worried. But it didn’t burn or anything.
“I hope Sylvie don’t like eyebrows. I guess it was some kind of weak acid after all.”
Carl sighed and refrained from checking. He supposed he was already mostly bald. Except now he was going to look like those dudes from that new Dune movie or something. With his pale complexion he hardly ever tanned.
“Well that’s great. If we get new people soon their first impression will be the hairless chancellor. I’ll never live it down.”
Becky covered her mouth to hide the laughter, but her expression changed as she looked out past a sparser section of trees.
“Shit. Is that Phuong and Alex?”
Carl turned to see a giant mob of demons attacking another group of players, though it was too much of a cluster fuck to tell who. He turned to Seamus, but the Irishman was already running.
“On it, chiefy! Hold the fort for me!”
“I can’t tell if he’s excited to help, or just wants a big target,” Carl muttered. But he supposed it didn’t really matter. He sighed with relief as their shadows started to get sucked up into the now closing portal, glancing at more dying trees in a circle not far away.
“Let’s go,” he said, gesturing at Becky, then moved to the next and started digging his knife into the still-forming creatures.
Becky came in beside him now with no Seamus to protect. She swatted at the shadowy creatures with her mace, or smashed them with increasingly forceful looking kicks.
“You know, I’ve been thinkin’,” she said. “With everyone gettin’ jobs in the ‘house’ and stuff.” She splattered shadowy ichor over a tree trunk. “I mean I don’t know what all the positions are, or whatever, but I think I’d kinda like one. Since I’m not…you know.”
Carl gutted a pig-goat and frowned.
“I know what?”
Becky rolled her eyes and tossed up her free hand.
“Not pregnant. I’m gonna need more to do, is all. I can’t just be lookin’ after babies all the time.”
“Oh.” Carl decided this was one of the more ridiculous conversations of his life. “Well, talk to that man of yours, why are you bothering me?”
“Because you’re the damn chancellor or whatever!”
“Oh right.” Carl grinned, then stabbed another demon and hopped back, still afraid of horror-movie level acidic spray. “Hell, Becky. Can’t it wait until there’s…I don’t know, not a cluster of demon portals? What job would you want?”
“Well I dunno! And there’s always demon portals, or some other shit. I grew up on a farm. Ain’t there somethin’…farm related?”
Carl shrugged, but of course the girl couldn’t see it. Prescience went off and he ducked some kind of shooting spine, warping over to cut off the preying-mantis looking thing’s head.
“I mean weren’t you more like a…hired hand? Just because you grew up on a farm doesn’t mean you’re an expert. I’m guessing your Mom and Dad were in charge of everything. Or your older brothers. Or…”
Carl glanced over to see a shockingly angry looking Becky. It was at this point he knew he’d definitely fucked up.
“What the shit did you just say to me? A hired hand? Is this because I’m a girl?”
“Uh.” Carl ran to another just spawning demon and sliced it in half. “No. It’s because you’re young. Can we please talk about this when I’m not fighting demons? I’m just thinking out loud. I mean I’m…”
“No, we cannot.” Becky took a few steps towards him, and he damn near ran away before she hit something else. “Because later I can’t drop yer shield and let you get yer ass splattered all over the fuckin’ trees.”
Carl cleared his throat.
“Your shield is mostly just backup. I don’t think I’ve really been hit yet.”
“Old man, you better stop messin’ with me. I’ll make Sylvie a widow I swear to Jesus.”
Carl put up his hands, spinning without finding a target. He paused and took a breath.
“OK. We can talk about it. Alright? Yes, there’s some kind of minister of agriculture. I don’t know how it works, or what it does or gets. But it’s not like there’s any farmland yet, so…”
“So you can give me the job, and I can start plannin’ where it’ll go, or somethin’!” Becky grinned. “We could clear trees. We could maybe make some buildins’.”
“Christ, Becky.” Carl gave her a glare, which she met with her hands on her hips. He shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Mason.”
Becky’s eyes narrowed and she pointed at a new round of forming shadows.
“Horse shit. That’s like a man who says he’s gotta ask his wife. Put on your big boy pants, Carl.”
“Jesus, Becky.” Carl aborted a few more forming shadows. “You only brought this up two seconds ago and you’re like a dog with a bone. How does that boy deal with you?”
“He bangs my brains out till I forget why I was pissed off,” Becky said, coming dangerously close again with her bloody mace raised. “But you’re too old and bald and breakable. So gimme what I want.”
Carl blinked and found himself temporarily speechless.
“I…still gotta talk to Mason.”
“If you make it to Mason.”
Carl killed another demon and happily warped across the portal, one eye on his shrinking mana bar. Two more kills and he flinched as a huge explosion rocked the horizon just above the canopy. Carl glanced at Becky.
“Seamus?”
“Seamus. Now keep killin’ demons, but don’t think you’re wigglin’ out of this. We ain’t done talkin’. I can’t be stuck in a house full of pregnant women and babies all the time. I want that fuckin’ job.”
Carl sighed, finally understanding. He’d learned female players had some kind of automatic birth control, but Mason had civilian girls…and elves. Becky was the only player and would probably soon be the only without a bun in the oven.
In fact Nassau seemed likely to become a damn children’s creche in the coming months. Civilian women were getting pregnant all over the camp.
Carl glanced at the still occasionally staring, narrow-eyed cowgirl, no idea how to deal with her except agree. After another demon kill, and a growing feeling of defeat, he prayed the baby growing in Sylvie’s belly was a boy…