CHAPTER 12

  Knock Knock

  Bash sat hunched near his pack, chewing on a piece of jerky. “What kind of twisted afterlife doesn't have proper bacon for breakfast?” he complained.

  Patrick stood nearby, checking his equipment. “Want bacon, kill a boar.”

  Bash held up the strip like a holy relic. “A grind quest for pork chops. Heaven, eat your heart out.”

  Luis leaned in. “Speaking of quests. There is a group twice the size, led by an Upload, who enjoys the work.”

  Patrick's grip tightened on his spear.

  Luis spat into the dirt and continued. “He calls himself the Black Hound.”

  Bash raised an eyebrow. “Of course he does. Nothing says leadership more than branding yourself. Let me guess, his favorite pastime is chew toys.”

  Patrick looked over, expression flat. “Twenty bandits, led by an Upload. Bad odds. Not worth the risk.”

  Luis's face fell further. He stared into the ashes of the dying fire pit.

  Bash glanced between them. “Luis? You got something else?”

  A long pause. Luis's hands clenched in his lap.

  “They take prisoners,” he finally said, voice rough. “Uploads. People who can't fight back. Carl keeps them for... entertainment. Sport.” He swallowed hard.

  Patrick's expression softened. He looked at Luis for a long moment, then exhaled through his nose.

  Bash clenched his fists. “Damnit, why didn't you lead with that!?” He stood and faced Patrick, brushing dirt from his legs. “Come on. We at least take a look, right? Scope it out?”

  Patrick studied him. Then he glanced at Luis’s pleading face.

  “Fine,” Patrick said finally. “We look. Nothing more until we know what we're dealing with.”

  Luis scrambled to his feet, and nodded. “Follow me. I know the way.”

  About an hour into their trek, Luis stopped and pointed at an empty patch of ground. “Trap ahead.” To prove his point, he crouched and swept away some leaves and other small debris to reveal a crude loop of rope buried beneath.

  Bash scanned it. Sure enough, it was flagged as a hazard in the system. “Alright, nice save. So... how are you so good at this stuff?”

  Luis stared at Bash. “It's my job,” he finally answered.

  “Wait, I thought you said you were a farmer.”

  “No... I mean, my job, job. I am a Bandit.” His eyes unfocused for a moment. “Or I suppose now I'm a Rogue.”

  Bash blinked. “But I don't have a job! That's not fair!”

  “Players don't have jobs.” Luis quipped as he stood and walked carefully around the trap.

  “Are you calling me lazy or something?” Bash jogged to catch up. “So Patrick, when you say you're a Guard... you literally mean you are a Guard? What does that even get you?”

  Patrick grunted his conversational equivalent of a shrug. “A couple of skills. Enough to do the work.”

  Bash's eyes narrowed. “What about levels? Do you level up like I do?”

  Luis laughed, the first genuine sound he'd made all morning. “No, man. We're just basic humans. No levels, no stat points. What you see is what you get.”

  “Some jobs are better than others.” Patrick added.

  “So it's like... a caste system.” Bash felt gross thinking about it. No wonder Maximus had such an easy time building his empire. “How do you change jobs?” Bash asked.

  Luis shrugged. “Something about contracts. Never seen it myself.”

  “Huh.” Bash thought about Luis's job changing from Bandit to Rogue after the surrender. He still didn't fully understand how that worked, but it was something to ask Shai about later.

  They continued deeper into the forest, the terrain growing rougher. More hazards appeared including a nasty-looking deadfall with sharpened stakes.

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  Something rustled in the underbrush to their left. A small shape burst from the ferns and bolted across their path, rust-colored fur disappearing into the trees. Bash froze, the hair on his neck standing up.

  Luis tensed. "What? What is it?"

  "Did you see that thing that just ran by?" Bash hissed, dropping into a fighting stance, hands up head darting left, right, then left again.

  Luis squinted into the trees. "The fox, you mean?"

  "That son of a bitch was huge. At least four hundred pounds." Bash spun wildly punching at the bushes near him.

  Luis stared at him for a long moment. "Dude, you’re loco..." He shook his head and kept walking.

  After his near-death encounter with the wildlife, Bash's humor kicked into overdrive. Luis tried to stay focused, but still smiled when Bash compared the trap layout to ‘a Home Alone sequel directed by Jigsaw’.

  By midday, they had slowed their pace until finally coming to a stop. Patrick’s hand shot up and made several deliberate gestures that Bash didn't recognize.

  Bash blinked at the theatrics, glancing from Patrick to Luis. “What the hell was that? If this ends with you pulling out glow sticks, I'm out.”

  They both shot him a glare, and Luis placed a finger over his lips. Bash understood that last one at least. Shard knows he'd been shushed at least a million times in his previous life. He shuffled closer, keeping low but not really knowing why.

  Patrick’s head was tilted, listening. Then Bash heard it too. Voices. Getting closer. Patrick's hand signals were sharp and clear this time.

  Cover and now, I’m getting the hang of this. Bash thought.

  The three of them melted into the underbrush, pressing themselves against fallen logs and thick ferns. Bash's heart hammered as he tried to make himself as small as possible, which wasn't easy when every instinct screamed to move, to fight, to do something.

  Two bandits ambled past, close enough that Bash could smell the stale ale on them and hear them talking in scripted gibberish.

  “…told him the cheese was cursed, but does he listen? No. Now he's got the runs something fierce.”

  “Serves him right. Who eats mystery cheese from a dungeon chest?”

  “Dungeon cheese is the best cheese, everyone knows that...”

  Their voices faded into the trees. Bash let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

  They waited in silence for a full minute before Patrick gave the signal to regroup.

  Luis spoke, barely audible. “Camp's just over this ridge. We need to move slow and ...” He froze mid-sentence.

  Ahead, maybe thirty yards, a figure stood with his back to them. An NPC, based on the metadata tag floating in Bash's vision. The man was facing a large oak tree, completely still.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Bash whispered.

  Then he noticed the posture. The slight movement. The sound.

  “Oh,” Bash said. “Oh. The scripts pee too?”

  Luis looked like he wanted to disappear into the ground. Patrick just pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Bash studied the situation. One guard. Distracted. Back turned. Too easy. Bash thought.

  He moved without thinking. Low and quiet, closing the distance in careful steps.

  Behind him, he could feel Patrick and Luis's eyes burning into his back. He didn't need to look to know they were making frantic what the hell are you doing gestures.

  Ten feet. Five. Three.

  Bash lunged, wrapping his arm around the NPC's throat and grabbing the man's head with his other hand. Okay, now jerk. Just... jerk the neck. Like in the movies.

  He jerked.

  Nothing happened. Well, nothing useful. His hips thrust forward into the man's back with each attempt, creating a motion that looked far more inappropriate than lethal.

  The NPC made a strangled gurgling sound and started thrashing. His hands clawed at Bash's arm. His feet kicked against his shins. He tried to bite.

  Shit shit shit. Bash realized he had absolutely no fucking idea how to break someone's neck. It had looked so easy in the training montages. Just a quick snap and they go limp. But this guy's neck was not snapping. It was just... there. Being a neck. A very angry, struggling neck attached to a very angry, struggling body.

  He tried twisting instead.

  But all that did was spin the bandit around so they were awkwardly face to face.

  The man's eyes were wide with terror and confusion.

  That's not right either, Bash thought.

  No longer being choked, the bandit opened his mouth to scream, but Bash slapped his hand over it. Bad move, he immediately found out, as teeth clamped down on his palm.

  “OW! Son of a bitch!”

  Bash did the only thing he could think of. He pivoted, lifted the man bodily, and slammed him into the oak tree.

  THUNK.

  The NPC's head cracked open and his body went limp.

  Bash stood there, breathing hard. The dead body slid down the trunk leaving a streak of blood and brain matter before crumpling at the base of the tree. A dark stain spread under the man’s body as he lay still.

  Bash turned and found Luis and Patrick both staring at him with horrified disbelief.

  “That,” Luis whispered, “was the stupidest thing I have ever seen.”

  Bash shrugged, trying to project confidence he absolutely did not feel. “He's down, isn't he?”

  Patrick continued to stare at him for a long moment. Then, without a word, he started moving toward the ridge.

  The three of them crouched lower, creeping toward the forest's edge, until they could make out shapes ahead in a clearing.

  Bash craned his neck forward, heart ticking faster. Oracle pulsed again, as amber probabilities fanned out just beyond his line of sight.

  Whatever was up ahead was bigger than he imagined, a lot more than the twenty or so bandits Luis told them about.

  Overlays painted the camp in overlapping threat assessments. Guard rotations. Weapon positions. Choke points. The probabilities didn't look good.

  Shifting his weight to get a better view, Bash pressed himself up to look over the brush, his knee snapping a dry branch beneath him.

  “WHO'S THERE?”

  The bandit lookout stood up from his post, staring directly at them, hand already reaching for a horn at his belt.

  “Shit, really? The Branch!?” Bash hissed.

  Patrick's face went cold. “Move. Now. Back the way we came!”

  The horn's blast tore through the air, a long, warbling note that sent birds scattering from the trees.

  Luis's eyes went wide with horror. “They'll cut off the path. We can't!”

  Bash glanced at the notification. “How the hell did that make it past my filters!?”

  Noise erupted as the entire bandit camp began to react. Among them, Bash tagged several Upload signatures mixed in with scripts.

  Patrick was already calculating retreat routes, Luis was pale as death, and Bash...

  Bash looked at the camp. Looked at the chaos. Looked at the odds.

  “Yea, screw it...” Bash said as he straightened. “I never liked stealth missions anyway!”

  “Bash, wait!” Patrick shouted.

  Too late. Bash had already launched himself towards the nearest bandit, screaming out a war cry.

  “KNOCK, KNOCK, MOTHER FUCKERS!”