Mistrunner 2 - Chapter 51 - The Smarter Plan (Patreon)

It all comes down to power. Sometimes, the means of that power is money. Other times, it’s about fear. Or threats. Gunther built his empire on knowledge. He knows who’s been targeting us, and I just have to figure out how to make him tell me.

Nora Lancaster

Under the cover of deepening night, I retreated from the stadium, stealthily making my way back to the metal plaque of the aural sensor. Once there, I set upon it, leveraging my abilities and attributes to slowly overcome the Mistwall. It wasn’t easy, but then again, I knew it was never going to be. Still, I couldn’t allow myself to be dissuaded from the proper course of action just because of a little discomfort or difficulty. Instead, I simply needed to put my head down and forge ahead with the only plan that might result in my survival.

It took a little more than an hour, but eventually, I tore through the Mistwall and deactivated the aural sensor. Seconds after that, I was already on my way. As I trekked through the crumbling city, I flared Observation, hoping it would be enough to warn me of any dangers that might present themselves. I needn’t have worried, though; the octavangians had been thorough in exterminating any threats, so the entire city was as quiet as a tomb.

Unnatural as that silence was, I was grateful. After two battles against that Mistwall, my head felt like it had been split in two, and I desperately needed to simply close my eyes and rest. The result of my mental fatigue was that if I was attacked, I would be beset by slowed reactions that would leave me far below a hundred-percent effectiveness. I could still defeat most of the native creatures, but if I found myself assaulted by the octavangians or a pack of wildlings, things could quickly become overwhelming. So, as much as I just wanted to rest, I forced myself to focus as I made my way back to Patrick.

Fortunately, the combination of the dilapidated town’s lack of wildlife and the shadows of the overcast night gave me all the leeway I needed to remain undetected. So it was that, after only another hour, I dragged myself to the outskirts and the building where I’d left Patrick. True to my instructions, he’d foregone the light of a Mistlamp, which meant he was huddled in a dark corner, his eyes shining with fear.

When I finally revealed myself, I found myself facing down the barrel of his pistol. His alarm only lasted as long as it took him to recognize me, and when he did, he sagged in relief, dropping the weapon to his lap like it weighed a thousand pounds.

“Good job,” I said. “Way to stay alert.”

“I hate this,” he muttered. “I wish I could deploy the auto-turrets we brought along.”

“Can’t,” I responded, sitting next to him. He hadn’t even brought out the cots, which was probably for the best. Discomfort, as unpleasant as it was, often became fuel for remaining alert. “Told you that before I left. These aliens, they’re too strong, and those turrets are way too weak. They can’t even reliably take care of wildlings.”

Indeed, I’d insisted on bringing them along so we could use them as an early warning system and distraction in the event something attacked us in the wild.

“They’re too loud, too,” I added. “The octavangians would be here in a second if they heard gunfire.”

“I know that,” he mumbled half to himself. He truly seemed miserable, which made me feel a bit guilty for not bringing him along. My own day had been difficult, but I knew I shouldn’t discount how horrible his had been. Stranded next to an enemy encampment, terrified of making even the slightest noise – it must have been exhausting as well as nerve-wracking. Then, he sighed, “So, what’s going on? Did you…you know…”

“I didn’t kill anyone yet,” I said. His hesitation to even talk about it was a little annoying; these aliens didn’t deserve his empathy.  Instead, they’d earned every bit of punishment I could dish out. After all, their presence was part of why Nova City – and the rest of the world – was so screwed up.

“But you are, right?”

“You know I am. They won’t just let us stroll into the Rift.”

“We don’t have to go, though,” he said. “I mean, there are easier ways of making money.”

“Not the kind of money we can make in a Rift. It took me a couple of weeks to get through the last one, and the shards I mined in there were enough to buy my whole arsenal. Even if all I did was steal from people like Nora, it would take me years to build up that much money,” I explained. “And if I’m going to do the things I need to do – after Nora’s dead, I mean – I’m going to need a ton of credits. Ships aren’t cheap.”

“I’m aware,” he said. “The Jitterbug wasn’t the highest-class ship, but Remy always complained about how much it cost. Even the parts were expensive.”

“See? This is the best way,” I said.

Even if the Rift turned out to be a carbon copy of the last one, the earnings would go a long way toward buying a ship. I’m not sure when I’d decided that was going to be my next step after I got my revenge, but now that I’d latched onto it, I wasn’t keen to let it go. Besides, without a ship of our own, there was no way we were going to cross the ocean and visit that other continent.

And for whatever reason, that was precisely what I wanted to do. I’d never really felt the call of adventure before, mostly because I hadn’t had the opportunity. From the moment I’d absorbed that Tier-7 Nexus Implant, my life had been carefully curated – at least up until Mobile was destroyed and everything went off the rails. Since then, I had been almost entirely focused on making Nora pay for what she’d done.

But now that I was out of the city with Patrick, I felt like I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Soon enough, I’d be finished with Nova City, and I could move on with the rest of my life. I knew I’d never be inclined to build an organization like Jeremiah had. I had neither the patience nor the desire for something like that, and even if I was suited for leadership, I’d already seen the end of that road. My uncle might not have been the best man for the job, but he'd given almost everything to the Specters. His efforts had been rewarded with betrayal.

No - I’d never be able to follow his path, which meant I needed to find my own. And given my skillset, nothing really suited me better than a life spent delving the Rifts.

No responsibilities to other people. No one to betray me. No restrictions. Just me and Patrick, exploring and adventuring. It was a nice dream, and one I was increasingly more convinced I could turn into a reality.

But first, we needed to take out the octavangians and dive into the Rift only a few miles away. To that end, I’d come up with a plan.

It would have been easy enough to set up within the stadium and start picking the aliens off, one by one, until they were all dead. However, given that there were almost fifty enemies, each capable of bringing an unknown degree of power to bear, that seemed like the height of carelessness. And I was convinced that, while I could probably kill quite a few of them, that strategy would eventually lead to me being overwhelmed by sheer numbers and likely killed.

Not precisely an optimal result, so as I’d continued my reconnaissance, I’d come up with a different sort of plan. The only problem with it was that it required me to take a step back, leave the area around the stadium, overcome the aural sensors’ heinous Mistwall, and take things slower than I normally would.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Patrick.

“Nothing complicated,” I answered. “We wait for them to come outside, then I ambush the first group. Then the second. And I’ll keep going until I’m finished. It’ll probably break out into a firefight before that, but it’ll have to do.”

“Couldn’t you just break out that bomb gun you have?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Bomb gun? You mean my BMAP?” I asked.

“That’s the one,” he said. “You could explode their whole camp, right?”

I shrugged, saying, “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. I’m sure they have some kind of defense against it, though.” I really wasn’t sure that was the case. It wasn’t like there were a bunch of towns in the general area, and even if there were, the octavangians usually wouldn’t have to worry about someone breaking out mobile artillery platform. I wasn’t the only one on the planet with such weaponry, I was certain, but I was just as sure it wasn’t commonplace. “Doesn’t matter, though. The Rift is in the center of the camp, which means that I’d probably damage the apparatus that allows for passage in and out if I started lobbing bombs in there. And it’s not a bomb gun. It’s a mobile artillery platform.”

“Sounds like a bomb gun to me,” he reiterated with a grin.

I rolled my eyes. “My point is that blowing stuff up kind of ruins the whole thing,” I said. Though it was true, I didn’t particularly like the fact that I couldn’t use what was rapidly becoming my favorite weapon. Sure, the R-14 was steady, and I liked the idea of sniping enemies from afar with the Pulsar, but there was nothing quite as climactic as an enormous explosion. The only problem was that bringing that kind of heavy ordinance to bear almost always brought with it complications. Like when I’d used the weapon in that crater and alerted thousands of mutated wildlings to my presence. The BMAP was amazing, and I loved what it could do, but I still needed to employ caution before deciding to use it.

Much to my chagrin.

“Point taken,” he said. “So, you’re just going to assassinate them?”

“Something like that,” I stated. “Hopefully, I can kill a good portion of them before they realize what’s happening.”

“Wish it wasn’t necessary at all,” he mused. “I don’t know why we can’t all just get along. I mean, it’s not like we couldn’t work together or something.”

“Not the universe we live in,” I said. “Maybe that’s how it works elsewhere. I don’t know. But on a newly Initiated planet like Earth, these aliens don’t even look at us as people. We’re just resources to be exploited or annoyances to be exterminated, and with nothing in between.”

“Cynical way of looking at it,” he said.

I shrugged. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”

He didn’t really have an answer for that, so our conversation soon petered out. I was well aware that my own views had probably been tainted by my uncle’s experiences. He hadn’t lived an easy life, and he’d been forced to watch almost everyone he cared about die, many at the hands of the aliens. His hatred of them was both justified and utterly understandable.

For my part, I’d only seen a fraction of what he had. In fact, it was arguable that human beings were just as bad as any alien – even the ones who’d created a cycle of enslavement around the site of my first Rift. Were they any worse than people like Russo, who’d not only killed and enslaved people, but experimented on them as well? No. But it was far easier to peg the aliens as the enemy, if only because they were so different.

I was aware of that bias, but I just didn’t care.  Besides, I had enough hate for both groups.

As the silence stretched between us, I forced myself to eat a ration bar before leaning against the wall so I could get some rest. It wasn’t the most comfortable position in which to sleep, but I wanted to be as mobile as possible. That meant we couldn’t afford to risk bringing out the cots. Fortunately, I was well versed in sleeping in less-than-perfect conditions, so it wasn’t long before I dozed off.

Sleep came, but it was a shallow thing, and far less restful than I might have hoped. However, it was enough to soothe my fatigue, and by the time I woke up a few hours later, my headache had dissipated. That I could function on so little rest was an advantage of my high Constitution; I couldn’t go indefinitely, but I could keep pushing well past a baseline human would have collapsed from total exhaustion.

Rested and ready, I took a few minutes to take care of some necessities before I woke Patrick and told him that I was going to get started with my plan. He nodded, and though I knew he wanted to go back to sleep, he rose.

I’d considered bringing him with me, but I knew he’d just get in the way. As much as I liked Patrick, he was not a frontline combatant, and I knew that if he ever wanted to be effective, he’d have to be kitted out with powerful gear. I was fine with that – after all, it was one of the reasons I was so keen to delve the Rift in the first place – but we weren’t quite at that point yet.

So, with Patrick up, about, and aware, I left the building in which we’d made camp and stalked toward the stadium. I didn’t go as far as the aural sensors, though. Instead, I positioned myself in a three-story building that gave me a decent line-of-sight to the stadium. Once there, I summoned my Pulsar and watched for movement.

It was just before dawn when my efforts were finally rewarded. I watched as a group of three octavangians exited the stadium. One waved its tentacles as if gesturing while the other two walked by its side. It was easy to imagine that they were engaged in idle conversation, just like the members of a human patrol might be, but I cautioned myself against assigning human characteristics to the aliens. For all I knew, the tendrils doubled as sensory organs. It was a far-fetched idea, but it was a strange universe out there.

I continued to watch for a few minutes as the trio of tentacled aliens left the stadium behind. As I did so, I noted that they all had different skin colors. One was purple, another was blue, and the last was a dingy yellow. I didn’t know what any of that signified – if anything – so I merely filed the information in the back of my mind.

Once I was certain that the trio weren’t going to be followed, I activated Stealth and set off to stalk them. And it was ridiculously easy, too. They never looked in my direction, not even when I drew to within fifteen feet. Apparently, Stealth was plenty powerful to mask my presence from them. Still, I didn’t lose focus or grow overconfident. That was how people got killed, after all.

After a couple of hours, one of the octavangians stopped dead in its tracks and whipped its anemone-covered head to the left. Without waiting more than a second, the alien took off at a sprint, its tentacles waving wildly all the way. The others didn’t hesitate to follow, and so, I was forced into a run, lest I lose them.

Fortunately, my Stealth remained up to the task. Not that it mattered, of course – the octavangians weren’t paying any attention to anything but their prey, which turned out to be a giant spider. The thing was at least as big as a person, with eight spindly legs. However, there was no web nearby, which I found curious. Perhaps it was a species of spider that didn’t rely on such traps.

Either way, the octavangians fell on it with obvious glee, their elongating tentacles shooting out so quickly that the spider had no chance to dodge. In only a couple of seconds, it was entirely wrapped in three sets of tentacles. It bucked and screeched, but its efforts were to no avail.

That’s when the buzzing started.

I had no idea how those claws worked, but they ripped into the spider’s carapace with enviable ease. As flesh, ichor, and chitin sprayed into the air, the aliens’ sea anemone-like appendages quivered in the air, and I got the sense that they represented the octavangians’ emotions in some way.

Or perhaps I was simply imagining things.

Either way, that’s when I struck.

In the space of a second, my nano-bladed sword was in my hand. I moved like lightning, my first stroke falling with such celerity that none of the aliens even knew what had happened before my first victim’s head hit the cracked pavement. My first attack – a horizontal strike – flowed into a backhanded swing that decapitated the second alien. By that point, the third had begun to react, but it couldn’t hope to move fast enough.

So, I was a little surprised when, just before my blade bit into its thick, rubbery neck, a blue Mist shield sprang into being. Sparks flew and a cracking sound filled the air as my sword was turned aside, but I couldn’t help but notice the shield’s telltale waver.

But I couldn’t take advantage of it right away, because the octavangian reacted much more quickly than I’d expected, retracting its tentacles with such rapidity that I couldn’t even track them. Before I could strike again, I felt thick tentacles wrap themselves around my torso. Then, that buzzing resumed, and I could feel the claws bite into me. Thankfully, they didn’t immediately shred my infiltration suit, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before those sharp claws ripped through my first layer of defenses.

So, even as the tentacles writhed and ripped, I aimed another blow at the octavangian. The shield held, so I struck again. And again. Three times, each one causing a longer shimmer. I knew it was failing, but I was against the clock – already, the claws had begun to accomplish their task, not to mention the constricting nature of the tentacles, which threatened to break my ribs.

I kept going, knowing that my life depended on success. I struck again, and the shield flickered. It was on its last legs – even I could tell that much. So, with all my might, I brought my sword down in a two-handed attack. The shield collapsed, and my bladed bit deep, slicing through the octavangian’s head.

The tentacles went limp, instantly falling away as the alien collapsed.

For a long moment, I stood there, panting as I tried to catch my breath. But then, I muttered, “Three down. Lots more to go.”