HC:Pacifist | Ch. 84 - Oops! (Patreon)

Roth ran under the moonlight through the streets of the commercial district. He went past Merchant Street, Carpenter Street, and Tinkerer Street while praying that no one from the IronIre squad would be there looking for him. Every shadow and every player that glanced in his direction sent his heartbeat into disarray.

Even though the lighting was poor, the stark white stone of the citadel reflected the many torches lit around it, making it perfectly visible even from down here. It was as if the garrison tried to say that justice was still working even in the darkest of nights. Not that they were helping Roth tonight.

He darted through alleys, jumped over crates, and was almost run over by carriages pulled by horses or stomped over by herds of oxen. Every time he saw the animals, he felt sick. This was a pebble in his shoe that he hadn't been able to remove. Not a day went by that he didn't think of the many animals being whipped, being forced to work around the city against their will, and what he could do to help them. But his fight against injustice didn't end there.

There was also the Gazpachos quest to finish. He already had a working knowledge of the schedule of the big shots in the family. However, he still had to prepare and collect information on the family to finally enter the witness protection program. Even with Drake and the 14th on his side, the list of things Roth had to care for grew. He wished he could unlock a class where he could create clones of himself to send him on errands or quests.

Even though Roth was lost in dark thoughts, he still found his way to the abandoned well that secretly led into the sewers and dove back into filth and darkness. Speed was paramount right now. He would have a narrow window of opportunity.

Instead of taking the torch or the glowshroom out this time, he navigated exclusively using the map. He didn't want to increase the chance of being spotted; darkness was his friend. He ran, hoping the group of oozing monsters he had first met was not guarding the tunnel where he had first found them. To his relief, the tunnel was empty now.

He ran while seeing the blank spot in his map complete. Up ahead, there was a faint light. It kept changing colors as if someone was watching TV in a dark living room. It shifted between purple, red, and green. There was also a slow rhythmic distant beat. After coming closer, Roth could finally determine the cause of the lights and sounds.

Two gatorbots were huddled in a corner. Installed into the walls were two machines that kept blinking with purple lights. The gatorbots were on the floor, flashing with red lights. Every time they started blinking with green lights, their engines started humming, and just as they began hovering off the ground, the two devices in the wall flashed red, making the drones fall flat on the floor with a big bang.

"So this is why I was having trouble finding the remaining gatorbots," he whispered. Those machines were somehow preventing these gatorbots from resetting and taking off. Roth scanned the machine with his eyepiece.

Frying Scrambler (Drone)

Item description: A marvel of dwarf engineering. By exciting thunder stone and magnetronium, it can emit powerful bursts of static that cripple the most resilient machines.

Item effect: 

Activatable. Once it is in sentry mode, it can not be disabled unless the shield is broken by an attack that scores 500 damage or more;

Deactivates if the installer dies.

500 damage? There was no way he'd be able to deal that much damage. He had no skills that dealt damage, nor did he have any weapons. Roth leaned his head against the wall, trying to make out any sound, but there was nothing. The monsters were still far away, and everything around him was silent.

He headed toward the wall and tried to pull a machine off the wall. It didn't budge. He tried hitting it with the flashlight, but a force field blocked the damage. He couldn't release the gatorbots unless he removed these scramblers.

He tried to scan the gatorbots as he had done with previous gatorbots. The scanner signaled that it was running diagnostics, but as the scramblers activated and pulsed, the scanner reset, interrupting the progress bar. He tried again. This time he could complete the scan just before the scrambler activated again.

After a few more tries, he finally received the notification he had been waiting for.

[Down the Drain] updated.

You've found the five missing gatorbots. Bring the diagnostics back to Mario; he'll tell you what to do next.

The monsters chasing him would be returning any moment now. To finish this quest, he had to return to Mario and tell him about the gatorbots. He still had to find the spawn location of the oozing monsters to tell Athos too. Only then would he be able to finish this.

Roth turned his back and started to walk toward the only chamber left to explore. He would try to take a quick look before getting out of there. After taking a couple of steps, he stopped himself. He did have a way of dealing 500+ damage in one go, right? Roth looked into his inventory and pulled one item out.

Hydrogen Grenade (Rare)

Item description: This state-of-the-art explosive combines nuclear and atomic fission, provoking a dreadful explosion.

Item effects: Consumable. Causes an explosion engulfing a 20-meter radius and causing a fixed amount of 5000 damage, regardless of resistance.

The grenade dealt 5000 damage in one go. That was more than enough to disable the scrambler, right? He held the grenade in his hand and felt its weight. He took a few steps back. One of the scramblers was located near an opening to a tunnel that led to an unexplored chamber ahead. If he could throw it far enough for the explosion to hit the scrambler but not kill him, then it looked like he'd be able to free the gatorbots immediately.

He wasn't sure of how precious these grenades were, but if he did run away and came back with Mario later, he was pretty sure that the monsters would be back here, and he wasn't confident he could elude them again or that they would fall for the same trick twice. Oh well. He would still have two grenades left if he used this one here. He might as well make the most of it.

Roth pulled the safety pin on the grenade and threw it about 15 meters into the tunnel. He aimed it at a spot far enough from him and the gatorbots and close enough to still hit the scramblers. He made sure to throw it in a long arc to have time to take some steps back, just in case.

*

"...to set up the ambush, and the intruder vanished into thin air." The secretary finished explaining the events to Loki. Josh cursed under his breath. He was in dire straits right now. His supervisor had insisted on calling Loki in a conference call and had painted herself in the best light possible, making Josh sound like a useless retarded person.

"How long ago did this happen?" The pale man on the other side of the screen spoke in a toneless voice. Josh would have preferred that Loki screamed, honestly. The lack of emotion in the man's voice creeped him out. "Twenty minutes ago, sir."

"Here is what I want you to..." The call was interrupted by a deafening thunder. 

-1342

All around Josh, the egg started cracking, revealing blinding whiteness beyond the shell. He received several red warnings letting him know that all minions in his headquarters had been terminated, and it seemed like they weren't the only ones.

"How? How can this be?"

You've been killed by Pax.

Your egg has been destroyed. You've lost 44 levels worth of experience.

Sorry pal! No amount of physiotherapy will help you.

"Hilsford?! Hilsford?!" screamed Loki furiously. "Berta, get one of the senior members to check out what happened!"

"But, that will alert the other guilds of your movements. They keep tabs on our top players." Loki wanted to peel his skin out. He couldn't believe that he had lost one of the eggs. That meant that he couldn't transform in three days. He had to get a location for a 10th egg and start the timer repeatedly.

"Get some smaller fish to check it out, then. Also, contact this Hilsford fellow and find out what happened to him. Get another of the backup locations activated right away. This will severely impact my plans."

"Sir, what should we do about Hilsford's debt?"

"Did he succeed in his mission?" Berta gulped.

"No, sir."

"Then. Bury. Him."

"Sure, sir."

*

Roth stood dumbly, staring at the residual flames. He had never imagined this grenade would be so powerful. Now that he thought about it, blowing up a grenade underground hadn't been the most brilliant idea in the world.

Both scramblers had fallen lifeless on the floor. Roth went to pick them up and found that he could put them in his inventory. He did. Roth saw that the gatorbots’ engines were starting to hum to life.

He turned his attention toward many notifications that weren't making sense to him.

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

[Level up!]

You've unlocked a new title: [Darksbane].

Congratulations on completing the quest [The Sewer Monsters] unconventionally. Check the NPCs who issued the quest for your rewards.

Darksbane (Rare)

Title description: You're not afraid of the dark. The creatures that hide in the shadows stand no chance against your brilliant light.

Title effects:

Darkness becomes weaker around you.

It's easier to gain reputation with creatures of the light.

Conditions to unlock Darksbane:

Defeat a dark creature 20 levels higher than you {complete};

Or defeat 1000 dark creatures.

What had just happened? Had he defeated a dark creature? What creature was this? Could Roth have accidentally...? Roth picked himself up and took off running toward the chamber where he'd thrown the grenade.

It was all a sea of flames. Amidst the wreckage, there were several oozing corpses. At the center of the chamber were black shards, almost as if there had been a glass here that had exploded. What was this?

Roth collapsed to his knees, unsure of what had just transpired. He had accidentally thrown a grenade right into where the monsters were spawning. This was the first time Roth killed anything inside of the game. It's true it had been an accident and that the ones dying off in the explosion were all the oozing monsters tormenting the sewers, but that didn't make it OK, did it?

He tried to search for his feelings. He felt like his head was boiling, with a thrumming sensation on his forehead. Was this guilt? Was this elation? Roth took a few deep breaths. He was so lost right now. On the one hand, destroying this spawn place had been the right thing to do. On the other hand, he had just hurt others.

Was that OK? To terminate a few evil characters inside of the game to bring peace to the majority of the innocent inhabitants of the underground? Was it OK that he was the one doing it? It was much to think about, and the implications were starting to tie a few knots in Roth's mind. He had to start moving. The explosion had been so intense that he wouldn't be surprised if the upworld had felt the tremor.

Roth started going through each of the corpses and looting them. Each of them had a little black sphere. When Roth checked the pieces of black glass, he saw a bigger black ball. He picked it up and stored it in his inventory. As he counted the number of items he collected, there were over 100 small black spheres. If he gave them to Athos, he would probably unlock his light affinity.

He also checked the tunnels around the chamber and found three more scramblers lying lifeless on the ground. He put them all into his inventory. They might prove useful in the future.

The explosion had been thunderous and must have shaken the town above. It was time to get out of here before anyone else came. Roth took off toward one of the maintenance tunnels. It was the only place he was sure no one would use to enter the sewers. It could only be used as an exit. It was probably riskier to travel back to the slums underground than doing the same route above ground.

Roth found the maintenance locker room that had been empty. He looked into the lockers and found nothing again. He climbed up the ladder and came out on Blacksmith's Street. After leaving the secret trap door, he ran toward the slums.

Ch. 83 - Pacman Much?

INDEX

Ch. 85 - Tremors