Chapter 163: Chapter 157

An electric threshing sound echoed to me from across the desert, and I took a few steps forward to look.

Black fog rolled across the desert toward us, sparking and threshing the air.

I turned to see the various squads of gathered hobbs watching me. Hundreds of eager BlueCleave recruits stood ready, equipped with heavy armor, physical shields, war picks, and plenty of our best laser rifles.

Then was the smaller line of starfish troopers, my elite. Each starfish trooper wore helmets with camera lenses that would fold down to cover one eye. Other than that, they wore or wielded what they thought best for the battle. Most preferred the BlueCleave war picks and our new laser rifles.

All of them seemed to be either watching me, or staring at the oncoming threat, so I pointed in the distance at the encroaching black fog.

“This dream storm threatens our home, BlueCleave!” I shouted.

In unison, my hobbs all roared defiance.

“They’re faster than you!” I shouted. “But not stronger. Never stronger! They’ll tear your bodies apart if you let them! Are you going to let them?!”

The wordless roar that returned felt like it was close enough to a no for me, so I turned back and faced the encroaching cloud of black fog, roaring, “Then kill them first!”

The small army of gathered hobbs roared their approval again as an Afflqwst notification pinged in my helmet.

Quest – Defend critical affiliate infrastructure from dream storm attack.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. Destroy 4,475/4,500 dream storm components. (incomplete)

2. Prevent damage to critical infrastructure. (incomplete)

3. (Optional) Avoid personnel losses. (incomplete)

PROBABLE OUTCOME – Affiliate infrastructure defense success. (89%).

POSSIBLE OUTCOME – Critical affiliate infrastructure destroyed. (11%).

REWARD – Item coupon.

The starfish troopers began piling into hovercraft as Jada stepped up behind me. I glanced back at Axle to confirm that he had gotten a ping from Afflqwst too. He nodded grimly and licked his nose.

“You’re on the line, Jada. I’m mobile this time, I’ll be all over the place,” I told the hulking Knowle. She licked her nose and nodded, reaching to activate her own personal shield.

It seemed like a good idea, the ceramic balls coming for us relied on whip-crack fast strikes, the shields would be of at least some help defending against them.

One of the hovercraft swept in low beside us, as I heard familiar cackling. Phyllis hung from the open door, one mechanical arm clamped onto the hull as she leaned out and waved at me. I was glad she would be in the coming battle. Afflqwst gave us excellent odds, but I couldn’t shake the bad feeling I’d had the first time I encountered this particular dream storm.

My guts were clenched as the sound of electric threshing grew. Anything that brought memories of those early days did that. I almost remembered what life was like before BuyMort when I thought of those days.

A call from Rayna came in and distracted me as I answered it. All the starfish troopers were connected, and Rayna shouted her customary “Boss on the call!” notifier. Each of the troopers grunted or saluted, then went quiet.

“Hovercraft setting lines now. Will provide air cover,” Rayna grunted. “Any dream storm clones get past fields of fire, we smash em!”

I looked at the spreading line of troopers. Forty-four of them, including Rayna, Tollya, and Jada, to cover four and a half miles of territory. They were backed up by hundreds of regular troops, and hovercraft for relocation. The regular portions of our hobb army were in place with guns, as our primary firing line. If the electric thresher tentacle balls got in on top of them, we’d suffer major casualties.

Our brawlers were good, and hard to put down permanently, but we were spread thin.

Too thin.

The sound grew in all our ears, altered only by Phyllis firing randomly into the swarm from overhead. Faintly, I could hear her laughter.

“Right. Listen up, BlueCleave,” I said.

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They didn’t respond, but went silent, waiting for my next words.

“I’m gonna handle as much of this as I can. Protect our rear lines, they’re vulnerable,” I said. Then I drew both swords and focused on the incoming swarm, activating my gravitic drive.

I fell, hard, into the dream storm, smashing through a tentacle ball with a quick ignition of my plasma falchion. It split apart easily enough, and I plunged to the right at another target, lighting up the black fog with another burst of red plasma. The fog was cold, I hadn’t expected that, and it lightly wet my skin with inky droplets.

Phyllis switched to her plasma caster weapon arm, and scorched a section of the storm, burning away clay clones and black fog alike. Her pilot banked sharply, and the craft spun away from the huge heat bloom. I saw her cackling as they swept by overhead, alarms blaring as the hobb pilot cursed and attempted to get the craft under control.

Piloting for our mechanically enhanced elder was considered an honor, among BlueCleave hobbs. They often joked that it would be an honorable death, though she hadn’t gotten any of them killed yet. Her weaponized mech suit made their jobs significantly more difficult and dangerous, and only the best of our pilots tried out for the position.

In my distraction, a dream storm clone got me, with a simple tentacle strike. I plummeted to the ground, limbs stiffening at the electric shock, while blood poured from a gaping wound in my side. The ball of hardened ceramic tentacles had torn my bottom two ribs on the left side, and I gasped as the suit’s painkiller flooded my veins.

My cartoon starfish popped into view and looked around at dozens of encroaching lethal tumbleweeds and shook its head. “Damage detected user. Better get away from those things, engage your drive!”

Too late. The dream storm creatures were upon me.

They snapped away any flesh they could that was uncovered by my limited armor. I hunched, covering my chest with both gloves as the cartoon starfish repeated its request.

I did as it asked and fell sideways across the desert sand, dragging for a few dozen feet before lifting out of it to avoid further damage. My suit sprouted tendrils of its own, replacing lost bone material with synthetic versions, and spraying flesh foam into place to patch me up.

Sunlight flooded back into my eyes as I careened out of the cloud, then shifted direction with a thought, soaring up for a birds eye view. Phyllis was doing much more work than I was.

I frowned, readied both swords, and plunged back into the fog. Falcor, my atomically sharp sword led the way, rending the tentacle balls with ease, while I swept across the front line of the storm. I ignited the plasma falchion as needed, preserving its limited charge while I destroyed dozens of the tentacle balls.

BlueCleave entered the battle at a shouted order from Rayna, roaring and firing laser rifles in-between the disparate starfish troopers. A few beams struck me and burned away parts of my body and clothing, but I didn’t take it personally. They knew I could withstand a little friendly fire. To BlueCleave, I was Tyson Dawes, the unkillable warlord they gleefully served.

To the CloneMort constructs, I was just part of their programming, and more of the irritating monsters snapped bits of me away. I should have worn a shield. My front line hobbs were doing fine, smashing their opponents while their shields took the brunt of the incoming attacks. It also helped light them up so our back lines could see them easier, and adjust fire as needed.

I focused on my movement, sweeping across the lines with the gravitic drive. Where clusters of balls ganged up on my hobbs, I plunged in with both swords, evening the matches and bolstering the front line.

Carefully aimed shots from the rear lines streaked past us with flashes of burnt fog. When the incoming damage began to overwhelm my ability to cause damage myself, I rose above the fog and used my shotgun while the suit did its repairs.

My second upgrade appeared to have significantly enhanced my suit's energy storage capacity, but I simply smashed through the ceramic tentacle balls with my gauntlets when I needed a charge.

The BlueCleave hobbs had designed their specialty war-picks with Axle, and as a result of the collaboration, anything they smashed with a pick increased their suit’s charge. If the tentacles got through their shields, their suits patched them up immediately.

My fearless warriors, granted immortality in combat by their leader, devastated the front line of the dream storm. I heard laughter as I landed to help them, and we smashed the clones together, by combat bound.

Dearth had loyalty issues. Silken Sands did not.

Then came the first screams. Only one starfish trooper, but they were terrified. I heard ripping, and a thick gurgle in the coms, and then a hobb voice rasped, “Reaper!”

I immediately fell up, out of the cloud of black fog and tentacle monsters and searched the line. Rayna’s hovercraft swept in at my side, matching my speed as the door was hauled open and a hobb waved at me to follow them.

“This way!” Rayna called in my ear. I followed and slammed into the ground beside a mangled starfish trooper.

The reaper hound was gone, but it was clearly what had caused the damage to my trooper. Their suit worked hurriedly to fix their limbs as I set about destroying any clay clones that threatened. The trooper struggled to their knees, raising their pick in a salute while their tendrils lasered at their throat.

“Cameras, not work!” the hobb rasped. Then the warrior hauled themselves up and rushed back into battle.

I fell up, back out of the cloud, and another hobb screamed.

Axle sounded in my ear. “This one’s on the far side. I have a visual. Multiple hounds, I’m sending your portal.”

“Do it!” I yelled.

A BuyMort pod flashed into existence at my side and projected a rainbow beam in front of me. I fell headfirst into it and saw three reaper hounds attacking one of my downed troopers.

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