People are Strange

  Siegemaster froze with a french fry half way to his mouth as he stared at the naked man riding an enormous alligator away from the drive through window. “Welcome to Florida.” the man wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots as well as two pistols and more knives than the ogre could be bothered to count said as he stood and grabbed his rifle.

  He held out his hand and the ogre stood and grabbed the man’s entire forearm with his massive hand. “So you’re heading north?”

  “Yeah, I’ll start in Michigan or Minnesota and work my way around the great lakes. Make sure you find a few people to reach the areas between here and there. I suspect that Drake fellow will head to Europe soon and Florida will take you a while and there’s the whole southeastern coast too. I’ll meet up with you before or shortly after the bugs arrive.  Rosalita will stay in contact with Delilah to keep you updated.”

  Siege watched the man walk through a portal and his dungeon ship take a slow turn before disappearing in a flash heading north. He’d miss the man. The cowboy reminded him of Gummy and the Emperor. Always training or working on something trying to prepare himself for anything that might happen. The ogre thought he’d have to see if it was possible to bring the man to the Empire when this test was finished.

  With a sigh, the ogre mumbled, “Back to the grind…after picking up five more strawberry milkshakes for the road.”

  *****

  John shook his head. “I don’t think we should shut down Vegas. They lose their credits so fast that they are back to work in the dungeon pretty quick.”

  “But they are wasting their time playing games of chance.” Sparkie complained.

  “Yeah, but they work their asses off every time they go broke. I think we might actually see less progress in their training if we tried to force them into non-stop training. Not everybody is built like the Emperor. He’s different.” John said. “Hey, have you figured out a way to talk to him and Baby Ogre yet?”

  “We’re still broadcasting using the native technology, but they haven’t responded.” Sparkie answered.

  John stood up, “I’ll make a video and set up a video conference. Any word on that Dark Lord fellow?’

  “Looks like he’s expanding along the coast of asia and has a few dungeons gathering for him on the interior. The mood of the people seems to have turned mostly positive lately. He’s a taskmaster, but he’s fair and organized. They are really seeing huge gains, plus he’s working in a much denser population area.”

  *****

  The Dark Lord’s image appeared above the immense battlefield. Most of the people with non-combat classes were manning positions in a central defensive position, but the combat classers were mostly spread out in thousands of positions according to the expected difficulty they wished to challenge themselves against.

  “Tremble in fear, pathetic humans. Round fifty eight is upon you and will continue until all of you have gained at least five levels.” The Dark Lord announced. For some reason, the people cheered. The Dark Lord chuckled, “Cheer now for you shall soon be screaming in terror. Today you will face the Horde of the Red Hand Orcs. False bravado will be crushed under their mighty swords. Lillith. Begin the next revolution.”

  The cheer grew even louder. Increased difficulty meant greater rewards. A trail of flame nearly a kilometer wide began marching down from a pass in the surrounding mountains and The Dark Lord’s image disappeared from the sky. The combat teams from the guilds left their starting positions to begin their missions to harass and delay the horde and The Dark Lord himself joined the premier assault formation of the guild that had performed best during round fifty seven gaining an average of eleven levels per member. They thought he was there to honor them by observing their attempt to assault the command element of the Red Hands. What they didn’t know was if they did well they would be rewarded with getting to observe a climactic battle between a powered down version of The Dark Lord and the mighty chieftain of the Red Hands.

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  *****

  “Jim, the packets are formed and we are ready to begin the transfer.” Bessie announced.

  “Good. We’ve been carrying around a lot of dead weight. Go ahead and send the test packet to Sparkie.” Jim said. They had broken the populated areas of the cities they had acquired into manageable sizes in order to make the transfers. They were sending their undesirables, meaning decent non-homicidal maniac humans to Sparkie to deal with. The more desirable street gangs, cartel members, and a couple very nasty previously uncontacted tribes would be given the opportunity to earn dungeons of their own after this trial on Earth ended. The test packet included a dungeon tile populated by a variety of beasts they had gathered.

  “Commensing transfer of test packet.” Bessie announced. After a few seconds, she cheered. “Test successful. No environmental damage detected and all test subjects arrived unharmed.”

  “Good. Begin the transfer.” Jim said. He pointedly pretended not to notice the alerts that minor earthquakes and rainstorms had begun in the tiles that Bessie had gathered some of their special passengers that had constantly tested her patience with complaints and refusals to train. “ I want to see you out that door. Baby, Bye, Bye, Bye.” he sang.

  When they finished the transfer a few hours later, the ship was hovering over another large set of ruins hidden in the jungle and Bessie reported, “Packet transfer complete. Apparently there was minor turbulence in a few of the packets, but otherwise completely successful.”

  “What a shame. Send our sincerest apologies for any discomfort they may have suffered, but new technology and all that. Nothing is ever perfect the first time.” Jim said with a shrug.

  A few minutes later Bessie giggled. “Sparkie is cursing you. Apparently John has already released the slimes on a couple of tiles of our former residents.”

  “Sucks to be them.” Jim said. “Let’s get these ruins absorbed and move on to greener…well more populated pastures.”

  A portal opened and Lorem flew through it. ‘I think I have it. Get Esmeralda out there and we’ll test it.” Bessie stopped her preparations to absorb the ruins beneath them and a portal opened after Jim gave her a nod.

  “You called for me?” Esmeralda asked.

  Jim pointed to a clearing not too far away. “Put her there. We’ll go with her.” Bessie temporarily expanded her influence to the designated area and opened a portal. Lorem, Jim, and Esmeralda stepped through the portal before Bessie pulled her influence away.

  Esmeralda spoke to Lorem for a few seconds before she pulled out her dungeon core and began spreading its territory. The three disappeared inside the dungeon. In the core room, Lorem created a pedestal out of stone and metal. Following Esmeralda’s guidance, the core floated over and settled down. Lorem created another pedestal and placed a murky grey crystal inside of it.

  “Her territory is established.” Esmeralda reported. “Activating barrier.”

  Jim communicated silently with Bessie to ensure she was recording her system readings from her various sensors and dungeon senses. Lorem was closely observing the two pedestals and the complex energies flowing out of the second crystal.

  “Energy draw is higher than ideal, but within tolerances.” Esmeralda reported.

  “I’ve lost communication with Bessie. I’ll return to her and communicate her findings through my bond with Lorem.” Jim said before Esmeralda had her core create a portal for him to step outside her area of control.

  “What are you seeing Bessie?” Jim asked.

  ‘Nothing inside the barrier.” Bessie reported.

  “Can you absorb her area of control?” He asked.

  “No. The goel seems to be absorbing essence from my attacks and using it to defend.” Bessie explained. Jim relayed the information to Lorem. They went to phase two and Bessie surrounded the small dungeon territory and began attacking from all angles. Lorem reported no problems on their end so Bessie was ordered to begin phase three assaulting the barrier with a variety of weapons. Nothing was able to penetrate. Phase four.

  Inside Esmeralda’s dungeon Lorem observed the goel as Bessie began to really flex her muscle in an attempt to overwhelm the weaker dungeon with pressure from her attempt to forcibly claim the territory. Esmeralda’s eyes went wide when a white light flared inside the goel and Lorem shielded her and her core. The enchantress winced as her core screamed inside her mind in terror, but Jim ordered Bessie to stop and Lorem quickly absorbed the essence that was about to explode inside the defending goel and Esmeralda’s core.

  Lorem disappeared and returned to Jim. “We got it. I found a minor flaw, but it worked. I’ll have to shift things around a bit to expand some of the transfer points, but we’ve done it. Attacking us with a dungeon will only make our cores stronger.”

  Esmeralda had her dungeon remove its control of its territory and she stepped through the portal into Bessie’s control room after securing her core. “Five levels. Would have been more if the book didn’t have to absorb so much essence to prevent an explosion. I assume it was a success?”

  “Very much so.” Lorem said. “I’ll reconfigure and upscale and we should be ready.”

  “Try adding a modified version of the system that stored energy in the crystal skulls as a back as a redundant safety measure.” Jim said. “Oh. And make sure dungeons are in full absorption mode when working with a goel.”

  Lorem stared at him for a second before saying, “I’m not even going to ask. But that should work. Give me a few days.”

  “When you’re strange, no one remembers your name. People are strange, when you’re a stranger.” Jim sang.