[WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT THING?] the Humanbus asked as I stalked closer.
“I’m gonna turn you into a Safe Zone,” I replied.
[THAT SOUNDS YUMMY!]
“Do you know how I activate this thing?”
[STICK IT INTO MY BRAIN FLESH AND I WILL DO IT.]
I glanced to where Panda sat on Bee’s shoulder. She was standing behind me with Tina.
“If it’s lying, we’ll just kill it,” Bee said before Panda could open his mouth.
[I WANT TO LIVE! LIFE IS YUMMY!]
“This had better not break the sphere,” I muttered.
Since my right hand still hadn’t fully healed, despite Bee’s assurances that it should’ve been done by now, I held the sphere in my left.
I pulled my arm back and rammed it and the sphere inside the Humanbus’ brain. It was warm and squishy, producing a loud slurp as my arm sunk all the way up to my shoulder.
[OWIE!]
I pulled my arm back out with another slurp, and my hand and the sleeve of my Unicorn Suit were covered in pinkish goop.
I gagged at the smell of it.
“I need a towel to wipe this off,” I complained. My Suit quickly started to clean itself by absorbing the sticky film covering it.
Nothing happened for a few moments, and I thought for sure I’d just been scammed by the Humanbus, but then a blue pulse rolled through the interior and then back over the exterior before returning to the brain.
[OOOH, THAT TICKLES!]
WARNING TO ALL MADEVILLE PLAYERS!
Player ‘Gambit’ has activated a Safe Zone Sphere inside a Humanbus!
For the next thirty minutes, Enemies and Bosses in the area will be drawn to its location. If they make it to the Sphere, they will destroy it and prevent the creation of the Safe Zone.
Players in the area can choose to aid or obstruct ‘Gambit’ in his goal of establishing a mobile sanctuary.
Rewards for participating in the successful establishment of the Safe Zone:
100x GAME Coins & +1 Level
Rewards for participating in the destruction of the Safe Zone Sphere:
300x GAME Coins & +3 Levels
Time remaining:
29 minutes 59 seconds
“30 minutes, huh?” I muttered. “That’s not so bad.”
[OFF WE GO!]
“Wai—!”
Before I could protest, the Humanbus shot forward with tremendous speed and we all fell backwards, though I managed to grip onto one of the seats and catch Tina and Bee before they could hit the back wall.
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“Slow down!” I yelled
[NO CAN DO, BOSS! BOGIES ON OUR SIX!]
A hole opened in the ceiling of the bus and outside a tumorous growth sprouted around the opening and formed a small seat below.
“Is that a turret!?” Bee exclaimed excitedly, immediately launching herself towards it.
With the bus’s tremendous speed she was destined to fall back and strike the back wall, but I caught her by the waist while standing diagonally against one of the seats. Then I lifted her up towards the opening.
“Be careful!” Panda told her.
“Oh my god, it really is a turret!” Bee said with a happy squeal.
Another hole opened in the right wall, then one to the left. Seats from inside the bus shifted and moved to the outside, while fleshy growths surrounded them and an honest-to-God bone ballista formed in front of them.
“I’ll take the left side,” Tina said and hopped past me.
I maneuvered over to the hole in the right wall and basically fell into the seat. The ballista had two handles and a trigger on the right one, but only the first digits of my thumb and middle finger had grown back, so holding onto it was super awkward.
Behind the bus were eight rapidly-approaching lion-sized rats. As soon as I noticed them, two were taken out by large bone stakes shot from Tina and Bee’s turrets. The moment they were hit and tumbled to an abrupt halt, manholes burst open in the road, six more leaping out to join in with the rest chasing us.
I took aim and fired, the ballista kicking back with enough force to shake my seat.
“God, I really hope this thing doesn’t snap off the side of the bus,” I muttered. I’d only just recovered from a face-slide across the pavement, so I didn’t want to do that again.
The Humanbus jumped around a corner, and I managed to fire off a bolt while we were mid-air, hitting a rat in the head at the perfect angle, pinning it to the pavement while its forward momentum carried its body past its head and decapitated it.
“Nice shot!” Bee yelled just as we landed and the whole bus bucked wildly.
[KEEP SHOOTING! BOGIES ON OUR THREE AND NINE!]
My seat suddenly pivoted to the side so that I was facing the buildings of the street we rushed past.
Enemies jumped between rooftops to get to us, and I was pretty sure the range of the Safe Zone Event was way bigger than the one for the mall had been, probably because we were a moving target.
A child-sized creature leapt from the roof of a café with a ruined shopfront, aiming for the front of the Humanbus, and I instinctively turned my turret and shot it out of the air. Two more quickly followed, but fortunately the ballista reloaded quickly.
I fired again, striking one of the jumping creatures in the back leg and sending it spinning away. Before I could fire a second shot, the other one hit the side of the bus.
[EWW! IT IS STICKY! GET IT OFF OF ME!] the Humanbus squealed.
My seat didn’t pivot, and I couldn’t turn the ballista far enough to hit it, so I got up from my seat and swung my right fist to strike it with an airburst.
But nothing happened.
“Brock, for fuck’s sake! I need you to quit your whining and go back to being a glove!” I shouted at the balloon sleeve on my arm.
He just whimpered in response.
Instead of forcing him to get his shit together, I used my right hand ‘claw’ and pinched off a bit of the bone ballista, chucking it at the creature attached to the side of the bus at the front.
The bone fragment struck it in the head, and it immediately peeled off, bouncing off the pavement and into the air, flying past me as we continued speeding down the streets of Madeville. As I saw its rubbery skin glistening in the sunlight, I realized the creatures were frogs.
“Kevin must be around here!” I exclaimed excitedly.
Panda was suddenly back on my shoulder. “Gambit, focus,” he told me.
“How are the others doing?” I asked as I slid back into the seat and immediately shot another leaping frog in the head before it could jump towards the bus.
“Tina is keeping her side clear of some large pigeons flying towards us, and Bee is doing trick shots to kill the rats on our tail,” he explained.
“Trick shots?” I asked and looked towards the back of the bus, just as a bolt struck the pavement at a forty-five-degree angle and splintered into four pieces that each skewered a rat. “Damn, she’s good.”
“Bee wanted you to link her the description for your cape,” Panda told me.
“What, why?”
“She had a ‘hunch’, she said,” he explained.
I sent the tooltip her way with a mental nudge.
[‘Swan-feather Cloak’ x ]
Armor
I haven’t tried swan yet, but I’ve heard humans like to torture them before eating them. Or am I thinking of geese?
Regardless, torture improves the taste of Demons, and from what I can gather, swans are a kind of Demon in your world.
Can you catch me one as a souvenir?
I’d really like to taste one.
Don’t worry about torturing it, I can do that myself.
Anyway, this is a cloak made from the feathers of a particularly-sturdy swan.
It’s apparently possible to collect a whole set, like a feathery knightly regalia.
Wearing this armor imbues you with the following effects:
- You become literally waterproof
- You no longer experience cold
- If you are within a hundred miles of a World Boss Swan, it will automatically seek you out
You receive the ‘Indestructible’ ability, allowing you to survive a fatal hit once by saying ‘Honk!’ 24-hour cooldown.
Weight: Approximately four
“Thank you!” she yelled back.
“You don’t think the swan is gonna come here, do you?” I asked, worried.
“So, ehh, Bee said that, according to her calculations, it would arrive soon.”
A loud honk cut through the air.
“Are you fuc—!”
I was hoping to wrap up book 3 by September, but I don't think that's doable at my current pace unfortunately. Since I'm starting a full-time internship at the end of August, my writing will take a bit of a hit, but I'll keep you guys updated on what'll happen when we get closer to that.
