Chapter 45: Ambush Ethics

After Will discovered ‘leeches’, he decided to learn how to walk on water, because that was the only way he was going to willingly step foot in the swamps ever again.

After a bit of planning, the team broke into two groups.

The trailblazers were Will and Loth, while Travis and Alicia followed as soon as they created a path that the two of them could follow without becoming waterlogged or being assaulted by bloodsucking insects…

Which were in the air, too, by the way.

Mostly their ‘trailblazing’ was testing half-sunken logs for sturdiness, tossing them onto the path they had taken and lashing them together with spidersilk to create tiny bridges between pockets of land where the brush grew up to a man’s eye-level, fighting for space so fiercely that Will got real good at cutting brush with his tomahawk and tossing it into the stagnant water in front of and behind him.

The first day was the worst, with the most bug-bites per person and general misery:

Their tent was enhanced by a dome consisting of a massive spiderweb manned by hundreds of spiders.

Half their food started growing mold because the damned vendor who promised it was 4th Floor stable™ was lying his ass off, and a large portion of the people he scammed wouldn’t live to kick his teeth in.

Alicia didn’t get any bug bites at all, because any biting insect that got within twenty feet was annihilated, and while it was a superb blessing to simply stand next to their archer for extended periods of time and enjoy the lack of awfulness…life finds a way to make you leave your comfort zone.

The second day was better in some ways:

Loth tamed thousands of dragonflies overnight and deployed them to clear the path ahead of flying insects.

The leeches still lurked in the waters below, but their Party had gotten pretty good at avoiding stepping in the water.

Alicia was able to reliably shoot fish out of the water, which Loth’s dragonflies retrieved for lunch and dinner. The first couple attempts were amusing, when her damage boosting Relics caused the fish to explode, drenching her and Travis in leeches, fish guts and muck.

As a Party Leader, Will knew he probably shouldn’t laugh at the rich kid’s frozen bodies and dumbstruck faces…but he couldn’t help it.

Will learned his lesson, because it took many hours of cajoling by Loth to convince her to try again without the Gloves of Thunder Strike.

“Hunting food’s not my job,” Alicia muttered, staring at the water as if it might leap up and bite her.

“Alicia, look at me.” Loth said, drawing the archer’s attention to her.

“That stuff you were told about Jobs and Roles is bullshit. While some people might take on the brunt of a specific role, everyone should be able to do to a bare minimum level of competency, or your Party is incredibly brittle and likely to die when something unexpected happens…and if you do something to help the Party, then you. I can hunt, and Will can hunt, but we can’t hunt and clear a trail at the same time.”

They probably could, but Will wasn’t going to argue with Loth’s point.

“Now we know it was the gloves that caused ‘the incident’, so let’s try it one more time without, okay?”

Alicia glanced away from Loth, back at the water.

“…okay.”

Alicia nocked an arrow, pulled back and loosed, sending an arrow deep into the water, the feathers barely rising above the surface of the shallow water.

Half a dozen dragonflies converged on the fletching and grabbed the shaft, lifting the arrow out of the water.

On the end of the arrow was a fish, already dead and limp as the arrow had severed it’s spine.

Alicia glanced at Will, who grinned back.

Then he realized there was no way she could actually see him smile, so he gave a thumbs-up.

Alicia’s shoulder’s relaxed.

“Excellent job, Miss Zodiac, that was the most fantastic shot I’ve ever seen!” Travis said, ruining everything with his brown-nosing. “Why I think Holdna herself couldn’t compare to-“

“Travis, get over here.” Will said, pointing to the tiny patch of roots and grass he was standing on.

“Umm…There’s no bridge yet.”

“Then jump. Or wade.” Will said.

Once Will had Travis away from the other two, he informed the Master Decoy that his constant praise for the easiest tasks was undermining their attempt to train Alicia to be a well-rounded Climber.

“She can tell that every word out of your mouth is total shit. I imagine she’s heard people like you say things like that her entire life. So all you’re doing is proving to her that she can’t trust you because you’re lying to her face constantly,” Will said.

Tavis paled, eyes swimming as his brain caught up with his behavior.

“Now if she does something truly exceptional, feel free to gush, but I swear to Granesh, if you act like that after she shoots something ten feet away again, I will you, and these shoes are literally built for it.”

Will tilted his mask up so Travis could see his expression.

“Understood?”

“Yes?”

“What did I ask you to do?”

“Don’t lie to Ms Zodiac, and maintain a professional demeanor.”

“Close enough,” Will said, putting the mask back down.

The next few hours were much more subdued as Travis visibly restrained himself from speaking on multiple occasions while Alicia brought in another eight fish for lunch.

He obviously couldn’t find anything to say that wasn’t drivel, so he defaulted to silence, which persisted through the rest of the afternoon.

The second day ended with them camping on a relatively dry spot, watching the stars through the bug net Loth had made for them.

While they bedded down for the night and Loth trapped their camp, Will stared at the strange dots in the strange black sky, wondering what contributed to their team.

Travis wasn’t a good ‘tank’ per se, but he could attract the enemy’s attention at the snap of his fingers, which was half the job.

All Will could do was…go places other people had a hard time going, subsist on weeds and bark, and Will was confident he was consistently not a burden, but what did he

Will turned on his side and spotted his Sourdough barrel.

He got up and pulled the lid off the barrel, studying the faintly glowing starters slowly absorbing the Relic dust around them as they fermented new consumables.

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Will pulled the clay Idol out of the pile of Relic dust it was submerged in, revealing that the bit of clay had grown nearly half of its original form back.

Will sat and thought.

Will could easily fill the barrel with 1000 gold worth of low-quality Relics from the Hunting Grounds and submerge dozens of used-up greater healing potions for an insane profit.

Will’s head felt foggy and tired trying to pay attention to everything everyone said and did, everything said and did, but he wanted to be a good leader.

What did ‘a good leader’ even look like?

Will put the half-restored clay Idol back and sat down on the barrel.

Even though he tried to distract himself with Build-candy, his mind kept drifting back to Leadership, or his lack thereof.

Will finally decided that he could deal with occasionally being the bad guy if it allowed Alicia and Travis to work together better.

Because right now Travis wouldn’t disagree with Alicia to save his life, and Alicia didn’t trust a word that came out of Travis’s mouth, a combination which was less than ideal.

“What’cha thinking about?” Loth asked, appearing out of the darkness, spiders spinning a line of traps in her wake.

“What a good leader is.”

“…A good leader is someone who humbly works to line up every advantage for their team such that they appear to succeed with minimal effort.”

“Not a guy with shining armor defending a stronghold, bravely leading the charge against a horde of slavering monsters?”

“A good leader would’ve culled the monster population in the years leading up to the horde, preventing it entirely.”

“Well, that’s boring,” Will said.

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“So your advice is to be as boring as possible?” Will asked.

Loth pinched his side.

“ow.”

“Think about the future. The consequences of your actions. Think about how to line up every possible advantage for your team, such that they can accomplish the goals you set out for them with the absolute minimum amount of effort.”

“I been.” Will said quietly. “I’m terrible at it, and it’s exhausting.”

“It’s exhausting because you’ve never thought in this way before. It’s difficult, and you’re learning…but you’ll get used to it.” Loth said. “By any measurement, you’ve been doing quite well for yourself, gaining the Oilton family’s support, and stealing Mason’s Tank out from under him with Alicia’s influence.”

“But they did that, not me.”

“ sold our potential to Roger Oilton, which convinced him to fund us, and instructed Alicia to meet the Lanover family, fully aware that they would bend over backwards for her.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t’ve done it without them.”

“…What do you think leadership , exactly?” Loth asked, cocking her head. “It does not exist in a vacuum.”

“What do you mean?” Will asked.

Loth shook her head. “It means that you have to have to use the talents of others to-“

“No, what does ‘vac-yoom’ mean?”

Loth punched him in the shoulder.

“Mutiny!” Will stage-whispered.

Loth grinned and opened her mouth to say something, but instead broke into a hacking cough.

“did you inhale one of your-“

Loth continued coughing, dropping down to her knees and gasping for breath between coughs.

“I think I’ve got something in my lungs,” She gasped.

Day three was a shakeup.

Loth had acquired some kind of infection in her lungs. No idea what it was, but to be safe, they put the ring of Regeneration on her and paid close attention. She stayed back with Travis, watching their rear and resting, carried by her insects while Alicia came up to scout the front with Will.

The sheltered Devastating Artillery nearly fell into the leech-infested water multiple times until Will convinced her that it didn’t look weird when she used her full range of motion to jump from dry patch to dry patch.

They weren’t able to pave a path quite as easily as Loth could, but Alicia’s Penetrating Gaze made picking out threats before they surfaced incredibly simple.

“Have you considered scouting full-time?” Will asked as she landed on a gnarled tree root beside him.

Alicia shook her head.

“Food for thought. You could be pretty good at it.”

“Ambush.” She whispered.

“Eh?”

“There’s five people waiting in ambush ahead of us.”

Will followed her gaze and saw…grass.

“Do they know we know?”

Alicia shrugged.

“You want me to kill them?” she asked, shrugging her bow off her shoulder.

Will considered.

If they were truly after Will’s Party, then killing them instantly without a fight was a much better solution than any half-assed plan Will might think of to save his feelings.

If they were after Will and he told her to wound them, they were still in for a fight. If he told his team to avoid the ambush, they would know their cover had been blown and find a better way to ambush them next time.

If they were after him.

If they were just out hunting monsters…that would make Will a murderer.

Will decided to err on the side of believing his team and pursuing the most advantageous choice for them, regardless of morals.

“Hold on,” Will whispered, taking off the Cloak of the Fade, and handing it over to Alicia. If she could hit them quietly enough, they wouldn’t see it coming.

She nodded silently and switched cloaks.

“Kill ‘em,” Will whispered, donning the Mantle of The Yawning Forge, using the massive flaming hand to motion for the rest of his team to catch up, making the sign for an emergency.

Alicia aimed straight up and released an arrow with barely a whisper of sound, the Cloak of the Fade dampening its sight and sound. The arrow split into six dozen silent, partially see-through arrows at the top of its arc, the individual arrows forming clusters that gave away the enemy position as they descended.

Alicia sent three more volleys into the air before the first one was even halfway down.

Then she held a fifth shot, aiming low through the grass.

All hell broke loose.

The first volley of arrows shattered on an invisible dome in the distance, and the shouting started.

The invisible dome shattered, and the rain of arrows continued on through, clustering in five distinct spots.

Will was not prepared for a twelve-foot, heavily armored bear with a similarly armored rider to burst out of the grass, absolutely peppered with arrows.

Alicia released her fifth shot straight ahead, at the rider’s face.

The rider covered his face with the blade of his axe, but Alicia’s arrow split into dozens again and riddled the man’s shoulders and upper chest.

He didn’t seem to care.

“Get behind Travis.” Will said, standing in front of Alicia.

A mass of biting insects swarmed the man’s helmet as Will climbed a nearby gnarled tree, getting himself a slight height advantage.

A pulse was emitted from the grass behind the rider, and Will watched as the dragonflies began to turn on each other, biting each other’s heads off with their sharp mandibles.

White-hot rage flooded Will’s body, and nothing in the world mattered so much as punishing the first thing he laid eyes on.

In this case, the puny rider on his puny bear. It was only a few dozen times heavier than him.

Will launched himself off the tree straight towards the man’s face, covering his approach with the flaming hand.

The rider’s axe cut through the flaming hand, barely missing Will’s face as he tackled the rider, raining strikes down on the stupid man’s stupid head.

Bear-fucker must’ve gotten a dose of the same thing, because he roared with fury, grabbing Will by the neck and shaking him like a ragdoll before throwing him tumbling through the air to land in the swamp.

The bear lunged toward Alicia, seemingly following the bigger threat.

Will sent the Phantom Hand out and shot the bear in the ass with half a dozen sling bullets.

The bear’s eyes widened in surprise as it was yanked violently back, sending it tumbling through Will’s tracer lines and back into the grass from whence it came.

Will leapt out of the water, following the creature.

He found himself in a clearing, where another three humans were hiding.

One had an arrow in his brain, while another was busily pulling one of Alicia’s arrows out of his compatriot’s heart, seemingly healing the wound as he went.

Will went for the two Squishies, but Bear-fucker and his girlfriend leapt in Will’s way, hitting him with about half the force of one of Gertrude’s slaps, sending Will tumbling violently backwards twenty feet or so.

He tried to send his flaming hand forward in his stead as he tumbled backwards, but Arrowheart held up a shaky palm and the massive flaming hand splashed against an invisible barrier.

Will’s view devolved into grass, sky and murky water, then the cold water of the swamp hit his whole body, jolting him out of his violent stupor.

Will flung himself out of the water with a gasp, clinging to the side of a tree as he scanned the situation.

Loth’s bugs had dropped her into the swamp in their rush to kill each other, where she was struggling to swim while coughing. The little kobold wasn’t tall enough to just stand.

Travis and Alicia were trying to kill each other, but thankfully hadn’t succeeded yet.

Will launched himself off the tree and landed in the waist-deep water beside Alicia and Travis.

Travis seemed to snap out of it, but Will was forced to scoop up some leech-infested water and fling it directly into Alicia’s mouth before she blinked and started coughing violently.

Will snapped to get their attention and pointed towards the stand of grass where their enemies were healing.

Alicia nodded and started shooting while Travis charged.

Will grabbed Loth and dragged her up onto land.

“My build is” – Loth coughed violently – “Weak to mass debuffs, it seems.”

“They’re gone!” Travis said, sticking his head out of the stand of grass.

Willl glanced at Alicia, who nodded, her piercing gaze following something no one else could see.

“They’re going west, the bear and rider are carrying the rest of their Party away from us.”

She drew her bow and aimed high, releasing three more volleys before clicking her tongue.

“Their barrier user isn’t going to slip up again.”

‘Do you think we should go after-“ Travis began coughing violently, dropping down to his knees as he tried to hack up a lung.

“When did it get so cold?” Alicia asked, clutching herself, paler than usual.

“No, I don’t think we should go after them,” Will said, attending to their archer’s leeches, then his own.

When she felt cold, Will checked her temperature and realized that she had a fever.

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“We can’t be-“ Loth paused to cough. “Far from the Stronghold.”

“Let’s make a break for it, then,” Will said.

“I’m not feeling so great. I’m giving my remaining insects instructions to carry us behind you. Just don’t take off my monocle.” Loth said, tapping the lens before she passed out.

“Alicia, keep your eyes open for any monsters or ambushes. I’ll get us the rest of the way to the Stronghold.

She nodded, shivering.

Loth’s flying insects picked the three of them up and began following Will as he leapt forward.

Will only stopped to loot the dead ambusher before he continued on at full speed, heading North.