Chapter 27 - Need Before Greed (Part One).

Søren dropped to his knees, the plasma pistol tumbling from his hands as they dropped to the ground. He leaned forward and retched. His stomach convulsed and the berries and jerky he had eaten for breakfast spilled onto the creep beneath him. The Engorged Hordeling spun around ignoring Neeka and Strike and charged towards the incapacitated Human traveler. Neeka followed after it, stabbing it repeatedly with sneak attacks, shredding the chitin shell. Strik followed as well, chopping at the smaller legs on the side of the hordeling.

Hari recovered from the psychic scream from the Monarch and charged at Søren, his eyes red with rage. He shoved Søren out of the way of two descending talons and caught them on his hands, digging his claws into the talons. His health bar dipped below ten percent as the talons cut into his hands and blood dripped down the rough runnels in the surface of the talons.

The hordeling shoved Hari backwards, its toothy maw lunging forward and trying to devour the Fuerven in front of it. Hari's toe-claws dug furrows into the creep, tearing it apart and scratching the stone beneath. Neeka and Strik paused their assault on the hordeling momentarily in awe of the raw strength being displayed by Hari. Neeka was the first to recover and rolled beneath the hordeling and struck the weakened shell, where she had ripped part of it away earlier. The new growth had yet to completely harden. Her strike finished the Engorged Hordeling. She rolled to the right of the hordeling, knocking aside a few of its smaller legs as it collapsed onto the ruined creep.

*ding* 6 / 6 Hordeling slain.

With the death of the Monarch and the Engorged Hordeling, the only sounds were the heavy breathing of the survivors and the mewling cries of the newly spawned Hordeling Spawn. Its shell was rapidly hardening and its talons and legs had unfolded from its body. Neeka rose smoothly to her feet and stepped over to the spawn, looking down at it with a tilted head. She ended the creature's life with a single thrust from her spear.

*ding* 14 / 14 Hordeling Spawn slain.

Defeat the Hordeling Monarch

A Hordeling Monarch is attempting to gain control of a Resurrection Shard in the Mourning Cave. Stop her before it's too late for Caisleán. A monarch that gains control of a Resurrection Shard can convert it into a Hordeling Den and spawn an endless horde of Hordelings.

1 / 1 Hordeling Monarch slain

6 / 6 Hordeling slain

14 / 14 Hordeling Spawn slain

Rewards

• 100 TEK

• 3 settlement build points

• [Uncommon] engram

A flurry of notifications popped up into Søren's view as he stood and wiped his mouth using the sleeve of his jumpsuit.

Congratulations Traveler! You have completed your first Mission. As a reward for completing your first mission, your group has earned a bonus 1000 TEK, 2 settlement build points, and an additional engram of [Rare] quality. A Traveler with Analyze trained up to the required rank can identify and unlock the engrams. You may also visit an Analyst (NPC) in any major settlement to have the engrams identified and unlocked for a fee. Congratulations Traveler! You have defeated your first Elite enemy, an Engorged Hordeling (Copper V)! As a bonus for defeating your first Elite, your group gains a bonus [Uncommon] engram. Congratulations Traveler! You have defeated your first Champion enemy, an Engorged Hordeling (Copper VIII)! As a bonus for defeating your first Champion, your group gains a bonus [Rare] engram. Congratulations Traveler! You have defeated your first Boss enemy, a Hordeling Monarch (Copper IX)! As a bonus for defeating your first Boss, your group gains a bonus [Epic] engram. Traveler! For the low cost of 2,500 imperial credits you can test your luck and attempt to win an upgrade to an [Uncommon] engram! Y/N

Five glowing objects roughly the size of cantelopes materialized in midair above their heads, fell down, and landed on the creep. Two were green polyhedral objects, that looked like eight sided dice commonly used in board games; two pyramids attached at the base. The third and fourth also had the appearance of dice, but each had ten sides. The last was a dodecahedron, a twelve sided shape. The engrams bounced across the creep and flashed briefly as they stopped moving. Søren snorted in macabre humor at the absurdity of the notifications and loot dropping from the ceiling amidst the shared grief following the death of Sehro.

Neeka narrowed her eyes at Søren and leveled her spear towards Søren's chest, swiping away something on her interface.

"You find it funny, death of Sehro?" she hissed at him through clenched teeth.

"No! This just ," he tried to explain to Neeka as he backed away from the angry Fuerven, mentally dismissing the notifications. She tilted her head at the unfamiliar word. "I mean crazy, weird." He sighed heavily, his shoulders falling to the side. "In my home, we play games like this. Death means little. Just come back. Try again."

"Game? Like dice. Kick ball?" Neeka asked.

"Yes!" Søren nodded. "Games more... . More. Much more." He gestured to whole cave around them. "Whole worlds. Like this."

Neeka lowered her spear, but still had a look in her features that Søren interpreted as confusion and fading anger. "Do you think? We are game? World is game?"

"Don't know," Søren shrugged. "Feels real. Could be real world. Made into game. Could be in head."

"I think we are real," Neeka said, crouching down and resting on her tail. "I know Sehro was real. To them. To me, even though I only knew him short time." She glanced over to the Monarch's mound that was scorched black by nearly two dozen plasma blasts and then looked at Hari and Strik that were standing close together with their foreheads touching. Søren nodded in agreement with Neeka.

"These are interesting," Søren said picking up one of the green eight-sided engrams that had rolled near him.

"Yes. There are drawings of shapes. Like these," Neeka said, nudging one of the blue ten-sided die shaped engrams near her. "On cave walls, old tablets. No one knew what the symbols meant."

"Treasure. Loot. Rewards," Søren said. "Not worth losing Sehro."

Neeka hissed in agreement. Strik and Hari broke their connection and joined the other two. Søren examined Hari's scales with no small amount of amazement. The Fuerven warrior had endured the equivalent of a full body acid bath after getting drenched in the hordeling's blood. His scales were pitted, burned away in places, and the flesh beneath shiny with a look like melted ice cream. His bandages were in tatters, but the acid or something else had sealed the edges and they no longer bled freely.

"Sehro will be missed. We celebrate his life tonight," Hari stated and then barked a short, sharp cough for emphasis. Everyone except Søren did the same.

Missed something there, Søren thought to himself. Strik knelt down and picked up the purple twelve-sided engram and turned it around in his claws, tapping on the different sides. It made a hollow metallic ping sound with each tap.

"What be these?" Strik asked, tossing it into the air from one hand to the other.

"Mission rewards," Neeka answered.

"I can try to open them later," Søren offered to the others. He focused his Analyze skill on the green engram in his hand and received a system error message stating he needed [Analyze (Copper III)] to unlock the engram. He brought up his inventory with a thought and lifted the green eight-sided engram and trying pushing it into an empty slot. The engram vanished from his hand through a hole that appeared and an icon showed up on the inventory screen. Neeka and the other Fuerven all turned their eyes on him.

"Søren, what did you do?" Neeka asked, both her eyes on the empty air where the engram had just been.

"Oh uh," he stammered. " Uhm... bag you can't see. Part of interface."

Neeka nodded and picked up the blue engram after feet. Her eyes then looked off into space in front of her, unfocused. She reached up like Søren had and pushed the ten-sided blue object into what appeared to be a tiny hole in space. The edges of the hole warped and blurred, showing a mirrored reflection of the immediate area around the group. Then the engram vanished and was no longer in her hand.

"Interesting," Neeka said and tilted her head sideways. It was Søren's turn to stare at Neeka. Strik also tried pushing the epic engram into the air in front of him and let go. It just bounced onto the creep at their feet and rolled away. Hari just snorted at the rest of them. Strik bounded after the engram and collected the other uncommon and rare engrams as well.

"Monarch dead. Get your shard, Søren, and we go," Hari suggested. "It reek in here."

Søren just nodded and moved over to the edge of the mound of scorched flesh. Dribbles of various fluids continued to spill out of the numerous orifices of the dead Monarch. A section of the platform had been revealed by an errant blast of plasma. He knelt down amidst the carrion flesh and offal of beasts the Monarch and Hordelings had fed on. His hand touched the platform and a series of notifications popped up.

Congratulations Traveler! As the owner of a settlement, you may spend a build point to store and transport this Resurrection Shard into your settlement. Installation of the shard will take one week and 10,000 TEK. Do you want to store the shard in your dimensional storage? Y/N A Citizen of Caisleán has died defending the town from a deadly threat. Would you like to designate them as a Champion of Caisleán? Y/N

Not sure what it meant, Søren gladly tapped yes and waited to see what would happen.

Congratulations Traveler! You have created your first Champion ally. You may currently have one Copper ranked Champion assigned to your Village of Caisleán. Increase the size and strength of your settlement and build the Icon of Heroes to increase the number of Champions you can create. Champions can be resurrected in your settlement if a Resurrection Shard is added to the settlement.

"Huh. Oh... uh," Søren looked over at Neeka and the other two. "Sehro might not be dead dead." The trio of Fuerven gave him the oddest of looks.