He put his knife back, and grabbed the one extra med he had in his inventory - the skill speed boost.

“Arthur is so scared he needs a shield,” Peter said to the three Bloody Knife clan members who were watching. “I guess I have to show him how Carnage Clan fights.”

He made himself sound confident, but he didn’t like the odds here one bit.

He downed the med, pulled out his Gladius again, and jumped at Arthur all in one smooth motion. Arthur parried the sword away with a clang, but the boost allowed Peter to whirl his arm around and slash the ghoul twice all the way along his side and then down one leg.

CRIT

CRIT

Arthur’s shield dropped to 60%.

Nice!

But then the ghoul’s own swing connected with Peter’s arm, sending a shock of pain through his whole side.

Health -15% (75)

There was no time to worry about it. He needed to maximize his usage of the speed buff while he still had it. He rolled on the floor and whirled around, leaping at Arthur again. He knocked another 15% off the shield with a quick stab, leaving it at 45%.

But Arthur wasn’t going to give him any room to dodge. He grabbed Arthur’s arm, throwing him off balance and stabbed hard into his stomach. CRIT flashed again.

Health -20% (55)

Peter couldn’t help it. He yelled in pain.

They need to fix the damn somatics. This was ridiculous.

He kneed Arthur and wrenched his arm free, finally landing a blow across the ghoul’s neck. It might even have been a killing blow if it weren’t for the shield. Arthur’s shield dropped to 10%.

At least it’s a low-level shield generator.

Not that it helped. Peter was already at 55% while Arthur was still at 90, and he had enough shield left to parry most of another blow.

He’d lost track of the seconds, but his thirty had to be nearly up.

He leaped again, slashing hard left and right, straight towards Arthur. His second swing connected and the ghoul’s purple bar finally disappeared, and his heath dropped another 5% to 85.

Arthur’s knife connected with Peter’s face, and Peter screamed as the knife plunged into his eye, blinding it.

Health -15% (40)

He caught sight of Barbie in his remaining good eye. She had her hands up covering her mouth, and looked horrified.

This is not going well.

He grabbed at the poisoned knife in his inventory and whipped it out. His movements felt sluggish suddenly. His speed buff was gone.

He held the knife in one hand and the Gladius in the other. Going two-handed was probably going to halve his damage as he lost his one-handed bonus, but he needed a chance to connect with the knife.

He lunged at Arthur, but the ghoul twisted out of range of the knife.

He saw an opening and kicked at Arthur’s leg, throwing him off balance. The ghoul crashed to the floor and started to roll away instantly. Peter swung his Gladius and it barely missed Arthur’s neck again.

But he wasn’t fast enough. Peter dropped the sword and jumped, going one-handed again and landing with his whole body weight on Arthur, pushing the poisoned knife blade deep into his belly. A bright orange CRIT flashed and the ghouls screamed as his health bar turned yellow and dropped to 70%.

But he still had way too much health left.

Peter kicked away and scrambled for his sword again as Arthur’s health dropped another 5% to 65.

The pain in his ruined eye was agonizing.

How am I supposed to think clearly with this amount of pain? This is ridiculous.

He jumped to his feet, intended to give Arthur no time to regroup.

But the ghoul was already up, and halfway across the space between them, with his knife ready to stab. His face was contorted with rage.

Peter jumped aside, but the blade slashed his arm.

Health -5% (35)

“Poison!” Arthur growled. “I tear your head off and eat it!”

He’d dropped again, and his health was at 60%.

Peter had no tricks left. He needed to win this straight up now.

I don’t know if I can do it.

He lunged at Arthur again while part of his mind wondered if he’d just rez somewhere else randomly out there, miles away from his clan.

Arthur’s stamina had to be getting lower by now. The ghoul’s twist away from the blade felt slower and less graceful this time. Peter grabbed at him and managed to get a handful of rags, which he jerked hard, pulling him off balance.

The ghoul’s teeth snapped at Peter, and it’s knife stabbed deep into his arm.

CRIT flashed.

Shit.

Health -15% (20)

Peter stabbed hard, right into Arthur’s abdomen again.

CRIT

The ghoul’s health dropped to 55%, then immediately flashed lower to 50% from his poisoned status The Gladius seemed to be giving him some nice critical hits, but there was still no obvious way to catch up since every time Peter landed a blow, Arthur did too. His level advantage was showing.

I’ve got maybe two more chances before I hit zero.

It wasn’t possible. Even if he managed two more successful crits, he’d only drop Arthur to 30% maybe if he was lucky. Add another 5% for the poisoning.

There was only one option.

He jumped up, whirled around, and grabbed Barbie. He dragged her after him, pumping down the hallway towards the door to the food room.

Arthur shrieked rage and ran after them, knife and steel bar held high.

Peter and Barbi flew into the room, and Peter threw the door shut.

There was no lock.

“Keep it shut!” he said to Barbie.

To her credit she didn’t ask any questions. She threw herself against the door, which instantly bulged inward as Arthur smashed into it from the outside.

There was no time to worry about how long she could hold out.

Peter ripped open the box of MREs and pulled out a meal kit.

I was looking forward to enjoying this.

He pulled open a pouch. There was a slice of cake inside. He shoved it into his mouth, chewing eagerly.

The door smashed against Barbie again. She grunted with the effort of holding it closed.

“Stupid Raider Ghoul come out and fight!” roared Arthur.

Health +10% (30)

I will. Give me a second.

He pulled open a can of fruit and downed the contents instantly.

Health +10% (40)

“Don’t know if I can keep door closed,” Barbie said after Arthur smashed into it once more from the other side. This time it had flown open a good six inches before she pushed it closed again. There was no time to reply.

He pulled out the main course. Meat always gave the best results.

It was spaghetti and meatballs.

Peter grabbed it by the handful and shoveled it messily into his mouth.

Health +20% (60)

There was no time left to finish anything else. Arthur roared and threw himself against the door one more time, and this time it flew open, sending Barbie crashing backwards against the wall. Her health bar dropped 15%.

Arthur stumbled into the room, but Peter was ready. He jumped at the ghoul before it could regain balance. It’s health bar was still poisoned yellow, and it now read 35%.

Got you, asshole.

He jumped at Arthur and stabbed as hard as he could. Throwing everything into it with your strength usually bumped the crit chance.

He was rewarded with a flashing CRIT and the ghoul’s health dropped to 20%.

His eye was healing too. Vision was still fuzzy on that side, but it was there.

He grinned and pulled his arm back to strike again.

Arthur wasn’t finished yet, though. Even as his health ticked down to 15%, he kicked hard and sent Peter sprawling backwards, then jumped up and brought his iron bar crashing down for Peter’s head.

Even though he wrenched his head to one side, it caught him on the temple with a flash of pain that blinded him momentarily.

Health -15% (45)

Peter stabbed blindly with his shortsword but there wasn’t room for any kind of swing. All the same it connected with Arthur’s arm, and the ghoul bellowed and jerked back. Through his blurred vision Peter saw his health drop to 10%.

But something was changing with Arthur now. He roared and leapt to his feet, suddenly looking like he was as full of energy as he had been at the start of the fight.

Great, he’s got a Second Wind buff.

Peter scrambled back and held up his blade, pointed at Arthur. The ghoul loomed over him as his health bar ticked down to 5%.

He swung down with his iron bar, smashing it into Peter’s sternum, then stabbed with the knife in his other hand, plunging it into Peter’s stomach. The pain was colossal. CRIT flashed twice.

Health -20% (25) Health -15% (10)

Arthur grinned and raised his arm for the final blow just as his poisoned status ticked down past the final 5%. He stared at Peter for a moment with a look of pure hatred, then his face went slack and he dropped dead on top of him.

Peter couldn’t even celebrate. He was too focused on the burning pain in his chest and his stomach.

I don’t care about anything else, I need to get them to turn the somatics down. This is too much.

He grunted and pushed the dead ghoul off of him.

The other three members of Arthur’s clan were watching from the doorway. Barbie was grinning at him, but the others looked like they were wondering just how hurt he was.

He forced himself to bend over and grab Arthur’s knife, ignoring the bolt of pain that shot through him and gritting his teeth as he stood back up again..

“I am the strongest ghoul here,” he rasped at them. “Obey me or I will kill you.”

He advanced towards them holding both knives, trying not to stagger.

They stared back at him for a moment, looking like they were unsure about what to do.

Then he pointed at the pile of food with Arthur's knife.

“Join my clan, and we will all eat well tonight,” he said.

On the way back to the nest, the five of them crept along in a line, with Peter at the lead. He went slowly, trying to appear as if he was watching out for danger, but all he was really trying to do was move steadily and look like he wasn’t in agony. Barbie followed closely behind him, and he got the feeling she was worried about him, but at least she had the sense not to make a big deal about it.

Thankfully nothing else showed up along the way. He’d eaten one more snack from the MRE before they left - victor’s privilege - and bumped his health up to 20. All the same he wasn’t up to any kind of fight and he knew it.

The boys opened up the door to the nest and let them all in without any questions at all.

Interesting. I guess their status as clan members updates right away for everyone. Not exactly realistic, but convenient.

He handed Arthur’s knife to Barbie. That way at least she had something better than an old kitchen knife. The big iron bar went to Dumbo Ghoul. He was strong enough to wield it effectively.

The real treasure he kept for himself of course. The ghoul had had fifty crude gold coins on him, which was a nice surprise. Now they even had some money to work with.

But more importantly, he’d stripped the field generator off the corpse as soon as he’d gotten a chance. That thing was respectably rare, and having one for himself was a big advantage in that it effectively doubled his health in combat.

PERSONAL SHIELD GENERATOR UNMODIFIED LEVEL 5 ARMOR POWERED; MOTION CHARGED DEFENSE 20%; RECHARGING (1 HOUR) 20 This is a nice little personal safety device, designed to protect elderly dog walkers at night. It will give you ten minutes of protection to 100% of your HP or until it runs out. Bask in your invincibility.

He told KG to get everyone working on a new junk pile wall - this one in front of the door to the basement. There was no point in just leaving that exposed for just anyone to find, and burying it behind a new pile would hopefully make a casual viewer assume it was just covering a gap in the wall.

He left the food for the others to deal with, took one more MRE for himself - there were 18 left in the box after that - and crawled upstairs to recuperate and plan. He wanted a rest.

I’ve been going nonstop for how many hours now? That includes seven on my old account, plus the business with Axiom. That had to be at least two or three, and then five more hours adapting to a totally different system. I need a break!

NEXT LOGOUT ALLOWANCE: 0 HOURS 21 MINUTES (2 HOURS BANKED)

An IRL break would do very nicely. He needed to talk to Weller, though he had to handle it very carefully.

The nest was reasonably secure and well stocked now. With any luck nothing would try to kill them in the next 20 minutes. He flopped down in the big room with his back against a wall and opened up his dinner.

The status updates had scrolled past back in the other building, but he’d been in too much pain to pay any attention to them. Now he brought them up again.

Receive 300 XP

That would have been for killing Arthur.

Passive Skills One-Handed (Melee) +1 Now Level 5

Keep practicing and you may be a legitimate threat one day.

Concealment +1 Now Level 5

You're becoming a pro at being a sneaky little sneaker.

Clan membership increased by 3

Receive 150 XP Clan Tier +1 (Now 2)

Congratulations, your clan is now one step above a cluster of random mobs. New menu options are even available. Receive 200 XP

It didn’t seem like much for all that effort, but then again at least he’d managed to bump his clan up into the next level.

Speaking of which.

HORDE CLAN LEADER Tier 2 Clan (65/100) Carnage Clan 6 Common Horde Moral 75 (Content) Parties No Parties Commands BUILD ROLES

Well-fed ghouls were happy ghouls, presumably. He was hoping they might even hit 100% once they were done eating.

There was no submenu to Parties right now though.

That’s interesting. Like player parties?

Was that the model? He was supposed to run the clan as a series of parties that he could direct to do things?

His own stats were looking decent. He was still in no position to go strolling around like he was invincible, but it was a start.

Horde Clan Leader; Raider Ghoul

Level 4 (670/800) Carnage Clan

Tier 1 (65/100) Primary Stats Strength 3 Vitality 2 Constitution 1 Dexterity 1 Perception 1 Intelligence 2 Willpower 1 Social 3 Luck 1 Clan Influence Embolden Tier 1 (10%; 50m) Base Skills Bare Knuckles 1 One-Handed (Melee) 5 Two-Handed (Melee) 2 Concealment 5 Acquired Skills Poison Resistance 10% (Tier 5) T-Tech Accessibility 10

He flicked back to the Clan menu. He really wanted to know what his new options were for the group and for improving the nest.

ROLES Tier 1 Tier 2

1. Fixer 2. Thrower 3. Mystic

I guess a Thrower is ranged? And what does a mystical ghoul do?

Fixer sounded promising. His equipment needed looking after. He hoped that was some kind of armorer or weaponsmith.

BUILD Tier 1

Tier 2

Attack 1. Weapons Pile

Defence 1. Strong Junk Pile Wall

That's a bit underwhelming.

Ghouls were clearly the masters of pile technology. But a pile of weapons didn’t sound like much of an improvement. Hopefully it meant more than just an actual pile.

He could wait until after his break to worry about assigning all the roles. But it would be really nice to come back and find a few new clan members.

He got up went downstairs to where his clan was lounging around in the dark lazily chewing on a combination of dead rats and MRE candy.

They actually looked relaxed for the first time. They had a nest, and it was secure. They had food. Dumbo Ghoul was working on his second full MRE and was busy shovelling something into his mouth. It might have been a steak at one point.

He flicked up the clan status again.

CLAN MORALE

Now 80; Content

What does it take to get these guys to 100?

He could worry about it later.

“Hey boss,” Barbie said, and patted the ground next to her. “You sit here.”

“She tell us story of the fight,” KG said. He pointed at the three new ghouls. “They tell us too. Sounds like good fight. Knife Ghoul is sad he not there.”

Peter was anxious to get going, but he didn’t want to disappoint them. So he sat down and looked around at them.

“Arthur was strong,” he said. “Raider Ghoul was stronger.”

He wanted to see if it would bump their morale at all.

They all nodded in agreement but nothing else happened.

Oh well.

He pointed at Knife Ghoul.

“I want us to do two things now. Make the wall stronger, and make a weapons pile.”

KG looked like he approved.

“I have ideas when we make wall, think we can make it better now.”

“Great. What can you do with the weapons pile?”

The ghoul shook his head.

“Don’t know. Put all weapons in one place, probably smart. Easy to get if there big problem.”

Hopefully that’s just a requirement for the next advancement, then.

“Listen up,” he said. “I’m going to disappear for a while. I have Leader things to think about.”

KG nodded.

“That good leader plan,” he said. “You go upstairs, lie down. We keep nest safe.”

Makes sense that they would be hardwired to accept player logouts.

He looked at Barbie. It was her or Dumbo for the fixer. Presumably intelligence had to be a factor there.

“Barbie, can you have a go at fixing up the knives and my sword? They need to be sharp.”

She looked frightened.

“Maybe I do knives,” she said. “Sword I try but it look complicated.”

So there’s limits on a Fixers at our level. Wonderful. I won’t even mention my armor or the shield generator.

He told her to try, then sighed and stood up.

“Listen up,” he said. “I’m thinking about another job for some of you while I’m gone.”

They all looked at him expectantly.

“I want to send a party out to find more ghouls to join us. Carnage Clan will grow.”

KG nodded again.

“That good,” he said.

“But will that mean they have to fight a clan leader?” he said.

Dumbo might be up to it, but Peter didn’t want to let him go, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk losing one or two of his current members just for the chance to move towards a Level 3 clan yet.

“No no,” Knife Ghoul said. “They just look for alone ghouls. Plenty of those. They stay away from clan fights!”

“Killing other Clan leader, “ Barbie said. “That for very strong leader, not regular ghouls.”

She looked at him admiringly.

Well, I guess that cements my reputation a bit, even if I almost died in the process.

But personally, he wanted to take it a little easier for now.

He was head of a Level 2 clan with enough options to start putting everything together to make some real progress. The last thing he needed was to get killed. He still didn’t know how resurrection really worked with ghouls and he wasn’t going to roll the dice on losing everything until he understood it better.

He pointed to the three new, nameless ghouls.

“You guys,” he said. “I’m making you a Party. You go out there and find more ghouls for the clan.”

They nodded and looked glum.

“Okay boss,” one said. “We go.”

“Don’t get killed,” he said to them. “That’s also an order.”

That seemed to brighten them up a bit.

“Okay, we do that too,” another one said.

NEXT LOGOUT ALLOWANCE: 0 HOURS 3 MINUTES (2 HOURS BANKED)

He wanted to hit that logout timer right on the nose. The last thing he needed was to find out that he’d missed the opportunity, and he didn’t put it past Axiom for a minute to be that cruel.

“Can you organize it?” he said to KG. “I need to get going.”

KG nodded.

“I do it. You go sleep.”

He started up the stairs and waved at them all.

“I’ll be back. Bring me new ghouls, okay?”

“They bring good ghouls or I hit them hard,” KG said.

The clan all nodded like Knife Ghoul was speaking good common sense.