“What’s wrong,” the man calls out. Todd sees the stranger’s chemically-straightened dyed-yellow hair, his rubber facial piercings and narrow chin; and can’t pin a face to a name. “You were winning!” The nobody exclaims cheerfully.

“Why, ‘cause we popped one? Move over.”

The front line of the human defense – charged with sacred power, bearing weapons from beyond the stars, and entrusted with the survival of hundreds, bristles with –

Bristles with –

Well, actually they kind of look like a pack of backup dancers waiting for a scene in their first music video.

Jostled a bit, blondie and the others make space for Todd and Joe to rejoin the line. Then a young woman from a row or two back pipes up. “There’s not that many,” she optimistically chirps. Naturally, this jinxes them all immediately.

Looking back over his shoulder, Ranger Drew follows fast after Joe. Todd motions him to safety while the bearded man jogs to a stop. He grunts as a third floor tile upends to disgorge another surging invertebrate tributary to the river: Bug.

The voice from behind wilts. “Okay, I guess maybe there are a lot.”

Somewhat belatedly at this point, the System tones a notification and a set of new quests appear on Todd’s field of view.

Active Quests

Staying Off the Menu (I) (Easy): Survive the Redburr Crab swarm for 80 minutes. Reward [F – Greed Satchel], Patch: Legacy { Chosen }, Patch: Order { Skillful } Holding the Home Fort (Moderate): Defend the section-4 home crystal from the enemy. Reward: Store Unlock: { Luxury Room Upgrades, Ration Food Token, Meal Food Token, Fine Food Token } Sword of the Defender (Graded: Easy+): Exterminate Redburr Crab (0/2248) Reward: [F-Class Weapon Raffle Token], [Food Ration Token]x?, [F-Nexus Crystal]x? One for the Mantlepiece: Eliminate Elder Redburr Crab (Difficult), [F-Nexus Crystal]x20, [Nettle Salve Skin Mending Pill]x2, ₦2000, Exquisite Food Token, Patch: Beast { #1Slayer } Skill Mastery (I): Water Spear (0/30) Reward: ₦200, [F-Nexus Crystal: Water]x1, [Skill Treasure: Minor]

“Whaaat the heck,” Todd murmurs, finding himself a little overwhelmed. That’s a lot of quests. Even worse, it’s a lot of quests in his face obscuring his view of the oncoming swarm.

“Front Line!” Bellows Joe in a commanding voice. “Close your menus! Heads out of the clouds!” Todd shuts down his quest menu and sees plenty of guilty looks as dozens of others do the same. “Back Line! Someone read us our objectives!” Joe adds.

The low, flat bodies of the Redburrs flex along their waxy articulations as they turn. The directionless swarm is aligning itself, like iron powder to the lines of a magnet, in the direction of the human Cultivators. Towards Todd and his friends.

“Okay, I guess don’t die is number one,” calls out a reedy voice.

Todd wasn’t planning on it; he hefts his [Mercury Rod], feels the weight of it. Dissatisfied, he passes it from his right hand to his dominant left. When he does, he feels a negative pressure at his touch: like static or a potential. The logo, the Defiant is resonating with his open channel. It’s supposed to change shape, right? Looking across the plaza, Todd can’t help but feel his weapon is a little too short.

An advancing wave of bugs clack and clatter, their antennae lashing eagerly. The first and bravest of them dart forward in fits and starts, but the majority of the swarm pushes out sideways to surround and flank. Todd looks left, then right at a widening threat horizon. The frightening thing is, if the Redburrs were to rush them all at once (like hive insects) he isn’t sure how the defenders could fight them off. Luckily, the biggest cluster of bugs are simply nudging towards the shelter of the store Crystal.

“Whoa, whoa,” calls out a pitched voice. “We can’t let them touch the crystal!”

“What?” Todd blinks. A few others echo his surprise.

“Quest two is protect the crystal!” Someone else shouts in alarm.

The distance in front of Todd pulls in close as his pulse quickens, tunnel vision on their vulnerable objective. The foggy, distorted reflection of segmented legs and gnashing mouthparts glints off of one of its angled facets. A dozen members of the human front line freeze up, and a dozen bugs go just as still as a thickly quilted hush descends.

“This is gonna suck,” Todd moans, and in the unexpected quiet his complaint carries further than expected. Not much of a battle-cry, but you make do with what you’ve got.

Ranger Drew is off first, sprinting from a dead stop on less than a grunt. Jolted into action, Officer Bernice, Joe, and Marketing Mike holler like mad and chase right after. Just like that, the battle and their preparations turn into chaos.

Todd drops an inch at the knees and leans into a lurching start. Staggering, drunken-gaited as he desperately balances a flesh remade in newfound speed against a body full of old instincts. As Mike trips and crashes into a tangled rolling mess, Todd leaps over him, thrilling at the long arc he sails through the air.

But it won’t matter. The leading creature contracts, soft joints slotting together as it tenses to jump. It chitters gleefully, for as fast as Drew is trucking, he still has yards to cover yet. Its antennae lash backwards, and its forelegs raise in anticipation of the leap.

Then a bright flash of heat flings past Todd. It passes over his shoulder, nearly singeing his hair; a fulgent, fist sized sphere shooting on and beyond the running Cultivators. When it succumbs to gravity, the ball spills against the floor like a burst, incendiary balloon; the rolling plume continuing and crashing up and under the belly of the Redburr. Screeching in pain, its limbs wheel frantically and it flops back over onto its side.

Drew follows fast after, coming in sideways like a thunderclap and swinging his weapon wide and two handed. The metal thuds against the shell of a second crab with a crunch, and its broken body careens into its fellows.

Joe and Office Bernice make a wall around the crystal with Ranger Drew. They ward against a growing mass of enemies with glinting metal and shouts, but the [Mercury Rod] is too short to reach low effectively. They’ll be surrounded shortly. The creatures are already trying to cut them off, jabbing at their ankles and searching for blind spots, while Drew refuses to give them the satisfaction. He squats in a deep, uncomfortable stance and delivers blow after crushing blow.

It won’t be enough. One of the things has already cut off Todd’s approach, making it far too late to join them. As the front line of attackers distracts Joe and the Officer with their claws and stingers, a crab bunches up its body from behind, lining up a jump.

Thankfully the flame attack has reminded Todd that he has options he didn’t have yesterday. Swapping the rod to his right, Todd backpedals a step and holds out his left. He feels the length of his energy channel, feels where it intersects with the unfamiliar [Skill] structure in his hand, and pushes energy into it. His [Water Spear] drinks hungrily, pulling more than he intended to give, scraping at his Cultivation base – but it wakens.

A hazy blue shimmer condenses in front of Todd’s Palm, a ghost of a fluid. Then, with a bucking force on his extended arm, that fluid launches at high speed in a narrow trailing harpoon. It punches through the jumper’s mouth part, shears off a cluster of legs and sprays on through to make a battered wreck of the crab behind it.

“Hell yea, Drips! Do it again!” Joe laughs with wild eyed relief.

The Redburr in front of Todd lunges at him, hurling itself off balance to swing its spearing abdomen forward and at his legs. Bolting clockwise around the crystal puts Todd further alone along the left flank of the attack, but it opens up a better angle to hit the creatures threatening Joe. He clubs one bug heavily in its raised tail, then raises his palm again. His heart hammers as he shuts one eye and finds a line that intersects more then one crab.

[Water Spear] clips his target, tearing off a mandible and a leg, before it blows a ragged hole through the midsection of the one behind it, then lacerates the plate armor of the bug behind that.

Todd gasps, feeling a tightness in his chest as his Cosmic energy is scraped out of him like butter off of toast. He can tell he has frightfully few of these attacks in him at this level, but at the same time, each crab that he kills seems to fill him with a sensation of rushing warm energy.

Battering a leaping attacker out of the air, Todd falls backwards grimacing. He’s failed to make it through to join his friends, but a dozen other Cultivators have risen to pick up the slack. They charge forward, shouting and swinging their weapons, dancing away from attacks aimed at their vulnerable legs. Ranged attacks begin to fire in earnest, shooting out from the reserve fighters into the bulk of the swarm. Flames and force and a winding ghostly snake, lash out, punching holes in the ranks of the attackers. Other humans race forward to take advantage of those openings, swinging their weapons clumsily and building a growing defensive line at the crystal.

“Hold the crystal!” Bernice cries out, her scalp trickling blood from a claw scratch. Meanwhile Todd realizes with a growing dread just how far he’s been separated from either of the two main bodies of the human force.

Spinning towards his unguarded left, Todd raises his wooden arm guard as a stinger violently stabs into the armor. The attack embeds the creature into the guard, and its flailing weight drags down his arm. He fends off an opportunistic foe on his right, and then smashes his weapon down on the belly of the one he’s trailing as dead weight. Trying to kick a third gets him a scratch on his ankle and very nearly stung; so he heaves his left arm around. Using the body attached to it as a bludgeon, Todd crushes a live bug with a dead one, before the latter tears off from its venom gland and rolls away.

Heaving with exertion and soaking with sweat, Todd anxiously watches as every enemy he beats down is replace by two more. His strategy of backing up to keep the attackers in front of him has proven a mistake. Then it comes to a close as his retreat is cut off from behind, and there’s no direction left to turn that’s safe.

“Really fucking trying hard to die, aren’t you?” Candra complains, as she swings a flared ball-mace overhead and down to smash a crab flat against the floor. Bouncing off its victim with a crunch, her weapon sweeps in a low, full circle around her to clear out some breathing room.

Todd freezes, then thumps twice against an encroaching monster, crippling its legs and rupturing a compound eye. “Your rod’s cooler than mine,” he frowns, hopping over an arachni-corpse to put his back up to his friend for protection.

“Thanks,” she huffs, walloping a jumper into a skidding tumble. A spray of shards flake from the shell and drift to the floor. “It changes if you juice it with -”

“Cosmic Energy, yea,” Todd draws his hand over the metal of his weapon, feeding it some of his precious remaining resources. The body of the [Mercury Rod] ripples, narrowing and growing an additional foot in length. He slaps away an incoming body with the cane-length shaft, then the squared point tapers to a sharp spike to complete the transformation. Todd grips the handle tight and spears it down through the tail as it lands. Finally, his heel stomps down on its trapped thorax with a wet crunch.

“Can’t you just, pretend this is hard for you?” Candra snipes as she steps in to cover his blindspot, smashing as she goes.

Wiping sweat out of his eye and stabbing savagely, he snaps at her. “It feels pretty fucking hard to me.” Todd jabs his weapon through an eyeball and risks a look behind him.

The fight has become a total train wreck, their Cultivators completely overextended. Invertebrate bodies litter the ground, but hundreds more are coming. Worst of all, the huge gaps in the line have left the vulnerable non-combatants open to attack by plenty of ten-legged opportunists.

Todd points over the roiling field of stinging crabs. “We need to get back to protect the level-ones,” he insists.

Candra nods and turns her head over her shoulder, “Randall, we need a big boom now!” She hollers.

A rising scream catches Todd’s attention. He whirls to see a man toppling over to the floor, borne down by a bug which stabs him repeatedly in the forearm and shoulder as it claws at his head.

“Cover me!” Todd shouts, as he kicks hard at an exposed side. Then he leaps over a stinger and taps deep into his remaining Cosmic energy. Though his vision blurs, and his quarry thrashes, Todd lines up his arm and releases a lancing blast. The shot pitches wide, missing his target but bisecting an unsuspecting monster further away.

“Whaddya mean cover you?” Candra cries out from behind him.

Gritting his teeth, Todd dashes forward, twisting and dodging towards a single minded rescue. Making a two hand grip on his weapon along the length, he rams the pointed sharp into the flat of the crab’s side and levers it off of its victim. Careful of its sting, he lifts and then hurls the creature off of the business end of his weapon.

“Are you with me?” Todd asks, looking down on a bloody mess and searching for assurances of survival. “If you can hear me, healing pill NOW,” he commands, rising to his feet and to the fight. Disheveled and furious, Candra appears next to him a few moments later. She looks down at the wounded man and resolutely hefts her mace.

“Randall!” She screeches with impatience.

“I can’t get to you,” Randall’s voice cries out, and Todd scours for the source. Todd finds him standing in a reverse huddle with Alderman Donnelson and some of the non-combats. They wave their [Mercury Rod]s feebly to hold the Redburrs at bay.

“Now, Randall!” Her voice rages a pitch higher as she lashes out another strike.

“There are too many,” he quails, swiping at a creature and huddling against his peers.

Fresh out of patience, Candra lights up bright red. Her face twists in anger, and she shuffles forward to wind up for a big swing. When her mace collides with the exoskeleton, bits of it pop out between the seams, but the body as a whole flings so hard that Randall has to duck to avoid getting hit by verminous debris. He stares at her wide eyed.

“Now!” She snarls.