As we came into the view of the border guard post we noticed Jane and Smitty alongside 8 guards all firing ranged weapons into what looked like a strung-out Congo dance line of monsters making their way to the guard post. They were mindlessly marching to their deaths.

I hopped off and walked up to a guard and said, “Hi, I'm War Chief Blackbear, can you report what has been going on down here?”

The man wiped some sweat off of his head and said, “Heya Chief, I'm Forest Warden Williams. We had a few beasts wander out of the woods earlier and took them down. The noise must have attracted monsters from the cruise ship and we have had a slow but steady flow of creatures making their way here ever since. We must have killed hundreds. I had to call for a healer and more men down here to help. We are all over level 20 now, but we are getting tired and the leveling is slowing down. Most of the monsters seem to be around level 25 or so. A new crew is making their way down to here as we speak. That ship needs to be thinned out, it seems to be producing monsters at a quicker rate as we take them out.”

I nodded and looked over at the ship. Even from a half-mile away, it looked enormous. It looked like it had about 10 levels to it. I could see the name “Royal Princess” on the side. It had to have been over 1000 feet long and over two hundred feet tall. This was one of those beastly cruise liners that could carry thousands of people on it. It was very slightly tilted to its left leaning towards us, the boarding ramp was still attached, but mangled.

I activated my telescopic sight for the first time and had to hold my arms out to my sides for balance as I adjusted to the new view. I could see creatures coming out of the ship and milling all about. There were dozens of all shapes and sizes. Even though I had seen cruise ships in port for most of my life I had never imagined what a pain in the ass it would be to have to try and clear all of that space of monsters.

I looked over at my war party. “We're gonna need more people, a LOT more people. I bet that ship is filled with monsters.”

I contacted Kelli “Have Chief Chu meet me at the entrance of the Village please, and ask him if he can round up about 100 of his highest level fighters and healers please.” She sent back “On it Chief.”

I left my party with the guards to keep clearing out the flow of attacking beasts and made my way to the Village. As I glided up on my horse I noticed a new large crowd of people making their way through orientation.

I found Chu by the entrance talking to another man. “Chief Chu, is this the Fairbanks people?”

He nodded at the new guy. “Yup, This is Chief Jumping Fox, I was telling him what was going on with the cruise ship and he has about 30 men over level 25.”

I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you Chief, we sure could use your men. We have about 10 decks of a huge ship to clear room by room and God knows what below decks.”

The man had a grim look on his face. “Losing anybody on the first day here would be bad for morale, but I will round up our warriors. It might take me 20 minutes or so, but we will be there.” He hustled off calling out some names.

Chu turned to me. “I have put the call out and we had eager volunteers... maybe too eager. Many are running down there. Before you let them start you should give a pep talk about how important everyone coming home will be for the moral of the Village. Fox is right. Losing people on the first day would be bad news.”

I said, “I agree 100%. I will talk to the war party and form a raid and give them my War Chief buffs. Make sure we have plenty of healers.”

A half of an hour later I was back at the guard post standing before a crowd of over a hundred people. I formed a group raid and made some people officers in it so they could invite their people and arrange each group with a healer and a warrior melee class. I held up my hands and shouted for silence.

“Listen up people of The Village. Our number one priority here is to bring everybody back home alive. I FORBID anyone permission to die! I want parties of ten people each to tackle the halls and rooms. We are in no hurry here. If this takes us days to clear out so be it. I want you all to go heavy on defensive spells with lots of regens and healing.”

“There looks to be about ten levels on the cruiser with two main hallways going through the ship on each level. That's 20 people per level at a time per deck. Be methodical checking the rooms, you don't want something popping out of a closet killing you. My group will be scouting the ship checking the bigger rooms like the entertainment halls and mezzanines.”

“You all have had a map of the ship uploaded to you. Use them. I am going to bestow two War Chief blessings on you, but do not get cocky with this added strength. They will fade away in an hour.” I cast my buffs and the crowd of warriors cheered looking at the effects.

I led my first real war party to battle.

The approach to the ship was a bit sloppy. There were a few dozen monsters on the boarding ramp and ground beneath it and it seemed like everybody wanted to take a shot at them. The combined firepower was overkill and produced a bloody mess. In the end, it ended up that the ship had 14 various levels above deck and 5 below. We entered into a huge lobby area where the monsters were pouring up from ramped hallways that led below the main decks. What we found upon the main floors was something that we never could have guessed...

The deck we entered was deck four, it had entrance ways on both sides of the ship with a large medical center behind those and a set of lifts in the center of it all with stairways on the sides. This ship was built with huge numbers of people in mind so space was not a problem.

Our 100 plus war party easily fits into the main lobby. The stairways could hold four men across easily. As we crept up the stairs we could see that deck 5 opened up into the main plaza. It was very opulent and all open air for three levels above of balconies and walkways. It was also very barricaded…?

There were fried monster bodies all over the place. I was the first person to peek out into the main lobby, and because of that, I was the first person to be shot! It hit me a grazing blow to the shoulder with a laser beam. I fell back with a grunt. My armor and shielding took the brunt of the shot. It barely singed me, but it still hurt like hell.

Everybody ducked low startled from the noise, no one had been expecting a laser shot to be fired. “What the fuck was that!” Jax said. “These monsters have weapons?”

I said, “I didn't have a chance to see what shot me.” I peeked up and saw a huge pillar about 20 feet away. “I'm gonna make a break for that pillar, you guys lay down a shitload of cover fire for me up at the balconies.” I held up my hand and started counting it down from five and then took off.

My group started firing and I crouched low and took off scooting to the back of the pillar in seconds. The war party members in the other stairwells heard the fire and started opening up on their own. Return fire came in bunches from the balconies and soon it was like a Star Wars laser battle scene in the room. I managed to get a glimpse of our foes and almost couldn't believe my eyes.

There was a small army of “men” in uniforms firing weapons at us, and I use the word men in the loosest of terms. These were octopus people. They had two arms and legs and were wearing armor, but that was where the similarity ended. They had four tentacles a piece sticking out from their backs and fat, ugly, bulbous heads. Their eyes were at least five times as big as ours. I managed to focus on one and it said:

Larian Octoped (Level 30)

I pointed out where a lot of fire was coming from on a third level balcony and yelled to Jane, “Janey, can you get a lightning bolt up there?”

I pulled my bow and watched as she peeked around the corner real quick and then snaked her hand around the corner. Lightning shot from her fingertips and I heard some gurgling noise and the gunfire died down for a second. I scooted out on a knee and fired a flame ball up on the balcony. A second later I saw a grenade of some type fly in the same direction and saw a flash-bang go off.

The lasers stopped flying about for a second and our men started pouring out from the stairs taking up positions anywhere there was cover. A massive firefight erupted with our war band pouring out laser fire and casting spells upwards. A minute later and the Octopeds had either died or fled.

I saw some heals being dished out. We took some injuries. But no one had died. The men spread out and cautiously made their ways up into the balcony areas and I started to hear gunfire from behind me.

I turned and made my way to an entrance that revealed a large dining area. About 20 of my men were exchanging fire with a group of Octoped at the other end of the room.

I turned and silently hand motioned to a group of ten men and they entered the space and began fighting. The other side of this deck had spas and beauty salons on it and were empty of any beings or monsters.

I made my way back to my group and said to Onida, “Any idea who these people er, beings are?”

She shook her head. “No, but there are millions of races in the galaxy. It looks like they are planning to make this ship a base of operations. If I had to bet, I would say that was a very small group just keeping the monsters from below from infiltrating the rest of the decks.”

Deck 6 had massive dining areas and a casino and also a theater. We were met with resistance the entire way and had to fight from room to room. Our men were taking injuries on like crazy, but we had way too many healers for anyone to die.

Onida told me that our people were way overhealing and wasting tons of mana and that we would have to work on that in the future.

For all of their gun power, the Octoped seemed to have no healers and did not like to engage hand to hand. They were extremely squishy, a headshot with a blunt weapon or sword would take them down every time. Even for the brutal beat down we were giving them, the Octopeds would not back down and seemed to have no will to talk to us.

Onida told me that most galaxy races would consider humans to be beneath them and unworthy of negotiations. I thought, Well fuck them then. They came to our planet and treat us like a nuisance? No mercy...” I shouted to my men. “NO MERCY!”

Deck 7 was more of the same, another entertainment level and more of the same fighting. I had no idea how many Octoped we had killed already, but it seemed like a hundred already. I had gained a level and I did not doubt that my warriors in their basic first tier were leveling like mad. By the time we had cleared deck seven, it was nearing 4 o'clock.

I got a message off to Kelli instructing her to send word to Chu for another hundred warriors. I wanted to lock down the monster spawn of the lower decks before we went down there and provide reinforcements for my men here. I told her to ask him to find some kind of supply officer class and provide shelters and food for 200 warriors. This was going to take a few days.

Deck 8 was the first of the stateroom levels for the passengers and it was where I lost my first men...

The deck had about 250 rooms on it and about half of them were booby-trapped. The fighting was difficult, with Octoped popping out of rooms and firing on us. We were not able to advance quickly because of traps. We learned the hard way when a couple of men charged ahead and were blown to pieces by a hidden pile of explosives.

The Octopeds had pets here as well. Crab-like creatures the size of dogs that were extremely quick and very aggressive. They would pop out a room in a pack and swarm you with needle legs and strong claws. They would die easy enough, but would put you through some serious pain by firing multiple needles at a time in you. I had some scouts check the floors above and it was all more of the same. Decks 9-15 were all passenger spaces with the rooms becoming more frequent the higher up you went.

I was told that Chief Fox had arrived and brought some specialists with him, so I went down to meet him. Fox had a crew of 20 with him. Cooks and supply people. We made deck 5 with the huge dining room and open plaza our base of operation.

We set up guards and made a camp in the dining hall for sleeping. I wasn't going to allow men to sleep in the rooms for fear of stealth attacks, I wanted to keep our main force together. We had a few classes with trap detection with us now and we went very slowly through the 9th deck. I told the men that we would stop and hold from deck 9 down to 4 for the night and have the reinforcement guard do some work on the first level below decks.

It was starting to get late and I put Chief Fox in charge and found my group. I hadn't seen my own group for hours, and I found them on deck 7 bloody and resting. I told them of the plans and that we would get back at the clearing of the ship the next morning. I had a house full of fragile women and I wanted to spend some time with them. Onida came with me and we headed back to the Village.