As they made the climb up the series of decks Blackbear could feel his dread slowly starting to rise as he imagined what he might find when he caught up to the war band.

Jax could sense his friends mood and caught up to him and whispered, “Bear, are you OK bud? You seem a little distracted.”

Blackbear rolled his shoulders to try and release some tension. “Did you know 15 of our men died with us today Jax? No, make that 15 of MY men. They came here because of ME, not us. I asked them to come help clear the dungeon and now their wives no longer have a husband. Now their children no longer have a dad.”

Jax grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “You can’t think that way brother. It wasn’t you that changed this world into this shitty apocalypse. Those wives and children however, they have a safe zone for some peace of mind. That IS because of you. You didn’t force anyone to come today. Hell, we had to turn down thousands of volunteers.”

“I know that Jax, but...”

Jax started to scowl actually getting a little angry now. “No buts man! We are building an army in case you have forgotten! Do you think people don’t die when they go to war? Every single man here knew what was happening when they accepted the invitation to come. All we can do is help to prepare them and keep as many alive as possible. Now enough of this looking back over your shoulder and look ahead to see what we can do to help!”

Blackbear tried to straighten his shoulders a bit thinking that he didn’t want the warriors to see him so distraught. “Of course you’re right Jax. I realize everything that you have said is right. I just can’t help thinking that I am not the right man to actually lead all of this. I am going to have to find us a group of real soldiers and put them in charge of the war bands. I will come along for the ride with the War Chief buffs and play the role of leader.”

Jax shook his head in disagreement. “No man is the right person to lead us through this shit storm because it has never happened before Bear. We will have to play it by ear and just make the best of it. Just know we are here for you bro.”

Jax pulled a strange looking object from his inventory and showed it to Blackbear. “We took in a ton of loot down in the hull. Most of it we gave to the Chief to hand out to the men as he saw fit. This thing is different. Onida says it’s so rare that she has never seen anything like it. Came off of the boss.”

Blackbear took the artifact into his hand. It was the size of an apple and shaped like a roundish pyramid. A twisted platinum chain was attached to it. It had a circle inset in the middle of it that was swirling with a dark silver mist. When he focused on it he saw:

Call of the Void

Summon a horde of beasts to do your bidding.

Duration and quantity directly tied to the amount

of total willpower attributed to your party or raid.

Usable once every 168 Earth hours.

Blackbear handed it back to Jax. “Can you please keep this? I have enough on my plate as is. I already have a neck piece and would just put it in my bag and forget about it. Remind me of it if we ever get in a situation that you think might require its use OK?”

Jax nodded. “I get the feeling I will end up with a lot of little trinkets. I have a lot of downtime being ranged damage compared to you guys. Oh, one other thing. Jane want me to marry her. I thought that with you being War Chief and all you might possibly conduct the ceremony?”

Blackbear stopped dead in his tracks and turned to Jax with a genuine smile on his face. “WOW! All of this time you have been pining for her and after a couple weeks of dating she wants marriage?”

Jax had an embarrassed look on his face as he replied. “Well, it seems that Jane has been receptive to my advances for quite a while now. I just hadn’t been umm… aggressive enough for her. She has been waiting for me to have the guts to actually date her for over a year. In her own words, “You haven’t had enough balls to take me on until the apocalypse happened!”

Blackbear laughed. “Did you ask her why she never told you this over the last year?”

Jax shrugged. “Let’s just say she has become more… assertive and outgoing since she gained her class. Downright demanding in some areas if you can hear what I’m saying.”

Blackbear stroked his chin in thought. “I know that the Chiefs perform marriages, but I will have to look up the details. I would be honored to wed you of course, that goes without saying. Now let’s concentrate on ending this fight as quick as we can. I don’t wanna see anyone else die today.”

The sky deck was where the battle would end. It was located a whopping 15 decks on the top of the ship. As Bear and his crew came upon the 13th level they could hear fighting taking place at the other end from where they were located. Lots of warriors were all over the place and one filled them in on the current situation.

“Chief, our forces are split at the moment. Half are on the far end of this deck fighting and half proceeded up this stairwell to and are fighting on the 14th. That deck is half open with a olympic size swimming pool that has been turned into an Octo habitat and there are a LOT of them there. This floor is almost wrapped up. There is a giant gym at the other end that they barricaded.”

Bear thanked the man and turned to his crew. “Let’s help clear this deck and take the rest of the men up on the other side. We may be able to flank or pinch them, who knows. I’d rather not have fighting behind my back though.” He turned and started jogging towards the fight.

The halls started getting clogged as they reached the action. Bear called out to a man “Who’s in charge here at the moment?” The warrior pointed down the corridor to a towering warrior who was shouting out instruction to the men who were swapping in and out of the fighting. Bear edged up to the man and said, “Can you give me a sitrep please?”

The warrior didn’t even glance back and said, “I’m a little busy right now if you can’t tell. Come back in thirty and I might have a better idea of how long this will take to clear.”

Blackbear looked back at Jax who raised his eyebrows and nodded as if to let Bear know that he liked this guy. “I’d like to know what’s going on right now if you don’t mind...”

The man turned and got a look at Blackbear. He had a momentary look of shock as he noticed who he was speaking to, but shrugged it off quickly and grimaced at Blackbear. “Oh, sorry about that Chief. I didn’t know that you had gotten up here.”

He held out his hand. “Sergeant Bernard. Chippewa tribe. Former U.S. Marine, Delta Force.”

Bear raised an eyebrow. “Delta Force? Wow I’m impressed. Anymore of you guys here?”

Bernard nodded. “There are six of us here. We all served together. The Marines thought we would gel better together. Anti-terrorism / Recon unit. We were all in Northern Wisconsin when the shit went down. Organized the entire res and barely lost anyone. I think about 25,000 of us are coming here.” He smiled. The Chippewa family is quite large and healthy!”

Blackbear shook his hand noticing the man’s hand engulfed his. The guy had at least three inches and 40 pounds on him. “Well Sarge I cannot tell you how happy I am to meet you. When we clear this up I want to have a serious one on one with you. I am going to need to grab every soldier I can to get this war band organized. Now can you tell me what is going on at the moment?”

Bernard grimaced. “Well Sir, we have an enemy who had time to prepare quite the little fortress in that gym. It’s two basketball courts side by side and they own three quarters of it. It’s chock full of barricades. They took banquet hall tables and stacked them with some kind of coral slime to connect it all. Might as well be steel because all of our firepower is deflected or absorbed into it. I recon they have an easy fifty Octos stationed back there all armed with plasma rifles.”

Blackbear nodded. “I see, recommendations Sergeant?”

“Well, we could mount a full frontal attack. We would lose men that way, however, and I do not want to be in charge of that happening!”

Blackbear reached into his inventory and started pulling out hands full of grenades including ten super stun of the sonic/light variety. “Think you might be able to come up with a plan with forty grenades?”

Bernard had an evil grin on his face as he said, “We might be able to soften them up a bit with those...”

Blackbear looked over his War Chief buffs and saw that he could cast the Earth’s Embrace defensive buff. It was only ten minutes long, but it seemed custom made for a skirmish just like this. They marked out the areas where the grenades where to be thrown. Five stun grenades would be lobbed first followed by five frags and then five blast. Rinse and repeat and then the charge was on. Bear’s party and Bernard’s would be in the front.

He cast the buff and was able to see it settle over the warriors all crowded around him. He nodded to Bernard who silently tapped the shoulder of the man in front of him who stood with five men and they all lobbed grenades into their targeted areas and the chaos of war started.

The war band was all on a knee with their eyes shut and facing the floor when the first batch of explosives went off. They couldn’t see the light, but the sonic roar hurt even from thirty yards away. The second batch went out three seconds later. An aftershock roared through the gym that could be felt back in their corridor. The second wave of stun grenades were thrown even farther being whipped like baseballs. The next round was offensive blast grenades and they somehow seemed even louder.

Blackbear took a peak after the last round and held a fist up calling out, “HOLD!”

He slapped Bernard on the shoulder. “I think maybe a little overkill there. Let’s roll!” Bear started sprinting through the carnage with his fire bow as a weapon already strung up. The barricades were a tangled mess but still standing in places. They made their way through half of the wrecked defensive structures before even finding an Octo alive. The ones they did find were almost comatose on their knees with broken armor. Bear glanced back and saw a force of about one-hundred warriors quietly advancing with weapons drawn.

The Octos never had a chance to recover and were quickly put down...