FIFTEEN: TOE-KNEE THE COSMOPOLITAN SPACE GOBLIN

Dumbass pulled through with the tunes it promised. Not only did I get to enjoy Detroit Rock City on repeat for long enough to toe tap the border of annoyance, I also got to listen to Dumbass’s custom playlist of 70s and 80s rock. It had everything from more KISS to Guns N’ Roses and even some of that synth heavy crap that got popular towards the end of the decade. Don’t tell Dumbass this, but it was literally the most awesome playlist I had ever listened to. Granted, it was technically the only playlist I had ever listened to, but it was still ducking badass.

Again, please don’t tell Dumbass I liked it.

But it was the perfect compilation of tunes for destroying blastoblobs.

I felt like I was in some bizarre action movie montage, complete with low budget monster effects straight out of the mind of Rick Baker. That is, until the repetitious reality of grinding set in. I even made it to Level 5 before the blastoblobs stopped awarding experience. I mean, I was getting a point or two with each kill, but the movement wasn’t even noticeable on my experience bar. Though, I was a hair's breadth away from hitting Level 6. That was fine with me, anyway. My arm was getting tired from all the throwing, and we had done enough damage to the cavern that the fact that it might collapse when we walked through was a serious concern.

Walk through to where? I had no ducking idea.

The simulation was playing it fairly close to the chest with handing out information, and Dumbass lacked the inclination to do its damn job most of the time. I tried asking Weevul about the Trials, but he wasn’t much help either. Not that it was his fault or anything. He was, after all, more or less the bug equivalent of me.

A country bumpkin from a forgotten world.

Except that I could level.

There were a handful of things I knew. At the top of that list? I had to survive, and was apparently going to have to kill to do it.

Oh well, I thought. Survival of the fittest. Not anything I was a stranger to.

I heard a rumble in my stomach and glanced down at the bulbous mass hanging out from under my Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts t-shirt. Damn, was I hungry. I gave it a few pats to trick my body into a false sense of satiation. When that didn’t do anything, I switched to rubbing, even lifting my shirt up so I could really give the ole bay window a good cleaning.

Okay... so maybe not survival of the fittest. Maybe survival of the roundest.

Yet somehow, despite the thick layers of fatty abdominal wall, I found my belly button. Like any fat manduck, I couldn’t resist the urge to dig for a little gold in old tether connector. After several seconds of chipping away with my finger of a pickaxe, I pulled out more lint than had any right to be in there. Then I remembered I was a duck, hence an unlimited supply of down, so I gave up—in more ways than one—and reconciled my rumbling stomach and poor self-image with a stale bag of chicken feed.

“Damn, this shit is dry,” I mumbled as I chewed on the coarse grains. “I’m not gonna get sick from this, am I?”

“Short term? No.not a chance,” Dumbass said. “Long term, well, chicken feed doesn’t have exactly everything a duck needs for nutrients—you actually need a lot more niacin than chickens do, and leafy greens are an essential part of your diet. But there are plenty of edible plant based mobs the higher we go, so we should be able to nip that problem in the butt—assuming we survive this sector.”

“Good to know,” I said as I wondered what exactly a plant based bad guy would look like. “And I think it’s nip in the bud, not butt.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, positive. You should know that, seeing as how you’re my resident botanist and all. Listen, if I have to eat too much more of the ducking chicken scratch I might start clucking.”

“You could… you know…” I felt my head nudge towards the other member of my party. “Eat him. It would save us a lot of trouble.”

I examined the Weevul for a minute, not seriously considering the idea, but not seriously not considering it either. I shook my head. “Nah. The feed is fine for now.”

“The feed is fine for Weevul always! Weevul enjoy it very much!” yipped the Curculian as he shoved an entire bag of feed, wrapper and all, into his sandworm-like mouth. He held out a claw. “Casing brings much warmth to Weevul's insides. More?”

"Not sure that's a good thing, pal." I turned on him. “And where the hell did you get that?”

“I gave it to him,” Dumbass said. “Using your arm when you weren’t looking. He looked hungry.”

“He always looks hungry! And I told you to knock that off, ducker.” I sighed and pulled another bag of feed from my inventory, then handed it to Weevul. “Here you go, pal. All yours.”

He snatched it without a word and shoved it into his maw. The act reminded me of that scene from Fargo where Peter Stormare shoved the funny-looking guy into the wood chipper. I couldn’t help but shudder when the image of Weevul eating the Curculian version of a rat popped into my mind.

“Okay, moving on,” I said, as I scrolled through my quest menu, rereading the earlier notifications. “So since my friendly neighborhood implant isn’t doing what a friendly neighborhood implant should, I’ve decided that we can’t just wander around aimlessly, right? We need some kind of direction—a plan. And the only quest we’ve gotten other than to survive is to find this public defender guy.”

“Or her. Don’t be sexist,” Dumbass huffed. “Or even it, or whatever pronoun they prefer. You are talking to it an by the way.”

“Sure, got it. Her. It. They. Butterfingers. Kit kat. Vernors. Whatever they want to be called.” I rolled my eyes. “Now, how about some of that help?”

“Oh, right? Public defender. Let me think about it. Hmmm. Yeah, I don’t know. By the way, you’re annoying me with all this asking for help crap. Could you, like, please leave me alone for a minute? I’m working on something in here that I think will impress your pants off and you keep derailing my train of thought every time you get all... helpless.”

“I'm wearing shorts and it better be a ducking public defender finder,” I mumbled. Then, in an effort to find an outlet for my rage, I kicked a blastoblob that had formed from a chuck of goo in front of me. It went soaring across the cavern and collided with the far wall, exploding in a flash of orange light and sending chucks of moon stone in all directions. There was a loud rumble, then a crack spread across the floor to the wall, and from there the crack climbed the path of least resistance to an even larger boulder that was wedged in the center of the ceiling as if it were the keystone holding the entire formation together.

It shook once, then dropped straight downwards.

This wouldn’t have normally been much of a problem, except that Weevul was standing directly under it, smack dab in the middle of taking what I guessed was a massive Curculian dump.

In a moment of pure instinct, I used my blink skill to teleport across the cave. Then I wrapped my duster around my friend to protect him from the falling rubble. I don't know why; his shell was harder than diamond plate and he really should have been the one protecting me now that I thought about it. In fact, he probably would have been fine if I hadn't risked my life like an idiot. But now that I was here, soft, stupid, and looking a pancake block in the face, I shook away the thought with a roar and raised my left hand into the air, activating the shield on my bracer. The energy barrier came out long and narrow, in the shape of a shield like a Roman Legionnaire might use.

It didn't cover much.

So I focused on the blue wall of energy, focused on that ever-growing connection deep inside my head, and willed it into another shape altogether—a dome. A Ward of Dawn that would have made Saint-14 proud. With an electric cackle, the edges spread out, enveloping me and Weevul, and reached the floor just as the boulder crashed down, causing the shield to flicker with static as it fought back the killing weight.

I closed my eyes and braced for the worst. But nothing happened.

The shield had held.

The boulder teetered back and forth on top of my dome for a pair of seconds, then rolled off, landing on the ground next to me with a crunch, before gravity took hold and pulled it down the tunnel like it belonged in an Indiana Jones movie.

I received a quarter bar’s worth of experience for my selfless act of stupidity, which pushed me to Level 6 and triggered a pair of notifications.

LEVEL UP!

You have leveled up. You are now Level 6! You have gained a stat point. You have (4) unused stat points. Open stats menu?

The urge to apply a few of the stat points I was hoarding tempted me for a moment, then I saw the first line of the next one notification peeking out and got so excited I swiped the first one away immediately.

Quest Update Event Triggered: Number of Accused Has Been Reduced by Half

Update to Main Quest: Survive

New Secondary Objective: Toe-Knee the Cosmopolitan Space Goblin

Remember how we were talking about that whole survival thing? You know, don’t ducking die? Well, here’s a newsflash, moron. Surviving the Trials isn’t as simple as going to the Winchester, having a nice pint, and waiting for this all to blow over. How’s that for a slice of fried gold? There are literally thousands of other accused just like you, hoping to prove their innocence, and you all stand in each other’s way. That’s right, Earthmanduck, this isn’t one of those stories where you can justify not killing other players in the name of some misplaced, altruistic moral cause. You will get your hands dirty if you want to save your stupid pond.

Your first dirty deed is to take out the current bad boy in this sector, Toe-Knee the Cosmopolitan Space Goblin. Despite the simple name, Toe-Knee is not a simple man. Accused of levying illegal fines against his neighbor because he didn’t like the color of her siding, Toe-Knee the Cosmopolitan Space Goblin is fueled by a love of space IPAs, beard oil, overpriced flannel, a holo comic collection with more sentimental value than the relationship with his own children, and sickening pride in his position as President of his Homeowner’s Association.

Defeat Toe-Knee and I’ll tell you where to find the portal out of this sector. It only lets one party through, and you’ll have to collect all the key pieces, so I’d get that watertight booty in gear if I were you. Speaking of parties, you’ll have to get through Toe-Knee’s to find him. I’ve marked the location of the first ugly green hipster on your map. Not that you’d need it… you can probably smell the hard seltzer on her breath from here. Happy hunting, Flap.

“What kind of name is Toe-Knee—” I started, but the skittering tap-tap-tap of Weevul’s legs on my shoulder made me stop mid speech. “Weevul, why are you climbing on me, pal?”

“Weevul is not climbing on you.” He raised three arms to point at my shoulder. “That… thing is.”

I turned my head and let out a honking screech at what I saw perched there, staring at me with its dead eyes, swollen tongue lolling about like a farm animal as it talked.

Let me repeat that. As it talked.

As in, out load.

“See,” it said, laying on the sarcasm like it was patching potholes after a Michigan winter. “I kept saying you were going to have to kill to get out of here. And did you believe me? No!”