Nandi and her team pushed through the mixture of annoyingly prickly Arizonan scrub brush that seemed to dominate the landscape, even amongst the impossibly large mana infused Douglas Firs that now rivaled California Redwoods. Her team had been traveling on foot west of Flagstaff, headed for Kingman to confirm Captain Devers’ report of cannibals. If they could find a safe way around Kingman, then they were to make contact with Laughlin-Bullhead so that Clarissa could begin formally negotiating an alliance on behalf of Karl.

They were currently about three miles away from Kingman, positioned to the southeast in Hualapai mountain foothills. The city below indeed looked like it was pulled out of the set of a Mad Max movie. The burnt out husks of cars and trucks had been placed on end to form a wall of plastic and steel. Spikes had been welded to the outside of the wall and the light poles held large metal banded cages with human remains in varying degrees of decomposition.

Thick black smoke billowed from a fire at the center of the camp, it was still morning and the people of Kingman had yet to rise. They didn’t generally begin their raiding until late afternoon, where they would head out into the desert to track down survivors weaker than them. Sometimes they came back with people hanging from wooden poles as if they were copying all the worst Hollywood tropes. Occasionally they brought back an oversized antelope or other wild and mutated animal. Though she had watched for the last couple days as they went out of their way to run down exclusively Human prey.

As far as the state of the city was concerned, it was chaotic, filthy and bloody. Blood drained from the open air butchering blocks to mix with fly and maggot infested piss and shit that then mixed with the fine desert sand as it ran off into one of the few washes that wasn’t suddenly overflowing with water. A hazy pallor hung over the city and cloaked it in perpetual dirty duskiness that seemed to fight against the hot Arizona sun. It seemed the only new construction other than the wall of vehicles was the pens where they held their Human cattle. Everything else looked rather, well, apocalyptic.

“Well, this shit is depressing to watch.” Groehl commented to her left. She had picked up the young dwarf in Flagstaff to bolster her team which had lost two before the assault. He was a kind of skirmisher that used two handed hammers and he was quite enthusiastic in smashing things with his hammer. He had demonstrated his skill repeatedly over the last few days as they travelled the monster infested forests and deserts.

“Yeah, looks like they have another raiding party getting ready too.” Jen, another recruit directly from the adventuring groups of Flagstaff added her observations to the conversation. She was a kind of arcane mage. And she was dressed for comfort, cargo pants, sandals and a loose t-shirt. Does not look like a mage at all. Despite her looks she was clutch in a fight. Keeping her teammates empowered with arcane energies while continually discharging long distance magical attacks.

Her other two mates were screening their position ensuring they didn’t get crept up on by monster and man alike. “Let’s see if they decide to come up this way. The communities behind us seemed relatively untouched. I’m going to review my status, let me know if anything interesting happens.”

“Sounds good, we’ll let ya know.” Jen offered and went back to watching the city.

Nandi pulled up her new class information and sighed a bit. Black Dawn Archer of Atalanta, As an agent of the Black Dawn that also follows the precepts of the great archer Atalanta, you give up much to gain significant advantages other archers lack. The last part about advantages gained for much given up was rather cryptic until she looked at the problematic skill in her status.

Atalanta’s Longing Eye, Atalanta was told that marriage would be her undoing, so she spurned love in all its forms, though she longed for it.

For every day you go without sexual intercourse of any kind you earn 0.5% increased Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage

Ugh, I haven’t gotten laid in forever! Now if I want to keep my damage edge I can’t get laid!?! The bloody fuck is that shit!? She pulled up her Crit Damage and Crit Chance stats and frowned, It had been a little over a month, actually the day before the System initialized. Her current boost was fairly decent, a boost of 21 percent, and each day without a proper shag was worth another .5 percent. At the end of a year she’d have a 182 percent boost to those vital stats. She didn’t consider herself a slut but when faced with a situation where she loses a powerful bonus if she does find someone to enjoy herself with, it seemed like the world was conspiring against her.

Sure Nan! I’m not telling you to NOT have sex. But if you do. FUCK MY LIFE! She went to research the mythology of Atalanta and wasn’t happy with what she saw. Am I going to be forced to become a lion!? THAT WOULD SUCK! Sorta? Fuck! Nandi was pulled from her internal turmoil when Groehl tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

“Got a group headed our way, sticking to the road. Want to try and capture one of them?”

“Think you can knock them out with splattering their brains too much?” She asked the enthusiastic Dwarf with the too charming smile. None of that kinda thinking, girl, you won’t do much bang bang if you get banged! FUCK MY LIFE!

“Meh, they should have enough left in their heads to talk. Just pin 'em’ down and I’ll deliver the knockout blow, lass.” Nandi rolled her eyes and smiled knowingly at Jen who fought to restrain her own smirk. She called in the rest of her team while watching the path the cannibal raiders took. When her team was fully assembled she directed them to a point where they could ambush the group of bloody cannibals.

The raiders stayed on the road chatting amongst themselves without a care in the world. Why would they? They had set themselves up as the Alpha predators of the region. As they closer approached the rock outcropping that Nandi and her team had chosen for their ambush site. There were seven of them, four men and three women. They moved in a loose Vee formation with a large black man in the middle back of the formation, a short lithe blonde close to his side and the rest spread out in front of the pair.

She had only a few moments to determine which one of the pair was actually in charge, everyone else would die. She quickly noted the two men and one woman with rifles, noting the rest carried melee weapons of one form or another. Good, no magic. Now who gets to live for a few extra minutes?

“Groehl, I want both the assholes in the middle, can you knock out the big man?” She sent across the System network silently.

“He looks durable, he might survive.”

She sighed and smiled inwardly, “Do your best, I’m marking the woman as the brains, but you never know anymore.”

Her team acknowledged the VIP’s she designated and they readied themselves for the pending assault. The group meandered around the bend in the road right past Adam, her stealth fighter and continued past his camouflage form draped across a thick red-tan rock without noticing him. Seeing the enemy patrol enter the kill box she stood and drew her bow.

“[Pinning Shot]” She said as she released her first arrow straight through the calf of the short blonde woman. The enemy group stopped in shock as the woman squealed in pain and bent over to try and remove the arrow shaft from her leg. Three rifles swung her direction as she launched another attack on the woman, “[Agonizing Arrows]”. She rapidly launched a trio of arrows into the riflemen. Their rounds went wild as they doubled over in pain.

Jen appeared above a rock across the road from her and channeled a never ending stream of arcane bolts into the left flank fighter who braced behind a shield, unable to respond to the unyielding magical assault. Adam slipped in from behind and slit the man’s throat, then ducked as the big black man swung a fist that kicked up a small shockwave as it passed narrowly over the back of his head. Jen shifted her focus down the line of fights. Eddie, her other main fighter, appeared from the opposite side of the road and began a one on one fight with another raider.

The big black man was about to move on Eddie when Groehls appeared from around the corner, charging down the center of the street with his hammer dragging behind him kicking up sparks. He bellowed out a low roar of challenge and the big black man flashed a mouth full of pointed teeth and roared back.

Nandi proceeded to finish off the riflemen with a series of arrows to the face as Jen, Adam, and Eddie carved through the other frontline fighters. This left only the big man with the pointy teeth squaring off with Groehl, and the blonde who had just managed to pull her leg free. Nandi activated [Pinning Shot] again and skewered her other leg. The woman yelped, then glared at her in impotent rage. Adam slid up behind the angry woman, grabbed her arm and pressed his knife against her neck. Her eyes widened as he spoke in her ear and she seemed to deflate on the spot.

The loud smack of steel on flesh echoed between the heavy rock walls flanking the roadway. The big man tumbled up and backwards as Groehls hammer connected solidly with his chin. He rolled across the ground and picked himself up and spit a glob of blood onto the cement.

“I’m gonna eat your guts, little man!” He stood, flashing a bloody smile, cracked his knuckles, and charged headlong at Groehls.

Groehls laughed and casually swung his massive hammer onto his shoulder, “Hah! At the end of the day your body will be cooling at the side of the road! The only choice you have is how much pain you suffer between now and then!”

The big cannibal raider reached Groehls and swung a heavy haymaker at his temple. Groehls sidestepped the attack and spun quickly followed by a blindingly fast swing that caught the man in his shoulder with a loud crack. He smacked the cement face first and groaned in pain. The man attempted to press off the ground and collapsed in agony, the bones in his shoulder having been shattered by Groehls hammer strike.

“Come on, cream puff! Get up! You have more bones to break!” Groehl’s taunted the bigger man.

The cannibal curled his legs up under him and attempted to stand. Groehl brought the triangle shaped end of his hammer down on the man’s hips. Everyone cringed as the cannibal man gasped in pain and the sound of bones shattering cracked across the silent desert mountain.

“Ye done?” The man gasped and twitched on the ground and managed to eke out a weak nod. “Good, now, which one of ye want to talk?”

Groehl nudged the big black man on the ground by his hip and he wailed and flinched in pain. “Not you? No?” He then spun to the blonde woman and slammed his hammer down into the ground between her knees. She flinched and attempted to retreat but she was held firm by Adam and Eddie. “You?”

She glared at the short man in fear and anger, then spit on the ground, “FUCK YOU! Cain is going to devour you!”

Groehl grabbed her chin tightly and stared into her eyes, then looked up at Nandi as she descended her firing perch. “Check their titles, this one has Connoisseur of the Long Pork x113. Means she’s eaten the meat of 113 men and women.”

Nandi looked at the big squirming cannibal on the cement next to the other woman, Connoisseur of the Long Pork x 142. Well fuck, they’ve killed at least 142 people and eaten them.

“Who the fuck is Cain!?” Nandi snapped at the defiant woman.

The woman flashed a set of flat pointy teeth at her and laughed, “He’s a force of fucking nature. He’s the fucking Devourer. He’ll strip the skin from your hide while you still live!”

“Bitch has lost her damn mind.”, Jen muttered as she joined the group.

“Cain’s your leader? How many of you are there?” Nandi asked the woman insistently.

“I’ve said all I intend to, kill me or I’ll eat your liver!” She spat at Nandi’s feet and turned her head in defiance. “I’ll marinade it in your piss! SALT AND PEPPER!”

Nandi stared at the woman as she continued with her violent tirade. She ran her tongue across her sharpened teeth, drawing a thin line of blood, then proceeded to flick her tongue out in a lewd gesture. Groehl snickered at the woman and she focused her obscene gestures on him. He was about to respond when Nandi decided the woman had lost her value and pulled an arrow from her quiver. Before anyone else could react Nandi knelt down and grabbed the back of the woman's head, her eyes went wide in shock as Nandi shoved her arrow up through her chin and out the top of her head. She watched the life drain from the blonde woman’s eyes and thought for a moment, sanity had briefly returned to her mind. The woman went limp and slumped to the ground and Nandi wrenched her arrow out before the crazed cannibal woman’s head hit the cement with a wet thud.

“This one’s about to die from shock, should I finish ‘em?” Groehl slid his hammer noisily across the cement in front of the cannibal's head. The big man shivered and flinched at the sound of the hammer.

“I can- I can get you inside.” He stuttered out, “heal me, let me go, I’ll show you.”

Groehl began slowly tapping his hammer on the cement in front of the man’s face. He quivered and twisted awkwardly to get eyes on Nandi, who walked around behind him and stopped inches from his head. He looked up and she nodded.

He looked at her hesitantly, then decided to take a chance on survival, “Through the wash, no one goes near it, heheheh, it’s where we dump our piss, shit, and dead. But…”, he coughed up a bit of blood, “that’s n-not why we avoid it.”

She cocked her brows for him to continue.

“S-s-something is living under the m-m-muck. Big.” He looked at her with a bit of mirth and his face took on a pleading look, “I’ve told you. H-heal me.”

She looked at Groehl and back down to the now pathetic looking man, “Never agreed to anything, thanks though.”

She walked off as the man began to protest, Jen, Adam, and Eddie joined her while Groehl stayed behind. A minute later he joined the team, a towel in his hand polishing the head of his massive hammer. He smiled cheerily at them like he’d just gotten back from running errands.

“So, we going to go swimming in shit, or go around and make contact with Bullhead?”

Nandi gave the cursed city a long thoughtful look. I really want to go wipe these fuckers off the face of the map, but our job was to scout. And wiping out a city is more of Karl’s specialty.

“As much as I want to merc’ these fuckers into oblivion, we were sent to scout. Let’s leave the conquering of cities to Karl. We’ll skirt the mountains to the south. Let’s get about five miles out from Kingman, then we’ll break out for Bullhead.”

With a plan made and a direction set she and her team marched off into the hot Arizona desert for their next destination. As they began their long trek a low rumble was heard from every direction and the ground began to shake tremendously. Rocks that were once perilously poised atop the edges of the foothills began to tumble one by one to the valley below and her team. Everyone balanced as well as they could and dodged the errant boulder as needed. Before anyone could ask the big question a notification appeared.

Mana Oversaturation achieved! Landscaping Protocols Commencing. Claimed Settlement areas excluded.

Warning! Mana Oversaturation detected, all sapient beings should seek the safety of any nearby settlement, all unclaimed land will now undergo advanced landscaping.