Wasteland Warlords: Chapter 2 - The Yacht Club

Inside the saloon, most of the walls had been torn out, leaving one big open room studded with mismatched tables and chairs. A particle board bar top had been installed at the edge of the rotting linoleum of the kitchen floor. Behind it, the counters and cabinets had been left in, though the doors had been ripped off to better display the liquor, beer, and soda selection. Both bathrooms had been left mostly intact, although a pair of peep holes at head-height had been ripped into the one marked Ladies.

Clay smirked at Alex. “What were you saying yesterday about killing for a real toilet?”

“Forget it. I would rather die.” She wrinkled up her nose. “Where do you think it even flushes to? This camp doesn’t exactly look like it’s got sewer hookups.”

As ugly as the saloon was—both inside and out—the joint was jumping. Patrons compared war stories over drinks and cards, almost shouting to be heard over a glowing juke box blaring music from the corner. A few guys played a militaristic version of darts by throwing knives at a crude monster spray painted on the wall, while some barflies nursed drinks out of dusty looking glasses.

“Finally!” Joe slapped Clay’s arm, his disappointment forgotten. “This is what I was talking about. Boom. Right here. This is the real frontier, just like in the penny dreadful holocomics.”

Alex snorted. “Yeah, well, you’re not a Mojave Comics Universe main character, so don’t start a bar fight, or you’ll end up dead like the bad guy of the week.”

“Hey now, don’t worry about me, short stack. You know I’m a drinker, not a fighter.” Joe beelined for the bar, thumping his chainsaw down onto its scarred wood top, then yelled, “Who’s doing shots with me and Bertha?”

“Hot damn, I ain’t gonna say no to that!” A big lineman type with an Uzi scooted up to the bar next to Joe. “Name’s Roy Lee and this is my bro, Derail,” he said, gesturing to an even bigger guy moseying over to join them.

“Pleased as all hell to meet ya, boys.” Joe slapped the smaller one on the back. “Most folks just call me Lumberjack Joe.”

Alex shot a sidelong look at Clay. The He’s your brotherlook.

“Yeah, fine. I’ll keep an eye on him,” he said.

“Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced, and after Visalia, Clay couldn’t blame her. “You do that while I scope out their quest board.” She hooked a thumb toward a board against the far wall plastered with flyers, notices, wanted ads, and reward posters.

Before she could get away, Clay caught her hand and pulled her up short. A reluctant smile broke through. She stretched up onto her toes and kissed him on the jaw.

“Seriously,” she said, jabbing him in the rib with a finger. She pulled her hand out of his and started backing away. “If this turns into Visalia all over again…”

Clay sighed. Up at the bar, Joe and his insta-buddies were throwing back shots from a sketchy-looking mason jar.

“If it does, I’ll knock him out and pack him myself,” Clay promised.

While Joe drank with his new pals and Alex read through the board for outstanding dungeons around Bakersfield, Clay scoped out the saloon for someone who looked like they’d been around the block a few times.

That was always the key to surviving a hard deployment—find some salty dog who had survived everything the world could throw at ’em, then listen to the stories they had to tell. Clay hadn’t been lying about serving during Operation Hell Gate. He’d been on the ground in Jordan when that renegade Incant claiming to be the Messiah tried to kick off Armageddon and WWIV all in one go.

Fighting what amounted to a magical demi-god and his forces wasn’t even remotely like what Clay had learned in the School of Infantry, and if it hadn’t been for the boots on the ground before him, he and his unit never would’ve lasted a week. Although, to be fair, he’d never so much as seen The Blind Oracle outside of holo-displays. That Incant had been a summoner class, though, and Clay had seen more than a few of his minions, along with the flocks of hopeful, militant humans who had rallied to his banner.

Bingo. Clay spotted a dusty old timer lounging in the corner and sharpening a glowing dagger.

He sauntered over to the old man, trying to act casual.

“Got a minute to chat?” Clay asked. “I can get your next round.”

The old timer let out a phlegmy laugh.

“You ain’t buying nobody nothing, tumbleweed.” The guy rested his dagger on the table and sized Clay up. His face was crossed with faded scars, and he had only one eye, a bright, piercing blue; the other hidden was behind a black patch. “Better just take your pretty lass and that dingus at the bar and tumble back home while you still can.”

“That’s not really an option,” Clay said, pulling out a chair and shifting his M4 so he could sit.

The old timer grunted. “You’re as green as they come, ain’t ya? Well, your first lesson is your money’s no good in Camp Liberty. Nobody in the IZ takes fiat currency. It’s gold, silver, or barter. Period. And unless my good eye deceives me—and it never does—you look fresh out of just about everything.”

Clay’s face heated up as he followed the old timer’s gaze to the pale line encircling his empty ring finger. He closed his other hand over it and tried not to think about the matching vacancy on Alex’s left hand. They’d sold both of their wedding rings to scrape together enough money to make it to Fresno. He would’ve thought the harsh desert sunlight would have darkened that up by now.

With another hacking chuckle, the old-timer stowed his knife.

“Ah, hell, you seem like a good lad. How’s about I buy you a drink?” The old man tossed a fat leather sack the size of a purse on the table. It landed with a hefty thud, metal clinking against metal. The string tying it closed came loose and spilled a handful of gold coins onto the wood. “Just had a good haul myself, if you can believe it.”

Clay sat back and gave the saloon a quick once-over, taking in the blood-thirsty looking Camp inhabitants. The sound and sparkle of gold had drawn a few greedy squints to their table.

“Aren’t you afraid someone’s gonna try to rob you?” Clay asked, nodding at the coins.

“They’re welcome to try all they like.” The old man signaled the bartender, who was still trying to keep up with Joe and his pals. “Don’t fret too much about it, youngster. I’m an old weed.” He flipped his knife around and tapped the hilt on the table absently. “Folk don’t make it long out here unless they’re good at killin’, and I’ve made it longer than most. Truth be told, I reckon I’ve made it longer than anyone else. Everybody round these parts knows who I am, and they know better than to try me. You trackin’?”

Clay nodded.

The old-timer grinned, showing off a gapped toothed grin. “Thought you might be. Ah, here we go.”

The bartender dropped off a pair of warm beers, then deftly caught the coin the old man flipped him.

With a gnarled finger, the old timer pushed one of the longnecks over to Clay.

“Used to prefer a good scotch, but my brand ain’t around anymore. Salt?” He offered Clay a little paper packet that looked like it’d been scavenged from some ancient McDonald’s.

Clay shook his head and took a sip. The beer was skunky and too warm to make up for it, but anything that tasted like civilization was a welcome change.

“I love a little extra salt myself,” he said, adding it to the rim of his beer. “Had a friend who believed it made the whole world better.” He rolled up the remainder of the unfinished packet and tucked it away in his pocket. “So tell me…” he said, peering across the bar at Alex, “what brings a young pup with everything to live for out to a shithole like this? Not too responsible, if you ask me.”

“We tried the responsible route.” Clay tipped his bottle just enough to swish some of the foam clinging to the inside of the neck back into the rest. “Tried and tried until we were out of options. My wife and I might’ve kept beating our head against the wall if my brother—that dingus at the bar—hadn’t suggested trying something irresponsible for a change.”

Think about it, Clay, Joe had said while they were sitting on the tailgate of his F350, watching the outfit who’d bought the excavator load her up. We’d never have to work another day in our life.

This is The Amazing Solar Colon all over again, Clay had said. And that ‘turn your old clothes into money with three quick phone calls’ scheme. And remember Kraklin Solutions?

Dude, that hurts. This is different. We’re talking literal gold and literal magic.

When Clay had just shaken his head, Joe plunged on. That excavator is the last of the construction company you built from the ground up. The house ain’t coming back, and neither is Alex’s dojo. Balls, dude, the repo guys are probably looking for this truck as we speak, he’d said, slapping the tailgate. And even when they do take it, you won’t be any closer to getting out of debt. Seriously, what’ve you guys got left to lose?

Our lives, moron.

For once, Joe had gotten quiet. I mean, that’s still on the table, isn’t it? For Alex, at least…

Clay took another sip of beer to chase away the nasty memory.

“I dunno. Maybe I lost my mind for a minute,” he said softly. “Maybe Alex did, too. I expected her to talk us both out of it—point out all the reasons it couldn’t work—but she was as serious about coming out here as Joe was.”

The batwing doors slammed open like somebody had kicked them, bouncing off the wall and shaking the whole trailer. Clay grabbed the M4 and swung around, noticing as he did that he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t a fan of surprises. Across the saloon, people cursed and shoved pistols and swords back into their holsters.

A lanky guy decked out in full armor and a black medieval-looking tabard strutted in like he owned not just this place, but the whole world.

From the look of him, Clay almost suspected that he did own the world—or at least this little slice of it.

There was something different about him. The way he carried himself made Clay think former military, almost definitely a combat vet. The old-timer across the table gave off hints of danger when he wanted to, but this new guy moved like Death incarnate. It was like lethality was seeping out of his pores. The light around the newcomer even seemed to dim and bend a little, but maybe that was just the shitty lighting in the saloon. As he sauntered across the room, the other patrons got out of his way. Fast. Even the drunks partying with Joe backed off with their tails between their legs.

Joe, on the other hand, took one look at the guy and offered him a wide grin.

“You look like you need a shot,” he said.

Clay grimaced. Maybe this was going to turn into Visalia all over again.

He turned his chair so he would have a clearer path to his brother and started counting exits.

“I see our resident superstar caught your eye,” the old-timer said.

“Who is he?”

The old man let out a rolling beer burp. “Cassidy Morgan, a.k.a the Hexblade Crusader. One of our three local Incants.”

Clay looked into the old-timer’s single blue eye. “Are you one of the other two?”

The old man cackled and slapped his knee.

“Hardly. I’ve got some augments thanks to my gear, and I’ve been around this block… well, you might say before the block was built… but I’m not near as powerful as an Incant.”

“You’ve got that magical knife,” Clay remembered.

“That I do, and she’s a real beaut, too.” The old-timer pulled it from its sheath, planted it in the wooden tabletop, then nodded for Clay to take a gander.

Clay licked his lips and pressed his hand against the dagger’s wooden handle. He felt a gentle warmth radiate through his palm. The breath caught in his chest as some sort of notification shimmered to life in the air.

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Blood-Quenched Slicer (Superior)

One-Handed Damage: 20 - 29

Durability: 50 of 50

Tier Requirement: 2

Strength Requirement: 13

Blade Class Weapon - Fast Attack Speed

+3 Dexterity

+6% Attack Speed

+12% Bleeding Damage

+15 Points Infernal Damage

                                                                            ╠═╦╬╧╪

The old weed laughed at the expression etched into Clay’s face. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen any magical item stats before. It’s true what they say on the forums. Anybody can inspect an artifact and see what it does. Otherwise, who’d want to buy it? Incants could tell folks it did anything and there’d be no way to know if they were spinning yarns or telling the truth.”

Clay had read the forums, of course, but he still couldn’t believe those rumors were true. And it wasn’t like there were pictures or videos to go off of, not even online. Recreations, sure, but no actual evidence. Word was the stats were something that only the person who touched the artifact could see, and Clay had never been within arm’s reach of a legitimate magical weapon before entering the Containment Area, not even during Hell Gate. Out in the real world, those were ridiculously illegal. All items with magical properties were categorized as NFA Class IV weapons—a class above even things like heavy machine guns or grenade launchers—and were considered the strict property of the United States Government.

Illegally possessing one could land you thirty years in a super max penitentiary.

Clay whistled through his teeth. “This thing is incredible,” he said, finally pulling his hand from the grip. “With something like that, couldn’t you go out and kill a Dungeon Lord, then become one of them?”

The old-timer snorted and sheathed the blade. “Just go kill a Dungeon Lord. Why didn’t I ever think of that? How’s about I just put it on my itinerary for tomorra?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Clay said, a little more defensively than he’d meant to.

The old timer sighed. “You new arrivals are always talkin’ like you got lives to spare.” He shook his head. “You know why us old weeds call you newbs tumbleweeds, kid? Because you’re here this morning, gone this afternoon.” He waved a leathery hand through the air. “You tumble right on through to your grave without hardly slowing down.”

“We’ve done the research,” Clay insisted. “We know it’s not easy and most people who try it die, but we need the…” He faltered. “We need a specific type of power you can only get from killing a Dungeon Lord.”

“If that’s even how it works,” the old man said, pointing at Clay with his longneck. “Like I said, I been out here longer’n most, and even I can’t say for sure that the type of Dungeon Lord you kill defines the type of power and class you get. That’s the prevailin’ theory, mind you, but nobody’s ever proven it. What they have proven is that tangling with one of those big bastards is a suicide run. I’d just as soon not see a good lad like you and his little wifey kill yourselves. A shame and a waste is what that is.”

The chair next to Clay scraped out, and Alex sat down.

“You won’t have to see it,” she said. “We’re not going to lose.”

The old man chuckled. “And here I was under the impression that women were smarter than men. Well, lass, I’ll tell you what I told your hubby: don’t do it. For every ten thousand as take a swing at a Dungeon Lord, maybe one comes back. Maybe.”

“One in ten thousand isn’t zero,” Alex said, taking a sip from Clay’s beer.

“Might as well be,” the old timer said. “Even the lowest-level chimera that live inside the Uninhabitable Zones are too damn hard to kill—and that’s old weeds like me talkin’, not fresh through the Containment Wall pups like you. If you want money, stick to the cannon fodder monsters inside the Infested Zone. The little uns that skitter around in the rubble and such. They drop gold and the occasional magical item, and you’re a sight less likely to die fightin’ em. If the pair of you are feelin’ overly ambitious, clear out a first floor, but don’t ever go no farther than that.”

Clay and Alex exchanged a glance. Clay took his beer back.

“That’s not really an option for us,” he said, hoping the old timer would leave it be.

“Do what you will.” The old man stuck up his hands like he’d washed them of the subject. “Just some friendly advice on how to grow old from an expert.”