Middle Triumvarate B1C5

Another one of this finished hours after I should have gone to bed, but the itch hit me pretty hard. I really want to just crank chapters of this story out, but I have to focus on Blood Shaper to meet deadlines. Of course, I also want to make more of this to meet some self imposed deadlines, so we'll see how that balances.

Also, Patreon has made even more changes to the text editor and I hate each and every change they've made this year, but this one has taken an earlier change and made it worse. Curses upon them.

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You defeated:

1x Animated Cannonball

You receive: 20 XP

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Maeve jerked a little when the box suddenly popped in her face, but once she processed that it wasn’t a threat she quickly read it and dismissed it, relieved at what it meant. Panting, she let the sledgehammer’s head drop to the ground and she rested on the handle for support. “It’s dead.”

“Oh good.” Ed slumped to the ground and rested his back against the wall. “I know I’m not a professional athlete but I thought I was in better shape than this.”

“It’s the danger.” Alex pushed himself up from the dive he’d taken to go under the cannonballs last charge and moved to check over Amelia. “When we’ve fought before its been to practice or for exhibitions, there wasn’t any actual chance of dying. Now…?”

After heaving in some deep breaths Maeve used the hammer to push herself up. “We can’t relax yet. Even if the cannonballs are dead there still might be other monsters.”

“I’ll keep watch,” Scarlet volunteered, “I got my kills in early and didn’t have to do any of the running for the last few kills. You guys get some rest before we move on.” She gently nudged Maeve toward the wall before moving to the center of the carnage where she had a good view around them.

Maeve took the opportunity and sat down after making sure there wouldn’t be any broken glass under her, with Alex and Amelia joining her a moment later. Looking around at the destruction of the exhibits and the sheer chaos around them, she marveled at how fast life could change. Hours ago this level of destruction would have been an absolute disaster. Now it was just a minor side note. The fight against the cannonballs had gone well, with no one getting an injury worse than some scrapes or small cuts, but the monsters hadn’t been one hundred percent predictable. A few of them had thrown themselves in weird directions or had been already launching themselves as the person who’s turn it was to be bait stepped into their sensory range, leading to immediate unpredictable trajectories once the cannonball landed again. The end result of all that was the destroyed displays, the broken glass, and the strewn about or completely obliterated artifacts and exhibits.

“Anybody get more experience off this one? I got twenty for the kill.”

Ed shook his head, still breathing heavily. “No, still got five for ‘meaningfully contributing’ same as the rest. What counts as a meaningful contribution? Because some of those fights we got XP when we didn’t really do much individually.”

“No idea, yet. We’’ figure it out.” Maeve glanced at everyone and did her best to gauge how tired they were, both physically and mentally. “Let’s give it two or three minutes then we head for the parking lot.”

No one argued, and they all sat there quietly as they recovered. Maeve tried to go over the fight and analyze what went wrong and what went well, but it got muddled in her head after a moment. She just wasn’t experienced enough to look back at a battle and plan how to improve, not a real one at least. Her time in Hold the End Online had seen her becoming one of the best strategists and tacticians in one of the most popular online games, but that was a game. The skills she’d learned from playing it for so many years had been helping her over the past few hours of uncertainty and fear, but she wasn’t a true veteran by any means.

There had been twelve cannonballs to kill, which was a number that couldn’t be evenly divided by five. They’d debated around which two people would get an extra with Alex as the easy winner for one since he’d taken the risk in getting them the sledge hammer. The other slot was a fierce debate between Scarlet and Ed, with each of them arguing the other should get it. After a minute Maeve made them play rock paper scissors, and Ed won, so Scarlet got the extra kill. With each kill getting the person who actually finished off the animated cannonballs giving twenty experience and the assists getting five each that meant Scarlet and Alex both had a total of one hundred and five experience and the other three had exactly ninety each. Neither Alex nor Scarlet had gotten any extra messages on hitting one hundred experience, so if this System included a direct leveling System, the kind where experience filled up until you reached a certain amount and then you moved to the next level on hitting that number as opposed to a system that used experience like a currency to buy upgrades, then level one’s threshold was higher than one hundred. No matter what kind of system this System was, they needed more experience, which meant fighting more monsters. And stronger monsters.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced herself to relax. Her friends were fine and so was she. There were definitely things they would need to improve upon, but getting antsy about not being good enough wouldn’t make her better. The only thing that could would be staying alive and practicing. There were things to learn, theories to verify, and future battles to live through. That meant it was time to start moving again.

“Alright,” She stood up and visually inspected her friend. “Everybody ready?”

They gathered up around the archway leading into the next room and peaked through. There was no movement and no traces of anything having passed through, so they moved on. At each intersection, opening, doorway, and blind spot they paused to scout it out and look for monsters. The first few times they ran into nothing and Maeve had to actively work with her own thoughts to make sure she didn’t get complacent. They were moving out of the American History section of the museum and were approaching the main rotunda that split into multiple halls when Scarlet grabbed Alex’s bicep.

“Back up.” She hissed.

They all shuffled away from the archway and Maeve tried to follow Scarlet’s line of sight. “What is it?”

“That painting moved.”

Looking at the framed, hanging painting of George Washington just outside the American history area it felt like it was staring at her, but she didn’t see it moving. A brief moment went by before Maeve realized why that felt so wrong and glared at it. The optical illusion trick that made paintings look like they were constantly watching you creeped her out and there were way too many of them in the museum. She’d like this one because it wasn’t that kind of painting and the false line of sight Washington’s eyes “followed” shouldn’t be able to see them at this angle.

“She’s right, that’s definitely something, and since we don’t have any other information I’m guessing it’s a monster.” Maeve whispered.

They all backed away and had a quick whispered conversation.

“What do we do? It’s right in the way.”

“We could just charge it?” Ed offered.

“If we literally have no other options, maybe. Definitely not the first thing we’re going to try.”

Amelia took a deep breath, “Okay, what are you always telling me, Maeve? Work out what you need to do and how to get there. Our goal is to get to Ed’s car because it has his and Alex’s weapons and armor, which should help us survive the crazy shit happening. To get to the the parking lot we need to get to the entrance and this painting monster thing is in the way. Can we go around it?”

“The front is the only way in and out of the museum and this is the only way to the front.” Scarlet muttered. “There’s not another path to take that could sneak us around it.”

“That can’t be right,” Ed insisted with a big frown on his face, “There’s absolutely no way this place doesn’t have fire exits. We could bust right outside that way.”

Maeve and Amelia shared startled glances and it was obvious neither of them had thought about that.

“That’s a good idea. I think I remember where a few of them are and I’m sure the girls know the whole layout!”

“Wait.” Maeve furrowed her brow, feeling like something was wrong with that idea. “Why is that… Oh, shit. Yeah, no we can’t go out the fire exits.”

“What? Why?”

“They’re the kind that immediately set off the fire alarm. The biggest problem we have right now is that we don’t know anything. We don’t know what’s around us, we don’t know where we are-“

“We’re in the museum.” Amelia interjected.

Maeve shot her best friend a glare, “We don’t know where the museum is, smartass, since the world apparently just got mixed up like a puzzle, and we don’t know where anyone else is. The only way we’re going to survive is by learning, and the only way to learn is by surviving. The best way to stay alive long enough to give ourselves a long-term fighting chance is to be careful and stealthy. The fire alarm blaring is not stealthy and would draw in something.”

“Didn’t the System say something about electricity not working?” Scarlet wondered. “If they aren’t powered we wouldn’t have to worry about the alarms.”

“It said something about technology and electronics acting strangely and that gunpowder would work differently, it didn’t say it wouldn’t work at all. It’s a good idea and it’s going on the list, but same as charging at the painting, it’s going lower on the list. We need to work out what’s possible then see what option combines the least amount of risk with the best possibility of success.”

Ed nodded. “I get it. The fire doors have a good chance of getting us to our goal, but they’re also really risky if it pulls something to us that we can’t handle.” He snuck away from the groups and peaked around the corner to look at the painting before coming back. “The painting itself hasn’t moved but the eyes aren’t looking this way anymore. It’s too bad we don’t have any gunpowder we could shoot one of those old timey guns we passed at it.”

“Guns might blow up, remember?” Scarlet snarked at him. “You’re right that something with range would be good though, it would let us see how far it can reach and how it reacts to violence.”

Alex spoke up for the first time since seeing the painting. “I have a ranged weapon.”

The whole group turned to stare at him. “’What?’”

He stepped to the side and picked up the fire extinguisher hanging from the wall. “See?”

“Babe, that’s a fire extinguisher.”

“No, wait I see what you’re going for.” Scarlet stepped in and pulled the hose free from the clamp on the side of the extinguisher. “We can spray the painting and block up its line of sight. Once it can’t see us, then we charge it!”

“Oh.” Alex stared down at the extinguisher in his hands. “I was just going to throw it, cause you know, a heavy rock was the first ranged weapon humans ever used.”

“I like both ideas.” Maeve looked down the hallway and didn’t see what she was looking for. “I think there’s another one of those in the last room. Hell, let’s see if we can get more than just one more. We can throw one of them at it to see what it does and use the other two to make smoke screens to get in close.”

Alex hefted the red cylinder over his shoulder. “We could also grab the cannonballs we killed. They’re decently heavy and probably a better shape for throwing than one of these. Plus, if we use those as projectiles we can save an extinguisher.”

They went back into the other room and Ed grabbed the extinguisher they found there, handing his makeshift spear to Scarlet.

“Wait a second,” She said as she grabbed the flagpole from him. “Are these going to work?”

“What do you mean?”

“The System said technology and chemical reactions are going to act wonky. Do fire extinguishers use chemical reactions to work?”

They all stared at the one in Ed’s hands.

“… I have no idea.” Ed turned it around and started reading the labels on it. “I know that you have to use different kinds of for different fires, but I don’t know the mechanics behind them. This is a multipurpose one… It says its under pressure, and pressure differentials are part of physics not chemical reactions, so I don’t think we have worry.”

“We should test it anyway.” Maeve stepped away from the wall. “Spray a burst over here away from everyone.”

Ed pulled the pin and pointed the nozzle at the blank wall. He pulled the lever and a spray of white covered the wall.

“Okay good.”

Scarlet stepped up to peer at the foam. “Is it toxic? We’re going to be fighting right up in a cloud of it. And why isn’t it cold?”

“Try not to breath it in but I’m pretty sure you can touch it without getting any rashes or burns. And those are a different kind, I think? There was one in the kitchen at work that was cold to the touch so it depends on what kind of fire they’re for.”

“We want it to blind the painting so we’re covered.” Maeve bent over and hefted one of the dented cannonballs up with a small grunt. “Pretty heavy. We might need to let the guys throw these.”

Scarlet clicked her tongue as she lifted one of her own. “There’s some kind of System giving me MMO screens to let me know I killed monsters and awards me experience points, but I don’t have a strength stat I can raise?”

“Maybe we haven’t gotten enough exp to level and we’ll be able to raise out stats when we get to level one.”

Scarlet stopped in place and looked at Maeve with a bewildered expression, with just a hint of panic behind her eyes. “We’re talking about raising our strength stats to be better at throwing dead cannonball monsters at a painting monster in the museum which might not be in the same place it was when I got to work this morning. And we’re being dead serious about it.”

“Hey.” Maeve stepped in close and bumped her shoulder against her friend’s “We got this. One thing at a time.”

Scarlet slowly let out a breath and when she opened her eyes there was a determined light in them that pushed away the fear. “Right. One thing at a time. Monsters to kill and a parking lot to get to.”