The Rifleman - Bk1 - Ch.14 (Patreon)

Chapter 14

Don’t let the door

Wesley was dumped out the other side of the portal and into a grubby stone room. The windows were boarded up, and for a moment, Wes was sure Gem had done something to get him marooned in the middle of nowhere. Then the old wooden door creaked open, and a man gave him the most assessing look over he had ever experienced.

“You here for the Wyrd Watchmen?” He asked, a warm smile coming over his face.

“That’s what they told me,” Wesley replied.

“Boyo, I ain’t never been so glad to see a stranger.” The man grinned from ear to ear.

“Thanks, I guess,” Wesley shrugged. “Are they nearby?”

“Not for long!” he laughed and turned away. “Oi! Wyrd Watchmen! Get your shit, and get the fuck out of my outpost!” A quick look over his shoulder. “You heard me. Out!”

Wesley found himself hustled quickly through a dimly lit room with a fireplace in one wall and pushed forcefully out through another door. He stumbled once but recovered quickly. When he got a good look at the outpost, he was surprised to realize he had passed a few of them on his hike into the city. 

Calling them outposts was a bit of a liberty. They were a two-story house with an attached tower on one side and a large wooden water tank out back. 

Oh, and a wooden fence.

While Wesley waited for his new team, who might possibly eat him, to come out, he distracted himself by having a look at his new surroundings. From the looks of things, they were no longer even in the same zone as the Unnamed City, which pissed him off no end. The outpost sat at the base of a large cliff of shining white stone. The massive cliff face continued for as far as he could see in both directions, while behind the outpost was a mix of stony ground and small patches of grass and trees for almost two miles before another giant white cliff reached into the sky. He could clearly see large outcroppings from each cliff, complete with stairs carved into the very stone cliff walls themselves. There were even a few wooden bridges here and there between the larger outcroppings. 

Definitely no sign of anything even remotely like the Unnamed City.

He didn’t have to wait long to meet his new team. The first one through the door was still yelling obscenities at the place's owner as he squeezed through the door. 

Squeezing was necessary due to the sheer size of the man in question. If it was a man. The hugely muscled legs were clad in thick leather armor reinforced with strong steel plates. The entire top half of the man was massive, even compared to the legs. Fur covered his chest and back, and the head was… well, it was a bear. A massive fucking bear’s head.

Wesley swallowed hard as the half-man and half-bear turned to grin at him. Wesley took note of the strange steel armguards and bands of thick leather over the chest while trying very hard to ignore the massive metal mace attached to each hip.

The bear-man grinned, revealing huge, sharp teeth.

“Hey! You must be the new guy!” he said, sticking out one hand, which was more paw than hand. “My name’s Mace.”

“Your name is Mace, and you use maces?” Wesley asked, mostly just for something to say that wasn’t just ‘Fuck, it’s a bear!’

Mace laughed and called over one massive shoulder, “Hey, he got the joke!”

“The mace thing?” a very feminine voice said with the kind of perfect pronunciation you only got with a VERY expensive education, “That is not a joke; it is a bad pun at best.” The owner of the voice stepped past the bulky form of Mace.

She was, quite definitely, dead. Her skin was grey, her black hair falling in long flat lines across a face like porcelain, and her deep-set dark eyes were milky white with tiny, pinprick pupils. She wore figure-hugging dark leather armor that left both arms free. The pale arms were covered in delicate tattoos that seemed different from the kind he had. As he watched, they almost seemed to move, the creatures depicted turning to look at him. 

“As for him,” she smiled, showing teeth like a shark. “I suspect you will not last, but should you fall in battle, I promise to consume you entirely.”

Wesley blinked twice, his mind whirling as he tried to match the delicate and friendly voice and kind tone with the figure that it came from.

“Thanks? I think?” He said with a frown.

“The pleasure will be all hers, won’t it Pris?” Another woman came out of the outpost, dressed in robes that looked religious in design if not style. They looked like the porn version of a bishop’s robes and left nothing to the imagination. The woman wearing them had flame-red hair and grinned lasciviously at him for a second or two before winking. “Hey, I might eat you too. You don’t even have to die first!” She had the dirtiest laugh he had ever heard.

“Just once, Pru,” A man sighed as he followed her out. “Just once, try to merely say ‘Hello’ rather than making some kind of offer of sex.”

“Never going to happen,” Mace chuckled. “Trust me on this.”

“I’m Purity,” the redhead said as she dumped her bag in front of him, “But everybody calls me Pru.”

“Wesley Lancaster,” Wes replied automatically.

“The ghoul, not an insult because she actually is one, is Priscilla. Mace, you met already. A big lad in more ways than one, I can tell you,” Another dirty laugh, “And the last member of our happy band is Alber, but everyone calls him Al.”

Alber nodded stiffly to Wes, clearly showing a network of black lines up one side of his face. Twin daggers glinted on his hips as he shrugged back his cloak. One arm was completely black, and the fingers had grown into claws with sharp white nails.

“So, how badly did you fuck up to get shoved off on us?” Mace asked with a smile.  

Wesley followed his new group as they started to hike away from the outpost, heading for a set of stairs on the nearby cliff. They talked and chatted amongst themselves, seeming to have almost forgotten he was there. 

He listened in on their chatting, surprised to hear how normal it was. They may have looked strange. Okay, terrifying, they looked terrifying, except for Pru, who merely looked… debauched.

Either way, they were clearly close, a dozen little signs of which were on show even in the short time he had been with them. If one stumbled over a rock or root, another always reached out to stabilize them. They did it as unconsciously as when Al caught a bit of gear that slipped out of Mace’s pack and popped it into his own, all without missing a beat of the conversation he was having with Pris. 

Pris was a strange one. Ghoul called a lot of things to mind, but the deliberate and poised Pris was nothing like any of them. If he hadn’t seen the teeth himself, Wes would never believe it of her, but there it was, right in front of him. It was disorienting for him, distracting in a place that could be dangerous for all he knew. 

So, he took a deep breath and let it go. They looked weird, so what? If he was going to be working with these people inside a dungeon, no less, constantly being thrown by what they were was going to get people killed, and maybe not just him. He could still remember Karl's comments about this group, but it wasn’t like they hid anything, as far as he could tell. 

Hell, Pris had said she’d eat him if he died like it was a favor she was willing to do for him. Maybe it was being so new to this world, maybe it was having been so easily betrayed by Gem, but Wesley decided to try and get to know this group.

“You look lost in thought,” Alber said, having dropped back to walk beside Wes. “Trying to figure out what tragic events led you here?”

“Actually, kind of the opposite,” Wesley said with a smile. “I was thinking about how much worse things could be.”

“Forgive my doubt,” Alber smiled with the healthy side of his face, “but that is not the kind of reaction we normally get.”

“Well, I guess I might have just been really lucky, but so far, most of the people I’ve met have been nice enough,” Wes said, thinking of the farmer especially, “I was unlucky with one person. It could have been a lot worse.” He gave Alber a smile, “Besides, from what little I have seen so far, you lot don’t seem too bad.” Wes nodded to the three ahead of them. “You seem to get on well.”

“We do,” Alber nodded. “All of us are outcasts in some way. It bonds us.”

The conversation stopped when they started up the narrow, winding staircase carved into the side of the cliff. For a while, everybody focused on not falling. Wesley was still at the back, trust issues again, and he got a good look at the area between the two cliffs. He saw several paths winding between the two, the occasional building and, distantly, a village. It didn’t seem like a bad place overall, which was good. The provisional aspect of his assignment to this group was obvious. They were a tight group, and he was an outsider they clearly didn’t trust very much. In short, he was already trying to get the lay of the land for when it was time to move on. 

A couple of hours later, they finally crested the last step, coming to a smallish outcropping with some sparse grass and shrubs growing from the white stone. 

“This’ll be us for the night,” Mace called out. “Everybody set up camp, and we’ll keep going tomorrow at first light.”

While others got busy setting up small tents and such, Pru reached into her bag and started pulling out a seemingly random collection of items and sorting through them.

“Dammit, Pru!” Mace snapped. “This is why we get thrown out of every damn outpost! We could have been sleeping in beds for another night.”

“Oh, come off it,” Pru snickered. “That asshole was going to throw us out anyway. I just took a few mementos.” 

“Did you leave anything behind?” Pris asked archly. “The last time you robbed everything in the place.”

“Eh, we had that storage device; why not use it?” She shrugged.

“I should make you take it back,” Mace rubbed his sizable nose. “This time, I should make you take it back.”

“You say that every time, Mace,” Al said with a shake of his head. “The threat is not working.”

Mace growled at Pru, his lips lifting to reveal his teeth as his fists clenched.

“Oh, stop it,” Pru laughed. “You know that will just get me going.”

Mace growled again and then just went and punched dents in the wall.

“Did you take anything we could burn?” Wesley asked. “I fancy a hot meal.”

“Uh, let me check,” Pru dug through the bag. “How about this stuff?” She handed him a bunch of what appeared to be firewood from next to the fireplace.

“You even took the firewood?” Wes asked.

“Let that asshole go cut some more,” Pru said simply. “We are busy.”

Wesley really didn’t have anything to say to that, so he just got busy setting up a fire, which he started with an Improved Flare once he was done. 

By nightfall, he had a decent fire going and finally got to use the frying pan he had been given back in the village. Some dried meat from the travel rations, water from his canteen, a few of the pilfered vegetables, and he had a decent casserole going in no time. The smell brought the others over to the fire, and he readily offered to share. 

“If anyone has some salt or spices, this would taste a whole lot better,” Wes noted as it cooked. Al, it turned out, carried a bag of coarse salt, and to his great surprise, Pris had a whole collection of spices.

“These ones are safe to eat for living creatures,” She said as she handed him a handful of small glass jars, “But I have never seen anyone cook with them.”

He sniffed a couple before finding something that smelled like cinnamon. That was good with meat, right? He did a small taste test, and it was quite pleasant. He added a little along with the salt and then found a spicy one that reminded him of chilies. 

It was quite a find, considering how bland everything had been so far. It turned out that Pru had only borrowed three bowls, so he did his best to divide the meal before asking Pris to wait while he tried to find something in his pack. There had definitely been a bowl of some sort in there.

“I will not be partaking, thank you,” Pris said gently while the others laughed quietly. “I have my own meal I will consume later.”

“Please, don’t wait on my account,” Wesley said in embarrassment.

“You may find my meal unsettling,” She warned.

“I’m the new guy here, please,” Wes offered again.

“If you’re sure,” Pris replied and got something from her pack.

“Five gold says he pukes!” Pru stage whispered to Alber.

Wesley tensed, his fork halfway to his mouth, as Pris returned with a porcelain plate with delicate golden edges, a knife, and a fork. On the plate itself rested what appeared to be a human forearm. The skin was strangely wrinkled. 

“I don’t want to be rude,” Wesley said slowly.

“Go ahead, please,” Pris said calmly. “I know it is unsettling. Would you like me to wait after all?”

“No, I was just wondering why the skin was so wrinkled,” Wes asked.

“Yeah, he’s going to puke,” Mace sighed and leaned away.

“I must normally consume kills that have begun to, uh…” She trailed off. 

“Rot?” Wes offered.

“Quite,” she nodded. “However, I have found pickling reduces the smell and thus the discomfort for my party members.”

“Oh, right,” Wes said simply. “That’s nice of you. Doesn’t it spoil your enjoyment a bit?”

“I’ve found the spices add something pleasant,” Pris smiled. “So it is fine.”

Wes nodded and went back to eating, noting Pris's careful style. She cut each bit free of the bone before cutting it into small pieces, each one eaten slowly and with perfect manners. It kind of made him feel embarrassed about his own lack of manners. 

“Well, he can cook, and he didn’t puke,” Pru said with a smile. “I say we keep him.”

Alber snorted, and Mace grinned. 

“Let’s start with proper introductions,” Mace said as he put down his empty bowl. 

Mace had been a guardsman in a mid-sized town. One night, he had been called to deal with a feral child. That child, it seemed was a lot more feral than they had imagined. The beastkin child had snuck off a passing caravan and gone into the city to explore before being overwhelmed by the noise and smells. She had gone on a small-scale rampage before being captured, including biting Mace. 

To make matters worse, the little girl was a ‘curse-bearer’ able to pass on the beast form to those she bit.

Mace changed almost immediately. He was driven from the town based on the superstition that he could pass it on to others. Lost and alone, Mace switched back and forth between the two forms almost at random until the Beast-Kin Elder managed to track him down. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. A long and tiring few days later, he was in the form he currently had. Stuck, at least until he found an Elder with the gift to remove the curse completely.

The whole following year was a litany of being chased from one place to another. That had led, in time, to a graveyard in the middle of a zone invasion. The graveyard was occupied, with a strange woman putting down the zombies that were congregating there after being raised by the sheer numbers dying on the battlefield nearby.

That was when he met Pris. Or rather, Priscilla Rottsdottir. They assumed that was her name. Pris herself had no memories of her life before being a ghoul. Her life, or un-life, or un-death, whatever it was, began in a crypt marked with that name in the same graveyard. She hid there for almost a year, feeding on the recently killed until the zone was invaded and taken by another Player Faction. Mace recognized the same cursed life in her that he lived at the time, so he took her with him when the zone changed.

By fighting together, they both got stronger, and their classes evolved, which was apparently a thing Wes noted. Pris became a Cursed Summoner, able to summon the spirits of things she ate. As for Mace? He went from a simple Town Guard to a Shiftless Guardian.

The two of them then encountered a cursed rogue, Alber. The man had assassinated a corrupt village elder in his own village to avenge a friend who the man had killed. In return, he got the class of Rogue, and shortly after, a passing Player Faction priest declared him corrupted, cursing him with a creeping curse that was slowly corrupting his body.

Banished from his village, Alber had traveled to a nearby city, where he ended up in the Delver’s Guild, looking for a group. Mace and Pris had heard the city was friendly to the cursed, and so they ended up in the same place. 

The ‘friendly’ city was apparently putting together something of a ‘nightmare army’ to use as a threat against another city; still, the three left together as a registered team in the copper rank. 

Jobs were not exactly forthcoming at any of Delver’s Guildhalls or outposts. Their squad was reduced to doing all the things others didn’t want to do, such as clearing infestations in sewers and dungeons that no one else wanted. Normally, because they were disgusting, cursed, or merely irritating. It was a dark time, and so they had come up with a plan. 

Recruit a ‘normie’ to send in and pick up requests while they wait in the shadows. Following through on the plan was a very difficult task. Just about everyone they asked was determined to avoid being associated with them or insisted that they took the jobs, kept most of the reward, and didn’t have to do any of the work. 

Then, they met Purity, the most ironically named Priestess in history. 

She had been thrown, literally, out of an order in a large city after being reported by an earnest young man who was concerned about her behavior towards him. Purity, it was discovered, had made a habit of seducing the younger priests and monks of both sexes and then blackmailing any who were rich enough for it to be worthwhile. She was keen to head out for new places before they discovered any of her other schemes and came after her, possibly with torches and chains. 

She had been a great fit for the team, who needed a healer anyway, but their plans to get a ‘normie’ for their team were derailed when her class transformed from Priestess to Fallen Priestess.

Well, that, and the fact she seemed unable to pass through even the smallest village without sleeping with people and stealing anything not nailed down.

“So that’s us, warts and all,” Mace said with a grin. “So, what about you?”