James A. Hunter
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Wasteland Warlords Episode 2 - 3 A Pig’s Tale
🕑 Added 2022-09-24 17:00:05 +0000 UTCAs the strobing orbs descended on the shadowmen, the full swarm of locusts took to the air, their wings buzzing like a ten-thousand watt bulb, and turned on the shadowmen. Every other attack they’d tried on these little creeps had failed. But not this one. The locusts’ massive jaws tore into the flute-playing creatures, chewing through inky flesh like ancient Egypt’s wheatfields. Splashes of dark purple blood fell across the pavement for the first time.
The kokos panicked. They scattered, hightailing it in every direction.
“Oh no you don’t.” Alex whipped the kama-end of her kusarigama at the one holding the pig, wrapping the chain around the little oinker and jerking it out of the koko’s hand.
The shadowman was too busy flailing at locusts and running to go back for its lost snack. Alex scooped the struggling little pig up into her arms and hugged it.
“Unhand me, you vile, puny creature!” the pig screamed. “Do you have any idea how powerful I am?”
“It’s okay, you’re safe now,” she said, before gently shushing the pig. She sounded like Joe talking to Bertha.
The last of the kokos, already half-eaten by locusts, disappeared down the street.
Clay let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
“Way to go, bro.” Joe slapped him on the shoulder. “You really saved our bacon. Our literal bacon.”
A paw patted the back of Clay’s calf, and Chonk made some encouraging racoon noises.
“And porkchops,” Joe said. “Oh, and ribs! Man, if we had some Kansas City sauce right now…”
Clay glanced at his wife, cuddling the tiny black and pink pig.
“Yeah, I kinda doubt she’s going to let you cook that thing up after all that.”
“I could burn the lot of you to a crisp with a single breath!” the little oinker squealed, squirming and kicking. It couldn’t break free of Alex’s grasp. “I am all-powerful! I will destroy you!”
“Funny, crispy is exactly what I was thinking.” Joe eyed the pig. “Looks like there’ll be just enough for all of us to have two or three slices with our Mac’n’Spam—unless Griff is kosher. In which case, we’ll graciously accept your religious views and your strips of bacon.”
The old weed smirked. “Mighty thoughtful of ya, but I believe you’re missing the point of the little runt’s argument.” He fixed his eye on the teacup pig. “You say you’re quite the big deal, eh?”
“I was the most powerful Dungeon Lord in this territory until a rival of mine found a way to curse me.” She let out an indignant grunt. “I am a Great Blue Wyrm, mighty and powerful beyond anything you have ever experienced. Tremble before me!”
Joe scoffed. “I recognize a bacon seed when I see one, lady. How stupid do you think we are?”
She eyed his cutoff flannel shirt and tin pants. “Quite.”
Alex let out a laugh, and Joe shot a glare her way.
“Whose side are you on, short stack?”
“Like you didn’t deserve that.” Alex shrugged. “Besides, it’s not every day you run into a wisecracking animal sidekick.”
“I am not a sidekick!” the pig huffed. “I am mighty! I am death incarnate!”
The little runt was definitely showing a dragon-level of rage and arrogance. Then again, Clay had been on feral hog hunts before. Those beasts were just as mean as any magical wasteland monster he’d ever tangled with.
“If you’re so powerful,” he interrupted her rant, “how did your rival manage to pull something like this over on you?”
The teacup pig stopped squirming and glared at Clay. Tough to do as an adorable porker, but the pig pulled it off.
“He… crept up while I slumbered. Yes, it was up upon my vast hoard of treasure that I slept, and this cowardly cockatrice snuck into my magnificent throne room and cast a Polymorph spell to bind me in the form of this puny creature.” A piggy scowl wrinkled her snout. “Along with my gorgeous scales and long, flowing beard, my great and powerful dungeon lord magicks were locked away. From there, it was a simple matter for the weakling to cage me. Deposed and humiliated, I was kept in the Throne Room as an amusement. Until a day ago, when through use of my superior cunning and no small amount of luck, I finally managed to make good my escape.”
“Pfft. Sounds like a load of pig crap to me,” Joe said, rolling his eyes. He stuck up his hand. “I vote we eat it. All in favor?”
On his shoulder, Chonk stuck up its hedge trimmer arm and chittered in agreement.
“Try it,” Alex snapped, hugging the tiny pig close while she glared daggers at Joe and Chonk in turns.
“Everybody just hang on a second.” There was a way to verify all of this, and it didn’t require them to take the word of a random talking pig. Clay pulled out the Monocle
of True Seeing.
╠═╦╬╧╪
.error ( ): ᵶᶓᶉ⸞ᴞᴥᴪᵑᴎᴔᴚ†
Level: 1 (Cursed!)
Race: Miniature Swine (Cursed!)
Class: Court Jester (Cursed!)
Alignment: Earth
Exp: 0 Exp; to next level: 440
Available Characteristic Points: 0
Health: 22
H-Regen / 5 Sec: 2
Magick: 0
Magick-Regen / 5 Sec: 0
Attributes:
· Armor Rating: 14
· Melee Attack Damage: 14
· Ranged Attack Damage: 9
· Spell Damage: 0
· Movement Rate: +10%
· Critical Hit Chance: 5%
· Critical Hit Damage: +50%
Active Effects:
· Item-Based Curse!
Miniature Swine Skills:
· Wallow
· Swine Rush
· Charm Person
╠═╦╬╧╪
The pig’s stats were a total dumpster fire, about what he would expect of a creature small enough to fit through a cat door, but she did have a weird Active Effect going on—Item Based Curse. Its level, race, and class also had the Cursed Debuff listed beside them, which was exceedingly strange. Also, what the hell kind of unpronounceable gibberish name was that? Something wasn’t adding up here.
“What’s an Item-based Curse?” Clay asked her.
“The spell was cast using a claw stolen from my front paw pinned to a frightful artifact known as a Voodoo Doll.” She stuck out her left foreleg to show a chipped hoof. “When I destroy the artifact and regain that critical piece of myself, I can break this curse and depose my rival.” She eyed them dubiously, then snuffled in a way that was both sickeningly cute and resigned. “You three don’t look like much, but you did manage to defeat that vile crowd of savages. If you successfully help me regain my true form and retake my dungeon, I would be willing to grant each of you a boon.”
“A Dungeon Lord’s Boon?” Griff asked, peering down his scarred nose at the little piglet.
The pig blinked. “Of course, yes, a Dungeon Lord’s Boon. I also have the aforementioned vast treasure hoard. Help me kill my rival, and anything in it is yours for the taking. Up to a reasonable amount, of course.”
“Define reasonable,” Joe said, rubbing thoughtfully at his chin.
Alex locked eyes with Clay, and he knew instantly what she was thinking: this could be the break they’d been looking for. They hadn’t had a second to search for local dungeons in their crazy endless run from the Aussie Incant, but now one might have just stumbled across their path, and with a potential treasure reward to boot.
She turned the pig around to face her.
“Before we agree to anything, we need some information,” she said, the lovey-dovey excitement gone from her voice. Now she was all business. “What level is this rival Dungeon Lord, and what class is he?”
“The worst sort of tasteless, low-class scum,” the pig sneered. “A puff-up, painted and pierced Lizardman Voodoo Shaman, who expends all his energy on looking fearsome but shoots his darts and throws curses from afar like a toothless coward.” She turned her tiny head and spat on the ground. “And for all that, he is barely a level 20. If I were not so secure in my own greatness, I would die of embarrassment.”
“What Tier is your Dungeon?” Alex asked.
“Tier 4.” The pig snuffled angrily and adorably. “Imagine, someone so weak and pathetic and tacky running something so far above him.”
Clay chewed it over. A Tier 4 might be just this side of possible—after all, they’d taken out Katotes without an Incant in their party, and the Ettin’s dungeon had been a Tier 3. Now, with Alex’s Incant powers, a Tier 4 should be within their reach. A ranged class would even be a decent fit for a dex and weapons build like his. He was already pretty proficient with the Lesser Wand of Inferno, and something with “Voodoo” in the title was bound to have major Magicka-regen.
If they played this right, he could be slinging spells within the week.
The piglet seemed to take Clay’s thoughtfulness as a hesitation.
“As one who spawned in and recently escaped from said Dungeon, I know all the secret ways in and out,” she assured them. “I can lead you to the Throne Room without ever having to face the creatures in the earlier floors.”
Griff nodded. “Seems to me I heard a song and dance like that once. Tell me if this sounds familiar, Miss Dragon—you get our party into the Throne Room, then skedaddle so’s the big bad takes us out one by one.”
She snorted an indignant hmph. “I would not pull a ‘Griefer’ for all the gold in my hoard. A Greater Wyrm would never run from a fight!”
“Except in pig form,” the old weed pointed out.
“I was not running!” she squealed. “That was a tactical retreat! I planned all along to return and defeat him with the appropriately painful and embarrassing measures!”
“Guess that makes us the embarrassing measures,” Clay said flatly.
She turned up her snout. “There is nothing more humiliating for a Dungeon Lord than to be slain by puny humans.”
“How do we know you’re telling the truth about any of this?” Alex asked, searching the pig’s face for answers.
“Hey, Joe’s got a great idea, everybody pay attention to Joe,” Joe said. “How about Clay kills this pork rind and becomes an Incant right now? Her life is literally in the palm of our hands. It’s never going to get any easier than this.” He shrugged. “And if Clay gets awesome dragon powers, we’ll know she was telling the truth about being a Dungeon Lord.”
Looking at her stats again, Clay wasn’t so sure. “Or maybe if I kill her in pig form, I’ll get lame pig powers. I’m sure a high demand skill like Wallow will come in handy somewhere down the road.”
“So it’s a coin toss,” Joe replied with a shrug. “I still say it’s worth a shot.”
“Will you two stop?” Alex hugged the struggling pig to her like a fussy baby and scratched between the thing’s ears. The little runt went limp in her arms, making a weird purring-grunting sound. “There’s not going to be any pig murder! I don’t care if she’s a great Dungeon Lord or a total liar, she’s adorable. We are not killing anything this cute. Ever.”
“What if it’s—” Joe started, but Alex cut him off.
“Ever.”
“We can’t stand around arguing about this all night,” Clay said, scanning the quickly darkening night sky. “All that flash and noise is bound to have got the Gearhead’s attention. His drones could be on the way as we speak.”
“Now who is running from a fight?” the teacup pig grunted, regaining some semblance of her dignity and haughtiness now that the head-scratches were finished.
“It was a tactical retreat,” Joe sneered.
“Perhaps a gesture of good will is in order,” the little pig said. “As a great and powerful dungeon lord of this territory, I can tell you that a nomadic dungeon called the Sooq is on its migratory path through Santa Clarita. They buy and sell every magical item, spell, and potion you can imagine and many you cannot.
“They do not deal with feral mobs off the street, but with my clout and perhaps a minor fetch quest from you, it may be possible for you to buy a cloaking spell or object that will hide you from your enemy. That would be useful to hide you from this Gearhead, would it not? The Sooq is the reason I’m here in the first place. I hoped to gain a place with them to recuperate before searching out and hiring someone to help me destroy my rival. However, as I have found you, perhaps the search is unnecessary.”
Clay turned to Griff. “Know anything about this Sooq dungeon?”
“Been a while since I last came through here,” the old weed said, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat. “A while my time, not young folks’ time. A couplea decades is more than enough for a new dungeon to pop up. ’Course, Little Miss Great Blue Wyrm here might be takin’ advantage of the fact we’re new in town and don’t know our way around.”
Alex’s eyes lost focus as she checked something in her Incant interface.
“No, the Sooq definitely exists. It’s on the list of local dungeons, but it’s weird. There’s no Tier level. Where it should be, it just says ‘Responsive.’”
“We’re not spoiled for options here,” Clay said. “We’ve got to get clear of Lynes at least long enough to learn more about her rival’s power level and what we’ll need to take him out. Worst case scenario, it’s a setup. If it looks like that’s the case, we kill our way back out—starting with a certain pig.” He shot a glare at the runt.
“I am the Great Blue Wyrm,” the oinker grumbled.
“I say we do it,” Alex voted. “Even if taking back her dungeon doesn’t pan out, we can’t keep running like this. Being invisible to the drones would give us a chance to rest, and if it works on Gearhead, too, we’ve got a major leg up on him.”
Griff looked down at the pig one more time, sawing his jaw a little. After a second, he directed a short nod at Clay.
Joe sighed.
“Fine,” he said, resigned. “We find this Sooq thing, then help Bacon Bits get her dungeon back.” He wagged a finger at the pig. “But if there’s even a hint of sketchiness from you, it’s sizzle-sizzle-crunch. Got it?”
The pig blinked. “Are you addressing me as Bacon Bits? I am a mighty dungeon lord of great renown—”
“It was that or Chris P. Bacon,” Joe said. “And no offense, but you’re not really big enough to justify that fourth syllable.”
“I will not be belittled with such foolery!”
“Hey, if you’ve already got a cool name, let’s hear it.”
The pig scowled. “My name cannot even be pronounced by the unforked tongues your race is cursed with.”
“Bacon Bits it is!”
Clay rolled his eyes. “Don’t antagonize the dragon pig. Let’s get moving—I doubt this roving dungeon is going to show up on our doorstep.”
