Humanity Online: World Sanctuary

"What kind of wager?" Polemos demands. "Another Dungeon race?"

"You did say you wanted a rematch," I remind him. 

Polemos looks ready to agree to anything, but Thanatos shakes her head. "I don't know if we want to spend time on this childish feud–" she begins, but Taliesin cuts her off.

He may have no idea what I'm really up to, but as usual, Little Dude backs me up without missing a beat.

"B-but, your Party called us cheaters!" he stutters with a sad sniffle. "The forums are all talking about how you c-called us..." Cue bottom lip tremble, as if he can't even bear to think of it. I have to bite my own lip to keep from laughing. "...They say you called us [BLEEP]ing beta tester trash!" Another sniff, then Taliesin unleashes his bright green wide-eyed stare on the Horsemen.

It is Very Effective.

I actually look away so I don't get caught in the cross-fire; those Puss-in-Boots big eyes of his are POTENT.

Three of the Horsemen immediately melt and look abashed. The short mage Limos actually clutches her chest and gasps, "Oh gods, my heart can't take this," then swipes open her Item Storage and tosses Taliesin a sticky bun. With my extra-high Perception, I can hear her mutter under her breath, "It's only right. A cinnamon roll for The Cinnamon Roll™." 

Nightfury straight up chokes at that and has to hide his face with his hat.

Unsurprisingly, War (Polemos) is unaffected by the overwhelming cuteness. If anything, the sick bastard looks even more motivated to maim and torture.

Taliesin's shiver might not be an act this time; Polemos is creepy as hell. Little Dude focuses on the others. "This is an unknown Dungeon, so we can prove we're not just special 'cause we were in the beta."

"Unless you want to make an apology video right now, taking back your bullshit claims that we only won because of the beta," I add with a smirk.

As different as they all are, all four of the Horsemen make the exact same horrified, revolted expression at the idea of making an apology video. 

"Fine! We'll race you," Thanatos agrees with a violent glare.

"And we'll prove without a doubt that we're the best Party in Viren's Refuge and you losers are worthless without your cheats!" Loimos screeches.

"So what's the wager?" Polemos asks. "What do we get when we beat your beater asses?"

I roll my eyes. "We obviously won't lose, but sure. Let's name terms."

"Bold words for such pathetic competition," Loimos taunts in his annoying nasal voice.

With a finger twitch, I drop the Holy Sword of Justice another meter. Loimos squeaks and ducks, covering his head with his hands like a kid in a tornado drill.

Ignoring the idiot, I wrinkle my brow and pretend I'm thinking up ideas on the spot. "How about this..." I begin finally.

I catch Taliesin's eye, and with a shit-eating grin, he wordlessly opens his Status Window.

Keeping my own expression bland, I continue, "Winners get exclusive video rights for the Dungeon; losers never release so much as a snapshot, let alone a highlight reel. So this won't be another LiveStream battle." I shoot an obnoxious 'better-than-thou' sneer at the Horsemen. "A non-betaed Dungeon means we'll all need to run Normal and Hard Mode a few times at least, so we wouldn't want you guys watching our vids and stealing our best strategies."

War and Pestilence look pissed at the suggestion they'd ever deign to study our strategies, but little Famine (Limos) just nods. "Yeah, that would be the smartest plan," she agrees shamelessly as she noms on her own sticky bun. "Way easier to just make you do all the work and steal your best ideas."

My carefully constructed sneer almost falls apart as I snort. Damn, but I'm starting to really like that kid.

Gritting his teeth, Polemos snarls at me, "Is that all?"

I tap my chin thoughtfully. "Hmm...how about the losing team has to give up the best weapon they manage to acquire from the Dungeon during the race?"

Loimos looks up from his spot in the dirt, clearly nervous. "That screws over the losing team way too much."

"Since you think you're going to win, it shouldn't matter right?" Kara taunts.

"Nah, you know you're going to lose don't you?" Nightfury scoffs.

"Makes sense," Nanuk deadpans, looking down his nose at the pathetic lump still quivering on the ground. "Your inferiority complex is fully justified."

Welp. I have nothing to top that savagery. "Damn, Nanuk. Just cut off his balls next time; it'd be less brutal."

Nanuk shrugs. "I was simply speaking the truth."

Loimos splutters so much, the game animates angry purple splotches on his face.

"How about this?" I compromise. "Winners get the best weapon from the race, and the losing team gets any recipes and designs."

"Deal," Polemos says before anyone else can argue. The lengthy negotiations have frustrated the man of action the most, and he just wants everything to finally end so he can go stab things again.

I keep my smirk neutral, even though inside I'm cheering. "Deal."

Thanatos looks ready to murder her teammate, and me, but Taliesin cuts off any arguments she might have by materializing the contract he'd automatically started typing up as soon as I started naming terms.

(After tasking Alfryd with all those insane contract negotiations for the Tara Marketplace, my Liaison had gone ahead and given us both a stack of high-quality system-recognized contracts with fill-in-the-blank Terms sections. He'd had a hunch we'd need them, bless the man.)

Taliesin passes the glowing parchment to me with a flourish, and I hold my thumb over it and verbally sign it by calling out, "System Contract, CREATE and RECOGNIZE."

Polemos barely glances at the message that appears in front of him before he presses his thumbprint on it and declares, "System Contract, RECOGNIZE and ACCEPT."

Death is now visibly shaking in rage. "You battle-crazed idiot!" she thunders at him. "That was a Party Contract! Did you even read a word of it before signing on behalf of all of us?"

Polemos rolls his eyes. "What's got your panties in a twist?"

The mage Limos throws a pickle at his head.

"You charging ahead and making decisions for all of us is exactly what led to this whole impending doom thing," she reminds him, waving at the glowing sword still hovering above their heads.

I start to reassure them the contract is fine, but then I see that  twinkle in Little Dude's green eyes, and I realize they might have a little need for concern after all. 'What did you do?' I wonder.

Thanatos pulls up the Party Contract on her own Status Window and starts scanning it to see how screwed they are, but Limos just tilts her head and stares at Taliesin. He's still looking all innocent and cute and wide-eyed, so she doesn't think it could be that bad. 

"Did you add something? Maybe next ten pants drops go to Erebus?" she asks naively. "Or do we have to make an apology video after all?"

Taliesin just smiles even more innocently.

Nanuk and I shudder in fear.

Suddenly, Thanatos chokes in what I'm pretty sure is an attempt to keep a laugh from ruining her whole big bad Death look. She must have found the hidden clause.

Confused and annoyed, Polemos can't be quiet any longer. "We done here? You've got to have everything now, right?"

"Nope, I did have to add one more thing," Taliesin chirps cheerily.

"You greedy bastard," Polemos growls.

Taliesin shakes his head. "Not at all. This isn't related to the race. It's personal." His sunny expression turns to the idiot still cowering on the ground, and his once-warm eyes turn ten shades icier. "Loimos dies today."

Thick silence falls upon the field.

Even Polemos can't find the words to respond to that.

Nothing's more terrifying than a happy-go-lucky cinnamon roll with murder on the mind.

Before anyone else can even process, Death's deep voice rings out, "Fine."

"What?!" Loimos squeaks.

Shrugging, Thanatos swipes the contract closed and starts walking out of the range of the Sword of Justice Smite attack. "It's in the contract. Ironclad. Too bad."

"You can't just leave me here to die!" Limos screams.

Shaking off her own surprise, Limos skips off behind Death. "S'your fault for being a sleaze."

"When she's right, she's right," I agree wholeheartedly, stepping closer to Kara. Taliesin, Nanuk, and Nightfury nod in firm agreement and move closer, too.

"No sexist asshat insults our Valkyrie," Nightfury snarls.

Touched, Kara swoops down to kiss Taliesin's cheek, then smiles her thanks to Nanuk and Nightfury. Nanuk breaks his icy façade to smile back, while Nightfury grumbles about it being "nothing to be going on about for gods' sakes" and hides behind his hat.

I sidle even closer to lightly squeeze Kara's hand in solidarity. Then I give her my best roguish grin. "Don't I get a thank you kiss too?"

"If I had to kiss you every time you PK'd someone who annoyed you, I'd never have time to finish a single quest," she jokes. "Letting you murder that simpering pest is reward enough, don't you think?"

"I don't know, I think you underestimate how rewarding I'd find a kiss from the indomitable Kara Geir."

Oops. That came out way more honest than the playful-flirty I was going for.

Middle of a battlefield right before a public execution is not exactly the time or place for this.

Swiftly changing gears, I morph my expression into my usual smirk and squeeze her hand one more time before letting her go. "But murder is a close second, I suppose. I can be happy enough with that."

For today, anyway.

I turn back to the Horsewomen. "Ladies, you'll wanna keep moving. Hundred-meter blast radius and all. Wouldn't want you to get caught up and die along with your trash teammate."

"Smite has a hundred-meter area of attack?" Kara whispers in surprise.

"Hell no," I whisper back with a grin. "But they don't need to know that."

Her soft laugh sends a breath of warm air across my ear, and I have to remind myself that it's *still* not the right time to try to convince my sister's long-lost friend to make out with me, or marry me, or have my adorable battle-crazed gamer babies.

I focus back on the Horsemen in time to see Polemos skewer me with one last withering glare before also finally giving in and stalking out of range.

Thoroughly panicked now, Loimos scrambles to his feet and tries to scurry after his teammates.

"Oh no you don't," I admonish, but I needn't have bothered. All three of his teammates hit him with knock-back attacks to keep him in the center of Smite's range of attack.

"You can't do this to me!" he whines pitifully.

Now Limos pelts him with pickle.

Thanatos remains stoic. "You brought this on yourself." 

Polemos's lip curls scornfully. "You aren't worth saving. I just want this over with so I can get my spear back."

Loimos is so offended he chokes, and that's when I kill him.

The unnecessarily humungous explosion is oh so satisfying.

Silently, I add an overpowered orange-tinged Lux to the explosion, so Smite looks like it's reaching the full hundred-meters, and my inner pyro claps with glee at the insane destruction.

When the animation effects finally end, nothing is left of Loimos but a small pile of item drops that automatically disappear and enter my storage as Battle Loot since he was a Red Player.

The Horsemen looked understandably freaked out by the OP attack I just unleashed, but at the sight of the drops disappearing, Polemos shakes off his shock and roars, "Now's our chance. Attack them!"

"No." Limos shuts him down immediately.

Polemos frowns. "Why not?"

Limos points to my pink princess peach boxers. "The glitter," the little mage says, shuddering in true horror. "I won't go near it. You take him out yourself if you want to catch sparkle herpes."

I turn and shake my J·U·I·C·Y ass. Specks of gold glitter float and flutter in the air around me.

My entire Party blanches and steps aside like I'm a sparkling Typhoid Mary, spreading some sort of bubonic crafts plague. Nightfury hides behind Kara again.

150 meters away, the Horsemen also step back in sync, staring wide-eyed as if I were holding a nuclear-level live grenade.

"You win today, D'Raven," Death says.

"But next time we meet, you'll be crawling beneath our feet as we prove once and for all who the better Players are!" Polemos yells.

"Sure, sure," Taliesin says in that patronizing tone shite teachers use when they're talking down to students. Polemos' eye twitches in pent up anger, and I'm half worried he might suicide attack us after all.

Kara kicks his spear deep into the Smite crater. "Oops."

"Aaargh!"

The dulcet tones of Polemos' frustrated screams as he's forced to clamber down to retrieve his high-tier weapon bring matching contented smiles to all our faces, and we circle up around the Group Teleportation Scroll in my hands.

I switch us back to Party-Only Chat so the Horsemen can't hear. "Next stop Tara, then after my forced log-out break, it's back to our Main Storyline Quest!"

Nanuk wrinkles his brow in confusion. "Uh...shouldn't we be going to the Dungeon?"

"Yeah, you know, the whole Epic Race to See Who's the Best Party that you've spent this whole time organizing?" Kara adds.

I snort. "We're not doing that dumbass dungeon. It's a total unknown. It'll take for-fucking-ever. And it's filled with creepy-crawly bugs and shit. No thank you."

"But..." Nanuk splutters.

"I wondered why you'd be willing to give them recipes and designs when they lose," Taliesin murmurs wonderingly. "But if we lose on purpose..."

Nightfury's draconian eyes gleam.  "You sneaky sonuvabitch. You played them."

My smirk flashes pure satisfaction. "Always assume my plan is ten times more convoluted than it seems, my dear draegkyn. The Dungeon is way on the other side of the map, they still need to replace their random Noob Player to fill out their numbers, and now they have to wait for Loimos to revive. They can't go into any cities because they're still Red, so they can't Teleport. Polemos is already impatient and pissed, so by the time they finally get to the Dungeon, he'll probably make them rush and they'll make more mistakes and hopefully die quicker than they might otherwise. It'll be at least a week before they clear Hard Mode, if not longer."

Kara nods, eyes alight as she grasps my plan. "But once they get Hard Mode First Clear, they'll feel more confident and assume we're struggling. They'll probably slow down then, take their time running Nightmare, getting the best possible Highlight Reel shots. By the time they finally clear Nightmare, we'll be so far along our side of the parallel MSQ, they'll never be able to catch up!"

"Bro, your genius-level assholery is fucking insane," Nightfury succinctly wraps up everyone's feelings.

Accepting his words as praise, I give everyone a little bow. Then I rip the Group Teleportation Scroll from Anansi and announce, "Tara Central Market."

As we disappear into a flash of sparkly rainbow light, I hear Nanuk mutter, "I'm just glad he's on our team."

"Mhmm," is all Taliesin can say in reply.