Sack Third Avenue

John and Vivian wasted no time racing into the third round’s arena, keen on taking full advantage of their head start. They slowed only slightly to take stock of the environment. It wasn’t too dissimilar to the mazes of the last two rounds, now just mimicking a clothing store, with racks and mannequins stretching endlessly under annoyingly bright fluorescent lights.

John felt a tingle in his hand and a piece of paper manifested within it when he glanced down at it.

“Guess this is our shopping list,” he said, showing the paper to Vivian.

“Let’s see what we need to grab,” the redhead muttered as she took the page. “We need to find a red shirt, black slacks, brown shoes, green handbag, a very floppy hat? Okay, oddly specific but whatever. A scarf, necklace, bracelets. It gets less specific the further down it goes.”

“Could be that the accessories are worth less,” John suggested. “Like we’ll get more points for completing the main outfit. So we should probably try for the shirt, pants and shoes first. If we find the other stuff along the way, we can grab them, but not if they’re heavily guarded.”

Vivian nodded. “Sounds like that’s the best idea. We should also be on the lookout for the ‘special deals’ the announcer mentioned.”

“Getting extra stuff never hurts,” John said, summoning Candle. The fox let out a yip before excitedly running around their legs, happy to be out in the world again. Bending down, John stopped her by running his fingers through her fur. “Okay, girl, we’re going hunting. I’m going to point out what I want you to fetch in a bit, got it?”

Candle let out another yip and leaned into his hand. John felt an understanding of his orders filter through their bond and he nodded before straightening up. Looking over to Vivian, he said, “Let’s get shopping then.”

The trio began their hunt, eyes sweeping over the assortment of clothing and accessories for their chosen items. It only took a minute to find the first thing from their list, the brown dress shoes. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones headed for them.

The figure was clearly a robot of some kind, formed of seamless silvery metal. Its face was featureless, a smooth curved surface of emptiness sat under a very distinctive haircut, an inverted bob with an uneven fringe over non-existent eyes. It wore jeans and a buttoned blouse and a large purse hanging from a strap swung from its shoulder in time with its steps. Steps that were quickly bringing it closer to their target.

“It really is a Karen bot,” John groaned, his greatsword manifesting in his hand. “I don’t think we want to see what happens if it gets its hands on those shoes.”

“Head-on attack or subterfuge?” Vivian asked, hand near her choker.

“I’ll face it directly, just to get a feel for how it fights,” John answered. “If we play it too safe, we could miss out on opportunities we can easily win.”

Vivian leaned in and gave him a quick kiss before she stepped back.

‘Knock ‘em dead, John,’ Senka cheered from within. ‘Best not to let that kiss go to waste.’

‘Definatly don’t want to lose,’ John remarked as he moved to intercept the shopper. ‘You and Beth would never let me live it down. Aeolia too.’

John grinned. ‘Besides, how often does someone get to let loose on a Karen?’

He stepped into the path of the bot, which caused its rather sedate pace to quicken, wedged heels clacking on the concrete floor as it slid its purse off its shoulder. With a tight grip on the strap, the machine began to spin the purse like a flail.

“Something tells me there’s more than a phone or makeup case in there,” John muttered as the construct lunged forward, bringing the purse down like a hammer. John jumped back, letting the odd weapon smash onto the floor.

It hit with a thundering crash, sending chips of concrete flying around them. Worse still to John’s eyes was that the purse appeared to not suffer any deformity from hitting the hard ground with such ****.

‘Really don’t want to get hit by that,’ John thought. ‘Don’t want to know how much damage it’ll do…’

Before he could finish that thought, the construct lunged at him with surprising speed, snapping its arm up in an instant. John tried to retreat, but the suddenness of it left him too flat footed to fully evade the blow, the surprising rigid purse clipping his arm.

-17 HP

John hissed in pain as he struggled to make distance between them. Before the bot could follow up with another blow, Candle leapt into the fray, using one of the display tables to jump onto its head. While her teeth were unable to break the metal exterior of their enemy, she did draw its attention away from John for a moment, letting him regain his footing.

Before the bot could lash out against Candle, John dashed in, ordering the spirit to jump away as he brought down his blade.

22 DMG

His strike was met by a hastily raised arm and dug into the metallic skin of the construct. The **** of his blow caused it to buckle and John was quick to reel back and deliver a sweeping hit across its chest.

30 DMG

The attack knocked the bot off its feet and threw it back into a rack of shirts, where it vanished into dust.

“Huh, not a lot of HP,” John remarked before looking down at his spirit as she trotted over to him. “You okay, Candle?”

The fox spirit let out a small bark and lightly butted her head against his shin before bounding away.

“You okay, John?” Vivian asked as she approached.

“More or less,” he answered, moving his arm to prove it was fully functional. “Losing seventeen hit points in a glancing blow isn’t great, but now we’ve got an idea on how much damage they can do if they get a good hit in.”

“It certainly was a lot faster than I thought it would be,” Vivian confessed.

“At least it seems to be balanced by not having great health,” John said. “Very much a glass cannon. Hopefully there won’t be variants that make things overly complicated.”

“If there are, we can adapt,” Vivian remarked. “Let’s grab the shoes and get moving.”

Behind them, Candle let out an excited and muffled yip. John and Vivian turned their heads to see the spirit with both shoes clamped in her maw, her tail wagging.

“Guess that answers the question of whether Candle reaching an item would count as claiming it,” Vivian laughed before reaching out to pet Candle. “Good girl.”

Candle dropped the shoes and let out a series of happy barks as Vivian scratched her ears. John smiled at the cute scene as he moved to touch the shoes. The barest brush of his fingers caused them to vanish.

“Alright, one down,” John said, extending a hand to give Candle an affectionate pat after Vivian withdrew. Looking at the redhead, he asked, “Any ideas before we move on?”

“So far, there doesn’t seem to be any gimmick,” Vivian noted, tapping her chin as she thought. “Doesn’t mean that will stay the case. And over-thinking things will waste our time advantage. Until we have evidence that there are variant models or other curveballs, we should keep moving as we were. Try to have Candle retrieve the items while we deal with the bots.”

John nodded, standing up much to the protest of Candle, the fox butting her head needily against his shin.

“Let’s get moving then.”

K’mels panted as he watched the metal enemy fade into nothingness. He had not expected the artificial beings to be so fast or to hit as hard as they did. It was only years of experience that let him evade its rapid attacks until Tsxhel tangled it up in the clothing around them. Unable to freely move, it was easy to beat it, falling in two hits.

As he caught his breath, Tsxhel took hold of the thing they were looking for, the garment vanishing at her touch. He left the finding of their targets to her; he may have been able to understand the words on the page given to them, but clearly the potion he drank didn’t convey meaning to things he had no translation for.

“You okay?” Tsxhel asked as she stepped close. K’mels could tell she was wary of him, and was likely using her magic to gauge his reactions. He fought down the indignation at that idea, that he was some beast primed to bite at anything that offended him. He hadn’t exactly been acting like anything differed after all.

“I am fine,” K’mels answered tersely. “These things are faster than I had anticipated.”

“Yeah, that was a bit surprising,” Tsxhel said. “At least they seem to be balanced by being frail.”

K’mels grunted in agreement. “This is all based on games, correct?”

The shaman nodded and K’mels let out huff. “I suppose we’re lucky that’s the case. These things run on some level of fairness. If this was operated by someone with even a small degree of malice or desire to really harm us, they would be better equipped and better placed.”

“It is supposed to help us in a way, not crush us,” Tsxhel countered. “Us losing would defeat the whole purpose.”

“People lose games all the time,” K’mels said. “And this is still combat, even with enemies limited in how they function. It would be foolish to not treat them with the caution they could deserve.”

A distance away, the telltale sounds of battle reached their ears, and the clang of metal on metal made K’mels tighten his grip. Tsxhel took a few steps towards the noise, jumping onto a table of flimsy trousers to look out over the seemingly endless displays of clothing.

“Looks like the Order’s down that way,” she reported, then narrowed her eyes. “And I think two of the things we need are just past them.”

“Of course,” K’mels growled as he assessed the situation. They could go around but time was a factor and he did not want another poor performance to their name. And, now that he was committed to thinking, there was a second benefit to heading right into the Order’s path.

‘Coming to their aid and beating these machines would show them we’re strong, wouldn’t it? And it would make them indebted to us in some way. Even in the context of this being a game, it could give us leverage later.’

“We’ll go and aid them if needed,” K’mels said, ignoring the surprised look Tsxhel shot at him. “If we are to work with them at a later point, now would be the time to show ourselves as dependable, wouldn’t it?”

The words tasted like ash but making distasteful choices for the betterment of the clan was something any leader had to make.

“I see you’re coming around,” Tsxhel said, her tone tinged with a light amount of smugness.

“Don’t push it,” K’mels growled. “I admit we have little to lose trying to build good relations with them. We deliver the final blow to their enemy, we reap the reward, correct?”

Tsxhel frowned. “I’m not sure, but that sounds about right.”

“Then we have many upsides and the only downside is running into danger, something we already have to do,” K’mels said. “Let’s move.”

“I’m not sure I like that ulterior motives are the reason we’re helping them,” Tsxhel bemoaned as she fell into place behind him as they marched towards the ongoing battle.

“I think you’ll find that everyone acts like this,” K’mels said seriously. “Do you think these knights are helping us out of the goodness of their hearts? Or to just make good on a deal they have with the Blood Kin?”

Tsxhel’s silence spoke for her.

Sofia deftly thrust her blade into the automation trying to smack her with its purse, a current of her lightning running into its internal mechanisms. There was a certain simpleness to facing these robots. Her magic made it easy, which made her wonder if they were left intentionally **** to have an obvious weak point that could be hit for extra damage.

‘Is that something games do?’ she wondered as her enemy collapsed into nothingness. ‘A way to reward proper preparation or luck? Perhaps we should ask Newman to explain some of the nuances of his ability.’

She glanced over at Rowan as she performed an adequate counter against her opponent’s overhand swing; the well cared for sword deflecting the attack, before striking at its exposed flank. The machine's arm bent in a way that Sofia imagined if their enemies were alive would render them unable to continue due to the pain.

Her mentee did not hesitate to deliver the killing blow and swung her blade down before the robot could try to disengage.

“Wonderfully done, Donnelly,” Sofia gave due praise as the machine faded away at Rowan’s feet. “Now, let’s grab the…”

A second was all Sofia had as something small pounced out from under the rack of dresses, the fabric acting like tall grass. Battle honed instincts let her quickly bring her sword up into a guard position and her stance shifted so her weight was on her backfoot. All this took place in the span of a second, but before she could flourish her blade to strike, the very fabric that hid the leaping asaillent lashed out and wrapped around it, preventing it from reaching her and causing it to crash to the ground with a loud thud.

“Looks like we showed up at the right time,” the rough voice of the male goblin said as he and his clan member came into view, the staff of the female goblin lightly glowing. After a moment of focus, Sofia could feel the magic flowing from it to the cloth binding her would be attacker, some kind of automaton dog.

“While I’m sure we could have handled that without issue, your assistance is appreciated,” Sofia diplomatically said, lowering her sword. From the briefing she’d received, Sofia knew the woman, Teri if she recalled correctly, was reasonable. Or at least, knew when to not play the aggressor. Something her partner in this event clearly lacked.

‘Which means if he was the instigator in this intervention, he’s playing some angle,’ she thought as she took in the warrior’s appearance. ‘He’s not comfortable with this; his posture screams that he’s ready for things to come to blows. It seems like he’s leading this meeting, so it’s likely this is his idea, so what’s his angle?’

Sofia’s eyes shifted to the bound robot for a second. It would be easy to strike at it and secure its rewards, but another thought came to her as she saw K’mels look at it too.

‘How will you handle this?’

Almost as if sensing her thoughts, K’mels spoke, “Since we intercepted this one, do you take issue with us claiming its points?”

With deliberate movements, Sofia let her blade arm drop to her side, a clear sign of her answer. Just to be sure her intent was properly known, she said, “It’s your catch. Do with it what you will. We don’t have the luxury of time to debate the rights to it.”

“Our thanks to you,” K’mels muttered before bringing his blade down on the captured robot, breaking it in one blow.

“Unless you have any pressing information to impart, we should all get moving,” Sofia remarked. “Time is running down.”

K’mels nodded with a grunt and jerked his head towards Teri. The shaman shot Sofia an apologetic look before she moved to collect something from a nearby table.

‘So they did have a reason to cross our path,’ Sofia thought K’mels gave her a begrudging nod before retreating. She glanced back at Rowan and found her squire with a disgruntled look on her face.

Once she believed the goblins were out of earshot, she turned to Rowan and quietly said, “It would be best if you learn to keep your expression neutral, Donnelly. Even when dealing with troublesome parties. Best to not let them think they’ve annoyed you.”