The Arbiter
Copyright© 2025 by James Girvan
Chapter 47
Well, it wasn’t my worst night in a motel that I’d ever spent. That legendary occasion occurred when I shared a room with the goalie of my hockey team. Fucker snored like a chainsaw, but it wasn’t rhythmic so you couldn’t just let it fade into the background. He snorted, coughed, and horked all night. I finally gave up at 2am and sat in the reception hall by the fireplace, doomscrolling until the breakfast bar opened up.
I drank too much coffee and played like shit that day.
Chris just farted and mumbled a lot. I got over it in less than an hour and managed at least six solid hours. Apparently it was enough to restore a Health point though. I wouldn’t be at my best but it’d be enough and arenaline would take care of the rest.
The Kid woke up hungry, so getting him out of the room and down to breakfast wasn’t hard at all. Robbie and Sarah were late though, maybe they spent the night fucking, or maybe they just took the opportunity to get a few extra minutes. Either way, a bagel and a couple of lukewarm tubs of yogurt was all they managed to grab before I hustled them out to the truck. Nobody had anything to say about today’s trip that I hadn’t heard already so I just started in with the orders.
“Sarah, they’ll leave you behind. You might get a babysitter or not, we’ll know when we get there. Take some of this crap from my inventory for me though. If someone threatens you, just give it up though.” I paused to make sure she understood and got a small nod in response as I dropped a bunch of trinkets and useless (in this case) crap into her hands. “Take the truck a ways off once we go in and watch from a distance just in case.”
“Robbie, play along and look weak; no surprises or ‘specials’. Take the Kid under your wing. Unless things go to shit right away, this will actually be a chance for him to not only get his weapon, but to get some real practice with it.” Robbie nodded too, knowing that we had to be flexible and was probably more worried about Sarah outside of the portal than any of us inside it.
“Kid, this is your first run. Get your weapon, do what the guys tell you to and if someone grabs you, just keep your weapon in your Inventory and don’t fight ‘em. We got some tricks up our sleeves and when we use them; then the gloves come off but not until then. I’ve got nothing but my gut feeling here but it’s telling me that this could get ugly.”
He looked over at me from the drivers seat. “Then why the hell are we doing this?”
“For the Silver, the experience, and to get your weapon of course!” I said with a smile and a laugh. The three Weapons we were meeting could still throw us a curveball or two but we could handle it. At worst, we’ll have to fight off a level two Purple with just the three of us, but that was doable. Oddly, my biggest concern was that I’d read the whole situation wrong, and we would just run a straightforward level 2 purple Portal with them.
Chris steered us back to the gas station/greasy spoon we’d been at last night and a familiar truck was parked near the doors.
“You’re late,” said the Rogue when we walked up to their table. He and his two companions were still eating though, so I doubted the couple of minutes really mattered.
“We ate already, the hash browns took a while to choke down. Four out of ten, would not recommend.” I replied flippantly. “You three need to prove you’re Hunters before we follow you anywhere though.” Robbie and I had gone over some of the kinds of things people like us would ask if we didn’t have the Skills that we had.
All three men flashed their weapons, and we flashed ours (except for our newbie). I noticed Robbie only flashed his dagger and sword breaker, possibly confusing whether he was the guy in the video, or maybe confirming it?
“And what’s the kid got?” Their Rogue asked with a sneer. “Betch’a it’s another fuckin fire mage!”
I couldn’t recall if I’d been told his weapon (and new Weapons were a blind-spot of mine). We’d been focused on getting out of town before anyone found the two assholes we’d killed.
No, not killed; I’d had them executed. No use trying to play politically correct, especially to myself.
“It’s a Staff, but I don’t know what kind.” Chris answered, with a bit of bite. “Maybe I’m some sort of Necromancer and can control the Undead! That’d be shiny!”
His immaturity was evident, there were a hundred thousand of this new crop of Weapons and nobody was all that impressed. Sure there were Healers (rare), and I’d already come across an Earth and an Ice mage (according to the ‘net there were Electricity, Water and some sort of Golem summoning mage?) but the majority of those with ‘sticks’ that I’d come across were Fire Mages, and all of them were really weak to start off with. The good news for those guys was that the majority of the Spell books found are related to Fire Mages but due to the sheer number of the poor fuckers they remain a weak (from what I’d seen) but over abundant resource for those attempting to filling out teams. Don’t think I’d never heard of one above a level Two yet. These guys had every right to believe that he’d be a hindrance and not a help on this run.
“Whatever he is, that’s the deal. He comes along and we help you in level Two of Purple, he gets his weapon, we split the rewards.” Robbie said. “Take it or leave it, we got other things to do and you were the ones who asked us for support.” Meaning that they needed us more than we needed them. While it was true, what I’d actually asked Robbie to do was to piss them off a bit to put them off their game a little.
“Fine,” their spokesman ‘Dale’ said sharply as though he decided on the spot, and this part wasn’t just a performance. “ ... but he stays in the back no matter what he is, he don’ swing his weapon unless the line breaks down.”
I was already thinking about the time I got K.O’d by a newbie in my first Purple portal and had to agree. He’d spend his time observing unless we got into some really deep shit, and by then it’d be too late to worry much about it.
The three of them got up from their booth, either having paid already or just not bothering to. Nobody tried to surround us, or intimidate us in any way. Their game didn’t need it I guess. “Got yer stuff?” Dale asked, and a nod from both Robbie and me was all he needed. “Follow us, portal is about twenty minutes from here, good thing you’ve got a truck.”
I glanced at theirs, it had a lift kit (of course they did) and hopefully they’d only put it on for looks, ‘cause ours didn’t have nearly that much clearance once we all loaded into it. Robbie took the keys over the Kid’s objections. “I’ve got some experience with this sort of thing.” was all he said.
Twenty minutes later we were pulling off a two lane highway onto what looked like another forested track, but the trees ended after a few hundred feet, exposing a recently logged area that went nearly as far as we could see. Dry pine branches shattered and popped as we drove over them through the wasteland of low-cut stumps and dry sandy soil. A simple portable office that had seen better days was parked conspicuously at the top of a small rise, directly beside the track. We pulled up and parked, the tension in the truck rising as we got out.
“I’m Dale, and you can call our Rogue here Poncho. Our Club man is Lefty, and that’s a good description of where you shouldn’t be standing when he’s swinging.” Dale smiled as he talked, lobbing a three-ring binder that had also seen better days towards Robbie like a frisbee. “Tips and RiP’s. Standard school scenario start, level two is a bigger school and should have a second Ghoul to kill at the end.”
Glancing over Robbie’s shoulder I could see that there were even drawings of rooms and an overall aerial view of the first level. Honestly it was pretty damn good. If I hadn’t noticed the last date entry was from over two months ago, I might have been impressed.
“Get your gear out, your little Chiquita is staying with the trucks right?” Dale offered, a far cry from the complaints we got yesterday about the team makeup.
Robbie just nodded and pulled out two gym bags. I had distributed out a lot of my Inventory to both Robbie and Sara already and I could see the difference in the way she moved. Even a tenth of the real weight of all that stuff was substantial.
“You ever take garbage in?” I asked, glancing around and seeing nothing outside but the five bags on the ground.
“Garbage? Why would we do that?” Poncho scoffed before a smile came to his lips. “No, but it feels like we’re taking some now!” and he laughed at his own joke.
“You take in trash?” Dale asked, acting interested for some reason.
“Did while we were camping out at the last portal. Left it in the Start room on the way through. Convenient way of getting rid of it. Just wondered.” I shrugged while watching their responses. In reality the idea had some interesting merit and I could easily imagine that there would be a good market for making some things conveniently disappear from the planet. Then again maybe taking biological or nuclear waste into a portal would be seen as hostile action and cause a response in kind by whatever was overseeing the system. The guys had unreadable expressions at this point and I stopped pushing lest I give the game away.
We put the Kid between us and the other three guys and lined up to walk up the stairs into the trailer. Apparently the portal was basically just inside the door, and I could confirm that there was one (and it was purple at least) by peeking through the gap between the floor and the door. ‘Lefty’ fumbled with the lock for a second before I heard it click audibly and saw the door swing outward.
The dumb shit had to shove his friend back just to get out of the way of it. “Make a chain, hands are best. Call out as you link up and don’t let go after you call out.” He hollered back to us. His two buddies had already done it, and Dale was reaching for my hand as I shouldered my bag. I grabbed the Kid instead, forcing him to be the intermediary between teams, and incidentally keeping me away from them.
Robbie linked my free hand with his normal way of grasping my forearm and started the call. “Six”
I called out “Five” and we waited a moment, all staring at the Kid until he tentatively called out “Four?”. ‘Three’, ‘Two’, and ‘One’ happened in a hurry and the next thing I knew we were in a copy of the Start room again. I had been looking at the three from the other team, and the ‘sparkles’ had to clear before I could acquire them again. Oddly, they had temporarily disappeared from my Skills during the transition. Weird.
The three of them were dropping their hands at this point, and I tugged the Kid back; hoping that their play wouldn’t happen until later. A fight in the Start room would be a problem with all six of us in such a small room, and Robbie’s Skill wouldn’t help much if he didn’t have much room to move.
The Kid was already pulling away though, walking in that focused way I’d seen other Newbies do when seeing their weapon for the first time. I let him go and he wandered away at an angle towards the floating (and slowly spinning) wooden staff.
We all kinda just watched, while pretending not to. ‘Their’ part of the team were squatting over bags of gear and pulling out pieces of what looked like a mis-mash of football (American) and football (European) gear. Why these folk insist on calling it ‘football’ is a mystery. The Aussies (who already have both football and ‘footie’) call American Football ‘Grid-iron’ due to the shape the lines make on the field and in my mind it’s a way cooler name. If the NFL became the NGL just think about how much new merchandise they could sell. The WWF did it; with their ‘Get the F out’ campaign in the early 2000’s
While I was distracted by acronyms, the Kid had picked his staff and was spinning it about like an idiot (confirming to the guys around us that he was just as much a Newb as all of us had been before). At any moment he would start popping his staff into and out of Inventory, learning that: yea you can drop it, yea you can bring it into your hands while they are moving, and no Newton’s first law cannot be violated.
I’d learned to bring one of my weapons out when my hands were moving really slowly, or brace hard for the weight of it popping magically into existence without the kinetic energy it would normally have if you’d already been holding it (unless it was one of my lighter ones).
There were stories of brand new weapons breaking their wrists on the first run before they even left the Start room by bringing a perfectly still one-kilo sword into existence into a hand that moving at full speed.
I could also ‘see’ him now; an inventory rapidly changing from having a single fire-staff to being empty. Yep, another Fire Mage.
“Well, is it useful or are you another Effing Fuck-all Mage?” Poncho asked with a sneer while I learned yet another derogatory term for a fire mage.
“Doesn’t matter, he’s not on the frontline anyways since he’s a newbie. Here Kid, put this on.” I called out, and tossed over a sleeveless leather jerkin. It had a high collar and a small buff for Fireball, making it cost about 5% less mana to cast it. I’d ‘found’ it just recently on a dead mage that I’d hoped might join us.
“Fucking giving away armour? Got enough to share?” Dale asked in a reasonable tone. I’d debated this last night and eventually decided that since I could strip them at will, that it wasn’t out of the question, but just handing anything to another Weapon that you couldn’t guarantee would come back to you would look suspicious.
“Might have, but you gotta trade me something of value to hold as collateral; and I don’t take I.O.U’s or a promised run at your mom.” I called back rudely, pulling out a helm and metal breastplate to let them know I wasn’t kidding.
They didn’t have much, I could see that already but Lefty had a six-inch Gold pin that was interesting and marked ‘4 of 4’ and Dale had an unidentified necklace. Poncho was carrying only Silver and healing potion. At least he knew what was important.
Robbie (who I had to remember to call ‘Footman’ around these guys) was trying to get the Kid to use his staff to block, and to jab with; but the Kid had obviously seen too many Jackie Chan movies and was trying to spin it in one hand, or around his body. Eventually Robbie got tired of his shit and backhanded him hard enough to get his attention. While the Alpha put his newest little pack member in line, I proceeded to ‘Trade’ out armour for trinkets while pretending to be nervous about getting it all back. In the end, the three Frontliners had enough armour to probably take a whole level Two of Purple all by themselves and I got a closer look at their items. The pin was about four inches long, and had a sharper point than a piece of gold should be able to hold. The head was intricately carved with a pattern that I’d examine later. Dale’s necklace was like one I’d seen before that increased dodge rate +5%, but it wasn’t identified yet so in reality it was anyone’s guess. Poncho’s Healing potion was just a normal one, but a welcome enough addition to my collection.
It was a good thing they did have the armour since we emerged from the portal at the bottom of the stone stairs into a dimly lit Mall.
Broken glass underfoot came from the store windows and not the skylights that still let in some illumination through their grimy panels. The three Frontliners just ran for the nearest store; a small jewellers with fortified bars on the broken windows and big blocky showcases to hide behind or fight from. The kid was hyperventilating, wheezing out ‘Level Three!’ in between gasps, and by the time the Kid had started moving the other three already had a display case across the doorway and were well fortified. Unfortunately their noisy actions had alerted the local population of undead.
“You planning on letting us in?” I asked as we approached, unsure of what their play was and nervously eying the forty or so undead that were now shambling our way.
“Sure! Fee is one Gold Pin, a Silver Necklace, a Healing Potion as well as ten items of your choice. We don’t take I.O.U’s or a promised run at your mom.” Dale said with a laugh, hoisting me on my own petard. I didn’t even pause and dropped the demanded pile of stuff on the counter, knowing that it was our best chance for the Kid’s survival at this point. “Fuck me...” Poncho said after seeing the crap I dumped out. I’d deliberately chosen stuff they couldn’t use even if it was more valuable. Tomes of Skills for anyone but them, a kite shield that said it was restricted to Paladins, three Mana potions and a few trinkets that would only help Mages.
The three of us scrambled into store; the three of them actually stepping aside and letting us climb over the barricade which kinda surprised me since it was even odds in my mind that they’d tell us to go pound salt after loading up on ‘their spoils’. We probably could have survived without them (Robbie and I at least) but it would be a hell of a lot easier from a fortified position.
“Level two hunh?” I asked with a roll of my eyes.
“Well, we might have understated the difficulty of this portal a bit.” Dale said with a laugh that even sounded genuine. “You’re here, so chip in as you can then. You!...” he pointed at our noob Kid who had apparently already pissed himself. “ ... stay the fuck out of the way and don’t do anything but watch.
I nodded at Robbie and we both took up a position at the counter in the doorway while Poncho pounded thick, short nails into the floor at the legs which I realized would help stop the press of undead from pushing our blockade out of the way. This was obviously not the first time they’d used this particular trick, and it was a useful tidbit to know that the nails they were using hadn’t been rejected upon entry.
The thick glass top of the showcase was smashed, and crumbled shards were all over the bottom of the display case and the dirty, dusty jewellery (that I tried and failed to store in my inventory). I’d never been in a level three of Purple, but when I still was connected to the ‘net I’d read a bunch about them. The PortalControl website was basically required reading for any of us Divers at that point, and although I missed having access I still remembered what I’d read about them: Small(ish) mall, two levels, hundreds of dead, between eight and a sixteen Ghouls depending on how many times you’d run it (and how unlucky you were; seems that there was a bit of chance involved somehow). Last thing I recalled was that the ceilings in the stores weren’t solid, so you could climb through them to other units if you had to (and so could the Ghouls apparently). Anyone that’s seen the classic movie Aliens will understand how that worked.
“Poncho, watch behind us. Keep one eye out for those Ninjas and the other one on that Noob. If he tries to help, stab him in the thigh.” Dale said, serious for once.
“The dead’ers ‘ll pile up on the other side of this thing, then the ones behind them will climb over the pile and we’ll be stuck in here with them.” Robbie said while gesturing to the table in front of us. The first few zombies were already on the other side, reaching over the ruined top with twitching hands. He lopped a few off and batted them to the back of the store towards the Kid. Not really sure what he had in mind with those.
“Watch and learn; Lefty, you’re up!” Dale called over to the club man who had been squatting in the corner with his eyes closed like he was meditating. “Stand well back, and I fucking mean it...” he waved us back, and kept on doing it until the three of us were nearly halfway into the store.