Chapter Twenty-Eight - Ready In

I set a fresh Save while eyeing the portal.

I had kind of expected us to be within already, but corporations couldn't just do things, they had to sign off on them in triplicate. There were protocols to follow. HQ was contacted, the squad-leader of the E-rankers who were standing guard outside was talked to, then the van that would carry the loot was parked nearby, and overall, there was a solid half-hour of wasted time.

"So, you got any cyberware?" Erde asked.

It was a weird opener, especially from someone I barely knew. I half-turned to stare at him, then I shrugged a shoulder. "Just on my retinas," I said. "I'm considering getting some, though."

In the last big timeline, I'd actually gotten some sub-dermal armour. It had cost a whopping $21,000, which had felt like insane money for me at the time, but it was also kind of worth it. I think one of the plates in my chest had cracked during the final breach. If there hadn't been a plate there, maybe I wouldn't have ever looped.

"Oh? What are you aiming for?" he asked.

"Subdermals, maybe?"

He nodded. "Got some of those." Reaching up, he touched his collar where I could see a faint surgical line. "Bought something relatively cheap for sub-dermals, and I've regretted it ever since. Don't cheap out on internal chrome. External, like arms and the like, can be replaced and upgraded without a whole surgery, so it's not so bad."

"What would you suggest, then?" I asked. It was mostly small talk. I... actually, yeah, I could afford decent cyberware now. I think once I was on the company's insurance (which would take three months of continued employment) they'd cover some of the cost.

"Bio-monitor is a must," Erde said. "A good one does everything from checking your heart rate to counting calories. The very good ones can measure your mana levels."

"Sounds pricey."

"A bit," he confirmed. "But you don't want one with a subscription, so pay extra. Oh, subdermal armour is good in our line of work as well. Cochlear implants are great too. The better ones let you link into team comms and you don't need to wear hearing protection." he pointed to the side of his head. He wasn't wearing headphones at all, I noted.

"Neat," I said.

I wasn't really in the mood to make small talk with Erde, and I think he caught on, because he awkwardly looked away.

Fortunately, we were saved when Eldur came over and gave us one of those 'we're ready' nods. "Terry, you're first in. Enter and flash."

"Got it!" Terry said.

Suddenly we were all moving, and I found myself trying to fit into their little formation. Eldur and Terry at the front, myself and Sol in the middle, and Erde and Dharti at the rear.

"What's the, uh, SOP once we're in there?" I asked.

Eldur paused for just a moment. "Hit anything from range, do not open fire unless you have a clear shot. Avoid using magic if you can. Otherwise, this is an easy portal. The enemies are large frog-like beings. They mostly fight from up close, though the smaller ones can fire blobs of water which can sting."

"Like a punch," Terry said. "But weak."

"Portal layout is a straight line. We move in, clear as we go, then kill the boss and wait. The E-rankers will come in and do the cleanup after us."

I nodded. I'd never entered this particular portal myself. I'd been on guard duty in this area, where it respawned, for several weeks, however.

Terry, as ordered, jumped in first.

This portal wasn't too different from the kobold portal at the laundromat. Maybe a little more greenish on the edges? The distorted image within it was of a forest. Trees with drooping leafy canopies and wet, soggy-looking ground.

Interestingly, it was dusk in there, or maybe dawn? The sunlight seemed weak, more orange than clear.

Terry disappeared into the portal and it fritzed and fuzzed at her passing. Then, a moment later, there was a bright flash from within.

"That's Terry's Flash spell," Sol muttered. "Like a flashbang, but without the bang."

Eldur jumped in next, an assault rifle held at the ready, then it was Sol and I.

I held my breath and jumped through. Practice with the kobold portal was the only reason I landed on my feet, though I still stumbled a little. The ground here was soggy, wet, shifting underfoot.

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The first thing that really hit me was the smell.

It was musky, humid, smelling like compost but not in a dirty, nasty way. It was kind of overpowering, though. Then the humidity hit, and I found myself sweating already.

"Clear left," Eldur said.

"Cleared right!" Terry replied.

I brought my little handgun up to a low ready stance and scanned the area. It was... a swamp. The ground was raised where we stood, but only a few inches above the water level. Large mangrove trees turned the already dark day darker. Two monsters were nearby, both of them plugged full of holes.

"Newbie," Eldur said. "You're on body duty. Make sure they're dead, then stack them to the side." he flipped his backpack around, then pulled out a small spray can with a bright orange cap. "Draw a line on them."

"Got it," I replied.

I took the can and shook it, then placed it into one of my pant's pockets. Ensuring that the monsters were dead was easy. I moved over, grabbed my knife, and plunged it hard into their heads. Frogs didn't exactly have tough skulls.

"Oh, I thought you'd be squicked out," Terry said.

"It's just a corpse," I replied. I shook the can again, then sprayed a line across the top of both frogs. The paint was fluorescent and surprisingly bright. It would make sure that the cleanup crew didn't miss anything. "Is this the main, ah, loot of the portal?"

"Some of it," Eldur replied as Dharti and Erde came through. "Frog meat, which is butchered and resold, bog water, and tar. Those are the main resources from this portal world, as well as the occasional bit of loot."

That didn't sound like much, not when there were six D-rankers and two dozen E-rankers, plus a dozen more support personnel all working on the same thing for a full day. But it was still profitable. The frog meat was sold at a premium in some nicer establishments, the water was nutrient and magic rich and needed to cultivate some portal-world plants on Earth, and the tar was... tar? I supposed there might be some oil or something in it. I wasn't a chemist.

It was possible that there was some use for magic-filled tar.

I remembered Luna Corp extracting a couple of barrels of the stuff every time the portal reappeared.

Dharti sniffed the air. "Mid-E," she said. "No different than usual."

"Good to know," Eldur said. "Alright. Looks like the portal's north is that way. Same formation. Terry, nothing too flashy. Everyone else, lights on, set them to low."

I reached up and turned on the light on my helmet, then adjusted it to 'low' which mostly meant that the illumination wasn't all that strong. It was enough to draw a cone ahead of me wherever I looked, but not so bright that I might blind someone by looking at them.

The group moved up. There was... a sort of lax professionalism about this. Everyone was treating their guns with respect, eyes were peeled for traps, and attention was sharp, but the others were also pretty relaxed.

I expected... I don't know, the squad to move like soldiers, clearing things quickly and professionally, but while we did move carefully into the next area, dipping under a mangrove and sticking to the only non-wet path, the group didn't seem overly worried.

Cockiness? I didn't know. Maybe they really weren't worried about some dog-sized frogs.

We arrived in the next area, one surrounded almost all the way around by fallen trees that formed a small arena, with only one exit at the far end.

A half dozen frogs were sitting around, some atop torn stumps, others half-submerged in pools of water along the sides of the space.

"Alright," Eldur said. "I'll take right, Terry, left. Newbie, Sol, take the two fat ones in the centre. Prep to open fire on three. Ready?"

"Ready!" Terry said.

"Ready," I repeated.

"Ready," Sol said.

"One, two, three."

All four of us opened fire at the same time. Three guns, and one quick bolt of lightning from Terry. Then we shifted our aim to the frogs who were still leaping up into action but amphibians weren't faster than bullets.

This almost felt unfair.

At the same time, I deeply regretted not bringing a gun into that kobold portal, it would have made it trivially easy.

***