Exodus: Guns & Gore

The GnG gate into Exodus was still busy when Ringo and QJ stepped off the platform. They walked side-by-side toward the Songbird.

[Wu] Holy Crap... The King and his brother are cleaning house, his son and wife were beheaded in the city square. No trial or anything.

Ringo smiled and elbowed QJ, "not gonna lie, I'm feeling pretty good about our mini-raid."

QJ returned her smile, "we cashed in on some serious loot. Although a good portion of it is probably too high for us at the moment."

They walked past the Songbird and stepped onto the TAP gate. Neither one of them could hide their big smiles. They were met with the sound of laughter and cheering, the entire Ravenwood Courtyard was filled with loot. Both Breeze and Lotte had handfuls of items in their hands.

QJ stole a glance at his guild leader. "Crap, the hour limit on the box must have expired."

Ringo nodded in agreement. "They look like a couple of kids at Christmas."

Nuna and a couple of Silverleaf women were helping them organize their gear. Breeze's normally big smile had widened to the point where it seemed like her face would crack. She was continually being complimented and patted on the back.

Lotte spied the two leaders of OP and ran toward them, she had to slow down and pick up items that she lost her grip on. "Holy Crap QJ! Best idea ever!"

"Great job getting it back here!" QJ hugged her causing her to drop half of her bounty.

Nuna walked up to him and bowed, "I am at your service QJ. The XO has asked me to help you categorize your loot. May I suggest Skill Books, Weapons, Armor and Misc? If I need to break it down further, I will."

"Sound perfect Nuna, thank you for your help." QJ glanced at the fountain where Q was sitting with his commanders. "Don't you need to help Fora also?"

The cute halfling shook her head at him. "I have already assigned people to do it."

"You're awesome Nuna! Hey, if you find a whip, please save it for me!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned just in time to see an orange-haired rogue embrace him. "This is a lot of loot QJ! Good thing our Keep has been upgraded."

QJ gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Crap... I haven't even checked it out yet." He felt a tug on his shirt just before two small arms hugged him from behind.

"QJ!" Remmy's little face was blushing as she held out a blueprint. "Please look at this."

"Um... okay." He took the blueprint and studied it for a moment before smiling at the gnome engineer. "A swordgun?"

Her little face scrunched up. "Yes! It's the best idea ever! How did you make it work? Can I see 'Oh Shit?'

QJ laughed when she said the name of his weapon. "I'll let you take a look at it, come by the house later."


'Yay!" The little gnome bounced away, her excitement obvious.

QJ caught Ringo's attention, she was looking through the stacks of loot for new pistols. "We should go see them now." He pointed towards his family, most of them were sitting around the fountain talking.

"Sounds good." She followed QJ as he carefully made his way to the fountain through the stacks of loot.

Tal, Leah, and Mojo all stood up when he approached. He smiled through their overly exuberant greetings because he knew that this was their nature. "You guys remember OP Guild Leader Ringo."

"Nice to see you again Ringo." Leah hugged her, because she was Leah and she basically hugged everyone she liked.

Ringo and QJ took a seat on either side of Tal. The beautiful engineer had an arm around her son's shoulders. "Hey QJ, tell your mom how you got that swordgun to work!"

He smiled at his mom, he knew she could definitely figure it out without help from him. "My girlfriend brought me some special steel that enabled me to create the chamber/hilt interface with a single piece of metal."

"You're talking about Robin right?" Tal, Leah and Mojo happened to look at the songbird all at the same time. The orange-haired rogue froze like a deer in the headlights.

"Why are you being so nice to him?" Quinn ruffled his son's hair, "he's going to get spoiled from all the attention."

"Quinn!" Tal clucked her tongue at him. "It wouldn't hurt you to say something nice to QJ."

Leah nodded, "I agree."

Mojo frowned at her husband, "something nice Quinn."

"He did really well today." Lara spoke up from the other side of Quinn, "you should compliment him."

"Oh god... I've been overrun!" Q frowned at his son, "well, I'm not going to cave! Although, I must say... That name you gave your swordgun, quite possibly the best name ever." Quinn smiled at his wives, "that was nice right?"

"...." Tal.

"Not your best effort," Leah muttered.

"Really?" Mojo sighed and looked away.

Quinn stood up on the edge of the fountain. "Okay, let's get started. After action review (AAR).

Lara started off. "We did a good job of deploying to our targets, we were on them so fast they started panicking."

Quinn nodded, "What else?"

Robin had moved closer, her brown eyes showed her happiness at being included in the raid. "We were able to respond to changes in battle plans."

"I agree," Tal brought up a Map on her hud. "Initially our intel about their routes were wrong, but we were able to recover and cut off reinforcements."

"Being flexible with battle plans was key." Lara favored QJ with a smile, "our alliance with Haven gave them a second enemy to consider."

"Okay, let's stop patting our backs now." Quinn's normally relaxed manner became serious. "Where did we mess up?"

"We were overconfident." Thrush was sitting on the stones of the courtyard in-between Wren and Robin.

Quinn nodded in agreement, "we would have been caught flat-footed had we not been warned about the Optic Sniper rifles they had."

Yaya was standing off to one side, it was her company that had come under fire. "Thank you for that QJ, because of your warning, we had the heavy armored fliers in front. We were able to get to cover without serious injuries."

"All in all, I think it was one of our best efforts." Quinn hopped off the fountain, his relaxed demeanor had returned. "Chainy tells me that most of the leadership from Righteous Hand have been arrested. They are most likely finished on the Legends server."

Leah looked around, "anyone else want to say something?"

A slight blonde-haired woman looked up from her place with the Songbirds. "How did four, level one players, steal all this loot?" Ren favored her younger brother with a smile. "Impressive QJ."

Tal nodded in agreement. "Also the mini-operation on the dam that Ringo and QJ pulled off, that was as good as it gets. Intuitive, responsive and gutsy."

QJ smiled in response. "We were just trying to do our part."

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Wren stood up, "we done now boss?" When Quinn nodded, she turned her gaze on QJ. "Quinn James! I demand you make me a hideout gun!"

QJ cringed when she used his full name.

Thrush stood up next to her, nodding in agreement. "That's right! I want one too! Robin damn near shot Morbin's leg off when he jumped out at us."

Robin laughed at her friends, "I was actually fighting with someone else and shot him with my off-hand."

QJ smiled at his girlfriend. "How hard did it hit?"

Robin smiled sweetly, "only about 200k."

"...." Wren.

"...." Thrush.

QJ noticed that Ringo was talking with his parents, "going to log out now. See you at the Keep later."

Ringo waved at him, "great job today QJ."

QJ grabbed Lotte and Breeze. "Wu ordered pizza so we could have a late lunch together."

The two women had given up on holding their loot and had each made a small pile.

"My stuff..." Breeze looked like she might cry.

"Nuna is going to neatly categorize everything and send it to our Keep. Your personal stacks will be sent to you." QJ dragged them toward the gate.

Lotte stopped dragging her heels and walked willingly. "I just about had a heart attack when everything started flying out, it should warn you or something."

**********

QJ stepped out of the VR chamber and stretched, "let's eat out by the pool!"

Lotte who had heard him from her own room. "Want to help me before the food comes?"

QJ stood in the walkway between their rooms smiling at her shut door. "Need any help now?"

There was a slight pause, "and if I said yes?"

QJ shrugged at the no-brainer, "I'd walk right in and give you a hand."

"Oi! Help me get changed too QJ!" Breeze was standing at the rail, already wearing a white one-piece swimsuit.

"Ask Sato!"

Ten minutes later Sato, Wu, Breeze and Nina were watching from poolside. Lotte had just finished a set of water exercises and was leaning heavily on QJ while she caught her breath.

Nina fiddled with a strand of her purple hair. "Are we sure they are working out?"

Sato hadn't taken his eyes off them, "more like making out."

Lotte laughed against QJ's ear. "Sorry, I'm ruining your reputation QJ."

QJ splashed some water at the group watching. "He's mad because we crashed the Legends server without him."

"Damn you guys!" Sato had his head down on the table. "I could have gone!"

Breeze laughed heartlessly at him. "We didn't have a jetpack small enough to fit a halfling player."

Lotte moved away from QJ and started treading water again. "Did you tell him the best part?"

Sato looked at the tall girl sitting next to him, for some reason she loved teasing him. "Better than the stack of loot?"

Breeze ignored him while she tied up her hair.

"Tell me!"

She stood up and walked to the edge of the pool before looking back at him. "Well... we've been given permanent access to Ravenwood."

Wu watched them interact with each other, he had it figured out already. Breeze liked Sato, he was the only one she never flirted with. "You guys deserve it."

The pizza came a few minutes later and the small group sat down next to the pool to eat. Sato's face was already turning red in the Vegas sun, even though he hadn't been outside long.

Breeze shook her head at him, "you should wear a hat Sato. You're going to look like a lobster."

Sato had mashed two slices of pizza together and was eating them at the same time. "Hats mess up my hair."

Nina laughed at the comment, her eyes moving to the pile of curly red hair on his head. "Really?"

QJ snaked the last slice of pepperoni pizza before while Wu was reaching for it. "Any idea what a City Fort looks like?"

Wu stared at the slice in his hand and then reached for the plain cheese pizza that Sato had insisted on. "No one does, I don't even think that option exists for other Keeps. All the servers are waiting to see what yours looks like."

Breeze pushed her chair out and walked toward the pool. "We are doing things on Phoenix that has the rest of the servers watching us. How awesome is that?"

Wu brought up his hud and pulled up footage from their raid on Falcon's Pride, "I posted this about an hour ago, three million views already."

*********

An hour later all of them logged into GnG, with the exception of Wu who was starting to sift through the casino footage.

"Sweet Mother..." QJ stared at the City Fort.

The Keep portal now brought them outside of a 30 foot high stone wall, with enormous wooden doors and steel portcullis. There was a line of NPCs extending as far as you could see. Two dark elf guards who were stopping everyone else, waved them through. When they walked through they were greeted by pristine cobblestone streets and rows of shops and businesses. Ringo, Dessi, and Robin were standing on a nearby corner talking.

QJ whistled loudly as he approached them. "So... the city fort is actually a city."

Robin brought up the city map and zoomed in. "Everythings empty at the moment, we have dozens of empty shops for businesses, a residential area, even a small walking park."

"Oh god... What about my shop?" QJ felt a moment of panic when he remembered all the materials he had left there.

Robin patted him on the shoulder. "The previous Guild Keep is now located in the central part of the city, although it resembles a palace more than a Keep."

"There's a lot to go through QJ," Ringo grabbed his arm and pulled him away from the rest of the group. "We need to establish a stronger leadership base, other than just the two of us."

"I agree, we should also have separate leadership for the city." QJ glanced at Dessi, she hadn't smiled much since the incident with Dover and Boci. "Let's add Dessi, Breeze, Lotte, Sato, and Maya to the guild's hierarchy. We'll leave it to Robin to organize city leadership."

Ringo stared at her vice-commander, a slight smile on her lips. "Let's head to the Keep and get started."

In the end, the Guild Leadership was revamped. Ringo kept her position as Guild leader, while both QJ and Dessi were Vice-Commanders. Dessi had protested this, but it was QJ who had insisted. Breeze, Lotte, and Sato were promoted to Lieutenant while Maya was made the officer in charge of recruitment. On the civilian side, it was decided that Robin would be the City Chancellor, an elected board of NPCs would serve under her. She was still in charge of City Defense.

All sixty members of One Problem sat in the Guild Conference room listening to QJ outline the command and their plans for developing the city. "Once businesses have been established and the residential areas populated, we can start talking about guild salaries. We'll have an Officer meeting immediately following this, let's get after those levels. We want to be as strong as possible when we travel to Fraezi."

Robin led the officers of OP to the Guild Vault. Sato, Dessi, and Maya stood there with their mouths open. Nuna had enlisted the Silverleaf company to bring the loot from Falcon Pride to the vault. "As you can see, we need a second vault already, this one is full."

"Shit... Why didn't you bring me QJ?" Sato stared at all the gear, "How are we going to distribute it?"

"A good portion of it is higher level gear, so it will be a while before we can even use it." QJ and Ringo had both completely outfitted themselves with new gear, the benefits of going on the raid.

Ringo hid her smile. "We need to identify any members who prefer crafting to raiding. Those people will get the first choice on our crafting books."

QJ smiled at Sato. "That being said, there are weapon and ability skill books here. Each of you can pick one now."

Breeze watched as Sato, Dessi, and Maya hurried into the vault. "Me too?"

QJ grabbed her when she tried to follow them. "Really? Shall we talk about the pile of loot you already confiscated?"

"Stingy!" Breeze frowned at Sato who seemed to touch everything in the vault.

QJ hud dinged and he picked it up to see Aji serious face. "Did you receive the shipment QJ?"

The shipment, was code for his share of the proceeds from the opening night of the casino. After paying everyone, he still received three million credits. "I did. Thank you, Aji. Robin and I will stop by later to go over your combat training."

Robin leaned close so that Aji could see her. "Please cook us some pasta, QJ said you are an amazing cook!"

QJ closed comm just as Sato, Maya, and Dessi returned. "Anything else we need to go over?"

Ringo shook her head, "we need to go level up, you are getting too far ahead."

"Right... I'll relax a bit tonight then."

QJ and Robin waited until everyone went their own directions. They held hands and walked toward Robin's new office.

"Is my shop still next to your office?"

"Yes." Robin leaned over and kissed him, "I'll get you a complete tour Vice-Commander."