On The Road Again

Job Details:

Job Title: 100 Year Free-form
Rank: 100 Year
Job Location: Anywhere
Solo Word Count: 11,000 words
Group Word Count: 22,000 words
Additional Requirements: N/A
Job Description: Whatever the player chooses
Enemies: Whatever the player chooses
Reward: 150,000 jewels OR a custom Artifact weapon/armor/item - Must specify which when handing in the job

Job Sign-Up: Page 6, Post Number 135

-The Sheridan Estate, Victoria's Room, 6:00 A.M.-

A day or two after the book delivery job for Miss Ashford, Victoria decided to spend some time at her newly acquired family estate to see if she could not find any more information about her parents. She had gotten here yesterday morning and had intended to search the property for information, but she had gotten sidetracked. Badly sidetracked. First came a binge of vintage sports car auctions while drinking vodka, then once the auctions went off around 4:00 P.M. she watched a marathon of the  mecha anime she had watched weeks ago while eating fettucine alfredo that Laura thoughtfully prepared for her. Once she got tired of watching the mecha anime she changed the channel and found some old black-and-white war movies around midnight... she watched those until 2:00 A.M. the next morning.

Victoria had finally gotten up from the couch to go to sleep and did not bother with niceties like a shower or brushing her teeth. She went straight to her room and undid her ponytail, then went to sleep in her white Steel Matron t-shirt and black skirt. They would probably be badly wrinkled, but that was a small price to pay for convenience. She also shamelessly took advantage of the fact that this was her house and she could do anything that she wanted... within reason and within the law, of course.

Having been awakened by her ringing iLac, Victoria was sitting on the edge of her bed and trying not to think uncharitable things about whoever was calling her this early in the morning. Her iLac had been ringing for two whole minutes without stopping. She had just gotten to sleep four hours ago after watching a marathon of old war movies made almost three decades ago and was feeling awful because of her awful choice, but in her defense she had no idea that someone was going to call her this early in the morning. Whoever it was had better have a good reason for calling her this early in the morning.

The brunette reached for her ringing iLac, took it into her right hand, and tapped the green phone icon to answer the caller. She then raised it to the right side of her head and spoke.

"Hello?" Victoria asked the caller.

"Hey Vic, it's me, Abigail!" The caller replied. Victoria smiled a little.

"Hey Abby! What's going on?" Victoria asked Abigail, dropping all the uncharitable thoughts she had about the caller now that she knew it was her old friend Abigail. The brunette's tone suddenly became a lot more cheerful and she became a lot more accommodating.

"Not a whole lot. Listen, I know it's really early in the morning, but are you able to help me with something?" Abigail asked Victoria.

"Sure. What is it?" Victoria asked Abigail.

"I'll tell you about it when I get there. Say, where are you right now?" Abigail asked the Sabertooth mage.

"My place in Capital Crocus. Do I need to come and get you on my Centaur or can you make it by yourself?" Victoria inquired.

"I can make it by myself, Vic. I'll be there in a couple of hours." Abigail informed Victoria of how long it would take her to get to the Sheridan estate.

"OK. See you then!" Victoria bade Abigail farewell. Abigail hung up without a word and Victoria hung up on her end. She casually turned towards the doorway and found Laura standing just outside looking at her with those bright blue eyes of hers. Victoria shrieked and nearly threw her iLac into the air, prompting the silver-haired maid to apologize.

"I'm sorry for startling you, Miss Sheridan. I also apologize for eavesdropping, but am I to understand that you'll be having company in the next couple of hours?" Laura asked Victoria. The startled brunette nodded.

"I'll make preparations for company then." Laura said before walking off to prepare for Abigail's arrival. Victoria sat on the edge of her bed trying to recover from the unpleasant surprised she had just received. She set her iLac down beside her and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Once she had taken a few breaths the brunette stood up and walked towards the bathroom to get a shower before Abigail got here.

[Post Word Count: 721]
[Total Word Count: 721/11,000]

-Two-and-a-half hours later, the living room-

Dressed in a clean white Steel Matron t-shirt and khaki cargo shorts, Victoria sat in the living room sipping from a can of Strawberry Slam while waiting for Abigail to arrive. In the weeks since her last visit Laura had gone shopping and had not only procured food and non-alcoholic drinks for the kitchen but also some clothing for Victoria to keep in her room so that she did not have to carry all the clothing she owned to and from Ace Of Spades. Victoria was pleased by Laura's initiative and would have to let the silver-haired maid know that soon.

Now Victoria was sitting on the couch and watching a vintage sports car auction on the television with her iLac at her right side. She was waiting for Abigail to call to let her know that she was at the front door and to open it for her. In the meantime Victoria watched a bunch of people bid on a black convertible a lot like Francesca Corlone's but with a hard top instead of a soft top. She was just about to learn the model of the car when the front doorbell rang.

"I'll get it, Miss Sheridan." Laura announced. Deciding to let the maid do what she was hired to do, Victoria remained seated and watched the bidding for the black convertible start at 500,000 Jewels. Within seconds the bid was met and someone raised by 50,000 Jewels... that was when things started to get intense. By the time Laura walked to the front door and opened it the bid was now sitting at 700,000 Jewels and rising. Victoria marveled at how quickly the bid had risen, but then she turned her attention to the front door.

"Hello Miss Windstrider." Laura greeted Abigail. Victoria stood up and faced Abigail, who was wearing a light blue midriff-baring t-shirt, blue jean shorts, and brown boots. On her back was a brown leather backpack.

"Hey Abby!" Victoria greeted her guest with a raised hand.

"Hey Vic!" Abigail greeted Victoria in a cheerful tone. She wiped her feet off on the mat at the front door and walked in, then took off her boots and handed them to Laura. Laura took them to a mat next to the door leading to the garage in a setup similar to what the Montgomery family had in their place.

"How's it going?" Victoria asked Abigail. Abigail walked over to the brunette and waved.

"It's going OK now that I'm here." Abigail replied. Victoria was not sure what to make of that, but if she was patient enough her old friend would tell her exactly what she meant.

"I need help with a job." Abigail told Victoria the nature of her problem. The brunette smiled a little.

"I can help you with that. What do you need to do?" Victoria asked Abigail.

"I need to go to Fat Monsterland for this job. My client in Magnolia Town dropped a magic weapon there and they need my help in retrieving it. It's an heirloom weapon that they'd really like to get back." Abigail replied. Victoria looked at Abigail for a moment.

"It's completely legit, I promise. In fact I called them about hiring you to help me and when I told them that you were almost as strong as a Wizard Saint they were all for it. If you can help me pull this off they'll pay us a big reward." Abigail told Victoria. The brunette read her body language and learned that her old friend was being completely honest with her. Victoria stopped frowning and crossed her arms.

"OK. I'm in. Are we working under any sort of time constraint here?" Victoria asked her partner in case they needed to hop on the Centaur right away and head for Fat Monsterland as quickly as they could go. Abigail shook her head.

"No, Vic. I was told that since we were going to Fat Monsterland he didn't want us to hurry and make mistakes while fighting through the zombies that live there. The client wants his weapon back, but they also want us to come back alive." Abigail answered. Victoria was glad to hear that. She did not want to make any mistakes due to haste because the zombies in Fat Monsterland were not to be taken lightly. Those obese zombies were especially tough to kill without the use of a powerful spell or a powerful weapon. Victoria had both of those assets, but she needed to be careful not to hit Abigail by mistake since the blonde wielded a sword and had to get close to her opponents to use it.

"OK, Abby. I'll go upstairs and grab my gear, then I'll meet you downstairs and we'll get going to Fat Monsterland to get that weapon." Victoria informed Abigail. The blonde gave a thumbs-up and the brunette headed upstairs to get her gear. Those obese zombies in Fat Monsterland were tough customers, but an Armor-Piercing Round from Victoria's .44 Magnum weapon should be able to punch through the layer of fat on their skulls and put them down with a single shot to the head.

[Post Word Count: 865]
[Total Word Count: 1,586/11,000]

-Fat Monsterland, three hours later-

Having finally arrived in Fat Monsterland, Victoria climbed off the Centaur and Abigail followed suit. The pair had finally arrived at their destination after a long drive from Capital Crocus to Fat Monsterland. About half of that time had been spent waiting in traffic because some dimwit in a red sports car had gotten into a fender bender with a yellow convertible because they had been engaging in distracted driving by browsing at their iLac instead of keeping their eyes on the road. The traffic jam took almost two hours to clear up, but since it was so early in the morning they had plenty of daylight to burn. It also helped that they did not have a time limit that was set in stone.

The pair would not dawdle in Fat Monsterland because the area seemed to have an endless supply of zombies, but knowing that they did not have a strict time limit gave them leeway to engage the zombies as they saw fit instead of having to race against the clock to retrieve the heirloom weapon they had been sent to retrieve.

"Hey Vic, ready to fight through another horde of zombies?" Abigail asked Victoria as the former took off her backpack and pulled out the Sky Blade in its scabbard. Victoria had wondered where her partner had been keeping her signature weapon. Now she knew.

"I'm up for it as long as we don't have to deal with that creepy necromancer ever again." Victoria replied. Both mages shuddered at the memory of the necromancer they had encountered in Silent Cemetery, the one with the beady emerald eyes and the flap of flesh hanging near his mouth. The brunette had a hard time sleeping for a few days after that fight even though she knew he was dead. She had witnessed Abigail plunge the Silver Dagger into his skull when his corrosive magic had rendered Victoria unable to make the kill herself. The necromancer had been killed, but he could still make Victoria and Abigail watch their backs in dark places just by virtue of having existed.

"Yeah. I'm glad that guy's dead." Abigail replied. Victoria nodded.

"Me too. I know I'm supposed to fight them, but that was a seriously creepy guy. I hope that we killed him for good and that we didn't fall for some kind of fake death routine he pulled to make us think that we killed him." Victoria chimed in. While she would like to believe that the necromancer was dead and was not going to cheat death a second (or third) time, the pair lived in a world of magic where almost anything was possible. If there were panty bandits roaming the mall who could steal women's underwear right off of their targets, then a sufficiently powerful necromancer could find a way to come back from receiving a Silver Dagger stab to the forehead.

"Please don't say that, Vic. I like to think that he's never, ever coming back." Abigail requested. Victoria gave a thumbs-up before bringing out her .44 Magnum weapon.

"OK, Abby. I'm thinking that the worst thing we'll have to deal with today is run-of-the-mill walking corpses." Victoria said in a hopeful voice as she surveyed the area around them. They were standing in a clearing with only a few bushes dotting the area, but that was not a big deal. What was a big deal was being in Fat Monsterland during daylight. Victoria had only been here at night and traveling here during the day was jarring.

"I hope so too, Vic. I hope so too." Abigail replied before attaching the Sky Blade's scabbard to her left hip. The blonde was not sounding very hopeful about their chances of dealing with ordinary enemies and not running into a powerful necromancer bent on absorbing their souls and adding their bodies to his undead army. Victoria was about to try and say something encouraging before remembering Abigail's story about generations of her family dying at the hands of necromancers and sensibly keeping her mouth shut. No platitudes could ever ease Abigail's fear that the next necromancer the pair encountered just might be her last.

"I'm ready to go. Are you ready?" Abigail asked Victoria. The revolver-wielding brunette nodded.

"I'm ready. Let's go find that artifact." Victoria said. Moments later Abigail pointed towards the clearing in front of them. Victoria spotted a large group of twenty-five zombies shambling towards them and every one of them held an axe in their hands.

"Oh look, some of the locals are coming to say hello." Victoria snarked to try and lighten the mood a little. Abigail only frowned at her. Victoria gave up on trying to lighten the mood and faced forward again.

The Sabertooth mage remained quiet as she raised her .44 Magnum and aimed for the head of the first zombie she had picked to be on the business end of her weapon. She would not need Armor-Piercing Rounds to take these guys down. A single shot to the head with normal rounds would more than suffice to take them down.

[Post Word Count: 856]
[Total Word Count: 2,442/11,000]

-Ten minutes later-

Victoria had just taken down the last of the first horde of zombies to attack her and Abigail. It was not a particularly hard fight, but it was nerve-wracking because the zombies could run as fast as a living person and that meant the two mages had to be quick when attacking or dodging. Abigail was cleaning the blood from the Sky Blade as Victoria looked around for more zombies who had heard the commotion and were coming to join the fray. The .44 Magnum was not exactly a subtle weapon: it had a report that could be easily heard by anything within earshot. However, like with so many weapons in Victoria's arsenal, it was perfectly suited to its wielder. Brute force tended to be Victoria's preferred method of problem-solving and if something was not broke, why fix it?

"That's the last of 'em. So far." Victoria commented to Abigail, looking over the scene. The zombies she had shot barely had heads anymore and the zombies Abigail had killed had neat stab wounds or neat slices through their skulls. That illustrated the difference between the two mages. Victoria was a sledgehammer and Abigail was a scalpel. The same dynamic had been present when Victoria had worked alongside Itori months ago... not that Victoria minded too much.

Everyone had their place in life. Victoria's place in life was as an instrument of brute force to be directed towards demons, demon cultists, slavers, and other unpleasant sorts who liked to kick people around for the fun of it. It might be a delusional idea for her to hold, but sometimes Victoria liked to think that she was some cosmic entity's instrument sent here to put goons who kicked around innocent people in their place... and sometimes that place was six feet underground. Not that Victoria minded killing.

"There's plenty more where they came from." Abigail calmly remarked. Victoria nodded and looked past the dead zombies. They were in a clearing now, but some distance away there were bushes that formed a corridor approximately 100 meters long. The two mages looked at each other.

"Oh look, a corridor. How awfully convenient. For them." Victoria remarked to Abigail. Abigail frowned at Victoria, but this frown was one of agreement.

"Yeah. Unless we want to go tromping through the underbrush and get seriously scratched up by thorns, we have no choice but to go down the corridor and see what happens. With that hand cannon of yours, we'll be all right." Abigail said. Victoria smiled.

"Yeah, I like this hand cannon. It's my second time using it and it's a big help. I don't have to use my Light Machine Gun to do all the heavy lifting now." Victoria commented on the .44 Magnum in her hand. It was every bit as noisy as the Light Machine Gun but was capable of greater precision... not that that was saying very much. Still, having a powerful weapon that could fire single shots that were not anti-armor rockets was always nice to have.

"I'm ready to go into the corridor when you are, Vic." Abigail said to Victoria. Victoria nodded.

"Sure, Abby. Let's go." Victoria said. Together the pair started towards the corridor formed by bushes and hoped to find the weapon they had been hired to retrieve. While they had not been told exactly what kind of weapon they were looking for, the brunette was pretty sure that they would know it when they saw it. Maybe.

-Inside the corridor, three minutes later-

Victoria and Abigail were now walking through the corridor and kept their weapons ready. More zombies could burst through the brush at any moment looking for a meal. There was not very much room to maneuver and since Abigail had a sword she would have to be very careful not to hit her while the blonde fought the zombies.

Victoria looked up at the sky and could not believe that she was fighting zombies in daylight. Before today she had only ever fought them at night, but here she was traveling through a zombie-infested place in broad daylight. The best word she could use to describe the situation was "surreal."

Victoria faced forward again and continued to follow Abigail through the corridor, which opened onto another clearing. Maybe they could find the weapon soon and get out of here before they had to fight another large horde of those slender ax-wielding zombies. The pair were ten meters down the corridor when an obese zombie wielding a meat cleaver in its right hand staggered out of the brush about a meter away from Victoria and faced them with milky white eyes. It pointed towards them with its free hand and bellowed something.

"MEEEEEEEAT!" It bellowed in a deep voice. Victoria quickly raised her .44 Magnum and aimed for its head, firing an Armor-Piercing Round that easily punched through its skull and brought it down. Victoria smiled. Fortunately for her, the extra layer of fat protecting their brains could not stop the Armor-Piercing Rounds the revolver could fire.

Unfortunately for her, she heard loud moaning coming from all around her. That meant that they were about to get company very soon. Abigail heard the moaning and looked at the brunette.

"We can't fight them here! There's too much risk of us hitting each other! Let's go back to the first clearing!" Abigail suggested before turning around and fleeing to the first clearing. Victoria did not object. She wordlessly turned around and hurriedly followed Abigail to an area where they could make a stand against the zombies that would soon arrive.

[Post Word Count: 938]
[Total Word Count: 3,380/11,000]