Chương 99: 3.24 Paint It Black - Wednesday Addams (2:25)

Z3ke (Original Poster) Castellan, please tell me you've got another plan up your sleeve because things are starting to look pretty shit here. It's calmed down a bit. I think. Elnor and Jackie and I are hanging with the jeep and we're parked a ways away from what used to be the tunnel entrance. It's nothing but dirt and rubble now. It's a complete mess and unless the attackers are pulling out tractors or heavy machinery, it's doubtful they're going to get through there anytime soon.

That doesn't mean the fighting has ended though. There's still a ton of people racing through the compound, carrying ammo and checking barricades and shouting orders at each other. The warehouse is still standing and from where I'm sitting the place looks like a triage center. There's a bunch of medics rushing in and out and I keep seeing walking wounded heading inside. There's occasional gunshots popping off outside the walls, but it sounds more like potshots instead of sustained fire.

I feel like everyone is simply catching their breath, but I can't tell if that's because whoever was attacking us gave up and they're headed home, or if they're regrouping for another push and this is just the calm before the storm. The three of us have mostly been ignored. Our jeep is out of the way and none of the Pale Regiment people are looking our way or demanding that we help defend anything.

Jackie is outside the jeep and she's looking at all the fresh bullet holes we've collected because of our little underground misadventure. She keeps running a finger over the bullet holes and then whistling whenever she finds one that came close to killing one of us. There was a round that punched straight through the windshield and passed through the jeep and all she did was stare at it for a couple seconds before pointing it out to me.

"Don't make me do that again," she said before turning back to the jeep. The windshield is cracked and broken now. It's covered in holes and spiderweb cracks and you can't see out of it. I doubt we're gonna find a replacement around here, which means we'll need to knock the whole thing out and drive without it. That's gonna be a bitch and I'm already dreading all the sand and grit that'll slap us in the face as we race through the Deadlands.

Elnor is in the passenger side, mumbling under his breath with a box of shotgun shells open on the dashboard. He found them in the glove compartment and for the past few minutes all he's done is count the shells and curse. Whenever he finishes his counting, his expression sours and he shakes his head and starts over again, seemingly hoping that he miscounted or one of the shells somehow spontaneously doubled. We're down to a handful of shells and maybe a full magazine for the pistol.

I'm hoping someone here has some spare ammo but I doubt it. We just survived a pretty big attack and, despite this supposedly being a logistics hub, I'm not sure if the Pale Regiment is gonna be willing to give us anything extra. So Castellan, what's next? Like I said before, I'm hoping you've got some sort of plan. Put that big brain of yours to work and come up with something that'll see us all safe. I know that's a lot to ask but… shit.

Mchiavelli | Elnor, Jackie and I are hanging around the jeep | JACKIE LIVES!!! I would have been so pissed if we lost another waifu candidate, especially since I'm still writing the Zeke/Jackie/Elnor throuple fic. ArtooDeetoa Zeke: Help us Castellan, you're our only hope. IridiumSky Every time Jackie and Elnor survives makes me more hopeful they'll be permanent. We need more than just you Zeke, we need characters for you to bounce off.

DataDatum Zeke, before you read this and get immediately defensive and think I'm ragging on you, I want to say this comes from a place of love. You shouldn't have been getting involved in any of this. You should have taken time for yourself back in The MIZ. You could have done a beach episode, ate questionable street food, and helped Patch build his Under-MIZ bar. Instead, you put yourself in the middle of a whole bunch of craziness.

You got involved in a firefight between the Pale Regiment and whoever is attacking them. You've got no ammo left and a jeep that looks like swiss cheese. I'm just saying. BlueFish191 Agree. Except, knowing Zeke, him doing a beach episode would have somehow turned into a monster attack and three near-death experiences. Our boy is constitutionally incapable of sitting back and relaxing. PocketMonarch I don't hate him getting involved with the Pale Regiment.

What I'm going to complain about is that none of what he's done so far is getting him closer to going back home. Remember when all this started? Binary started the whole Primary thing and, as dickish as he was, he made a good point in that the Primaries are supposed to be guiding him back to New York. That hasn't happened in a long time. All the arcs now are just him getting shot at by a different bunch of lunatics. Seriously, what actual progress has he made on the whole "return to Earth" problem?

AnywayHeresWonderwall NullSigil -> told him to get a class and tech slate. Crush/Mushroom/7Spirals -> told him to kill the Reclaimer and sell its body Binary -> tried to get him killed ReCoil44 -> told him to go to the Janus Storm and look around. Oh man Pocket, you're not wrong. Null was the only one actually pushing for Zeke to do something useful. Zeke was classless and Null pushed him out of the nest and got him a way to contact the forum. Everyone else has mostly had him chasing adrenaline.

InnerMarrow TBF to Crush and them, killing the Reclaimer was supposed to get him enough cash that he could buy security. I do agree on the Binary and ReCoil stuff though. Last_admiral ^Pocket. He says himself that he had nothing back home in his stupid fucking bartender life in NY, so why the fuck is he so eager to go back home rather than, oh I don't know… take it slow in a world you don't have to pay taxes. Randombullhitgo The thing is there is no taking it slow in that world.

No taxes sounds good until you consider the amount of danger at any time there is, you can basically die at any time. Also humans are creatures of habit and comfort. An uncertain life with constant struggles or a life with routine and relative safety. SpicyShoyu People romanticize adventures until they're actually living inside one. It's easy to read a book or watch a movie or play a game and think: yea I could do that.

But adventures are mostly walking long distances while being scared out of your skull, confused, and dirty. That's why I don't like hiking. It's just walking with more bees. 10161066 Holy shit. What are all of you on about? You're all acting like Zeke voluntarily left The MIZ and went looking for trouble. Are you all forgetting that the dood was literally kidnapped? He was taking a break from both danger and this forum and doing his own version of a beach episode which was working at Patch's bar.

Then some goods grabbed him off the street, tossed a bag over his head, and shoved him through a portal into the Chapel Pit. Everything since then has followed from that and has been pretty linear. He escaped the Chapel Pit and went straight into the Janus Storm. When he got out of there he found that he didn't have enough gas and needed somewhere to refuel. There's no way he could have known about the Pale Regiment base getting attacked.

Null and Binary gave him the best advice possible, which was to try and find someplace he could restock. How could they know it would lead to a firefight? As for everyone complaining about why he wants to go home, that's an easy answer. I love the Fracture-verse. It's by far my favorite video game setting. But I'd HATE living there. It's a post-apocalyptic hellhole with danger around every corner. It's like asking "why would anyone want to leave the 40K universe? The Adeptas Sororitas are domme mommies!"

Give me supermarkets and restaurants and traffic laws and a functioning infrastructure. I love post-apocalyptic wasteland videogames but I would hate to wake up in one. Are we all forgetting that Zeke just came back from a pod carrying a literal baby apocalypse that would have shredded what's left of civilization if he hadn't dealt with it? That's not a world I want to live in. JimothyTheBarber clap clap clap That's a round of applause for both Hastings and Castellan.

Hastings for flipping out on people, and Castellan for being both right and wrong in his plan. I think we all need to appreciate Zeke's luck for a bit. Castellan's plan had him trying to escape through the maintenance tunnel and that almost got Zeke killed BUT it also prevented the attackers from wiping out the base. Kor Did Castellan's plan save the Pale Regiment without meaning to lol?

Seems like the attackers were drawing them to the outskirts of the camp while sending a team through the tunnel to mop them up from behind. PixelBaron Don't go giving Castellan too much credit for this one. Zeke survived because the universe decided he's too entertaining to kill. Our boy keeps walking into shit that should kill him and somehow coming out the other side like nothing happened. It's ridiculous and pure luck. ShivSays | and pure luck. | Hmmm.

At the risk of starting another massive flame war, should we all talk about BrassTotillo's Luck Theory? The more I'm reading Zeke's story, the more I feel like he's trying to point us that way and get us talking about it. He did the same thing with the House, the Rockstar class, the Witness Chambers, and a bunch of other things. He's always leaving breadcrumbs to something and waiting for all of us to put 2 and 2 together. What if the Luck Theory is the next on his list of hidden lore?

Teabaggins420 | should we all talk about BrassTotillo's Luck Theory? | Zeke was prancing around with a flashlight in a dark tunnel filled with people actively trying to kill him and they couldn't hit him once. That's some good evidence for Luck being a hidden stat. Murmur Okay, just to be Devil's Advocate (I know that we all agreed to maintain kayfabe or whatever) but has anyone seen the code for the Rockstar class? Do we have any grounding that it acts the way it's been depicted in Zeke's fic?

Seleukos_Nikator At this point I think most of us are willing to take his word for it. He's been right enough times to earn that trust. Filip-Graves What or who is Brass Totillo and the Luck Theory? SomePeopleCallMe_Maurice JEEEEEEZUS. GRAVE!!! They're back and they're asking questions that could be easily researched. ClickWhirr [LINK][LINK] Hey Filip, how about you do some reading before you post? FopperyandWhim 0_0 I was just about to ask the same question but obviously thought better of it.

TVEye Foppery, it's okay that you don't know about BrassTotillo. He was before your time. He was a guy who posited "The Luck Theory." Basically, the Luck Theory is something for a couple years back. Brass said he didn't think the games fully showed all a player's stats. He claimed that, alongside all the visible rankings of skills, there were hidden stats running under the hood that influenced outcomes in ways that players weren't thinking about.

The controversial part of his theory was his claim that Luck was the most consequential hidden stat, and that it affected loot quality, encounter probability, and a whole host of other things. Basically, he said the game's randomness wasn't truly random, but weighted by an invisible value that varied by player. People. Lost. Their. Minds. You wouldn't think that such a small theory would start such a big flame war, but it did. Frankly, I'm not even sure why everyone was pissed. It was kinda ridiculous.

Users were replaying sections of the games over and over again, doing the same exact actions in the same exact ways in hopes of determining if Luck actually did have an effect on anything. The theory was everywhere and people were taking sides and bitching at each other. It got so bad that a few mods on here actually quit. You had people saying everyone complaining about "RNG" were really dealing with a lack of skill and if you would bitch about bad luck then you were someone who should just "git gud."

Others claimed that "randomness" in a game as complex as the Fracture-verse games was absolutely impossible and there had to be a Luck stat hidden somewhere. Nothing was ever definitively proven either way and that's what mostly killed the debate. It still comes up every now and then and you've got people picking up their pitchforks, but there's no evidence one way or another. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But as everyone's favorite Secretary of Defense (/s) said, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Saltmines | the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. | https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=jHhG9DbHbW0 GravemindLegacy (MOD) Saltmines, this is not a reaction thread. If you are going to post a video, include actual commentary. This is your first warning. Lorem_Ipsum If Luck is a hidden state and Zeke is drawing attention to it, it would make sense that his character has it maxed out.

StoryLeech RANK 11 LUCK!!! Luck 11 is getting kidnapped and somehow ending up with higher skills and more allies than when he started. TrapG00blin Luck 11 means walking into an ambush and discovering info the enemy desperately wanted hidden. 7Spirals Luck 11 means finding an offering doll at the very beginning of the story and then conveniently still having it around and giving it to the Blooming Witch when she needed something with weight. BooksReader The finding of the doll must have been arranged by someone.

Otherwise, it's a huge case of author fiat. What are the chances? Tenset I think the deal with the doll is different than what you're thinking. It's not that the offering doll had anything to do with the Blooming Witch. It's that it was an item with significant weight of its own, and the Blooming Witch used that weight to give herself more presence - albeit not much. Marcelloll ^Tenset.

Eaters like eating weight, so the people sacrificing things to them are obviously going to want to give things with at least a little bit of weight as offerings, so when Zeke stole the offerings he stole a bunch of stuff with weight. The doll is only "special" because it belonged to a child who probably put a lot of importance on it and also spent a lot of time playing with it. VeneratedWitchHunter Ooo.

Normally I'd push back against the idea of Luck as a hidden stat, but at this point I've read enough Zeke to genuinely reconsider it. That said, if Luck 11 does exist, it wouldn't look like him barely surviving disasters. Think more like Baccarat from One Piece. She had the Luck-Luck Fruit and it was so busted. Luck 11 would be all about breaking things until it all becomes completely unfair, and Zeke isn't doing that. He's scraping by.

If Baccarat hadn't been so shit with her powers, she could have wiped the floor with ALL the Straw Hats. Instead, she got Usopp'd. Zeke with a maxed out Luck stat would be dancing through dangerous situations and he's not. Castellan_Mike (Primary) While we're waiting for more Zeke updates, I've had time to think about the attack. The more I think about it, the weirder it gets. The attackers clearly knew about the tunnel beforehand.

Zeke, you said that both Vicks and Haynes (the officers who interrogated you) mentioned patrols going missing before any of this started. Captured patrols who were tortured for information could explain some of the attack. Long-range surveillance could explain some of the attack. But even both together doesn't explain how the attackers knew about a tunnel that was intentionally concealed and blocked off. Z3ke (Original Poster) I know I'm going to get flak for this and called an idiot but…

can you explain a bit more what you're saying Castellan? Castellan_Mike (Primary) The attack was way too organized and the attackers had way too much information. The attackers (whoever they are) knew about the tunnel, had cleared enough of the entrance to move personnel through it, and coordinated the attack around its existence. If it was me leading that assault and all I knew was that I needed to take this base, I would have put everything I had at the front gate.

I would have focused my manpower and firepower at a single point, tried to create a breach, and then punched through it. That's not what they did. You said it yourself that the attackers had multiple probing attacks all around the perimeter of the facility. They created pressure from multiple directions and forced the Pale Regiment to divide its attention and spread out. Then, once everyone was stretched thin, they came through the tunnel.

That's not something you do unless you already know the tunnel is there and prepped for it. That means one of two things happened. Either the attackers were studying the base for a very long time before they attacked. They could have been gathering intelligence before you ever got there and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. OR, the attackers have an informant or collaborator or spy in the Pale Regiment. They've got someone inside the facility who is passing information.

MyPrec0ius That sounds like a stretch Castellan. They could have just been watching the base. That sounds more plausible than someone secretly feeding info to the attackers. Castellan_Mike (Primary) Normally yes. If it was me I'd have just perched someone high up on a hill and had them watch the base. They could have also used someone with scrying powers, but it's likely the Pale Regiment have something that could counter that. Think about the tunnel though. It was concealed and partially obstructed.

Even if you found the exit from outside - two miles away from the base - what are the chances that you'd know where it came out or if it was even usable. You wouldn't send troops into an unknown tunnel. No. The spy is the only thing that makes sense. Inkwell It's weird that we don't know who is attacking the base. It's obviously not the Black Teeth because Zeke didn't say anything about a convoy. It's not the Shard Choir because Zeke hasn't said anything about people getting staked and left out in the sun.

Random raiders wouldn't have attacked the Pale Regiment. They'd have known better. | the attack was way too organized and the attackers had way too much information. | Castellan pointed out that this attack was too organized. When's any of us heard of scavengers or raiders attacking a fortified Pale Regiment base? Plus, raiders and scavengers don't spend weeks or months gathering intelligence. So who was it? MoonlightGraham ^Inkewell. They had enough manpower to attack from a bunch of different directions.

They had enough coordination to attack all at once. They had enough discipline to sneak some troops through the tunnel. That's already more organized than most raider groups. Z3ke (Original Poster) Okay. I think it's actually over now. No more gunshots. Z3ke (Original Poster) Hey Castellan, quick question. Uh, I guess it's a question for anyone really. I don't want to ask any of the Pale Regiment people because they're all looking exhausted and I don't wanna be the guy they snap at.

Why are all these soldiers armed with normal guns? Back when I was in the Under-MIZ and I ran into the Pale Regiment soldiers, they all had crazy tech. And I remember Null talking about how the Pale Regiment was the most technologically advanced faction out in the Deadlands. They control the Library and they've got vaults filled with pre-Fracture tech and they got tons of cash. But I'm in this base and seemingly every soldier walking around is carrying normal guns.

I'm seeing rifles and shotguns and pistols and nothing laser-like. So… what's up with that? EdinboroughArchivist | Why are all these soldiers armed with normal guns? | It's because you're in a logistics hub. The Pale Regiment does have the best tech in the region - although it pales in comparison to what you could find in either Null Protocol or Tech Reign. But that doesn't mean it's evenly distributed. The Devro base you're in is a logistics hub, and the base is staffed by standard infantry and support personnel.

All the special forces doods you met in the Under-MIZ are somewhere else doing something more important. StoryLeech You were hanging out with Schwarzenegger in Predator when you were in the Under-MIZ. But now you're hanging with Carl Weathers in Predator. Z3ke (Original Poster) That's not really what I was hoping to hear. Z3ke (Original Poster) A soldier just came over and asked if I was Zeke.

I told him yes and he said that the Quartermaster wanted to see me and then he just walked off like I was supposed to follow him. Ass. We're walking through the base right now and I don't know where he's taking me but, holy shit things are looking pretty bad. We walked past the warehouse and I was right in that they turned the whole place into a triage center. The warehouse is packed with wounded and most of them are sporting gunshot wounds. I think. It's not like I'm an expert on trauma surgery.

Most of what I know comes from action movies and those wounds are always gunshots. At the same time, there are a bunch of people in the warehouse that look like they've been knifed and cut. It made me think that the fighting at the gate must have been close range, which means the attackers got a lot farther than anyone would have liked. Z3ke (Original Poster) We're up at the watchtower by the front gate and I really don't want to be here. I can see where the attack started.

There's a crater out front where the car exploded and there's a bunch of Pale Regiment mechanics out there trying to fix up the gate. The watchtower itself has a few chunks blown out of it and scorch marks all up one side. Outside the walls is so much worse. I've counted at least four bodies and I'm not trying to look too hard. The smell is exactly what you're imagining. Actually…

most of you probably haven't smelled a battlefield before so you can't really imagine what it is and that's something I envy you all for. It's this heavy sweet stench that sits in the back of your throat and makes you want to move away from it. Underneath that stench is the smell of burning and chemicals and damp and shit. It's not something that anyone should ever want to smell. The dead soldiers by the front gate aren't from the Pale Regiment and none of them are looking too professional.

Their equipment is all over the place and none of them are wearing uniforms. They're all decked out in what I'm calling mercenary chic, which is a bunch of mismatched armor and gear cobbled together from a half a dozen different sources. Quartermaster Vicks and Officer Haynes are both at the top of the watchtower and they're leaning against the railing and staring out at the battlefield. None of them greeted me when I got up to the tower.

Both were just standing there and looking out at the complete mess of everything. Z3ke (Original Poster) God dammit. Okay Castellan, I'm gonna need you to dial in because shit just got complicated. Vicks and Haynes finally deigned to talk with me, but calling it a conversation would have been generous because it felt way more like an interrogation. Neither one of them was openly hostile, but they were definitely asking questions like they thought I was hiding something.

The first thing they asked me was whether I thought Corva was behind the attack. I told them that I didn't know and that Corva was dangerous and manipulative and insane, but I never really got the impression that the dude worked well with other people. From what I knew of him - and it was admittedly not that much - he didn't seem to be the type to recruit an army. That didn't mean he wasn't in charge of the attack. It just meant that I didn't know.

They weren't too happy with that answer and I started realizing how precarious my situation was. I'd shown up at their base and warned them about a psycho, and then a large scale attack happened right afterwards. I could see them doing the math and I could see them wondering whose side I was on. Haynes turned back to the battlefield for a moment and I could see him running through calculations in his head.

He finally turned back to me and said something about this attack showing way too much discipline for a normal raider group. I guess you all can be happy to have the same tactical acumen as Haynes. He said the same thing you all did in that scavengers and mercenaries don't normally coordinate like that. I got to thinking, and if you all were right about it being weird random mercenaries and scavengers were attacking, maybe you were right about the other thing too.

"Who else knew about the tunnel?" I asked. They looked at each other and then Haynes glanced my way and I got the feeling that I was starting to tread dangerous ground.

"Why are you asking?"

"Because someone obviously knew about it. That tunnel lets out about two miles from this base, right?" I said it before I could stop myself and immediately knew I fucked up. How would I know where the tunnel came out? How did I even know the tunnel existed in the first place? I didn't want to tell Haynes and Vicks about having access to a forum filled with a bunch of nerds who knew more about this world than both of them. What if they tried to take it from me?

What if they tried torturing me for all the info you guys could give them? Thankfully, my Persona killed in and I silently thanked it for bailing me out once again.

"I came across some pre-Fracture documents a while back," I said, trying to keep my voice even and calm.

"They mentioned maintenance tunnels in old bases like this one and said they were used for moving supplies and equipment without needing to go through the main gate. I figured there was a chance one was still here and I was gonna see if it was a way out. But…you'd blocked the exit, hadn't you?" Haynes went very still.

"Yes. How did you know that?"

"I didn't. I'm guessing based on what I found." I pointed past the gate towards the remnants of the attackers.

"What you both should be more focused on is how they knew about the tunnel. It's doubtful they stumbled across the tunnel exit by accident. They wouldn't have known where to look. And even if they did find the exit, they would have had to excavate it and that's a lot of work. It means they've known about the exit before the attack and planned around it. They knew it was there, which means that someone told them about it. And that means you've got a spy in your midst."

Vicks and Haynes looked at each other and I realized I wasn't telling them anything they didn't already know. After that, the questions started coming faster. How much had I known about the tunnel before entering it? Had I spoken to anyone about it? Had I noticed anything unusual about the base before the attack? I didn't have anything useful to tell them so I mostly just kept my mouth shut.

Before they could ask me more questions, a soldier stepped up behind us and said quietly, "sirs, you're going to want to take a look at this." He pointed past the front gate at a single truck making its way across the open ground towards the front gate. It was moving slowly and didn't have other trucks alongside it. The tension in the watchtower went up immediately and I saw a bunch of the surrounding Pale Regiment soldiers shifting and finding weapons.

The truck came to a stop outside rifle range and, for a moment, nothing happened. Then the driver's door opened and a man climbed out. As soon as he appeared something twigged in the back of my head and started bothering me. I'd seen him before. He looked familiar, but I couldn't remember from where. It was like seeing someone that you remember in a crowd and you know you met them but you can't remember where or when. I started thinking about all the people I'd met in this world. Had he been in The MIZ?

Maybe in Patch's bar? Was he in the Under-MIZ with the scavenger teams? Had I seen him at the Anchor Guild? Was he with one of the groups who'd been attacking the Reclaimer back when I was in the research districts? I didn't get long to think about it because he pulled a rock-looking thing out of the truck and set it on the hood and a loud shriek echoed from it. His voice was magnified and easily reached the watchtower.

"I know you're up there, Ezekiel! I know you can hear me." Several Pale Regiment soldiers turned to look at me and I could feel their gazes through their masks. The man pointed up towards the tower and there was enough anger in his gesture that it was clear, even from a distance, that he was pissed at me. Warring thoughts raced through my head.

I wanted to know what I'd done to piss this rando off, and I also wanted to know what kind of rock thingy he had that magnified his voice because that might be helpful for my class.

"You should have minded your own business!" he shouted.

"None of this would've happened if you'd just minded your own fucking business!" I rocked back in surprise at the vehemence in his voice before cupping my hands to my mouth and shouting out at him.

"Dude, I don't even fucking know you!" That was probably the wrong thing to say because I could see the man's face immediately contort in anger and he looked like he was winding up to start shouting again. Before he could get a word out one of the Pale Regiment soldiers made a weird "ughah?!" noise and we all turned to see him pointing at the horizon. My eyes, along with everyone else's, drifted to the massive dust cloud on the horizon. It was enormous and looked like it was getting closer.

I started wondering if it was the Janus Storm somehow reforming and moving our way. Haynes already had binoculars up and Vicks was right beside him with another pair. Nobody said anything for a long moment. The dust cloud grew larger and larger, and after a few minutes it started resolving into individual shapes. The first were motorcycles that appeared as dark silhouettes against the horizon. Then more and more and more appeared in the dust. They were weaving through the formation of vehicles.

Trucks followed close behind. Then, technicals with mounted weapons and cargo vehicles and buses and 18-wheelers. And behind those were more trucks and more motorcycles and more of everything. Whenever I thought I was seeing the tail end of it, another line of vehicles materialized out of the dust. I knew those trucks. I'd seen them before. I'd been chased by them before. A cold feeling crept up my spine as I witnessed the massive convoy of Mad Max looking vehicles race across the Deadlands.

It was an entire convoy of Black Teeth and it seemed to stretch back further than I could see. Nobody in the watchtower was speaking as the realization of what was coming for us spread. The Pale Regiment had just survived an attack by a bunch of mercenaries led by that random ass dude next to the truck who was shouting up at me. Their wounded were still being treated and the defenses were still being repaired and the soldiers were exhausted. Now here was another group of attackers arriving.

Down below, the man standing beside the truck started grinning like a maniac. He looked up at the watchtower and spread his arms wide like he was presenting a grand surprise.

"There they are!" he shouted and his grin widened even further.

"My friends have arrived."