3-15: Swing By Deadcat

The gang finds their way to Deadcat across the plains. As the spot marked on the map draws near, they find themselves approaching a gorge, so they climb up to the highest ridge and scope out what's below.

That's a town alright—a cannibal town built on the bones of a friendlier one. A couple refineries sit unused, wrecked shells mark where houses once stood, and a single stretch of the old wall still stands. The cannibals don't seem to be using any of it, evidently satisfied with their rickety shacks, their rows of cages, and their company of standing torches flickering an eerie ballet in the rain. A second check of the map reveals a new name for this town: Cannibal Capital. This is definitely where the Cannibal Grand Wizard lives.

The gang doesn't see anyone who looks like a Grand Wizard here, but further on down the gorge past the town, a bunch of cannibals battle shrieking bandits. He might be over there. The gang will have to get closer to be sure, but one thing's for certain: The cannibals being split up presents a perfect opportunity to attack. Silvershade and Shryke, the crossbow wielders, run into town and lure a bunch back to the rest of the gang. The fight begins.

Even split up, there are a lot of cannibals here. The fight is no cakewalk; Cat and Silvershade go down and are captured. The gang does prevail, though, and presses onward, Jam and Outlaw Hana breaking off to free Silvershade. Riddly and Keys defeat a cannibal chief who sports an identical 10,000 Cat bounty to the one they turned in before: A nice bonus so long as they don't lose track of him. There's a lot more fighting to do.

Shedding a bit of blood and a lot of sweat, the gang hacks and slashes their way to the poles on the far end of town where Cat is being held alongside some shrieking bandits. They take their time to bandage and free the cluster of prisoners—while they did come here primarily for the bounty, it feels good to actually help people too.

There are enough captured shrieking bandits here that it's taking the gang a while to get to them all, significantly slowing their rampage through the cannibals. A few shrieking bandits still stand, though, and their battle with the rest of the cannibals isn't waiting on the gang's schedule. Jam is itching to dive in and tip the scales. Taking a moment to survey the fracas, they spot someone who could only be the Cannibal Grand Wizard: A cannibal actually wearing armour, Holy Nation-style plate at that.

The Grand Wizard is making short work of a couple shrieking bandits; Jam speeds over to help. They go blow for blow with the Grand Wizard for a bit, but when the shrieking bandits fall, it becomes clear Jam is not going to win this fight alone. They may be better equipped but the Grand Wizard is just that bit stronger, forcing Jam onto the back foot with his powerful swings and keeping them enough off-balance that they can't seize much offence in return.

Outlaw Hana sees this and rushes in to help her friend. Ells, despite the fact that he's carrying the unconscious Cat, follows close behind. The three surround the Cannibal Grand Wizard, poking and slashing to wear him down until Outlaw Hana brings her polearm crashing down in a decisive blow.

The gang carries out the usual bounty capture protocol: Jam scoops him up, Outlaw Hana makes sure he won't bleed out, and they take his stuff and chuck it in Pilaf's backpack. His big blinding white holy chestplate is an absurd 19 kilos, too heavy for anyone of the gang's average strength to consider wearing even if it was any good. As it's only Standard-grade, it's not. It offers no better protection than most of the gang's gear even before taking into account encumbrance or any of its myriad penalties. That's not important, though. It'll fetch a respectable price of 1,515 Cats and the Grand Wizard's bounty is the real prize anyway.

Jam, Outlaw Hana, and Ells return triumphant to the rest of the gang, who are still working through captured shrieking bandits. They're doing what they can. Bandaging the bandits and picking their locks will let them make a break for it if the coast is clear when they eventually come to, but they've all been hacked up badly enough that it'll be some time before that happens and who knows what the situation will be like then. Every once in a while, cannibals do regain consciousness, get up, and leap at the gang. They're easily put back down again but the gang is notably relatively healthy, not naked, and well-armed. A shrieking bandit just waking up would struggle if spotted by even a couple cannibals.

Once they're satisfied they've done their best for the shrieking bandits, the gang has one last order of business before they leave with the Grand Wizard: Take all his stuff. His shack, the fancy one up on stilts, has a couple chests in it full of arms and armour. Jam is about to start sifting through it when they clap eyes on an absolutely marvelous find: A Masterwork-grade new arm!

The KLR Series aren't my personal favourite limbs. They trade the specialized stat bonuses of other models for ludicrous toughness that I find basically never relevant when one has squishy organic parts that will give out long before even a moderately sturdy mechanical limb. Even so, it'll to be hard to beat a Masterwork. -8% penalties to Lockpicking and Thievery are liveable even if I want Jam to be doing thief stuff sometimes, +10% bonuses to Dexterity and Strength are nice all-purpose boosts, and the heaping 245 HP on this thing means Jam's left arm is pretty much never gonna give out in a fight.

Jam pops on the new arm and starts loading Pilaf down with loot. As they work through the armour and weapons, inspecting the quality of each, something at the back of one of the chests sticks out by virtue of being so thoroughly unassuming: A small journal.

Robun is the leader of the Cannibal Hunters, headquartered far to the east in Sinkuun. Can't fault the man for being monomaniacally focused on killing cannibals, considering.