The front of a cream and brown sedan lunged out of the darkness and sped directly toward Pete, smoke spewing from its rear wheels and exhaust as the driverless car roared ahead. Instinctively, Pete fired an arrow, then ducked to one side and rolled out of the path of the oncoming vehicle. The car roared past, an arrow shaft sticking out of its windshield, a plume of fire hitting the side of the vehicle as Torgo shot a flaming projectile from his staff.

  

  >>NON PLAYER CAPITALIST [NPC] GROUP

  NAME: AMC Eagle Sedan

  TYPE: Autonomous Vehicle/AI Possessed

  THREAT TIER: Low-Moderate

  >> DESCRIPTION

  Once a sensible mid-tier commuter vehicle from late twentieth-century Earth, the AMC Eagle Sedan is powered by a salvaged arcade cabinet CPU that has been fused with an outmoded Dominion AI. The core logic originates from a long-defunct driving arcade game called Death Race, which the vehicle is now tragically convinced it is still playing.

  According to its internal scoring matrix, collisions equate to a certain number of points, with living entities offering the greatest rewards and hoomans being at the top of the list (each successful collision gaining the vehicle 500 points).

  >> ATTACK ABILITIES:

  +| HIGH SCORE RAM: The AMC Eagle Sedan accelerates directly at a target, attempting a full frontal impact. Deals moderate kinetic damage. Striking a living enemy triggers a burst of retro sound effects and briefly increases the vehicle's movement speed as it enters a Combo State.

  +| COMBO DRIFT SWEEP: The sedan performs a wide, screeching drift, clipping everything in its path. Deals light damage to all targets in an arc. Each hit enemy adds to the internal combo counter, slightly increasing subsequent damage for a short duration.

  >> UTILITY ABILITIES:

  +| SCORE MULTIPLIER FRENZY: When a living entity enters close range, the arcade AI detects a "high-value target." The sedan's dashboard flashes x2, x4, x8 multipliers, granting temporary movement speed and collision damage bonuses. The effect ends early if the vehicle fails to hit anything, triggering a sad descending jingle.

  By the time Pete had registered the nature of the enemy and the fight they would now have to win, a second car shot out of the darkness, coming at the group from their right side and forcing Craig, Grizzle, and Torgo to dive aside, narrowly missing taking damage as the vehicle slid in a wide arc, tires screeching, lights flashing, and an unnerving mechanical sound blaring from the speakers of its stereo unit.

  "Multi-kill!" the sedan barked as it screeched past, narrowly avoiding Pete but slamming into Wolfy, who had been summoned a moment earlier and which was now hit so hard that the hellhound yelped in pain as it was sent hurtling through the air, past Sam and out into the darkness.

  Ollie ducked down, holding out his maul as the car veered past him, cutting a large gouge out of the passenger side rear door and back panel. A bright golden shield swelled around him as the back of the vehicle slammed into Ollie's body and drove him back, but without doing significant damage.

  "Multi-kill!" the car barked again as it veered out of its slide and drove off into the darkness.

  Ollie stood, frowning and rolling his shoulder. "It wasn't even a multi-kill for fuck's sake."

  Before anyone could respond, the first car drove into view again, once more heading directly toward Pete, or so it seemed. He checked and confirmed that he was still Insolvent, then triggered his Pauper's Ward and stepped back a single pace, testing a theory.

  "Kill! Kill! Kill!" the sedan shouted, lights flicking on and off in concert with its voice.

  Pete held his breath as the car shot past, mere inches from his body, but clearly unable to detect him. It charged toward Sam, who summoned three versions of Wolfy that all appeared at the last minute and lunged at the front part of the car, shoving it away from Sam as it skidded past and returned to the darkness that surrounded them.

  "Take out their tires!" Pete said, stepping away from the others so that he'd get a better shot at the cars.

  If his reasoning was sound, neither of the sedans could see him, but Pete had been standing in the middle of the group when they attacked, so it had seemed as though they were targeting him. With a little distance between himself and the others, he'd be able to take aim carefully and try to shoot out their tires, or so he reasoned, at least.

  The sound of a roaring engine, complete with a popping exhaust, filled the air as one of the sedans shot through the darkness at the furthest extent of where Pete could see and drove directly toward Craig and his fellow goblins. Craig fired his rifle, and Torgo sent a gout of fire toward the vehicle, but it was moving too fast to stop, heading directly toward Grizzle, who was hunched down behind her shield.

  Smoke swirled around the goblin as she held her scripture shield out in front of her body, looking far too small when compared to the roaring caramel and cream AMC Eagle, its wheels shrieking, engine roaring. Pete fired an arrow, aiming in front of the car at the driver-side front tire. The shot hit the mark, but he hadn't triggered his charged shot ability, so the arrow clipped the right fender and thudded into the tire, but with insufficient force to drive the car off course.

  The tire burst, sending rubber flying off into the air, but the sedan continued on, slamming into Grizzle just at the moment that Sam sent a cascade of swirling dark magic into the side of the vehicle, accompanied by Wolfy. The blow from the hellhound and Sam, combined with the flat tire, was enough to divert the sedan so that it didn't obliterate Grizzle but just clipped her instead.

  She took the brunt of the attack on her shield, and holy words rose in the surrounding air at the impact point, taking flight in physical form, like threads of smoke rising into the air.

  Blessed is the hand that closes empty, for it is not dragged downward by gold.

  Count not what you lack, but what you do not need.

  Grizzle cried out in pain as she was driven back to the floor, blood gushing from a wound on her shoulder, the shield still sending holy words of encouragement up into the air around her.

  Greed builds monuments; restraint builds endurance.

  The frugal walk lightly, leaving shallow footprints.

  Craig was by her side in an instant, tending to her wounds as the sedan shuddered and turned sharply. Torgo roared in mute rage, sending a continuous burst of flames toward the vehicle, heedless of any danger he might be in. The flames were so intense that they buckled several car panels and caused some of the glass in the rear cabin to shatter.

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  Sensing blood in the water, Pete drew an arrow and waited for his charged shot ability to engage while Sam wrapped chains around the vehicle. Indigo smoke writhed around her hands as she raised them high. The chains wrapped around the midsection of the vehicle, but instead of simply damaging the car, when Sam brought her hands down and clapped them together, the ethereal chains pulled down to the floor with devastating force.

  The sedan was wrenched downwards, tires squealing, engine protesting as the Woe Binder chains strangled the midsection of the car, crushing metal and pinning it in place despite its spinning, smoking wheels and the exhaust spewing from its tailpipe.

  "Kill it!" Sam roared, sweat pouring from her brow as she strained to keep the car in check, her hands held down at her waist, fingers stretched out wide, muscles tensing.

  Before Pete could fire, Ollie came charging in with his maul, slamming the weapon down on the hood and driving the spike end of the weapon through the metal and into the engine block beneath. He cursed and spat obscenities as he pulled the maul back and hit the engine again and again, each strike resounding with a loud clang that echoed throughout the car park.

  A spinning holographic coin appeared above his head, and this time it landed on a hammer symbol before a giant maul made of light fell through the ceiling and smashed into the front section of the car, shattering the windshield and crushing the front half of the sedan with a deafening thud.

  Pete held his shot, spinning around, aware that there was still at least one more car they needed to guard against. The fact was, there might be two or three more, and they'd have no way of knowing. He ignored Ollie and Sam as they finished off the first vehicle and looked left and right, straining to hold the bow at full tension while he scanned the surrounding area.

  Once more, he sensed the coming enemy and turned to the left, anticipating the attack before it started. Pete checked that Pauper's Ward was still in place, lowered his aim a little, and prepared to fire as the second sedan came sliding out of the darkness just beyond where Grizzle and Craig were standing.

  The car was already in a slide, sweeping around in an arc that would likely kill Craig and Grizzle, and perhaps even Torgo in one move. Pete fired his charged shot and immediately started running. As light knifed through the air and hit the front passenger side of the car, the entire corner of the vehicle was blown apart. In the resulting explosion, the car was lifted into the air and sent hurtling above Craig and his companions as they looked on in shock.

  Pete drew his dagger arrows, trying not to think of how stupid it was attacking a car with a pair of knives, and engaged his berserker stance in order to slow time and give him some space to think.

  The car flipped over in the air, heading toward the ground on its roof as Pete sprinted toward it. He ran through the different options he'd have to kill the enemy, but ultimately stopping the engine was the most likely path to ending the sedan, and he had no idea how to do that with the daggers alone.

  He had extra damage against goblin races with the daggers, and some other benefits, but nothing that would be terribly effective against a sentient machine. But he knew that his Pauper's Ward was capable of completely deflecting damage from a single hit, no matter how hard that hit was, so the initial goal here was to use that as his next move.

  As the sedan flew in slow motion toward the floor, Pete dropped down and slid across the concrete, aiming to wedge himself between the floor and the falling car just before it made contact. Even with the world moving around him in slow motion, there was no time to think, no time to tweak his approach or reassess the situation. Instead, he slid into place just as the car crashed into his body.

  Light flared, and the vehicle was repulsed by the ward and sent tumbling up into the air once more as it spun over Pete's body, flipping end over end. He turned, pushing himself up to his feet and shifting direction as the car crashed onto the floor a safe distance from the goblins and away from Sam and Ollie as they finished off the first car.

  Glass shattered, metal shrieked, and the car flipped one more time, its rear end slamming into the floor and sending it up into the air before the front grille smashed against the concrete and the vehicle came to a hard stop. Steam was hissing as Pete approached the vehicle, and the sentient car bleated from a clearly damaged stereo system. The words were elongated, drawn out by the time difference between Pete and the rest of the scene.

  "UNSANCTIONED COLLISION! UNFAIR! CHEATING! CHEATING!"

  Pete ignored the vehicle's complaint. He reached the hood of the vehicle and thrust his dagger arrows down into the metal, feeling the sharp triangular blades cut through it like a proverbial hot knife through butter. He realized at that moment that the car must have been an original. It might have been infected with a deranged AI and animated by some kind of advanced goblin technology, but the car itself looked like it was completely original.

  The hood hadn't been reinforced with anything more durable than the galvanized steel originally used in its production. That must have been why it gave way so easily to his newly acquired daggers. With his enhanced strength, he was also able to grab hold of the torn pieces of metal and pull them apart, like unwrapping a present to reveal the engine components inside.

  "UNSANCTIONED INTRUSION!" the car screeched, its voice momentarily interrupted by distorted snippets of classic rock as though it was speaking through the radio.

  Pete ignored the vehicle, using the daggers to cut hoses, wires, tubes, and anything else that looked like it was necessary for the continued survival of the living vehicle. He sliced through a rubber belt, smelling the scent of oil and gasoline mixed with soot and exhaust as he spotted something foreign deeper down inside the still-rumbling engine.

  The object he had spotted radiated a sickly green light and sat like an alien egg, fixed in place with thin tendrils that extended from a melon-sized growth. As the green light pulsed, it ran outwards from the egg-thing through the tendrils that held it in place and into the machine itself. Pete guessed that whatever this was, it was the object that was responsible for the car's animation.

  He reached for the object, and the car shuddered, wheels spinning as it tried to move forward again, but Pete held on. He reached down deep into the engine bay, cutting around a strange organic sac sitting just beside the engine block and thrusting his hand inside the gooey, warm substance. Pete caught something metallic in his grip and pulled on it, wrenching it out of the strange sac and stepping backward from the vehicle.

  It was the size of a calculator but more of a cube shape, its surface bright green and pulsing with light while tendrils of wires covered in organic goo spread out like roots from its underside. Pete knew that it was an absurd thought, but it felt like he'd just ripped the brain out of the machine; however, it seemed that the brain had gone on thinking even after the fact.

  The car shuddered, oil spurting from the engine as it whined and shook, steam hissing. Eventually, the rattle and growl of the engine slowed to a complete stop. Instead of a voice coming from the in-built stereo of the car, the metal device in his hands vibrated slightly, unable to communicate and losing some of its inner glow.

  Pete turned to see Ollie stepping back from the other vehicle, his face covered in oil and grease as he twirled the hammer in his hands. Sam was sweating profusely. She'd let go of the chains holding the car in place and was now looking around, wary of other attackers.

  The AI brain in Pete's hand dimmed to a dull emerald color. It no longer pulsed, and each of the tendrils stretching from its underside dropped off as though cut with a pair of scissors. A little warmth came from the device and a little light, but nothing else.

  

  >> KILL REWARD: 500 Belch Bucks

  Pete frowned down at the object. "I don't think it's completely dead," he reasoned.

  [Nero] The vehicle, and therefore the enemy, has been defeated, Pete. Thus, the System recognizes that you have killed the foe. You are correct, though. The AI node you hold in your hands is still alive in a sense, though not in any organic way. It has entered a state of hibernation, so to speak, but the AI has no means of communicating or executing agency in its present state.

  Pete dropped the AI node into his inventory.

  

  >> NEW ITEM

  Outmoded Dominion AI, fused with hooman arcade game CPU.

  >> PERCEPTION PROFICIENCY +1

  >> COMBAT AWARENESS PROFICIENCY +1

  >> DUAL WIELDING PROFICIENCY +1

  "Are we done?!" Ollie shouted, standing in front of the now utterly destroyed AMC Eagle sedan.

  "Looks like it," Pete replied. "Check if there's a green sac inside the engine bay, just beside the block. It's the AI that was controlling the car."

  Ollie looked down at the crushed, battered remains of the vehicle. Its front section was utterly destroyed, battered into the concrete by a combination of Ollie's maul and the devastating grip of Sam's ethereal chains. Pete saw that there were also tooth marks and signs of scorching on the side panels, obviously made by Wolfy.

  "You might need to go digging for it," Pete said.

  Ollie looked over, frowning. "Can we not, and say we did?"

  Pete shrugged. "I guess, as long as it's dead, we're fine."

  "It's dead," Ollie confirmed, tapping his head. "We got a notification."

  Pete looked around to see that Craig and the other goblins had endured the encounter.

  Grizzle still looked a little hurt, and Craig had clearly used some of his own Constitution to heal the worst of her wounds. The little goblin held a medkit and was about to apply it when Pete spoke up.

  "No. Let Ollie heal you. Save the medkits for when you're desperate and you can't get heals."

  Craig nodded, dropping the medkit back into his inventory as Ollie strolled over, sending a burst of healing outwards once he reached the three goblins.

  

  >> TIME TO CLEAR LEVEL: 2 hrs 5 mins

  "Come on," Sam said, walking up to the line of destroyed pillars nearby and motioning to the next in the line. "We need to keep going."