Chapter 25
Checking the other two corpses quickly, they all had the same items. I also took a moment to pick up all the M-4 rifles, adding them to my inventory. I checked quickly and noted that the Medical Kits were under a CONSUMABLES tab, while the weapons were added to a WEAPONS tab. Each of the M-4’s also displayed how much ammo they currently had loaded in their active clips. When I went to my AMMO tab, I noted there was a box for each different caliber, and I currently had 500 rounds of 45mm ammo. That was interesting… so I’d have to be extremely careful, if I had a weapon with rarer ammo calibers, I could easily run out without a way to replenish them.
I made my way over to Slampa and Miller. He was crouched by the tree I had seen him at, and Miller was sitting on the ground. He had used one of the pieces of cloth from his outfit to fashion a quick bandage, it was wrapped around her thigh and soaked through with blood.
“Are you sure you stopped the bleeding?” I asked, kneeling down on her other side.
Slampa shrugged, “Her health stopped moving, so I took it as a sign.”
I nodded, “I’m curious if thats what bleeding damage does; it keeps the wound from closing.”
“Probably.” Slampa said, looking up his blue eyes serious, “You said you had something to try?”
“Yeah,” I held out one of the Medical Kits I had looted from the soldiers. “This says it will stop bleeding and heal health; I wonder if it’ll close Miller up enough so she can walk?”
Miller looked up at that, pain obvious in her eyes, “Its worth a try, this hurts like a bitch. Getting shot sucks.”
I laughed at that, “Well lets see… how do I go about using this…” I stared at the item in my hands.
DIONDRE TO PARTY CHAT: Hey guys, this is James' assistant, Diondre. I put in a request to speak on this channel for a moment, the AI authorized me a temporary tutorial pass. This is for all of you, so pay attention. To use any consumable at range, focus on your target like you were inspecting them - then just think about using the item. You wrapping Miller's leg with gauze from that kit as an example. If you are close to your target, just focus on them, and touch them with the item. That includes items you are using on yourself.
Nodding, I went ahead and touched the Medical Kit to Miller's leg. It disappeared into a digital mist, escaping through my fingers. Suddenly her health bar jumped up, now three-quarters full, and the pain in her eyes immediately eased.
She let out a relieved sigh, “Wow, that works well!”
I smiled, a feeling of relief flooding me. “I’m glad.” I looked back at Slampa, “I have two more of these; maybe you both should take one?”
Slampa nodded, “How do I… uh… take an item from you without using it?”
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I scrunched my face up, and it dawned on me. “A lot of this world seems to be… intention. Like we chat in our intended chats, you reload by showing you want to, so maybe giving items is the same; you just think about giving the item over.”
Taking out another kit, I held it out to Slampa, focusing on the fact I want him to take it. He reached out, grabbing it, and taking it from my hand.
“Nice, it worked!” He said, inspecting the item in his hand. “You should keep the other one; I'm going to assign this to my hot bar now.”
The item disappeared, and we returned our attention to Miller. We both grabbed an arm, and hoisted her to her feet. She gingerly put weight on the shot leg at first, but once she realized that it wouldn’t collapse on her, she unwrapped it. Now instead of a bullet wound, it looked like a small hole torn in the cloth.
“Well guys, lets go meet some more of our team.” Miller said, taking a step toward the clearing.
We cautiously exited the forest opposite of the small hill. Before we had left I gave Slampa one of the M-4’s, and we walked out all holding rifles low but at the ready in case things went sideways.
The blazing sun, now reaching near its apex at this time, blinded me temporarily. Blinking away the dots in my vision, I took in the clearing. The corpse of the recon sergeant looked much the same as before, his weapon still laying nearby, the blood now drying on the ground around him. Curiously TJ and his partner had not rushed out to loot the body while we distracted the other enemies.
Slampa, in the lead of our trio, called out as we stopped maybe 50 feet from the small hill, “Trainee Adams, we are on the same team!”
Silence. Slampa looked behind toward me and Miller.
TRAINEE SLAMPA TO PARTY CHAT: You guys want to reload and be ready? I’m going to get closer.
We nodded, and I did my simple reload action. Miller… she dropped her clip, tossed it up, and slammed it home with an audible ‘clank’. I cringed, if what we were doing wasn’t obvious now. We both raised our weapons to our shoulders, ready to fire if needed.
Slampa began walking toward the hill, still speaking in a very loud tone. “Adams, are you there? We just want to talk.”
Suddenly something was flying over the hill. It looked like a can, and as I stared at it it quickly dawned on me. “Grenade! Get down!”
As Miller and I dove to the side, I couldn’t see where Slampa went. Next thing I remembered was a loud bang, and suddenly all I could see was white as the Flashbang went off.
I writhed on the ground, my eyes hurt so badly. I didn’t know this kind of pain could exist. The only sounds I could hear was yelling. I must have lost my weapon when I jumped, as I was rubbing my eyes furiously, just trying to get the pain to stop and my eyesight to return.
It took several minutes, but eventually the pain subsided, and my vision slowly came back. I gasped as I laid on the ground, just trying to get my heart to stop trying to crash out of my chest. As I slowly regained my senses, I remembered sitting up slowly, looking around.
Slampa and Miller were much in the same state; they were slowly getting up, as if getting up from a long nap. I looked around for my weapon, and it was nowhere to be found.
“He… hey, my weapons gone,” I grumbled out.
Slampa and Miller looked around, both shaking their heads. It was obvious their weapons were gone as well. I looked over to the Sergeant, and saw that his weapon was gone, and I’m guessing whatever loot he had was gone as well.
So much for team work, it was obvious what happened - TJ and his partner took the opportunity to take all our weapons and take off. But why didn’t he kill us? Whenever we catch up to him, I’ll have to punch that information out of him.