A Werewolf In Under-Town

Shaggy left his wife's tower after hearing the Xang Dome spiel one more time. Slink and Vlad had a thousand questions that he really wasn't interested in. At the end of the day, the artifact buffed them while making them a huge target for other player guilds. Levy had said that even the in-game magical communities would be up their collective asses soon. Which meant that he needed to focus on their defense and their turf.

So, while the others talked about scheduling time for Lackey visits, he left and walked over to his house. Once there, Shaggy sat on their couch and pulled up the Mission Board for his Captains. The first thing he wanted to do was see how they were coming along as well as where could he improve things. Vick was off training his sniper teams, Sybil was working in the auto shop, and Rita was training some of the Lackeys. All of their mission timers were the infinity symbol when he looked. Meaning that once they were done, they'd just find more people and do the mission again. Vick was generating snipers, spotters, and flankers before sending them out into the world. Rita was much the same, training their low-level thugs into tougher Lackeys. While Sybil literally just ran a car shop. By day, she repaired cars and by night; she chopped up stolen ones.

Meanwhile, Cekrass, Tom, and Ephemara were still awaiting missions. Ephemara had just filled out her large team, and they were all waiting for orders. Cekrass just ended a patrol mission, resulting in some decent credit and loot gains. While Tom just got back from scouting their western border.

Shaggy was about to send Tom back out on more scouting missions when he spotted an odd little mission beneath the others. It was simply named Find Opportunities. Intrigued, Shaggy opened the mission and read through its contents.

Find Opportunities

The Scouting Team fans out in your territory searching for anything of note. Potential opportunities could be: Captain Missions, Looting Events, or other ways to expand your influence in your turf. Success Chance is tied to Captain Level.

Odds of Success: Med

Danger Level: Low

∞

After rereading the mission a few times, Shaggy hit the accept button. Tom and his boys weren't tough, but they could sniff out an opportunity just fine. Also, Shaggy was interested in what a Looting Event turned out to be. With that done, he moved on to his other two Captains. Ephemara had a lot of lap over with Tom's own missions, being the Spy Master that she was. But they also included assassination type missions and info gathering missions as well. The entirety of her thirty-man team was built around spying and killing. The same was true about her Missions as well.

Ephemara herself had sent several groups out to their southern, eastern, and western edges. But he had seen no reports about that. Resolving to ask her about it later, Shaggy switched over to Cekrass and sighed at how easy the big lizard was in comparison. All the big guy's Mission were protection or assault-types. All twelve of Cekrass' bruisers were waiting and eager to tune someone up. In fact, the top Mission was a patrol mission that was repeatable. Shaggy toyed with the idea of just letting the big guy out to have fun. But he wanted to quickly scan the rest of his missions, just in case.

Scrolling past the typical missions, Shaggy found the more esoteric ones. Things like looting other gangs, stash houses, raiding known hideouts, and clearing empty buildings on their turf. They were all interesting, but nothing he'd choose for Cekrass right now. He did notice a fourth option near the bottom that, while intriguing, he would probably never use. It was called Shakedown and involved Cekrass' team visiting their own business and threatening the boss. It increased credit production for a set amount of time. But Shaggy didn't think it was a good look overall. Still, something for if their backs were ever against a wall.

He selected Patrol for Cekrass' crew and sighed to himself as he looked back at Ephemara's list. He wanted a better look at their current intel before he did anything there. Which meant he had to pull his lazy ass off of the couch. He scratched the back of his head and groaned as he stood, stretching his back as his feet hit the floor. Meandering over to their kitchen, he pulled out some food and quickly made two sandwiches before heading out.

As he left his house, Shaggy pinged his Pack Link and contacted Ephemara over their mental connection.

"Ephe, you got time to talk?"

"Ohhhh! Is it time for The Talk?"

Shaggy rolled his eyes as he stuffed his face with a sandwich. "Not that talk, dammit. I want to go over what you and your people found out about our neighbors."

"Ah, too bad. Meet me at the spy shack then."

"Spy Shack?" Shaggy wondered aloud as he used their connection to home in on his Number One Captain's location.

Moving past his wife's Tower and around Bodecker's office, Shaggy found himself heading to the southeast corner of the round cave. The northeast was lined with apartments and standalone buildings built by Levy's mages. But directly across from that was the area being dug out by the purloined Cog Bots. The little buggers were rapidly expanding the cave even more. They even had a small pool of Lackeys helping them. Well, it looked like they were mostly lazing about the place. But amidst the digging bots and the layabout Lackeys, he spotted a small metal rectangle sitting against the cave wall.

The building was sturdy-looking, if a little plain. It had no windows and a flat roof and it reminded Shaggy of the buildings from Under-Town. But built of sturdier material. Shaggy glared at the lazy Lackeys as he went by and made a mental note to send some people out this way later. When he got to the door, he felt Ephemara's link nearly vibrating with excitement at his arrival and he shuddered. He was either in for a rough surprise or a good one.

Blowing out a breath, he opened the door to the shack and stepped through. Immediately, thirty people turned to look at him as he stepped into what looked like an office floor. People sat at rows of desk typing away on computers plugged into a nearby generator. Most of them recognized him and went back to work. But a few glared at him curiously. A pale arm waved over everyone's heads as Ephemara jumped in place at the center of the building. Shaggy rolled his eyes at her excitement and moved to join her. As he did, he spotted the large table at the center of the room.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Where the hell did you get a War Table?"

"Excuse you! It's my Intelligence Table, and I paid Slink myself to get it installed."

Shaggy looked at the glowing holographic table and smirked. "Shit. I'm paying y'all too much."

"Well, to be fair, Slink may have given me a bit of a discount."

"Don't tell me you exploited that poor boy's crush on you to get a better deal."

"Oh hell no, that boy has moved on to… greener pastures." Ephe said with a grin.

Shaggy raised an eyebrow at her tone, but eventually waved away his curiosity. He waved a hand at the table and noticed that it was already displaying their above-ground territory.

"What do we got?"

Ephe coughed into her hand and stood up straight as several of her people surrounded the table. Once everyone was in position, she waved her pale hands over the map and swiped them toward the east.

"First off, to the east and partially in the north, we have the Wammals-"

"I'm sorry? What?"

"The Wammals. Were-Mammals. Johnathon Erethiz and his crew."

A brief flash of the short Were-porcupine flashed in Shaggy's head and he grimaced. "They are calling themselves the Wammals?"

"No." Ephemara shook her head. "That's just what I'm calling them. Their gang has a name. I just didn't bother to learn it."

"It's The Strays, ma'am," said a Lackey standing at the table, but Ephe waved her off.

"Yeah, whatever. They're a bunch of grass-eaters who have temporarily secured the east and a bit of our northern side."

"John mentioned fighting Alpha challenges to gain those territories." Shaggy said.

"Yeah, we've confirmed that. Both of the Alpha Weres in those locations have either been killed or backed off. His hold is firmer in the east, though. The north is trickier."

Ephe scrolled to their northern side on the map and pulled up some information. Digital documents floated in the air, complete with pictures and detailed reports. Shaggy made an impressed noise as Ephemara grinned.

"We have reports of the Phreaks and Wammals fighting over turf to the north. It's our most volatile side. John is more firm in the east, but the Raks are pushing in slowly. Mostly using proxy gangs to weaken him."

"We estimate The Strays will pull out of the north in a couple of days," said another Lackey, drawing Ephemara's glare.

"We can't have that."

"My thoughts exactly, boss. But thankfully the Phreaks are always trying to off each other. George's death left another power vacuum in the ranks, so multiple lieutenants are vying for his spot."

Shaggy nodded as Ephe moved the table over to their western front. The blue map shifted and several areas became red as Ephe waited for the table to load up the information. Shaggy spotted several blood-red buildings, implying they were enemy strongholds. But beside each one was a tiny secondary marker. They looked like the silhouettes of different animals.

"Rackets owned by different lieutenants?"

"Right on the money, boss. Now some of this is old and may have changed. But this is the current map of the block to our west. The Phreaks are still engaged in infighting, but soon they'll pull together and hit us. I say we don't let it get to that point. If we can hit some of these places quietly and make it look like more division, we can push back any assaults from The Phreaks."

"What about the ones to the north?"

Ephemara grimaced, clearly not up to date with the north. She looked at another Lackey and waved for him to speak.

"We think they're a big splinter group. Maybe some upstart grunt trying to reach for a lieutenant spot. Whoever they are, they have a decent number of thugs following them. Enough to give The Strays a lot of trouble."

Shaggy nodded at the news and pointed southward. "What about down that way?"

The table went eerily still at his words and Ephe blew out a breath.

"We don't know. All our people keep dying. Whatever is out there is tougher than what I can throw at it. I recommend that if you want info from that block, Legion Leadership will have to go."

"We have confirmed it's not the Were-tiger known as Ryall, though." Said a Lackey, helpfully.

Shaggy paused in confusion at that news. He had just assumed the were-tiger was defending his turf from them. But if it wasn't the tiger, then who was it?

"You a hundred percent on that?"

Ephemara and several others at the table nodded. "If it was Ryall, he would display the bodies of our people as a warning to us. He has done it before and is fairly well known for it."

Shaggy nodded and waved the table back to the west. "Okay then. Ephemara, I want your focus on the west. That's where the majority of your people should be. But keep teams to the north and east. Have them help John's Wammals when they can. We can't let the Raks or The Phreaks encircle us."

"Got it, boss."

"If you need extra help, pull from the pack."

Ephemara nodded again as the Lackeys and Henchmen around them sped up to a whirlwind of activity. Shaggy watched them work for a second before he gave Ephe a nod goodbye. The cheeky werewolf winked at him as he turned and left the building. As he stepped into the cavern again, the scent of blood wafted into his nose and Shaggy felt weirdly invigorated.

The south was a question they needed to get answered quickly. He debated whether to take his friends or his pack as he slowly wandered back to his cabin.