Nancy’s ring was loaded up with healing, mana, and stamina potions. Each of the others carried at least one of each as well. They all had knee-high leather boots and pants that tucked into them. Both pieces gave extra Constitution, upping everyone’s health pools. All but Nancy wore power-infused chainmail shirts made by Michael. She claimed it was too cumbersome for her. So Lilly had made her a studded leather shirt with long sleeves and a fleece lining.
Each of them carried a knife with at least a six-inch blade with a leather sheath and belt. Allistor, Sam, and Michael all carried short swords on their other hips. Ramon favored a long katana-like blade sheathed on his back. Each of them also had a rifle or shotgun on their backs, and a handgun strapped to a thigh. And, of course, Allistor carried his trusty rebar spear, slightly improved.
They’d come up with some specialized weapons as they improved their skills. Meg had earned the Improvisation skill when she’d used oil to fry the canids by the holding cell. She’d taken her love of the zombicue a few steps further. With a little help from Sam, she’d figured out how to mix up some small napalm-like grenades. They were basically crystal Christmas tree ornaments filled with chemicals and sealed with wax. When she completed the first one, she’d been given a notice that she had the option to name it and file a patent. The cost was one hundred klax, but when she asked Allistor about it, he jumped at the chance. It meant that somebody somewhere down the line would have to pay her for the use of her design.
Her plan for the grenades was to throw them at a group of mobs and let Allistor light them up. She carried matches, a dozen short candles, and a couple of flares just in case he was busy or not around when she used the grenades, or she wanted to set a trap with them. The candles could be set under a hanging ball that, when broken, would drop its contents onto the flame, creating a pool of napalm under a target or group of targets.
Lilly let them out and locked the gates behind them as they headed for the dungeon. Allistor decided to use the same manhole cover he’d gone down before.
Ramon was scribbling on parchment as they walked the few blocks across town. He was creating a new map, trying to earn the Cartography skill before they entered the storm tunnels. Once down there, he intended to map the tunnels as they went, in order to level the skill. And to keep them from going in circles.
When they reached the manhole, Allistor went first, followed by Sam. The two men would act as the bulwarks, keeping mobs in melee range at bay while the group burned them down. But the hope was that with all the guns, bombs, and spells the group had at their disposal, they’d murder anything in the tunnels before it got that close.
Behind Allistor and Sam came Meg, Nancy, and Amanda. Meg was ready with guns or bombs, while Nancy and Amanda would primarily heal. Ramon and Michael would bring up the rear, in case anything snuck up from behind.
Sam cast a light globe in front of them, allowing Allistor to save his mana for attack spells. Ramon cast one to follow behind them. The group moved down the tunnel to the first intersection, then right, as Allistor followed his previous route. In a few minutes, they reached the spot where he’d found Nancy. Not pausing to remember, they continued on. At the next intersection, Sam was blind-sided by a group of four vermin that rushed out of the side tunnel just as he stepped in front of it. The big marine was knocked off his feet, and the vermin swarmed over the top of him. Allistor Examined one of them.
Vermin Scout
Level 5
Health 450/450
Meg screamed, “Sam! Oh god, help him!” and raised her shotgun. The rats were ravaging Sam, taking small chunks of his flesh wherever they could.
Allistor stepped between her and Sam, his back to her as he stabbed one of the rats with his spear. “Wait, Meg!” he shouted. “Don’t fire. You’ll hit Sam!”
He was tense as he let go of his spear and drew his sword. Two careful swings each eliminated a vermin from atop Sam’s struggling form. Sam grabbed the last of the vermin around its neck and throttled it, squeezing until its spine broke and the thing stopped struggling.
Nancy and Amanda both cast heals on Sam as he and Allistor looted the rats. When Allistor noticed none of the others reaching down to loot, he asked, “Did anybody other than Sam and myself get xp from that fight?”
The others all shook their heads no. So they were still on a ‘you hit it, you get credit for it’ basis. That wouldn’t do at all. He leaned against the wall and said, “Everybody look and see what you can find about forming a party that shares experience.” His words were clipped, angry with himself for not figuring this out sooner.
Michael was the one to find it. Rather than waste time explaining it to everyone, he just sent Allistor a party invite. Then turned party leadership over to him. Allistor was quickly able to figure out how to add party members, and thirty seconds later it was done.
They moved on, back in formation. Three more times they came across scout parties of three and four vermin each. Allistor tried to mix up their styles, letting different folks fire first, working his team through the easy battles to see how they meshed. Unlike his VR games, his people here were taking things very seriously. There were no attention-deficit cases leaping around tea-bagging things or pew-pewing anything in sight. Respawn wasn’t an option. Every one of them knew that a single mistake could cost a life.
As they fought the last group of four, one of them wised up and took off to warn the others. Allistor saw it break off and reached up a hand to cast the Restraint spell, but the vermin disappeared around a corner before he could complete the spell.
“Shit! Okay, guys, a scout just got away. Which means we’re going to have company soon. Let’s find a dead end or a good defensible spot and get ready. This might suck.”
They finished and looted the other three rats, then jogged forward. A minute later they came across a metal door with Shutoff and Redirect stenciled on it in white block letters. “Here!” Sam said, trying the lever. When it didn’t work, he put his shoulder down and rushed the door. With a screech of bending metal, it opened inward. The lock was ruined, but that didn’t matter as long as they got inside.
The room wasn’t large, about ten feet square. But it was large enough for all seven of them to gather inside. On one wall was a series of monitors and controls, presumably used by the engineers that oversaw the storm system maintenance. For now, it was the Alamo. They were about to be badly outnumbered without any option for retreat.
Sam was nearest the door when a growing sound of chittering and scratching made itself known. He reached for the door to close it, and Allistor whispered, “Wait! Meg, toss one of your grenades out there, just outside the door.
Meg did as instructed, lobbing one of the crystal spheres through the doorway to shatter on the floor about three feet out. Allistor nodded at Sam, who pushed the door closed. With the bent frame and lock, it didn’t close flush to the wall. But it was close enough. There were no gaps big enough for one of the vermin to get through.
In just moments, the vermin arrived. A flood of wet smelly fur, teeth, and claws pounded against the door, screeching and growling. Sam put his back against it, and Allistor joined him. The two men, with their improved Strength, held it securely as the horde of vermin outside pushed to get in. When he was sure the tunnel was thick with mobs, Allistor crouched down, held out a finger and sent a gout of flame along the floor through a gap between the door and the frame.
A moment later the oil ignited. All of the vermin who’d trampled through it, or were above it at that moment, went up in flames as well. The screeching outside took on a much higher pitch. The pressure against the door decreased as flaming rat-things ceased trying to get into the room, instead focusing on getting away from the flames.
Allistor shouted over the noise, “Meg! Get another one ready. When I open the door, throw it!” He held up three fingers, then two, then one. Sam leapt away from the door and Allistor yanked it halfway open. Two vermin fell into the room as Meg tossed her crystal grenade through
. It struck the face of an already burning vermin and shattered, spraying napalm that was already igniting across the tunnel.
One of the vermin had landed just inside the door, and it was preventing Allistor from closing it. He bent down and grabbed it by a foreleg, yanking it further into the room with one hand as he shoved the door closed with the other. The crazed beast jerked its head forward and clamped down on Allistor’s arm with those wicked incisors. Sam resumed his post as Ramon, Michael, and Meg stabbed at the two vermin in the room.
Burning, being stabbed, and bleeding out, the vermin that held Allistor’s arm thrashed about. Its razor-sharp teeth savaged his arm, clamping down tighter and driving deep into his flesh. He could feel them scrape against bone as the vermin died. The pain nearly caused him to lose consciousness. His legs buckled, and he fell back against the door. Some part of his mind noted that the metal of the door was getting quite warm. Nancy cast a heal on him, but the teeth remained embedded in his flesh.
Amanda took hold of the dead creature’s jaws and attempted to pry them apart. When she failed, Michael took a shot. There was a creak of muscle as the lower jaw moved. Amanda carefully lifted its upper jaw, trying to remove eight-inch long incisors with as little damage as possible to Allistor.
The moment they were free, both Nancy and Amanda cast heals. Allistor felt the pain lessen. The wounds began to close, but he still felt hot and a bit dizzy. One look at the nasty greenish saliva dripping from the other dead vermin’s mouth, and he pointed. “P-poison.”
Amanda followed his gaze and nodded. “Their saliva must have some kind of poison. Nancy?” She looked at the other healer, who was already pulling a vial from her ring. Taking it and pouring it down Allistor’s throat, she whispered, “This should help.”
Nothing happened for a few moments. When the potion kicked in, his head began to clear, and the sick feeling in his stomach faded. He was still hot, but he realized that was from the door against his back. All at once, everyone in the room gained a level. The notice flashed across Allistor’s interface, along with a flood of experience gains and some Fame Points.
Level up! You are now level 8. You have earned two attribute points.
For the first time, he noticed that the sounds of vermin outside had vanished. Getting back to his feet, he checked his arm. Through the holes in his shirt, he could see the angry red scars of the closing wounds. But he was no longer losing blood.
“Okay, everybody ready? We’re going to open this door. Things could get nasty. And as Chloe would say, don’t let stuff bite you!”
Sam stepped back, and Allistor pulled the door wide open.
The stench of burnt wet sewer rat and roasted meat nearly overwhelmed them. The tunnel was filled with smoke, and directly in front of the door lay the burnt and mangled bodies of close to twenty vermin. Motion to his left showed two vermin with singed fur dragging away the body of a third. Several of the corpses in front of them had bite and claw marks on them. He imagined them biting and struggling to get free of the flames, damaging their cousins in the process.
The others quickly looted the corpses, and even more notifications crossed his interface. Apparently, as group leader, he was informed of everything that was looted. He waved them away and activated his Night Vision. It was hampered slightly by the two light globes that hovered over the group, but he could see the dark outlines of more vermin in the tunnel outside the light’s reach. They were retreating, but only slowly.
To encourage them, he sent a fireball hurtling down the tunnel. It impacted a vermin that had already suffered some burn damage, finishing it off. The splash damage lit several others on fire, and a dense mass of the vermin retreated more quickly down the tunnel.
“Shit. There are still a lot of them left.” Meg whispered what the others were all thinking.
“We need to follow them. The less time they have to regroup or split up and set ambushes, the safer we’ll be.” Allistor looked everyone over. “Anybody hurt? We good to go?”
He got thumbs up from the others, and they set off down the tunnel as he pushed his light globe as far ahead of himself as he could. He found out that beyond a certain range, about thirty feet, the spell would fizzle and the light would extinguish. Casting another one, he pushed it out about twenty-five feet. It remained at that range, leading them as they proceeded down the tunnel.
It was a few minutes before they reached another intersection. This was a single branch to their left. A quick inspection of the floor showed bloody footprints going in both directions. But by far, the larger number went straight.
“Looks like three or four went off this way.” Sam pointed down the tunnel. “Do we split up and go after them?”
Allistor shook his head. “We stay together. Ramon and Michael, keep an extra sharp eye out behind us. If this group that went left circles back around behind us, we need as much warning as possible.”
They continued forward, the vermin gathered in front of them moving back. Allistor watched his mana regeneration carefully, and each time he reached full mana he cast another Flame Shot into the seething mass of vermin. As they approached the wounded mobs, he and his team would finish them off with spear and sword. No point in wasting ammo.
Another hundred yards or so, and the tunnel opened into a wide circular chamber roughly twenty yards across. At the back end, there was a grate in the floor where the flow of water dropped away into an outfall. The walls curved upward into a dome, the top of which stood twenty feet above them. Light leaked down from a missing manhole cover at the top. Allistor could see a tree canopy blotting out the sky above.
A quick scan of the room showed about twenty of the vermin left alive. All were burned to some degree, and none was above half health. They were all huddled around a nest constructed of branches, multi-colored fabrics, half of a shopping cart, at least a few human bones, and other debris that had floated down the tunnels. The nest rested against the curved wall, not far from the outfall. Behind the vermin was a much larger, meaner looking specimen. It was the size of a grizzly bear, with a bald, thin, scaly tail at least ten feet long.
Vermin Alpha
Level 10
Health: 6,900/6,900
Allistor whispered, “All right. This is the boss. It’ll have some surprises for us, I’m sure. Special abilities to watch out for. Maybe some kind of charge ability. Or a sonic screech that will stun you.” He looked around the room. There was no cover of any kind. The floor slanted slightly toward the outfall. That gave Allistor an idea.
He turned and grinned at Meg. “The big fella made the mistake of building his nest out of wood.”
Meg’s eyes lit up. “Vermincue!” She pulled two more grenades from her ring. “Where do you want them?”
“Well, in a game I’d say we have to kill all the trash vermin before the boss will even attack. But somehow I don’t think it’ll work that way here. So, everybody, get your guns ready. Don’t skimp on ammo. Fire for effect. Meg’s gonna hit the big one with her first grenade. It should light the nest on fire. Anything that charges at us, kill it. Try to fire in a zone directly in front of you, and let the folks on either side of you handle their zones. That way we’re not all shootin’ the same rat.”
He looked at Meg. “First one right in the boss’s nest. The second one, splatter it about halfway across the floor. It’ll spread downward.” She nodded, ready to throw.
“Go!”
Meg tossed the crystal ornament grenade like a pro softball pitcher. It soared across the room and impacted the alpha, but it didn’t break. Bouncing off the vermin’s hide, it struck a nearby branch and exploded. The alpha stood and looked menacingly at them, its red eyes almost glowing with hatred. The thing bared its teeth and looked to be about to make a move when Allistor used his Flame Shot. Rather than sending a fireball across the room, he simply created a column of fire that flashed up from the alpha’s feet. The napalm that had soaked into the nest caught, and Allistor’s small column of flame was increased tenfol
d.
“Fire!” He raised his shotgun and took aim at the alpha, as it was directly in front of him. He put a slug into its shoulder as it was stepping forward to flee the burning nest. All around him shots rang out. Injured rats were dropping like flies. Meg tossed her second grenade in a high arc, wanting as much splash radius as she could get when it landed.
Ramon, on an adrenaline rush, started shouting, “Yeah! Get some! Take that, rat!”
Michael paused for a moment and looked at him. “Really? Take that, rat?” Shaking his head, he resumed fire.
The alpha sent out a keening sound that hurt the human’s ears and sent its remaining minions into a frenzy. They dashed forward, ignoring any injuries they took from flame or gunfire. Their eyes didn’t focus at all as if they were mindless balls of teeth and claws being controlled by the alpha.
Allistor didn’t mind. It made them easier to kill. Enemies with no sense of self-preservation that simply charged ahead without dodging at all? Perfect! He sent a fireball toward the puddle of napalm in the center of the room just before the vermin zombies reached it. A wide circle of flame erupted, and the seven vermin that were still standing ran right into it.
Leaving them to his group, he turned his focus back on the alpha. It had reached the edge of the nest and was about to leap clear. Allistor cast Restraint on it. The boss froze, the muscles of its back legs bunched to jump. He raised his shotgun and took careful aim, putting a slug right into its charred face. The stun wore off as the slug impacted, throwing the alpha off balance. It rolled back into the nest, screaming.
Behind him, he heard Nancy call out. “All the little ones are down! Shoot the big one!”
Smiling, he pumped another slug into the chamber and fired again. Thick, black smoke was billowing up from the nest, making it hard to see the boss. He saw movement within the smoke and fired.
A second later, the alpha exploded out of the smoke, its fur on fire. Both its eyes had been rendered useless by the flames, fluid leaking out of the burnt orbs. It roared in defiance, then oriented on the sounds of weapons fire.
Shadow Sun Survival: Shadow Sun Book One Page 18
