The Witch Tamer, Book 1

by Naosu N R

  Mandy sure is more calm than they are.

  I tried to resist feeling nervous. The others are too. If anything goes wrong with this, we'll all be in trouble. We also have to lower everyone down really fast before a shit ton of zombies show up.

  "OK. Her plan makes sense. Tank is needed on the ground. That's me. But Jay is the only one that can stun them," Josh said.

  "That's why we have to hurry and do it fast. The time period between when Josh hits the street and when Jay comes right after is the most critical part of this whole maneuver," Mandy said.

  "Let's do it. You have my vote," Sadie said.

  Before Miguel can object the others are going.

  Although Sadie jumped on the rope before I could.

  Idiots. They are asking for trouble. This is why things didn't go well earlier for their team probably; too many selfish people.

  I can hear Miguel swearing when suddenly we hear zombie attacks banging on the front door of the apartment we're barricaded into.

  Shit.

  That front door won't last long. And it also confirms they have pretty good depth perception! They'd figured out which apartment we were in already!

  Josh is hurrying down the rope but has to go slow because of his weight. And Sadie is putting more weight on the rope than necessary in her enthusiasm to survive.

  "Damn it," Miguel looks upset.

  "Hang in there. I'm with you," I told him.

  Shit.

  Now we see zombies in the street below!

  "Damn it. You need to be there to stop them from getting bit!" Miguel told me angrily.

  "Chill. Getting mad won't change anything," I told him.

  The banging continues on the locked door which is in front and a few rooms in front of this one.

  When they get through that door, then next they will find this one!

  They kept going down the rope below us.

  Josh waves to us.

  Sadie is moving fast down the rope but crying out. The idiot girl will attract zombies to us, I thought.

  The banging on that outer door continued and is growing. There's the sounds of wood splintering. (I hope it holds!)

  "Go, go, go," Miguel told me signaling me to start climbing next.

  Thank goodness I have leather gloves that I'm wearing. This let me slide down the rope faster than the others. And they didn't have thick rough gloves like this. Sports equipment gloves won't work on a move like this.

  We continued to go as fast as we could.

  But already zombies are on the ground also!

  Two are running towards Josh.

  "Hurry, Jay!" Sadie called up to me.

  I'm almost to the ground!

  While getting onto the balcony and starting go down the rope I then heard splintering from the door inside, not the locked bathroom door but the apartment door.

  !

  "Oh no! Hurry!" Mandy called out to me.

  I began to hurry while shimmy down the rope with my legs wrapped tight around it.

  I also wondered if this was part of the dungeon's doing? It must play with people to screw with them, and keep them in here as long as possible.

  Did it leave the rope to us on purpose?

  Technically this is the dungeon rope plus Miguel's rope tied together so we can go down all the way to the street level, as its a long way down.

  I'm going down the rope, and have gotten a full floor when I heard crashing and broken glass above us, from in the apartment.

  Damn.

  "Hurry," Mandy cried. "Go, go, go. Miguel!" she said.

  Miguel didn't waste any time and got on it next while cussing in Spanish. Or maybe it was actually praying?

  I got down one more floor.

  But then the two zombies charging Josh and Sadie are now 3, with an extra fourth and fifth zombie coming from down the street!

  I got about two more feet but then my stun skill was out of reach.

  "Hurry!" Sadie yelled to us.

  "Shut the fuck up Sadie! You just attracted two more adds!" Miguel cried out, warning us. (And thanks for being loud Miguel! Really!)

  Damn it.

  Two more adds from the opposite corner, where they are running at us from the corner of the intersection.

  I tried to hurry.

  Damn it.

  I can't pull my gear out if I'm trying to hang on for dear life also!

  Josh hit the first zombie with his shield bouncing it off. Then he kicked the other one in the hips pushing it over and bashing it with a mace also. Then a shield bash.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  2 zombies fell onto the street from the fourth floor. We'd missed that some of them were already on some of the balconies. And they didn't realize they'd kill themselves doing it.

  3 more zombies fell from around us, unnerving us.

  Fortunately all but one was dead already.

  Sadie is rigging up a stone and sling skill, which doesn't run out of ammo as long as you pick stuff up off the street. She hits two zombies but can't do enough damage to kill them.

  Right before Josh is bit, I hit the foremost zombie in the face with a stun saving his sorry stupid ass!

  Yes!

  Fuck...I fell about six feet to the ground, and it hurt in my feet pretty badly.

  I rolled to the side.

  Sadie hit 2 more zombies, opening op shots for Josh to take advantage of their confusion on which chicken to bite into. He slammed one in the head with his mace.

  But now Josh has 3 on him, and is seconds away from getting bit! Their ugly rotten teeth keep trying to snap into Josh's flesh, barley missing several times, and only inches away from instant death!

  I hit another stun on the zombies.

  Then I managed to grab my umbrella enchant and put it up.

  "Jay look out! Dodge to the left!" Mandy called from up top.

  I ducked and moved just as another zombie went over me with its teeth clacking that had come out of nowhere.

  Shit! Where did that one come from?!

  I got the umbrella damage shield up in time. And got its charge activated. Then I pulled my enchanted crowbar out.

  But then I had to save Josh, who is getting overwhelmed.

  Instead of stunning my zombie, I managed a head shot on one of the 3 on Josh. He manages a shield slam on the one and then the other, using the shield to keep from getting bitten.

  Miguel is on the ground. He uses a chain to trip a zombie. (Skill usage or magic item?) He's somehow effective and yanked it off its feed and then kicked it away, off balance.

  Mandy is climbing down now.

  Things are getting more desperate.

  But then several other zombies suicide jumped 3 to 5 floors into the street, from upper levels.

  (Will we get XP for those?)

  Also other zombies are running towards us from down the street.

  No!

  Fuck...we're really close to getting trapped!

  Miguel uses a machete on a zombie 2 or 3 times but can't finish it. It reaches for him to bite his wrist. In his other hand he keeps his buckler ready to block; but he's not a knight that specializes in it.

  Stun!

  Shit, I barely got the stun up in time to save my team member's ass. Then I had to push my enchanted damage shield umbrella up to block a bite that would have taken a chunk out of Sadie's leg, and induced her 'game over' flag.

  Back and forth I struggled to keep up for a full minute and many close calls.

  Josh is avoiding bites with his big shield, and even damaging them. But his shield bash skill can only stun them about one out of every 5 times. only then can he get mace blows on them.

  I managed another stun on one.

  Mandy drops to the ground finally and finished off the one I stunned.

  Then I held two more of Sadie while she and Miguel finally killed theirs.

  "They have more health points than they should!" Miguel cried out.

  Mandy executed a combo move on one, barely avoiding a b
ite but disabling it. Then she used a baseball bat on the skull of another. Then two more.

  I used a stun on one of Josh's zombies, which are back up to 3.

  "Um, guys, more are coming! Please!" she said.

  But suddenly there's a blast of fire magic nuking one of the zombies attacking Sadie. It had happened right when things had gotten really bad, and ended up saving us. Then another blast came out of nowhere. Both zombies go down in seconds.

  Then a third.

  I realized it was coming from pretty far down the street, but I missed from where still.

  "Huh? Who helped us?" Miguel asked.

  Miguel and I worked to peel zombies off Josh.

  "Fuck! I got bit!" Josh cried in anguish.

  "No!!!" Sadie cried.

  "Keep fighting! It might not have gone through your armor!" Mandy cried.

  Shit, shit, shit...

  We managed to hear someone yelling "RUN! Run to us!" from nearby.

  It registers in my brain.

  Another survivor team is yelling to us to go to them!

  We finished off three more zombies and then managed to begin running for it.

  "Josh did you really get bit?" Sadie asked while we're running.

  "I don't know!" he said. "I...It might be OK? I don't know yet," he said.

  While running forward we see two guys waving at us from a nearby parking garage. They are on the level above ground so they don't have to worry about getting bitten themselves.

  "Over here! Come to us!" one is waving.

  Its a cowboy dressed guy in a tan hat with a trench coat. Next to him is another guy in black. The second guy with him dressed in black is the very confident and strong looking fire mage.

  He tosses out several fire spell formations that smash into zombies hard coming at us. They streak and hiss through the air beautifully with wonderful effects smashing into them.

  The zombies chasing us are whittled down a bit at a time. We keep moving towards the alley in front of us, from where the fire bolts came from where those two guys are.

  At the same time I'm worried about mana, which is now down to about 31%.

  There's also only a half hour left to pick up Simone and Melanie.

  This...

  Man this is going to be a tight window of time to hit on.

  "Thank goodness! Thank you for helping us!" Sadie cried.

  "Yes. No problem," the tan cowboy dressed guy said.

  We stopped when we realized it was safe.

  They had killed the zombies chasing us, and lifted us into a burned up old building's second floor next to the parking garage that they'd been in before for cover. To get up there, we'd hopped on top of one of those big steel garbage bins, and then jumped over a balcony and then climbed through a window.

  The zombies can't get at us now.

  But they are in the street nearby looking for us still.

  The two of them also had set up some kind of weird energy field.

  "Wait, I know that team emblem. You guys are the Mountain Star guild right?" Josh said.

  "That's great right?" Miguel asked.

  Mandy backed up for some reason hearing that. And I caught that she was very nervous suddenly.

  (Is there something wrong with that team?)

  "So, you'll be a good lad and hand over all your money and loot now. You saved us the trouble of going to get it from you directly while you were asleep," the tan guy said.

  "If you give us all your gear, and loot we'll spare your lives," the fire mage guy in black said.

  Shit.

  We're being robbed! They only saved us because if the zombies had gotten to us they wouldn't have been able to loot us if too many undead were around us!

  This sucks.

  But I was surprised with what happened next.

  "Run guys! I won't let them get you!" Miguel had grabbed both the two guys, that both are mages I can see and sacrificed himself. He grabbed the spell casting hands of the one mage, and with his other hand he grabbed the other.

  Josh ran over doing the same, grabbing the other one.

  Its a surprise move that's quite unexpected. But it somehow worked because both the two mage guys are really small and with thin builds while both Miguel and Josh are big strong guys!

  I hit stun on the fire mage guy. He's the most dangerous. Visibly he's shaken up by the stun, which is how I confirmed its in effect. Yes!

  Then I gave Mandy my good enchanted crowbar, which she gripped hard while running forward. I really hate seeing people get clobbered by this enchanted crowbar, it hurts to watch; but he does have tons of magic shielding still.

  She hits the fire mage guy hard in the magic shield over and over, ripping huge holes in his magic shield spell formation. Josh is also trying to stop them also with Sadie going in. Each time the fire mage's magic shielding is hit he's cringing and flinching, and having reactions that are audible.

  But he's still trying to kill us. If only he would stop we would spare his life.

  "Fuck! This fucker's got my hands!" the tan guy shouts.

  "Heal me! Fast! Fuck!" the black mage guy yelled to his partner.

  What?! My reaction was horrified as I realized the truth!

  They are both mages?!

  Shit! The other one is a healer! That's the worst scenario possible! The damage we'd just done to incapacitate him will be undone in one or two spells!

  I used my last charge of blind on the healer guy, dressed in tan, who then started to panic.

  Then I used hair spray and a match from my bag on the black mage.

  The magic shield is gone as the flames are enveloped around the shield. He's not immune to fire, just because he's a mage! But it was horrifying to have to do that to someone.

  Black mage betrayer begins to scream while immense damage is coming down on himself.

  The other guy in tan can't see, so he has to hear the screaming of his partner while Josh and Miguel are holding both of them.

  We keep trying to hold on.

  But it surprised us when the tan healer guy began to flee, which added to the despair of the black mage.

  He tried to replenish his magic shield to absorb our damage.

  But it was no good.

  His shield technically went off.

  But with the fire chemical hair spray and a match on him, plus, Josh poking him with a sharp pipe and on the other side Mandy using my crowbar on him the shield collapsed fast!

  A full minute of damage later, my status screen shows a notification, and ping.

  [Unknown black mage player has been slain!]

  The others are crying.

  I didn't expect that.

  At least Josh, and Sadie are crying. Mandy is wiping a tear while Miguel looks anguished.

  I'm used to betrayal. And it sucks.

  So this didn't surprise me.

  Then we heard other screams from the tan guy, probably being swarmed by zombies. We can't see him by now, but the screams tell a lot. He's obviously getting his flesh torn and bit out.

  He's probably a goner, but definitely a horrific way to go.

  "We need to get the hell out of here," I said.

  "Wait, you knew his guild?" Miguel asked Mandy.

  "Yes. They were supposed to be good guys, but aren't. They either went bad, or were always bad pretending to be good," she replied.

  "What?! Are you sure? They rescued parts of Los Angeles from a dungeon swarm last year," Josh said.

  Mandy shook her head. "That was stolen credit. They were exposed recently. They are a murder PK guild that is active. They took credit for that after killing the real guys that did that. It was found out only about a week ago but word hasn't gotten out."

  (I still think its weird how people in the murim underground world, which is real, often call each other 'player', as if its a game...)

  "So that's why you stepped back when we found out who they were," Miguel said.