Shadow Sun Expansion

by Dave Willmarth

  “Lord Allistor. Several unknown non-human creatures have crossed into my sensor range. They are moving in a seemingly random pattern toward the gate.”

  With a tired sigh, Allistor ran toward the same wall they’d climbed the night before when Moira appeared. Right behind him were about fifty people with rifles already in hand. As he climbed the stairs, he checked his interface map. There were maybe twenty red dots in a loose cluster moving up toward the gate from the south. While he watched, the nearest dot stopped about a hundred yards out and remained still. There was a howling noise, and the other dots began to close in on the first.

  “Canids. Or regular wolves.” Allistor said, remembering that he’d told Austin to leave a corpse out there. “Feeding on that ass who shot Moira.”

  Reaching the top of the wall, he looked in the direction of the dots. The suns had set, but there was enough light from the stars to see a cluster of bodies low to the ground gathered around what he assumed was the body.

  Others joined him along the wall, and a few aimed their rifles. Allistor called out. “Hold on, let’s do this the smart way. Give me a second.” He pulled out his rifle and looked through the scope at the predators. He used Examine on several of the beasts.

  Canid Scavenger

  Level 7

  Health: 1,900/1,900

  Most of them were between level five and seven. Killing them himself would gain him no experience, and probably only low level loot. Turning to his people, he said, “Listen up. These things are level seven and lower. They’re just sitting ducks out there. So, here’s what we’re going to do. If you’re level five or lower, and can hit these things at a hundred yards, raise your hand.”

  About thirty of the people on the wall with him put hands up. “Okay, the rest of you, I want you to step back from the wall. You with your hands up, step up and take aim.” He waited for them to comply, then said, “Alright, you higher level folks, spread out at either end of this group. Let them shoot first. In fact, let them shoot twice. If any of the mobs start to get away, you help take them out. I want our lowest level folks to get a chance to level up. Everybody clear?”

  When they all agreed and had arranged themselves properly, he said, “First group, left side fire at the dogs on the left, center on the center, right on the right, got me? I don’t want thirty rounds hitting the closest mob. First round on three, then fire as fast as you can. One… two… three!”

  The thirty or so people in the first group fired a nearly simultaneous salvo that mowed down about half the canids as Allistor watched through his scope. He heard the sound of more rounds being chambered, and the second burst of shots was more staggered, but not by a lot. These days, everyone was getting used to firing in a hurry.

  Almost immediately after the second volley, more shots rang out as the backup group picked off fleeing or wounded canids. All of the red dots had turned to grey, the whole thing lasting maybe twenty seconds. Most of the folks on the wall leveled up, as did several of the survivors throughout the compound. Everyone apparently received experience for a successful defense of the Stronghold.

  “All right. You know the drill. Go loot the corpses. Take knives with you, and after they’re looted, harvest their hides and their meat. We’ve got seven hundred plus people to feed here. Between what the system gives you, and what you can harvest manually, we should get at least a few days’ worth of meals for everyone.”

  A few of them looked squeamish, but the regular hunters in the group took charge and led them out. Allistor remained on the wall to watch for any additional threats.

  While he waited, he pulled up his own stats sheet to take a look. He hadn’t assigned his attribute points since level nine, which seemed like a long time but had only been a few days ago. He now had ten attribute points available to use. His new class selection of Battlemage was now displayed, as well as his title as Viscount. Checking over his stats and considering the happenings of the last week or so, he assigned two points each to Intelligence and Will Power, bringing both up to ten and giving him a decent boost to his mana pool. He dropped two points into Charisma as well, figuring he’d need them if he was going to continue to recruit. Because he kept taking damage in fights like the one with the lizard-dog, he added a point each to Constitution, Strength, and Stamina. He considered adding his final point to Luck, but decided to save it for an emergency. He was overall pretty pleased with the updated numbers.

  Designation: Earl Allistor, Giant Killer

  Level: 15

  Experience: 17,000/520,000

  Planet of Origin: UCP 382

  Health: 6,500/6,500

  Class: Battlemage

  Attribute Pts Available: 1

  Mana: 4,400

  Intelligence: 11 (13)

  Strength: 5 (7)

  Charisma: 6 (8)

  Adaptability: 6

  Stamina: 5 (7)

  Luck: 3 (4)

  Constitution: 10 (13)

  Agility: 3

  Health Regen: 400/m

  Will Power: 11 (18)

  Dexterity: 3

  Mana Regen: 130/m

  Chapter 5

  Liberation Through Termination

  The morning found Allistor and the leadership back at the conference table. The discussion centered around the information they’d gotten from Moira, who was also in attendance. Allistor started things off.

  “We need to deal with Barden’s camp today. I was hoping they’d send another wave of fighters here and we could take them from the safety of our walls. But that doesn’t seem to be happening, so we need to go after them.”

  There were murmurs of both support and disagreement among the group leaders. One of them raised a hand. A woman who’d brought in about fifty survivors. Her name, if Allistor remembered correctly, was Julia. “We’ll lose a lot of people trying to take them down.”

  Allistor nodded. “Maybe. Though with the information we have, I think we can devise a strategy that’ll minimize our losses. Still, we will probably lose people.” He watched her grimace, and saw a few similar looks on other faces. “What’s the alternative? We can take them out at a time of our choosing, when we’re all together and we outgun them. Or we leave them be, and risk our foraging parties being ambushed when they have the numbers and at a time and place they choose.”

  Julia considered for a moment, then nodded her head. Allistor moved on. “Moira says they are set up in a warehouse district about five miles from here. They occupy two large buildings. One is a distribution hub with several semi-trailers parked around it. The other is a building supply warehouse.” He motioned for Moira to continue.

  She stood up, using a marker to draw on the glass conference room window. “Most of us prisoners were forced to sleep in the truck trailers, where it was easy to keep an eye on us. Twelve or fifteen per trailer. They used some of the lumber to build crude bunk beds inside.” she drew as she spoke, making one long box with little ‘trailers’ sticking out, then another big square box next to it. “Barden lived in a set of offices inside the supply warehouse. The place has solar power and air conditioning. It also has a well for water. About half the guards slept in there as well, and the prisoners that they’ve been… using.”

  She paused, and the group let her gather her composure. It was clear from her demeanor that she’d suffered at the hands of the guards. After a few deep breaths, she continued. “The rest of the guards slept in the hub. Mostly in little cubicles they built by standing mattresses upright or stacking boxes. But since you killed Barden and so many of his guards, I’m not sure who sleeps where anymore. There are only about thirty of them left. And I don’t know how many prisoners.”

  Allistor thanked her as she sat down. Taking up the marker, he stood by the window. “Are there any tall buildings nearby?” He drew a big circle around her sketch. “Like within a hundred yards or so?”

  Moira nodded. “The water tower is within that range. And there’s a nasty old boarded-up building. Used to be a hospital, I think.
Barden wanted to use it, but it was so filthy and moldy inside he decided to pass.”

  A thought struck Allistor. “Moira, why didn’t he make his camp a Stronghold? He had enough people, and it sounds like lots of resources.”

  She shook her head. “Barden was stupid. I mean, he was sneaky and cunning, like he knew how to manipulate people with fear and blackmail. And he was a good judge of character as far as who could be manipulated most easily. But I’m not sure he could even read. I’m positive he never took the time to go through all the tabs and figure out things like Strongholds. I heard one of the guards bitching about him being the leader, saying he was just a dumb cattle-herder from the sticks. The other guard told him to shut up and looked nervous. The next day, both of them disappeared. I don’t know if they ran, or somebody reported them and Barden killed them.”

  Allistor took it all in. He had to be careful what he said next, because none of the other leaders in the room had created Strongholds either, despite having larger groups than he’d started with. He didn’t want to offend them or make them feel incompetent.

  “Right, well that’s good for us. We can put people in the hospital building on the upper floors, assuming they can get up there safely. And we can have a few climb the water tower. From there our people can snipe at the remaining guards in relative safety. I’ll go in and ‘attack’ them, drawing out the guards. Our people are to shoot anyone holding a weapon. And shoot to kill. Any issues with that?”

  Every head at the table shook left and right.

  “We’ll form a ring around the place, let’s say three hundred yards out. Our people will be behind cars, trees, buildings, whatever. Anyone who tries to escape that is carrying a weapon, they take down. Those not carrying weapons will be captured and secured. Moira here will then tell us who was working for Barden, and who were just prisoners.”

  He waited for objections, but there were none. Most of these people had suffered at the hands of Barden’s fighters. There were no qualms about repaying them in kind.

  “I’ll take a force of ten higher level fighters with me. We’ll set up an ambush point a hundred yards out or so. I’ll go in and draw out the guards, and my team will mow them down. Between the ambush, the overwatch, and the perimeter ring, we should get all of them.”

  That plan established, he continued on to other business. “I’m not sure how many more people we’ll end up with here at this Stronghold, but the crowd is already so large that it’ll be hard to manage at this early stage. After Barden’s camp is dealt with, I’ll be asking for volunteers who want to transfer to either the Warren or the Citadel. There’s room at both places, and the smaller groups will be easier to feed and manage. I’ll make an announcement at some point, but I thought I’d give you all a heads-up in advance so you can think it over.”

  Lang raised a hand briefly. “I already talked it over with my people. We want to go back to Cheyenne.”

  “Great! That’s a good start right there. We’ll set it up after we get things straight here in Laramie.” Allistor gave the man a sincere and thankful smile. He’d been worried that his harsh treatment of Moira the night before might alienate the man and his group.

  Allistor pulled out a leather satchel that Ramon had given him. It wasn’t a bag of holding, just a simple, large, leather bag filled with scrolls. He began to read the tags attached to the string that bound each one and pass them out.

  “Everybody gets one of these healing spells. It’s called Restore and it’ll heal a thousand points of health. I want you to be able to keep your friends and neighbors alive.” He made the rounds of the table, handing out the scrolls with the green string. Next, he pulled out a few with a brown string. The label said Erupt. “I’ve got a few spells here that do damage, but they require at least a six in Intelligence. Anybody here been working on a caster build?”

  Moira raised her hand, as did Virginia, and two of the newcomers. As he handed them Erupt and then Vortex scrolls, Virginia said, “I’ll take these, in case I’m needed. But I’d prefer to be a healer.”

  “We can never have too many healers.” Allistor smiled at her, patting her shoulder as he walked behind her. “I’ll introduce you to Amanda as soon as possible. She’s got some interesting discoveries to share with you. And any other healers, for that matter.”

  He passed out a few Flame Shot and Restraint scrolls as well. Not surprisingly, many of the leaders had invested mainly in Strength, Stamina, Constitution, or Charisma. Not all of them had the Intelligence to cast more than the basic first level spells.

  For the next half minute, the room was lit with flash after flash as the folks unrolled and read the scrolls. Allistor watched as they absorbed the information needed to cast the various spells. Some of them made very entertaining faces, including Bob who stuck his tongue out one side of his mouth and furrowed his brows in concentration.

  When it was all over, he sent them to round up any of their people who wanted to fight. He was hoping for a hundred shooters – ten to go with him for the ambush, ten more to take up overwatch in the hospital and water tower, and eighty to form the perimeter.

  As the new leaders left, Allistor’s original gang remained with him in the room. He started with Ramon first. “Anything on the teleport pads?”

  Ramon shook his head. “We haven’t found any books on teleportation magic yet. But the library is huge, and we still don’t know how the information is organized. It doesn’t follow any system that we’ve been able to detect. We did find a mention of the teleport pads in a book about City management.” He paused to clear his throat, obviously trying not to smile as he continued. “It… suggests that the one in charge of the city has extensive information available to them via their interface?”

  Allistor stopped pacing and looked at his friend. “Are you telling me… to read the directions?” His mouth went slack as Ramon nodded and several of the others chuckled. Allistor opened his interface and went to the Citadel tab, then found a sub-tab for the Teleport Hub. Mentally selecting it, he found pages and pages of stats and information. Closing it again, he said, “Huh. Seems you are correct, sir. I’ll get to reading ASAP.” Meg snorted, saying, “Typical man. Never reads the instructions.”

  Nancy changed the subject. “George and I have begun setting up the greenhouse, but it’ll take several more days. We’ve planted a lot of fruit and veggies, and we’re coaxing them to grow. In a week or so, we should have enough mature plants going that they can help feed this group on a daily basis. Also, since I increased my skill level to Expert, I can teach the Grow spell to people directly, without them having to use a scroll. So I’ll share it with a few folks here. This greenhouse is going to be a full-time job for at least three people, maybe more.”

  George added, “We’ve had several volunteers. I don’t think that will be a problem.” He thumped the table a few times, then added, “I don’t mean to be pushy, but we’ve got something else we need to talk about if we’re going to feed this many people.”

  Allistor nodded. “Meat.”

  “That’s right. We can bring some chicks and bunnies here and establish them, but we’re getting to the point where we need to talk about herding cattle and sheep.”

  Helen said, “I have the Animal Husbandry skill, and so do at least two of the others we interviewed yesterday. And I talked to one cowboy that I remember.”

  George nodded. “I talked to two. Then I checked the list. It looks like we have eight here in Laramie that have experience with running cattle. And two who lived on a sheep farm.” When he saw Allistor nodding, he kept going. “There are thousands… hell, hundreds of thousands of cattle roaming around out there. At least, there should be. The critters may have got to some of them. We should round them up and make a safe place for them, maybe up on the plateau at the Citadel. And keep at least a few at every Stronghold to breed or to slaughter in case of a siege.” George hadn’t forgotten being trapped in his own Stronghold by Evan and his men.

  “I agree one hun
dred percent.” Allistor was thrilled they’d already put so much thought into it. “We’ll make that a priority.”

  The group spoke for another half hour before Austin showed up to tell them the others had gathered. Allistor led the way outside, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the gathered fighters. He’d hoped for a hundred. There were easily twice that many. Some were smiling at him, others had grim faces that promised painful retribution to Barden’s fighters.

  He stepped forward, Helen standing at his right and Fuzzy on his left. “I’m… wow! I want to thank you all for volunteering! I’ll leave it to your group leaders to tell you the plan if they haven’t already. But I need a team of ten to come with me as a strike force. You need to be at least level 8, and know how to shoot.”

  Several clusters of men and women along the front row stepped forward. There were two dozen of them. Allistor picked six that had semi-automatic rifles with magazines rather than single shot bolt action rifles. “Since we have so many of you, I’m going to ask that you five…” He pointed to a cluster to his left, “take overwatch at the hospital. And you over here…” he pointed to a group of six, “take the water tower. The rest of you will be a second level of the ambush, let’s say twenty yards back from the first group. They’ll lay down rapid fire, and you’ll take your time to pick off anyone who sticks their heads out to fire back. Any questions?”

  When nobody raised a hand, he said, “Excellent. They won’t know what hit them!” A mental picture formed in his mind, and he grimaced. “Uhm, speaking of hitting things. For all of you out on the perimeter, please choose your targets carefully. If something goes wrong and the ambush group has to retreat, I don’t want them shot by our own people. In fact, can someone please grab some white sheets and start cutting them into strips. We’re all going to wear white bands on both arms, so there’s no question who’s friendly.”