Shadow Sun Expansion

by Dave Willmarth

  All three men put their backs into it, pulling even as they twisted the shaft. The creature screamed and kicked out with its free leg, sending Michael flying backward to slam into the wall. But his grip had held long enough that the force of the monster’s kick actually helped them rip the barbed spearpoint free. Black ichor sprayed across the room, covering everyone within a twenty-foot wide cone. Several people stopped firing, trying to wipe the nasty fluid from their eyes and spitting it out of their mouths. A few leaned over and retched.

  Ramon and Richard ignored the nasty stuff and pushed forward, climbing the small mound of coin and jamming the spear point up under the monster’s chin. It promptly stopped struggling, and everyone but Allistor was surrounded by the familiar glow as experience flowed across their interfaces and they leveled up.

  Michael moaned as he lay at the bottom of the wall where he’d landed. Several crushed ribs and a broken spine were rebuilding themselves, and his moan turned into a whimper of pain.

  Meg was back on her feet, though extremely pale and unsteady. Sam ran to her and produced some jerky for her to munch on, and a can of Monster Irish coffee. Amanda, meanwhile, jogged over to Allistor who still lay on his pile of coins, the edges of which were digging into his back as he felt another heal wash over him. Amanda handed him a health potion, popping the cork before doing so. He tilted it into his mouth with an unsteady hand and swallowed gratefully.

  “That looked like it hurt.” Amanda was staring at him, her eyes glowing with her Internal Analysis spell. “You’ve got more broken bones than I can count. Your collarbone looks like it was actually sawed in half. And based on the amount of blood under you, if you were still strictly human, you’d be dead right now.” She cast yet another Restore on him, still studying his body as it knit itself back together. “The good news is your body’s going to be a lot stronger after today. A few more fights like this one, and you’ll be more remodeled bone and scar tissue than original equipment.” The smile on her face looked a little creepy below her glowing eyes.

  Allistor pulled some jerky from his ring and took a bite, washing it down when he was done chewing with the last of the health potion in the bottle. He slowly began to feel less weak as he watched the others heal up, trying to wash the nasty goblin blood from themselves, or help others. A quick check of his interface showed all green dots, no grey. They’d gotten through the fight without any fatalities.

  Chapter 12

  The Bastion

  When Allistor and everyone else were back on their feet and had taken a few minutes to clean themselves up, assign attribute points, and eat or drink a bit, they looted the monster. Each of them got nearly a thousand klax, a few of the gold coins that were melded to the creature’s skin, and at least one vial of its blood, the description of which said it was a crafting ingredient. Additionally, there were spider parts – meat, claws, mandibles, and bladders of acid, that Allistor explained must have come from the acid-spitting spiders their prisoner had spoken of. The goblin must have been feeding on them. Eight of the group received one of its claws, and four others each received one of the elongated teeth, which turned out to be hollow like a snake’s fang. Andrea ended up with a scroll that imparted a spell called Dissolve, but didn’t quite have the attributes required to learn it. She pocketed it, saying she’d put the points from her next level into Intelligence and learn it then.

  Allistor and the others were surprised when Fuzzy declined to snack on the monster. In fact, he kept smacking his cubby lips and sticking his tongue out, licking at his paws as if trying to get its taste out of his mouth. Allistor took pity on him and fed him some of the last chunks of his snake meat. When he was done wolfing it down, Fuzzy gave Allistor a grateful lick, then wondered off, sniffing at the pile the giant goblin had emerged from.

  Sam was sitting against the back wall, his arm around Meg. She was silently staring at nothing, her knees gathered up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. He kept trying to coax her to eat more, but she swatted away his offering. Finally, she said, “If that thing was a goblin, why the hell are they so small and weak in our stories?”

  Sam shook his head. “Like Allistor said back when we first met up, it seems like a lot of the creatures they’re sending at us are straight out of our myths. But they aren’t quite right. Wolves with extra legs, et cetera. Maybe these things just grew smaller as the stories were passed down through the generations.”

  “Or this one was a friggin’ thyroid case.” Meg spat on the ground. “Goddamned smelly mutant giant goblin bastard nearly ripped my leg off.” She suddenly stood and looked around for a moment before spotting Amanda. Walking over, she wrapped the healer in a tight hug. “Thank you, for coming after me. You saved my life.”

  Amanda blushed slightly, returning the hug. When Meg let her go, she said, “That’s m’job! You make with the shooty-splodey stuff, I throw band-aids when you let the bad monsters bite you, as Chloe would say.” Both women laughed and hugged again briefly.

  A low growl and a cascade of coins caused everyone to look toward Fuzzy in the back corner. He was using his front paws to dig at the pile, apparently having sniffed out something that interested him. Allistor and the others moved forward, slipping occasionally as they walked across the bed of coins.

  In the very back corner of the room, Fuzzy unearthed a pile of skulls, severed spider legs, and other bones that had been buried in the gold eruption the goblin had caused. Mixed in among the bones were several weapons, most of which were still in working order. There were blood-soaked clothing items and packs that had been mostly shredded, and a metal ring with a dozen large keys on it. But most importantly, there was another scroll.

  This one glowed slightly orange as Allistor lifted it from the rubbish, which, Ramon informed them all, meant it was one step below the purple scroll Allistor had already found that day. When they examined it, the description caused everyone to start chattering excitedly.

  Spell Scroll: Storm

  Item Quality: Rare

  This scroll teaches the user the Storm spell. This channeled spell calls down lightning from the sky to strike a target or area selected by the caster. Caster and allied party members are immune to spell damage. At higher levels, the summoned storm may include wind and water damage. Mana cost: 100 mana/second. Cooldown: Five minutes. Requirements: Minimum Intelligence and Will Power attributes of 12.

  Several folks in the group immediately began offering Allistor bribes for the scroll. As most of them had been gamers, they all wanted to learn the godlike power themselves. Allistor thought a few of them might even be drooling.

  “Who here, besides me, has both Intelligence and Will Power at 12 or higher?” he raised his hands for silence as he spoke. Looking around, he waited for anyone to raise their hand. Eventually, when no one else spoke up, Helen said, “I’m at eleven for both, so one more level and I could use it.”

  Nancy raised her hand. “I’ve got them, but I don’t want the spell. Give it to a fighter.” Amanda echoed Nancy. “Me too.” A few of the group members looked at them like they were insane.

  Allistor put the scroll in his inventory. “I could use it now, because of the boosts my armor gives me, but I won’t. When we clear this place, those of us who have the stats to use it will draw straws or roll a dice or something. Anybody got a twenty-sided die?”

  Andrea, Bjurstrom, and his three companions all raised their hands. McCoy already had one in hand that he’d quickly fished out of a pocket in his vest. Looking around at the people staring his way, he said, “What? The man asked for it. You know you all wish you had one right now. That you were as cool as me.” There were several chuckles from the group as he grinned proudly.

  Smiling at the geek pride, Allistor said, “Okay, put that away for now. We’ll use it to roll for the scroll tonight. For that matter, we can use the D20 to roll for other items that several people could use. I’ll make that a rule for our parties going forward. We’ll operate on a ‘need before greed’ ba
sis.”

  The gamers in the group grinned at his use of the nostalgic term from some of their favorite classic games. Seeing a few of the others with blank looks, he explained. “It means the folks who have the builds, the correct attributes to use something, get to roll for it. So, in the case of this scroll, the folks with caster attributes – heavy on Intelligence and Will Power – would roll. Folks with focus on Strength and Constitution would not. Unless all the caster builds pass on the item, then the rest of you could roll.” Heads nodded in understanding, and they were ready to move on.

  *****

  Loki looked up from the three-dimensional display that he and Hel had been watching. Suspicion rolled off of him in waves, pushing through the mist in ripples that rebounded off the walls and Hel herself.

  “Two high level scrolls in one day? The odds of that are… unlikely to say the least. I suspect Baldur or one of the others is tilting the odds in this human’s favor when it comes to loot drops! The Storm scroll reeks of Thor!”

  “Just as Baldur suspects you of tilting the scale in the other direction, father. And you can no more prove your suspicions than he can prove his. You’re both masters of the game after… how many millennia?” The mist carried a scent of amusement from her to her father.

  His several arms twitching in irritation and stirring up the mist, Loki seethed in silence. Hel almost felt sorry for the human. She knew her father well, and knew that he would take out his irritation with Baldur and the others on the human rather than risk acting against his more powerful brethren. It would be subtle, for not even Loki would dare openly defy Odin. Or Baldur, for that matter. The penalties were severe. As ancient and powerful as they were, they still followed rules set down by even older beings. But Loki was portrayed in the human legends as a master of deception for a reason.

  She was his daughter. She’d learned from the very best, and had complete faith that Loki would focus on Baldur and his ilk, never suspecting that the scrolls had been her doing. She was growing to like this human who so often killed his own kind, despite his insistence that every human life was valuable. The contradictions in him appealed to her sense of irony.

  *****

  Allistor and company left the room, many of them staring wistfully at the piles of gold as they passed by. Proceeding back through the corridor, they squeezed into the old freight elevator. Logan took charge of the mechanical system, quickly figuring out how to disengage the wheel that would normally be powered by the motor. Then he took hold of the manual crank handle with both hands, released a stopper from the lower pulley gear, and began to crank. The muscles on his massive arms rippled as he cranked the long unused wheel and the cab began to descend down the shaft.

  They watched through the welded metal cage as the cut stone of the shaft passed by. Allistor imagined the miners who’d dug this shaft with picks, hammers, shovels, and maybe dynamite roughly two centuries ago.

  After a minute or so, the squeal of the rusty pulleys ceased, and Logan stood straight, puffing slightly. They had arrived at the next level. “Need to put some oil on those things.” he said as he rubbed the rust stains off his hands. Lars pulled open the cage door and stepped out into the corridor. This one was a stark contrast to the rough stone shaft they’d descended through. The floors were poured and polished concrete, as were the walls that rose ten feet before arcing into a rounded ceiling fifteen feet above the floor. It was lined on both sides with massive rounded vault doors that looked like doors to hobbit holes on steroids. The nearest door stood ajar, and they could see that it was easily two feet thick, with four-inch steel locking bolts. Each vault had a security pad next to it, much like the ones upstairs, with a keypad, a slide for cards or fobs, and what was probably a biometric or optic scanner.

  Looking to his left, Allistor saw the corridor ended at the dual elevator bank that led back up to the top level, and between them stood another security station with a closed metal gate. Looking to his right, the corridor ended just thirty feet or so away with a large metal door much like the one they’d found the goblin behind. This one was closed.

  Logan spoke in a near-whisper into his radio. “I’m sure if there’s anything down here, it heard us coming. Let’s clear this by the numbers, starting with this door.” They quickly cleared the rooms behind any of the smaller doors in the corridor, of which there were only four standing open. Nothing had spawned in any of those rooms, so it didn’t take long. For the closed doors, they thumped on each one with Allistor’s rebar spear, but no sound came back to them from inside.

  The group moved to within ten feet or so of the large door at the end, and paused. Allistor and Logan stepped forward, neither of them needing to speak by this time. Allistor cast Barrier and equipped his shotgun, making sure it had a full load of slugs. Logan reached out to tug on the three-foot vertical grab bar that served as the massive door’s handle, and Allistor nodded that he was ready.

  Logan yanked on the handle… and nothing happened.

  “Shit.” he muttered. There was a large spoked wheel to the left of the handle, much like one would expect to see on a bank vault, or naval vessel hatch. Setting his own shotgun down, Logan grabbed the wheel with both hands and began to apply pressure. The wheel moved slightly, a loud grinding squeak echoing down the corridor as the seldom-used and partially rusted mechanism protested. He put some more muscle into it, and the wheel turned maybe ninety degrees.

  Just as Logan was adjusting his hands for another turn, the door thrummed with an impact accompanied by the squeal of tortured metal. He yanked his hands back with a hiss, stung by the vibration. Allistor winced in sympathy. Anybody who’d ever played baseball and managed to hit a fastball with a bat they weren’t gripping tightly knew that feeling.

  Two seconds later, there was another clang as something large and powerful struck the other side of the door again. The squeal of metal was disturbing. Allistor doubted that whatever was in there could bend the thick steel rods that held the door closed, so the sound must be from the monster on the other side scratching or possibly puncturing the metal. He really didn’t want to meet any creature that could do either of those things.

  “Uhhh… anybody wanna call it a day? Maybe grab one of Meg’s tasty sandwiches back at the Stronghold? Whatever’s in there is clearly feeling grouchy. I’m thinkin’ let it take a nap, and we’ll come back when it’s in a better mood.” Allistor looked around at the group behind him. He used his normal voice, as the monster behind the door clearly knew they were coming.

  “Yup.” Bjurstrom actually turned around and started walking before Goodrich smacked him on the head and he turned back. Which confused Fuzzy, who had started to follow.

  Andrea laughed loudly. “Ha! Who’d have ever thought Bjurstrom and the bear would turn out to be the smart ones in this group?”

  A few of the others chuckled, then a few more joined in when Bjurstrom patted the cub on the head, saying, “I know, right?” The laughter was quiet, and more a reaction to the fear they felt than a reflection of the quality of the joke.

  Logan had slid on some work gloves and was positioned to resume turning the wheel. Allistor prepared himself again, though this time he was more ready to retreat quickly than to charge through the door. Logan gave the wheel three more full turns before it thudded to a stop and the now unlocked door shifted slightly outward. Allistor skipped backward a step, expecting the door to fly open under the force of some tremendous blow. Logan did the same, not wanting to be crushed.

  When it didn’t open farther, the two men exchanged a look. Behind them, Meg snorted. “Well, that was anticlimactic.” Dawn giggled, quickly covering her mouth with her eyes wide.

  Fuzzy let out a low growl, his lips pulling back in a snarl as he faced the door and backed away slowly. Catching sight of the bear retreating, it took Allistor a second to make the connection and turn back toward the door. That second almost cost him everything.

  The multi-ton metal door exploded outward, only the massive hinges o
n one side keeping it from crashing down the corridor and flattening the entire group. When it hit the limit of the hinges’ flexibility, metal squealed and the door rebounded. But in those two seconds, a nightmare had stuck its head partway through.

  Emperor Scairp

  Level 28

  Elite

  Health: 31,000/31,000

  All Allistor could see from his position was a mass of huge claws, mandibles, and jet-black chitin. An angry chittering sound filled the corridor as the monster tried to push its bulk through the doorway. But it was too large even for the massive opening, and it retreated, turning slightly as it pushed a limb through and tried to clamp down on Allistor with one massive foreclaw.

  The creature was, as far as Allistor and the others could tell, a giant black scorpion the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, if the little cars came with a long, segmented tail and a pair of front claws, each large enough to cut a man in half with ease.

  Allistor hopped backward, avoiding the initial grab but getting knocked down by the jaggedly spiked back side of the claw as it passed effortlessly through his protective magic barrier. The hard chitin spikes slashed at his new armor, but didn’t penetrate.

  Shots exploded from the group behind him the moment he was clear of the beast. The buckshot rounds had little to no effect on it, other than one that peppered its face and managed to damage one of the monster’s twelve eyes. The rest of the tiny buckshot pellets bounced off the scairp’s chitin shell. Those who were firing slugs did much better. At close range, the larger, heavier projectiles were punching small holes in the chitin, causing a purplish goo to splash from the wounds.

  The creature withdrew its forelimb and retreated from the doorway. The shots died off as the group lost sight of their target in the pitch-black room. Allistor and Logan could hear the scratching of its hard-shelled feet against the stone floor.

  “You know it’s setting up an ambush in there, right?” Logan looked at Allistor. “The moment one of us goes through there, it’ll be snip snip yer dead.”