Ghouls'n Guns

by Jared Mandani

  They detonated with a furious roar, shaking the whole mountain, seemingly, and splitting apart the creature. Zeke brought the truck to a stop and both he and Mara jumped out, their rifles raised. Davidoff himself had to duck down to avoid flying body parts. Gore and meat splattered everywhere. With his eyes covered and his whole body down in the cockpit, he nevertheless noted that his XP had soared, nearly doubling to XP 77. He must have done enough Damage to cripple the thing to have been given that much experience.

  Looking up as the dust settled, Davidoff noticed that they had broached into the day’s light. Everything was crystal clear. Down in the ravine, he heard the tell-tale sounds of rocks sliding and tumbling. A dust cloud rose from its mouth, a quarter mile off. He had been right not to use explosives down there. There was indeed a series of avalanches going off.

  The monster was a mess. He counted seven different bodies whose skin and limbs had been fused together. They now lay in a mangled pile, surrounded by twenty feet of blood and viscera. A few more bodies had blown off entirely and lay dead or dying, apart from the others. In the middle of it all, he found a medley of fused bones and organs which had been drawn out of the other bodies to create a lopsided, awkward central skeleton.

  “What the hell was that thing?” Mara asked, her eyes wide with horror. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep with the lights out again.” She looked queasy as she stared down at it all. A couple of the bodies began to move and she and Zeke leapt forwards, spraying bullets into them and killing the last remnants.

  “I don’t know,” Davidoff said. “But I think the game is evolving. The mutations are growing worse.”

  “Yeah,” Zeke nodded. “There was nothing in the playbook about this kind of atrocity. And I think it will only get worse as we go.”

  Before they carried on, Davidoff revisited his profile screen to add to his HP and Resistance. Of the new 77 XP he had gained, he used 40 XP to give himself +10 Resistance, and spent 36 XP on +6 HP. Every little would help; every little would keep him alive a bit longer.

  His body grew denser, more thickly muscled, as his toughness improved. And his final profile, as they started the truck again, made for good reading:

  Agility

  71

  Melee Weapon Skill

  48

  Ballistic Accuracy

  32

  Damage

  44

  Resistance

  57

  Initiative

  48

  Morale

  78

  HP

  462

  XP

  1

  Skills

  Ambidextrous, Knife Fighter, Acrobat, Counter Strike, Medic

  Chapter Ten

  They had six hours left in which to complete the mission and the warlocks’ castle was only a half hour’s drive away, according to Mara. “It’s just over the next rise, up a steep hill,” she told them through the radios as they left the rocky ravines behind and made it into some greener, hilly high ground. The slopes all around were open and beautiful, dotted only every so often with clumps of tall fir trees reaching up towards the heavens.

  Once more, the juxtaposition jarred on Davidoff. How can such beauty exist in such a brutal, disgusting game? he asked himself. However, he did not have long to wonder on it.

  “There’s a campsite coming up, on the road to the observatory,” Mara’s voice came over the radio. “They might be hostile. I think it’s best we check it out.”

  “Agreed,” Zeke’s voice burbled over the radio, sounding tired. No wonder, Davidoff thought, it was at least eight hours since they first logged onto the game, and they had been going constantly all the time. He was also getting tired. A couple of times, as they drove through the mountains, he had blacked out for a few minutes at a time as, in the real world, he, David, fell asleep without being able to help it.

  Now, however, he was fully alert. The campsite worried him, as it worried them all, as did the ever decreasing time they had left in which to fulfill their task.

  They cut the engine a quarter mile out from the campsite, leaving the truck parked in one of the copses of firs, and carried on by foot, keeping as quiet as possible. They circled around the camp through a dense bit of woodland, before coming to it in a clearing at the base of a high, rocky track. The track would lead them up to the observatory, but only if the inhabitants of the campsite allowed them safe enough passage.

  “What are they, can you see?” Davidoff whispered to Mara as she pulled out her binoculars. She and Zeke crouched down behind a couple of mossy boulders as Davidoff stood guard, his Uzi raised to his chest. Zeke was looking through his bolt rifle’s telescope, scanning the perimeter for weak points as Mara checked out the inhabitants. The hope was that they were, at best, player-led characters camping out here to avoid trouble. At the least, they hoped that the camp was full of AI human refugees, neutral in this fight.

  It was not to be, however. “They are mostly AI refugees,” Mara said, squinting through her binoculars. “But I count three warlocks. One of them is a big bastard, too. I think they’re in charge, using the refugees as labor or defense, something like that. It makes sense. This whole area is probably their territory. If we’re going to get through without raising the alarm up at the observatory, we will have to sneak around the perimeter quietly. It’s a three mile climb beyond the site, up to the observatory, and I would rather not do it with them taking shots at us…”

  “Agreed,” Zeke said again. “There’s a way around the fence’s east side. The mountain’s slopes are all woodland, so we should be able to keep covered fairly easily.”

  “No more truck then?” Davidoff sighed. “No more minigun?”

  “I’m afraid not, buddy,” Mara said. “Reload and have your guns at the ready. Keep it quiet but fight if you have to. Now, come on, follow me.”

  She darted off, through the trees, skirting as wide as they could as they circled around the camp.

  As they got closer, Davidoff understood the danger to their route. Although the approach was covered in woodland, and although they would soon be able to rejoin the woodland once more beyond the camp, the site itself was open and bare and the only way around it was to jog along, in full view and in broad daylight. He grimaced as they came to the edge of the treeline. It was a two hundred foot dash before they would be covered again. He was lithe and fast, so he would be able to make it quickly enough. Mara was almost as fast, and she was a tracker, an expert at concealing herself over any terrain. Zeke, however… Zeke was a big, obvious, blundering character, far too large and slow to make it across easily.

  The campsite itself was a wire fence with a series of tents and huts inside, about fifteen shelters in all, with around thirty to forty inhabitants. If any of them were loyal enough to the warlocks to rat Davidoff, Mara and Zeke out, and if any of those detected their presence, it would be game over. They would have to fight through goodness knows what, raising a hell of a racket.

  But there is no choice, he thought, as the three prepared to make a run for it. Mara took out her binoculars with one hand, peering through them, as with the other she held up three fingers.

  She dropped one finger, then the other, counting down as Davidoff and Zeke braced themselves, ready for the race of their life. With an Agility of 71, Davidoff was prepared, coiled like a serpent about to strike. As Mara’s final finger dropped and she gestured forwards, they all broke out into as quiet a run as they could manage, tearing across the open ground towards the far tree line.

  He pulled ahead of the other two, springing lightly from foot to foot, and within fifteen seconds he was deep undercover on the other side. A couple of seconds later, Mara arrived at his side, her eyes a little wild. Then, a few seconds after her, Zeke crashed through a couple of branches, barging his way into the trees with a clatter.

  “Nobody
saw us, I think,” Mara whispered. Immediately, they all jumped down behind a fallen log and she looked out again, her binoculars to her eyes. Zeke pulled his bolt rifle up to his shoulder and peered down the site. “Yep, nothing saw us…” Mara began, but then her voice faltered.

  A vibration had started all around them, a buzzing, a shaking as everything seemed to crackle. “What’s going on?” Davidoff asked, looking about.

  Twigs and leaves on the forest floor were shaking, the air seemed thick and the outlines of the trees began to blur as they hummed. Then the sensation crept over each of them in turn, as though feeling them out.

  “A psyker,” Mara cursed. “The warlocks have a psyker. They bloody sensed us. They have found us!”

  She was right. No sooner had she spoken than the sensation died and a commotion rose up from within the campsite. A gate swung open in the length of fencing closest to them and five figures emerged, striding towards them with an assortment of weaponry in their hands.

  One of the warlocks carried a long staff with a nasty-looking spike on top and a selection of wires running along its length. He was slightly out in front of the others, pointing towards the spot in which Davidoff, Zeke and Mara were hiding. He stood a head taller than all the rest and the very air seemed to crackle around him. Clearly, he was the psyker, “a blood hound of sorts used for tracking player-led characters,” Mara told them. “I read about them in some of the pre-reviews.”

  “Should we run or fight?” Zeke asked.

  “Fight, I’m afraid. I think we’ll have to,” Mara said. “There’s no way we’ll be able to outrun them, and we’ll need to silence them. If they alert the castle, we’ll never get in. God knows how we’re going to do it anyway, even with the element of surprise!”

  A bolt of jagged green lightning shot passed them as she finished talking. One of the other warlocks, who looked unarmed and was wrapped almost entirely from head to foot in white robes, was holding out his hands. As they watched, they started to glow green, the same shade as the lightning bolt, and another bolt flew from them, right at the point where the three were sheltering.

  It hit the log they were hiding behind in a shower of sparks, tossing the dead wood up in the air and causing the three players to scatter.

  Davidoff ran back a few paces, holding his Uzi up as Zeke disappeared to his right and Mara vanished from opposite them both. “Zeke, take cover and snipe the one with the bolts,” Mara’s voice came through on the radio. “Davidoff, give me some cover when I tell you, and when Zeke kills his target, engage the others.”

  “What are you going to—” Davidoff meant to ask, but then he saw.

  Mara erupted from a clump of thick bushes up ahead, her combat rifle in place over her back and a couple of grenades in each hand. As she did so, Davidoff ran behind a thick oak tree, getting himself out of the way until it was his turn to engage, as Zeke jumped up onto a tall boulder, lay belly down and began to aim. It was a high yet well-covered position; nice job on Zeke’s part.

  “Now, Davidoff,” Mara hissed through the radio.

  He came out from behind his tree, his Uzi up by his shoulder, and he jogged forwards to the edge of the trees. As he moved, he delivered tight little bursts out towards the warlocks, five or six rounds per burst.

  Though he was a decent enough shot this far into the game, he did not expect to hit anything. He stood half against a tree, firing off his last couple of bursts for Mara, and as the five warlocks approached the bullets peppered all around them. It clipped one in the shoulder. Davidoff’s target was a corpulently fat woman with her face mostly covered by a bandana she had wrapped around her mouth, but her eyes were happy enough. The bullets caught her in the shoulder, but she did not seem to notice or care—the blood that flowed did not bother her and the pain seemed to do nothing. She did not even break her stride as she walked up to the treeline.

  The other bullets were thrown aside. The psyker who was leading the others to Davidoff, Zeke and Mara was screwing up his face in concentration. Beads of sweat stood out on his cheeks and on his forehead, and he held his free hand out. The bullets that came close to him pinged away as he manifested some form of shielding, behind which two others walked. Davidoff tried a couple more times to lay down some suppressive fire, but it was all caught in this way.

  No matter, however, he thought, watching Mara. She rushed to the edge of the clearing and pulled the pins of her grenades out with her teeth. Davidoff aimed squarely at the psyker and let out three quick bursts. The effort of repelling them made the psyker stagger backwards slightly, and the other four warlocks around him looked a little nervous. They all stepped back a bit, unsure now that their protection was as good as they had thought it was.

  Mara threw her grenades. She chucked one high, allowing it to fly in a tall, very visible arc. She threw the other underarm, letting it bounce and roll along the ground.

  “Look out!” one of the warlocks cried, pointing upwards as the first one began to descend.

  The psyker shifted his focus, using his shielding to knock it out of the air. It flew twenty meters away to their left, out of harm’s way of anyone, hitting the ground before detonating with a horrendous bang. Dirt and earth rained down everywhere, but there was no damage done. As all this went on, the obese warlock stepped in front of the psyker and one other, her belly sticking out and a smug look in her eyes.

  Davidoff continued firing into her, pinging bullets into her flesh that drew only a little blood and that seemed not to hurt her at all. As he pulled the trigger, he read the woman’s stats: they were awful. She had HP 792 / 849 and Resistance 98. How could any human-sized character be so tough, he wanted to know? How could they have such high health stats and take such little damage from straight shots from an Uzi?

  However, as he emptied his clip, the other grenade rolled in amongst the warlocks, almost unnoticed. By now they were only ten feet away from Mara and she threw herself down to the ground, behind a thick tree trunk. The grenade bounced between the obese warlock’s legs and landed right in the middle of the group.

  It caught them all, sending them flying away from one another with another horrendous explosion. Straight away, it did Damage 175 to one of the warlocks, Damage 323 to another, with a Damage output of 145 to the psyker himself. He must have been partly shielded by his own powers to escape so easily.

  The obese warlock took Damage 72 once her formidable Resistance had mitigated a lot of the blast, leaving her at a still impressive 720. The one who took Damage 323 died on the spot whilst the one who took Damage 175 had lost a leg in the process and lay in the dirt, bleeding out quickly.

  The final warlock remained unscathed, though he was thrown down by the blast. He stood, dusting himself down, lining up firmly alongside the psyker and the obese one. They were all rattled, all shaken and, as they took their bearings, both Davidoff and Mara began to unload their weapons on them.

  Mara’s assault rifle barked in short, sharp volleys, whilst Davidoff reloaded his Uzi and sprayed all the warlocks with gunfire. As they did so, the obese woman took a lot of the hits, reducing her down over a few seconds to HP 659 / 849, whilst the psyker stood behind her and the final one stood calmly, eyeing them as though nothing were amiss.

  He is their leader, Davidoff realized, without quite knowing how. He is the one in charge. The man had a natural authority which emanated from his entire being. He was nondescript to look at, with very average stats and a modest HP of 217. His white cloth robes were long and ragged, and he wore simple homespun cotton beneath them. However, he terrified Davidoff. If you stared into his eyes, you would understand that he looked capable of watching whole worlds burn without blinking.

  Davidoff aimed at the warlock as he stood before the treeline, looking amused. Beside him, the obese woman seemed to be healing quickly: her HP had dipped down to 523 under Mara’s assault, but it was climbing, regenerating back so that within seconds it was above 600 once more. Davidoff cursed the freak, wo
ndering what manner of monsters they had before them, and he squeezed the trigger, letting loose a volley of seven shots which were all aimed with greater or lesser accuracy at the leader.

  The leader did not even move. The bullets went straight through him without leaving any damage. He just smiled, looking at Davidoff placidly, and then he began to walk calmly forwards. He held a pistol in one hand and a katana in the other. And as he came slightly closer, he started to jog, still holding Davidoff in his sight.

  Davidoff stopped firing altogether, threw his Uzi around his neck and pulled out his machete and kukri. Mara’s own fire became less constant and, in the slight lull, the psyker came out from behind the obese woman’s back, his staff vibrating with power in his hands. As soon as he emerged, however, there was a rending crack in the air. Zeke’s bolt rifle had gone off. And before the echoes could die down, the psyker’s head exploded. The body flopped down as if in slow motion, and then Davidoff had no more time to think. The leader was upon him.

  The leader seemed able to walk through anything, disregarding the scrub and roots all around them. His weapons were solid enough, however. He leapt into the woods and fired straight at Davidoff. Davidoff’s armor caught most of the damage as the shot hit him below the left clavicle, leaving a Damage of just 20, leaving him all but unscathed. However, the impact was enough to throw him off his feet, gasping as he fell down, knocked back.

  Still wheezing, he managed to come to his knees as the leader rushed in with a slick swing of his katana. It nearly took Davidoff’s head off, but Davidoff’s reflexes were too good. He ducked to let the blade pass and then leapt into the air from his crouch, jumping to one side of the leader’s body. He swung his own machete as the leader, off balance from his swing, turned his back on Davidoff for a second. The machete went straight through, meeting little resistance. Davidoff had expected as much. He righted himself instantly, reversing the motion and jumping in with a swing of the kukri. As he had expected, he still did no damage.